homeless marguerites - Part 7

As a journalist, Annie did not really expect herself to be shocked the way she was, when she finally arrived in Dresden after 2 months of hard efforts. Any one who came back here must have definitely been real determined to find or to accomplish something, thought Annie during her first walk among the ruins of the city.
The only thing she had asked Madame Manceau before leaving Paris had been who she could have trusted in Dresden, once she got there. Harald Lutz had been the name with no additional information how or where he was to be found or how Annie could introduce herself to him. Thanks to her improving skills Annie had finally been able to get in touch with him when she had been staying in Cologne for short, at the time she had taken it for a blessing, for she really needed someone she could lean on in a foreign country where she knew neither any one nor the language and Mr. Lutz had warmly invited her to stay at his house, without insisting to find out who might the friend be who had introduced him to Annie Anderson. Annie had only told him that she was looking for someone who must had returned to Dresden and she needed support.
Madame Manceau had not let her take the family photo with her and all what she knew was that she was looking for a family with kids named Ingrid, Stefan and another boy. She also knew that Julien’s father had been an eligible chemist, so she had figured out she could check it by the chemists who had lived, studied, worked or taught in Dresden before the war broke out.
Annie closed her eyes for some seconds. She was standing right there, in front of her biggest clue. It was indeed huge, if it was to be still recognized for what it once was. She took the postcard out of her bag and looked at it thoroughly. This picture had brought her to Dresden, the picture of a cathedral which technically did not exist anymore. Of all the ruins she had seen, this was the worst. To see that all what the marguerite man – for Annie did not know his name - had hidden from Julien, was torn down just like the postcard which had been most probably torn apart by Julien. Annie looked at the tapes keeping the post card together and sighed at the marguerite man’s efforts to save what he loved, even when it was just a pile of broken bricks and stones. Walking back from the ruins and turning back seeing other ruins Annie whispered in grief: ”Just tell me what you are looking for here.”