John Wray - The Right Hand of Sleep

Wait:

until finally they left him.

When they were gone Voxlauer rolled over onto his back and looked up at the leaded-glass patterns of the branches with the white clouds just behind them. Drops of dew fell from the branches and streaked toward his face like chimney sparks, hissing and crackling as they passed. He lay with head back and felt the warm soft earth pulling him into it and was grateful. The air was very still, pale and green as bottle glass, and he shut his eyes and listened to the pat-pat-pat of water dripping steadily onto the moss. Now and then a drop would spatter against his eyelids in a halo of blue or orange fire.

A spider had dug a small round burrow, about the width of a child’s finger, in the dirt near his elbow and lined the entrance with a skirt of white silk. It sat drawn up in the burrow mouth, motionless and intent. Voxlauer twitched a finger and it vanished soundlessly.

They lay together on the pallet in the alcove in the close-fitting dark. Now and then Else would rise and shift the pillows under him or help him to sit up and cough into a white enamel bowl. He was talking almost without pause, gesturing with his hands in the air almost invisibly, the smell of rain coming through the open windows. There was the sound of rain against the shingles of the roof, and dripping from a gap above the stovepipe onto the floor. She listened to him from her corner of the bed and did not try to hush him or to coax him into sleeping. When he’d told her everything, all of it from the beginning, he lay his head back on the pillows and looked at her.

— That’s all, he said. — That’s everything I can think of.

— Tell me more about this Anna, said Else, drawing closer to him. — Was she like a mother to you?

— Very much, said Voxlauer. — Very much like a mother. He smiled. — With one or two noteworthy differences.

— Was she always running around behind you with Mercurochrome and a roll of tape, bandaging your cuts and so on?

— Hardly ever.

— I don’t believe it.

— I didn’t get into so much trouble in those days. I was a model Bolshevik.

— What did you do those fifteen years, to keep out of trouble? Mind the People’s trout?

— Close enough. I grew the People’s beets.

— Beets!

He nodded. — Beets and radishes.

She stared at him a moment, wide-eyed. — You know something. I’ve never had a beet.

— The worse for you, Fräulein. The beet is nature’s omnibus.

— How so?

He raised four fingers, folding them down one by one as he spoke — It vivifies. It fortifies. It regulates. It clears the bowels.

— Who would ever have imagined it. Such a modest-looking item. A cross between a pickle and an egg.

— Excellent, also, for staining gums and fingers, said Voxlauer. He lay back again and stared up at the rafters. — What a dreary little ash can of a cottage this is, he said sleepily.

— I asked you about Anna, said Else. — Pay attention.

Voxlauer took a breath. — Can there be anything I haven’t told you yet?

— All sorts of things. She paused. — Ways we’re different, for example.

— Every way I can think of, said Voxlauer, yawning.

Else turned wordlessly to look out the little window.

— Should I have said the two of you are just alike?

— What did you do together, the two of you?

— We grew beets.

— Is that all you did for fifteen years, grow your beets? All day and night? Don’t you Bolsheviks ever take a holiday, in the name of God?

— We went back to her house twice a year. She had a phonograph. We played records on it.

— What kind of records?

He shrugged. — Operas. Operettas.

— Which operettas? Name them.

He looked at her. — You’ll be asking me my catechism in a minute.

She smiled. — Go on, Oskar Voxlauer. Recite.

— Fantiglio. The Bride of Cozumel. The Beggar’s Feast Day. Three or four others. None of my father’s, if that’s what you’re wondering. Her taste ran more to works of the great Saxon Romantics. Not unlike our Führer.

Else waved this off. — Back to the topic. Any children?

Voxlauer shook his head.

— None?

— We did try, if it please the court.

— No children, said Else. — That’s very sad.

— We loved each other, Voxlauer said tentatively.

— That’s more important, of course. Any idiot can have children.

— That’s true.

— I did.

— Yes.

— You do like Resi, don’t you, Oskar.

He nodded.

— Do you like her?

— Very much. I like her very much.

— If you didn’t like her you’d be turned out with the bedsheets first thing in the morning. You know that, I hope. Turned straight out without the smallest mercy.

— I love Resi like a sister, said Voxlauer solemnly. He coughed.

— That’s fine. She looked at him a moment. — Do you need the bowl?

— No. Anything but that.

— Do you need it?

— Christ, no.

They lay quietly. Voxlauer felt himself drifting off again toward sleep.

— Do you think about her often? Else said.

He groaned quietly.

— Answer me!

— Not often.

— You said that you loved her.

— Yes. I think I did.

— You think?

— I loved her. I’d like to go to sleep.

— You loved her, or you think you did, said Else, grimacing. — But now you never think of her.

— That’s right. You’ve summed it up perfectly.

— Think about her now. Wake up, Oskar! What was she like?

Voxlauer rolled onto his back. — Have you no pity?

— Speak or I’ll get the bowl. Speak!

He was quiet a moment. — Strait-laced, he said finally. — Tall and thin. Pale. Serious. Bourgeois. Unhappy.

— Unhappy? said Else.

— Yes. Unhappy.

— Always?

— No. Not always. Sometimes she was so happy she couldn’t sleep.

— Why? said Else after a little pause. — Why couldn’t she sleep?

— I don’t know.

— You don’t know?

— She never said.

—“She never said”? What do you mean by that? She sat bolt upright in the dark. — What did you talk about then, all day long?

— You’re very interested in her state of mind all of a sudden, said Voxlauer, rubbing his eyes.

She muttered something under her breath. — I just hope you talked to her, that’s all.

He tried to turn toward her, then lay back gingerly on the pallet. — You didn’t know her, did you, Else.

— You’re right, of course. I’m sorry. She yawned.

— I did talk to her.

— Well, then.

— Let’s talk about you for a while, he said, tapping her on the leg.

— Please, Oskar. She yawned again. — There’s nothing to tell.

— I doubt that very much.

— I’ve never been to Russia. She brought a hand down over his face, closing his eyes. — I’ve never farmed state’s beets. I’ve never been a Bolshevik.

— The worse for you, said Voxlauer. — Bolshevism is society’s beet.

— Good night, Oskar, she said, drawing the blankets up over them.

— Is it time to sleep? said Voxlauer into the quiet.

Slow and tidelike through the month of June the butterflies came and blanketed the valley. The first to appear were translucent and white and sat harbored on the road like an armada of paper ships, folding and unfolding. — Postilions, said Else, stepping into them so they rose up on either side of her, shimmering and unreal, like crepe-paper snowflakes in a country theater. On into midsummer they settled in every patch of light, ranged in bands along the Pergauer road in beams of late sun or drifting in loose columns across the fields. Caught in the hand they left a roan dust behind, iridescent and fine as pollen.