Anthony Doerr Quote

Every day, on his right and left, another soul escapes toward the sky, and it sounds to him as if he can hear faraway music, as if a door has been shut on a grand old radio and he can listen only by putting his good ear against the material of his cot, although the music is soft, and there are moments when he is not certain it is there at all. There is something to be angry at, Werner is sure, but he cannot say what it is. Won’t eat, says a nurse in English. Armband of a medic. Fever? High. There are more words. Then numbers. In a dream, he sees a bright crystalline night with the canals all frozen and the lanterns of the miners’ houses burning and the farmers skating between the fields. He sees a submarine asleep in the lightless depths of the Atlantic; Jutta presses her face to a porthole and breathes on the glass. He half expects to see Volkheimer’s huge hand appear, help him up, and clap him into the Opel. And Marie-Laure? Can she still feel the pressure of his hand against the webbing between her fingers as he can feel hers?