John Wray - The Right Hand of Sleep

— Do you recognize it? she said.

— Barely.

She kept quiet. — Verdi, he offered.

— Yes. That’s right. You know, your Père and I—

— Is something wrong with the radio? said Voxlauer.

— What? Oh, the radio. . she said, letting her voice trail away. Her lower lip began to tremble.

— That static. It’s terrible.

She nodded. — An Italian station, sad to say. Udine. I couldn’t bear any more Wagner preludes, or that Lortzing, saints preserve us.

— Who?

— Lortzing. A choirmaster or some such. From Linz. A great favorite of the new regime, apparently. A great lover of horns. She sighed.

Voxlauer smiled and took her cool, slack hand in his. — What was that about Verdi? he said.

That afternoon he took her walking through the garden and the new-budding orchard. She moved through the thick scrub unsteadily and had to be led by the arm and given many pauses to rest. They sat together on an iron bench by the groundskeeper’s cottage and watched the setting sun tilting behind the ruin, lingering in its tines and arches. — I’m so tired now, Oskar, she said, leaning weightlessly against his shoulder.

— I was tired too, Maman. Very tired. But now I’m wide awake.

— You’re so young yet. I’ve been tired now for ages. She sighed mildly. — Do you remember when you left? Do you? How young I was?

Voxlauer let out a hollow laugh. — Go on and say it.

— No. You’re a good boy, Oskar. A sweet dear boy. My dear boy.

— Maman, he said hesitantly. — You’re frightening me a little.

She sat without answering for a time. — Did Pauli tell you to come?

— Of course not.

— It doesn’t matter. I’m happy to see you. She laid her arm across his. — I was hoping you might explain things to me.

— I was hoping the same of you, Maman. I haven’t been to town in weeks.

— You’re in love, she said simply.

Voxlauer said nothing. She raised her head partly off his shoulder and let out a breath.

— It seems we’re part of Germany now, she said.

— Yes.

— Awful garbage in the papers.

— Yes.

— Is Pauli in trouble?

— No. I don’t think so.

— He hasn’t been to see me lately.

— I don’t think he’s in any trouble. Honestly.

— Ah, she said. She smiled strangely.

— Maman? he said. — What is it? Are you unwell?

— I don’t understand, she said, as if in answer. She was shaking her head fiercely now and looking down at her lap.

— Maman, he said again. She took no notice of him.

— The day you left, Oskar, as Père and I took you to the station, I knew you’d be very different, a stranger almost, when you came back. I knew it. You might never come back at all, but if you did I knew that you’d be changed. The world would change you. I prepared for it every day after you’d gone. She paused a moment, breathing and thinking, rubbing her hands together. — What never occurred to me was that I’d be changed. And this place, she said, looking around her at the garden. — That this place would be changed. That Père would be gone from it, gone so utterly. And not just him. You couldn’t find us here at all, any of us, if you looked. She let out a muted, pained sound, moving her hands as over the flat empty surface of a table, looking at him all at once confusedly, almost questioningly, eyes wandering from his face and then rushing gratefully back to it, remembering him.

— All these people, Oskar. All these people. I don’t recognize anybody at all, now, on the street. And they don’t recognize me. I never thought that could happen. Never. The streets are different also, and the houses. You must have noticed something, but you never said. I think about you so much now, Oskar. Every day. It must be terribly hard for you. God in heaven. . She reached over and laid the knuckles of her left hand against his temple, as though checking him for fever. — God bless you, Oskar. My sweet sweet boy. Bless you. I wonder that you found your way back at all. Everything’s so different. Here is different: old. Even your old mother, Oskar. Even her, God rest her.

— Maman, said Voxlauer. His voice cracked slightly. — Don’t say that, Maman. Please.

— I don’t understand anymore, Oskar. That’s the shame of it. She paused. — I don’t understand at all.

The light on the ruin was dull and purple and the walls and buttresses looked grander and less forgotten, prouder now, in silhouette. A warm wind came down from the woods and rustled through the garden, heavy with the smell of rain. — I’ve never understood, Maman, Voxlauer said after a long while.

On his way up from town he held to the quieter roads and transcribed a wide circle around the Holzer farm. He came off the ridge at the last of the pens and wound his way along the creek’s northern bank into the spruce groves. In the younger stands the saplings clustered tightly together, round as fusilier’s brushes, and whisked into him as he moved forward. The flat blue needles felt warm and fleshlike against his eyes. He walked in circles with his arms together and his head bowed low, coming down with each step into the dense, rubbery bristles. After a time he stopped and listened carefully to his breathing. A strong wind bowed the treetops. He leaned backward and stared up at the clouds, ribboning and trailing away into wisps toward the south.

A dull light billowed in the air, spreading into a mist along the ground. The creek was to his left. Two wet planks stuck out over the water braced on heaps of yellow stones. He went carefully down to them and started across. As he was midway over the water the planks gave suddenly, plunging his legs into the current. He yelled loudly from the cold, marveling even as he yelled at the way the sound vanished into the spruce rows like a pebble into a well. He waded to the far bank and climbed out and shucked off his boots, laughing at himself. The hollow small noise of the creek rose hesitantly upward. He wrung the water from his socks and dried his feet against the mossy ground.

He was crouching there awkwardly with his boots in his hands when he saw them, half a dozen meters upriver, leaning on their rifle stocks and watching him. The older son carried a chamois fawn slung over his shoulder and a loose tinkling clatter of rabbit traps like a purse below it. His brother stood a few paces behind him, shifting from foot to foot and grinning. Voxlauer stood up slowly. They separated and came down on either side of him, rustling purposefully through the branches as though flushing up a deer. When they reached him he was still trying to get his feet into the water-sotted boots.

— Going for a swim, citizen? said the older son, laying the traps down carefully. Voxlauer said nothing. The younger son stepped forward and leaned his rifle against a stump and eased the chamois off his brother’s shoulders. — Go on, citizen. Speak freely, the older son said, not unkindly, leaning over slightly to let his load slip off onto the ground.

Voxlauer didn’t answer. One of the boots was half on his needle-covered foot and the other was in his hands, dripping onto the turf.

— Here’s a shy one, said the older son to his brother, leveling his rifle stock. The younger son nodded, blinking effortfully out of wide-set, cowlike eyes.

— Wait, said Voxlauer. The younger son had stepped around to the left and now swung his rifle hard into Voxlauer’s side, splaying him out onto the moss. — Wait, Voxlauer gasped. The older son pressed a boot against Voxlauer’s head and drove his face into the turf, cooing gently. His brother raised his rifle butt and brought it downward like a gaffing spade again and again onto Voxlauer’s back and shoulders. Voxlauer could see nothing for the dirt and the sparks behind his eyes but he could taste the salt of his tears and of his mucus and hear himself crying Wait: