They tidied the office and disinfected the instruments, then said goodbye at the door as they did every evening, neither suspecting that they’d never see each other again.
-- Narrator (The Adlers: Vienna, November 1938)

Importance: Allende foreshadows that when Rudolph and his office assistant clean the office and say goodbye to each other that they will never see one another again. This suggests that something terrible will happen to one or both of them that evening.

The most vivid image of his past, which would remain intact in Samuel Adler’s memory until old age, was that last desperate embrace and his mother, bathed in tears, held up by old Colonel Volker’s firm arm, waving her handkerchief at the station as the train moved away. That was the day his childhood ended.
-- Narrator (The Violinist: Vienna, November–December 1938)

Importance: The memory of his grief-stricken mother waving goodbye to him at the train station is one of the memories that has stayed with...