John Wray: The Right Hand of Sleep

— We’re all cut from the same cloth in times of war, Maman, said the boy. — Our Kaiser tells us so.

His father raised a hand to cover his mouth. — Go on, his mother said. — Go on, Karl. Laugh at that. But she was smiling now as well.

At that moment someone pointed and the three of them turned to see the first jet of steam coiling over the trees. — Well, Oskar, said his mother calmly. She had taken hold of him by his shoulders and was looking him over exactingly and slowly, studying him, her eyes wide and determined. In case I don’t come back, the boy thought, turning the thought back and forth in his mind to get the feeling of it. He looked past her at his father who was watching the train approaching, motionless and enraptured, as if this were the inescapable thing he’d been awaiting. It isn’t this, all the same, the boy thought. It isn’t this. But this reminds him of it.

For the space of a minute none of them said a word. Behind them Frau Rindt was still weeping and shouting in her heavy hill-town drawl against the war.

— Keep a journal, Oskar, his father said when the train was almost to the station. — Will you do that for me? All the inane details, les temps absurdités . . yes? I’m sure there’ll be plenty. Send it to me in installments, with your letters. I did that for my own Père, when I had my time in Dalmazien. He was smiling now. — Will you? His voice was very mild, almost beseeching.

The boy glanced at his mother. — Would that help you, Père? he said slowly.

His father nodded. — I’d consider it a kindness. It saved your old grandfather, in his day, from expiring of boredom. He raised his shoulders slowly, doggedly, as though resisting a pull upward. — You’ll spare me that, won’t you, Oskar? Wasting slowly away in this pretty backwater, decaying into dust?

— Now, Karl, said the boy’s mother, suddenly severe again.

— I’m sorry, Dora. A little joke.

— We can’t have this, Karl. Not now. Are you listening?

— It’s all right, Maman, for Christ’s sake, said the boy. — Let it alone, he said, already hearing the noise of the train behind him.

— I’m sorry, Dora, said his father. — A little joke with the boy, that’s all. We’ll never see him again, you know.

— Karl! she said now, beginning to tremble.

— Please, Maman. Let him be. Please.

— Oskar, she said, laying hold of his arm. Then the train was beside them.

There were two in the compartment: the smoking man and Voxlauer. The nub of a cigarette leapt and hovered in the pane and glimmered there over the reddening pastures and towns. The man smoked carefully, tapping lightly with his shoe heels. The smoke rose in a coil from his lips to a vent in the ozone-stained glass. Outside, to each side of them, dark fields were passing and glittering in places with the last rays of daylight. Lights were coming on in the houses and men and wagons were moving toward them across the turned fields. As on any other day.

Heaving a pack down onto the floor Voxlauer took out the last of the food he’d brought with him, a scrap of bacon wrapped in cabbage and a loaf’s-end of pumpernickel. He was grateful now to have taken the canteen he’d found a few weeks earlier at the bottom of a drawer, wrapped in army drabs. — Was this Andrei’s? he’d asked Anna. He’d been standing at the foot of the bed. She had nodded, raising her head tiredly and letting it fall. A few days later she’d reminded him of it, saying he might need it if he were to travel soon. And in fact he’d needed it sooner than either had thought and it had been a great comfort, that last week of traveling, filled with light sweet brown tea or fresh water with a dried wedge of lemon.

Finding the canteen he unstopped it and poured the last dregs of tea into a cup with the word “plenty” stamped along its rim in edged Cyrillic script. The smoking man stubbed out his cigarette and proceeded to roll another in the fold of a newspaper. Every so often the train wound closer to the river, rising along its bank through stands of willows lit in passing by the compartment lights.

At the border they waited a long time in silence. Two Hungarian officers inspected the crates in the passageway, making jots in thick vellum notebooks. They handed the conductor a receipt and stamped the train’s crumbling freight log and moved on. After another, briefer wait the Pass-Kontrolle came on board. The Austrian officials were better dressed, less capable and more friendly than the Hungarians had been. The head of the station came to visit the passengers personally. He was a little drunk and before he asked to see their passports he sat down in the compartment and retied his shoes. — The good of winter boots that let in the damp is a puzzle, he said, smiling. The young guard behind him remained standing. — A puzzle for the ages, said the inspector, shaking his head sadly. When the boots were tied to his satisfaction he straightened himself and in a more formal tone of voice inquired after their papers.

Voxlauer looked out at the rails and the crossties beneath them, counting the pins and seams. The smoking man’s passport was examined and found to be in order. He was a lighting-fixtures manufacturer and salesman from Vienna. He slid the passport back into his briefcase and offered the inspector rolling paper and tobacco. — No thank you, Herr Silbermann, said the inspector, still smiling, and the tobacco in turn was offered to the guard, who accepted enthusiastically and set about rolling a cigarrette against the greasy wooden door of the compartment. Strands of tobacco spilled onto his coat and clung there among the epaulets and folds. The inspector turned to Voxlauer and eyeing his threadbare overcoat asked again after his papers.

Voxlauer dug into a pocket and handed the little book, unscuffed and green, to the inspector. Although the inspector was a younger man than Voxlauer, and younger too than the salesman, he already bore the slight stoop of a life spent on trains. As he flipped through the passport, his face clouded slightly. — There’s not one of our stamps in this booklet, he said.

— I know that, said Voxlauer. — I applied for it while living abroad.

— What became of your previous passport?

— It was taken from me.

— When?

— In the war.

A brief silence followed. — You are a veteran? asked the inspector.

— Yes.

— Place of residence?

— Niessen bei Villach.

— Where were you living, while abroad?

— In the Ukraine.

Another silence. Voxlauer looked up at the inspector. The salesman shifted uneasily in his seat. After a moment more the passport was handed to the guard, who had finished with the rolling of his cigarette, to be stamped. Then it was returned to Voxlauer and the two men made to exit the compartment. — Good-bye, Eli, said the inspector. — We’ll be seeing you again at Easter?

— With a butterlamb under each arm, said the salesman. — And Mark’esh for your dyspepsia.

— I beg of you, Herr Silbermann, laughed the inspector. — This state of affairs cannot possibly continue. The salesman laughed also. The two men standing regarded affably the two seated men before turning to go. The inspector paused a moment at the door.

— Welcome home, Herr Voxlauer. Give the south a great warm kiss from me.

— I’m so surprised you’re not Russian! said the salesman as the train began moving. — You look the part, if I may say so.

— Well. I’m sorry to disappoint you.

— Are you a nihilist?

— What?

— A nihilist. You’ve been in Russia for some time. He paused. — That’s a fair enough question, isn’t it?

Voxlauer smiled. — Call me a sympathizer.