John Irving - The World According to Garp

“Oh, dear shit,” said Herr Theobald. “I'm sorry, meine Frau ,” he told Grandmother, but old Johanna would not speak to him.

We took Grandmother out to eat in a Class A restaurant, but she hardly touched her food. “That person was a gypsy,” she told us. “A satanic being, and a Hungarian.”

“Please, Mother,” my mother said. “He couldn't have known about Father.”

“He knew more than you know,” Grandmother snapped. “The schnitzel is excellent,” Father said, writing in the pad. “The Gumpoldskirchner is just right with it.”

“The Kalbsnieren are fine,” I said.

“The eggs are okay,” said Robo.

Grandmother said nothing until we returned to the Pension Grillparzer, where we noticed that the door to the W.C. was hung a foot or more off the floor, so that it resembled the bottom half of an American toilet-stall door or a saloon door in the Western movies. “I'm certainly glad I used the W.C. at the restaurant,” Grandmother said. “How revolting! I shall try to pass the night without exposing myself where every passerby can peer at my ankles!”

In our family room Father said, “Didn't Johanna live in a castle? Once upon a time, I thought she and Grandpa rented some castle.”

“Yes, it was before I was born,” Mother said. “They rented Schloss Katzelsdorf. I saw the photographs.”

“Well, that's why the Hungarian's dream upset her, Father said.

“Someone is riding a bike in the hall,” Robo said. “I saw a wheel go by—under our door.”

“Robo, go to sleep,” Mother said.

“It went “squeak squeak"” Robo said.

“Good night, boys,” said Father.

“If you can talk, we can talk,” I said.

“Then talk to each other,” Father said. “I'm talking to your mother.”

“I want to go to sleep,” Mother said. “I wish no one would talk.”

We tried. Perhaps we slept. Then Robo whispered to me that he had to use the W.C.

“You know where it is,” I said.

Robo went out the door, leaving it slightly open; I heard him walk down the corridor, brushing his hand along the wall. He was back very quickly.

“There's someone in the W.C.,” he said.

“Wait for them to finish,” I said.

“The light wasn't on,” Robo said, “but I could see under the door. Someone is in there, in the dark.”

“I prefer the dark myself,” I said.

But Robo insisted on telling me exactly what he'd seen. He said that under the door was a pair of hands .

“Hands?” I said.

“Yes, where the feet should have been,” Robo said; he claimed that there was a hand on either side of the toilet—instead of a foot.

“Get out of here, Robo!” I said.

“Please come see,” he begged. I went down the hall with him but there was no one in the W.C. “They've gone,” he said.

“Walked off on their hands, no doubt,” I said. “Go pee. I'll wait for you.”

He went into the W.C. and peed sadly in the dark. When we were almost back to our room together, a small dark man with the same kind of skin and clothes as the dream man who had angered Grandmother passed us in the hall. He winked at us, and smiled. I had to notice that he was walking on his hands.

“You see?” Robo whispered to me. We went into our room and shut the door.

“What is it?” Mother asked.

“A man walking on his hands,” I said.

“A man peeing on his hands,” Robo said.

“Class C,” Father murmured in his sleep; Father often dreamed that he was making notes in the giant pad.

“We'll talk about it in the morning,” Mother said.

“He was probably just an acrobat who was showing off for you, because you're a kid,” I told Robo.

“How did he know I was a kid when he was in the W.C.?” Robo asked me.

“Go to sleep ,” Mother whispered.

Then we heard Grandmother scream down the hall.

Mother put on her pretty green dressing gown; Father put on his bathrobe and his glasses; I pulled on a pair of pants, over my pajamas. Robo was in the hall first. We saw the light coming from the W.C. door. Grandmother was screaming rhythmically in there.

“Here we are!” I called to her.

“Mother, what is it?” my mother asked.

We gathered in the broad slot of light. We could see Grandmother's mauve slippers and her porcelain-white ankles under the door. She stopped screaming. “I heard whispers when I was in my bed,” she said.

“It was Robo and me,” I told her.

“Then, when everyone seemed to have gone, I came into the W.C.,” Johanna said. “I left the light off . I was very quiet,” she told us. “Then I saw and heard the wheel.”

“The wheel ?” Father asked.

“A wheel went by the door a few times,” Grandmother said. “it rolled by and came back and rolled by again.”

Father made his fingers roll like wheels alongside his head, he made a face at Mother. “Somebody needs a new set of wheels,” he whispered, but Mother looked crossly at him.

“I turned on the light,” Grandmother said, “and the wheel went away.”

“I told you there was a bike in the hall,” said Robo.

“Shut up, Robo,” Father said.

“No, it was not a bicycle,” Grandmother said. “There was only one wheel.”

Father was making his hands go crazy beside his head. “She's got a wheel or two missing ,” he hissed at my mother, but she cuffed him and knocked his glasses askew on his face.

“Then someone came and looked under the door,” Grandmother said, “and that is when I screamed.”

“Someone?” said Father.

“I saw his hands, a man's hands—there was hair on his knuckles,” Grandmother said. “His hands were on the rug right outside the door. He must have been looking up at me.”

“No, Grandmother,” I said. “I think he was just standing out here on his hands.”

“Don't be fresh,” my mother said.

“But we saw a man walking on his hands,” Robo said.

“You did not ,” Father said.

“We did ,” I said.

“We're going to wake everyone up,” Mother cautioned us.

The toilet flushed and Grandmother shuffled out the door with only a little of her former dignity intact. She was wearing a gown over a gown over a gown; her neck was very long and her face was creamed white. Grandmother looked like a troubled goose. “He was evil and vile,” she said to us. “He knew terrible magic.”

“The man who looked at you?” Mother asked.

“That man who told my dream ,” Grandmother said. Now a tear made its way through her furrows of face cream. “That was my dream,” she said, “and he told everyone. It is unspeakable that he even knew it,” she hissed to us. “ My dream—of Charlemagne's horses and soldiers— I am the only one who should know it. I had that dream before you were born,” she told Mother. “And that vile evil magic man told my dream as if it were news .

“I never even told your father all there was to that dream. I was never sure that it was a dream. And now there are men on their hands, and their knuckles are hairy, and there are magic wheels. I want the boys to sleep with me .”

So that was how Robo and I came to share the large family room, far away from the W.C., with Grandmother who lay on my mother's and father's pillows with her creamed face shining like the face of a wet ghost. Robo lay awake watching her. I do not think Johanna slept very well; I imagine she was dreaming her dream of death again, reliving the last winter of Charlemagne's cold soldiers with their strange metal clothes covered with frost and their armor frozen shut.