John Wray - The Right Hand of Sleep

As he came out of the woods above the square a light rain began to fall and the ruin as he passed it paled gradually into the mist. The square was empty save for three olive-colored sedans and behind the square the hillside rose steeply and then vanished in a hard, straight line, as though planed flat by the passage of heavy ships. Rarely had he seen mist so bright and so opaque and he stood for a while at the edge of the square looking back up the slope. As he passed the sedans two men in gray oilskin capes came out of the Amtshaus and walked briskly toward him. They passed him and climbed into a sedan and drove around the shuttered fountain and out the toll road, heading south. As he passed Ryslavy’s he caught sight of Emelia through the open doors, drawing a draft behind the long teakwood bar, and called in to her. She held up a hand.

At the grocer’s he recognized Frau Mayer’s two sons standing with their backs to him, talking to an elderly man he remembered from before the war, the three of them dressed up in loden capes, as if for a state holiday.

— What day is it? Voxlauer asked the grocer’s boy. The boy looked at him a moment, then smiled as if acknowledging a private joke. — A March Saturday like any other if you ask me, Herr, he said.

It was too cold and wet on the verandah, it seemed, even for Maman; creeping stealthily upstairs he found her in the kitchen, pounding dough for candied dumplings. She gave a little start as he rapped on the doorframe, then came over and embraced him, holding her flour-covered hands away from him like a boxer. He let go of her and she went back to the table and dipped her hands again into the flour tin. He watched as she ran her hands once up and down the rolling pin and began passing it vigorously over each of the narrow strips, which contracted and curled angrily after each stroke so that the effort of rolling seemed wasted. But as always at some unknowable point she was satisfied and reached for the jar of black plums and laid one pitted halved section in the middle of each strip.

— You’re growing your beard again, she said, balling up the strips into dumplings and pinching off the corners between her thumbs.

Voxlauer didn’t answer. A kettle began whistling on the stovetop. — Shall I pour you some tea?

— Let’s have coffee today, she said, wiping her hands on her apron. He watched as she ranged the dumplings into neat rows on a square of wet linen and folded the cloth over.

— Were you expecting me? he said.

She smiled a little. — Tomorrow is Sunday, Oskar, after all.

They sat with their coffee in the parlor at a low table and he spoke to her about the valley and how it had changed. — The creek is deeper but narrower across the middle, he said. — And though Pauli stocks it in the grand Ryslavy style, there seem to be less fish than I remember. The ice has broken under the bridge and the upper pond is open. The cottage pond will be, too, in a few days. The old green piers are gone. There’s a boat for me to use, and two beautiful rods. Next week I’ll bring some venison, Maman, if you’d like.

— That would be pretty, she said. She had been listening attentively in the beginning but now she sat back in her chair and looked out at the street as though waiting for the commencement of some grave state procession. Voxlauer thought again of the sons’ loden capes. — The woman up at Holzer’s Cross sends her best wishes, he said. — Elke Mayer.

— Who?

— Elke Mayer, said Voxlauer, frowning.

— Yes, yes. Elke Mayer. We went to gymnasium together. She was sitting with her face to the glass. He sat quietly, watching her. After a time she nodded to herself.

— Maman, he said, leaning toward her. — What’s the matter?

She looked at him a moment without speaking. Her face was drawn stiffly together.

— They marched into Vienna on Thursday, Oskar, she said, blinking at him. — They’ve taken our republic.

He sat with a dozen others along the bar. Some shops were open, some were closed. They sat in a row with their drinks while the girl, Emelia, fidgeted with the quartz-band radio. Its green eye wavered fluidly.

We’ve only just bought this radio, Emelia said. The voice came through faintly, brightening and fading. It sounded sedate and self-assured, not at all as Voxlauer had imagined it. The crowd noise behind the voice rose in high cresting trills cut by momentary bursts of static. A man next to Voxlauer told Emelia to turn it louder.

— That won’t make any difference, Herr, she said. She came over to Voxlauer. — Another draft, Uncle?

— Please.

— You. Turn it louder, said the man. He smiled out of the side of his mouth at Voxlauer. — I don’t think she wants to turn it louder, he said.

Voxlauer looked at him. He was heavyset and dressed in a blue work coat and knickers. — Turn it louder, he said again to Emelia. He slurred as he spoke, sloughing over his s ’s in the manner of the Tyrolese. Voxlauer shifted a little on his stool and looked at the man steadily until their eyes met. The man’s eyes were green and bloodshot and fixed driftingly on Voxlauer. He raised one eyebrow with a concerted effort. — You in need of something, citizen?

Voxlauer shrugged his shoulders. — A little quiet. He gestured at the radio. — I’m hearkening to our Führer.

The man grinned. — That’s fine. He spun on his stool back to the bar.

The voice came in clearly now, rising steadily in pitch. That’s static now, behind him, thought Voxlauer. But he knew at the same time that the voice itself was clear and the sound behind the voice was that of a huge number of people screaming. He closed his eyes.

— What’s he saying now? said the man.

— Vienna is a pearl, said someone behind them.

— He said that?

— In the crown of the Reich.

The man let out a drawn-out, braying laugh. Emelia had returned with Voxlauer’s beer and set it down before him. — You, girl, said the man.

Voxlauer looked over at him again. Emelia had stopped in mid-step and stood waiting for him to speak.

— This is a great day for your people, he said after a pause.

Emelia didn’t answer. She stood midway between Voxlauer and the wall, looking past the man at the others behind him. Voxlauer felt the muscles of his neck knitting together. The man leaned toward her slightly, winking at Voxlauer as he did so. He looked at Emelia and grinned. When he spoke he spoke carefully and slowly.

— Back in Innsbruck we’d have stacked you straight by now, you dusky bitch.

The crowd noise was clearly crowd noise now and not static as Voxlauer rose and hit the man across the face with his beer glass so the beer itself sprayed in a high wandering arc over the heads of the assembled. In another moment there were people between them and he could hear his own shouts dying away and the drone from the radio rising and eclipsing everything. As the man was being led away he spat at Voxlauer and made to lunge at him. Blood was running from his nose and from a small bright hole above his right eye but he seemed oblivious to it. He was yelling at the top of his lungs and trying to break away from the two men, both strangers to Voxlauer, who were leading him outside. Voxlauer sat back against the bar and watched them go. Emelia was just behind him and he heard her breathing sputteringly, like a child, cursing herself quietly and telling herself to hush. A short time later she went back down the bar.

Across the square at Rindt’s a similar crowd was faintly visible through the frosted-glass panels of the patio and Voxlauer sat and watched it for a while, counting his breaths quietly as he’d taught himself to. After a time he felt Emelia looking at him. He revolved slowly on the barstool to face her.