John Wray - The Right Hand of Sleep

Voxlauer didn’t answer. He remained sitting at the table as if she had said nothing, squaring the cards and laying them out in rows. From time to time the shouts carried up to the house. The lamp was to her right now so that as she stood at the kitchen window she was perfectly cast for Voxlauer in silhouette, like a mannequin in a dressmaker’s window. Something gave in him suddenly and he wanted to stand close to her, to look out into the dark, to see what she was seeing. He closed his eyes. — Go then, he said a moment later, moving his chair back from the table. But she had already gone.

For six or seven days Voxlauer didn’t see her. He moved purposelessly from day to day in a haze of dull bewilderment, keeping to the higher woods, eating and sleeping only rarely. Once each morning he would go down to the cottage to see if she had left any word for him and, finding none, would retreat again into the haze which hung everywhere on the roads and among the trees, waiting to readmit him. That she had gone out so strangely, left the kitchen without a word and stayed away that night while he waited for her at the table, shuffling cards and laying them out in rows, meant little to him after the first day had passed. After three more days his tiredness and confusion were such that he no longer cared what she had done and could see nothing so very terrible in what little he remembered. In spite of this the thought of simply walking down to the villa, finding her there and asking what had happened, he banished from his mind each morning as quickly as it came. The source of his unhappiness was obscure to him still and far away but was connected as if by a length of twine to that place. He could not go down to the villa without a sign from her: he was afraid. Some strange thing had happened there.

She came across him on the seventh morning. He’d been standing a long time in the middle of the road under Birker Heath, unsure of whether to go up or down. She looked drawn and pale and awkward as she approached him. He himself felt ragged and weather-beaten but drew himself up with a kind of pathetic pride and waited for her to speak.

— Hello, Oskar.

He nodded.

— You haven’t been about.

— At the villa, you mean.

— The villa. The cottage. Anyplace.

He nodded again, helpless in the face of accounting to her. — Well. I’ve been busy up here—

— You look tired, she said.

— I am. Yes.

— Good God, Oskar. Where in hell have you been hiding? I’ve been everywhere trying to find you. I even went to town.

— I don’t remember very well.

She stood without speaking for perhaps a minute. If she was angry or disgusted or relieved she showed not the slightest sign. She looked calm and tired, mortally tired, and resolved to something. — Were you heading up or down? she said.

— Up, said Voxlauer. He began to walk and she fell in beside him.

Farther up the slope where the grade made logging difficult the pines grew taller and more oddly shaped. Fingers of pink and yellow rock showed here and there through the thinning trees. The shoulder of the narrowing road, unused since the last logging forty years before, was washed sharply away at each inward curve and covered in many places by mud and debris. At the most recent washes where the mud was still soft, Voxlauer’s and Piedernig’s prints were still clearly visible, baked into sharp reddish-brown relief by the sun of the past week.

— Why did you say that, the other day? said Else.

Voxlauer rubbed his eyes. — The other day? What was it?

— About Walter. That he wasn’t a liar.

— I don’t know. I don’t remember. He shook his head as though trying to clear it. — Never mind about that.

— Were you making a comparison?

— What?

— Were you comparing him to me? She was looking at him now, almost smiling.

Voxlauer stopped, blinking, staring at her. He shook his head. — I don’t think you’re a liar, Else.

— Oskar, she said, putting her hands on his shoulders. They stood in the road for another vague, pale stretch of time, leaning stiffly against each other. Voxlauer suddenly felt very weak. She had held him in front of her this way once before, he remembered: when she had told him she wouldn’t confuse him. He drew her closer. He was standing over her now, bending slightly to accommodate her arms. — I haven’t lied to you, Oskar, she said. — I told you about him, about what he did. I told you all of that.

— Yes, said Voxlauer slowly, not caring anymore. — You told me.

— I never hid any of that from you.

Voxlauer didn’t answer.

— He’s my family. All that’s left. We grew up together.

— Yes. You’ve told me that.

— Resi needs him.

— He abandoned you both, said Voxlauer.

Else nodded. — Yes. You’re right. She paused. — But I can forgive him that.

— And the other things he’s done, Else? said Voxlauer, not knowing himself what he was saying. — Can you forgive him those?

She frowned at this. It was difficult to talk, he knew, when they were both so tired. But still he found himself feeling nauseous at this new refusal of hers. — I don’t know of anything else, she said slowly.

— I don’t either. He took a breath. — But I can imagine very well.

She turned and took a half step down the hill. Her face when she looked at him again was pulled together queerly. — I came and found you, Oskar. I looked for you all week and came up today and found you and asked you how you were and where you’d been hiding and if you were tired or sick, just as if you were a baby. Doesn’t that matter at all? Does it matter more to you what my cousin does? I don’t know what my cousin does. She brought herself up short and ran the sleeve of her shirt across her face. — He’s a policeman now. That’s what he calls it. I haven’t asked him yet what I should forgive him for.

— Where did you go with him?

— Walking.

— Where?

— To the spruce plantations, she said, straightening herself.

— It’s not my business, said Voxlauer. — I’m sorry.

— That’s all right.

Voxlauer let out a breath. — I told you he’d be coming.

— Yes, Oskar, she said. — And I told you he was someone who’d never have a place in the present for me. Only in the past. She came to him now, reaching up and laying a hand over his eyes. — In the past only, Oskar. But the past is important to me just now. And to Resi.

— I remember your saying that, said Voxlauer. — I remember thinking it was a strange thing to say about a cousin.

— Yes, she said, her hand still covering his eyes. — It’s strange. The hand smelled lightly of cooking oil and dirty water. He opened his eyes under it and looked out through the bright red gaps between her fingers at the light on the road.

They began walking again and came out onto the heath not far from where he and Piedernig had stood the week before. Else had brought a little food with her, some goat cheese and a roll wrapped together in linen, and she crouched down now and spread the limp white cloth over the grass. — I’d thought this might turn into an expedition, looking for you, she said, directing him to sit down beside the cloth.

— Is it you, Mother? said Voxlauer, smiling weakly up at her. He was trembling from hunger and from nervousness and leaned back and drew his legs up to his chest. After a time the sun came out again from behind the clouds and he began to feel better. Else had laid out the food and arranged it and was at that moment unstopping a bottle of sweet-smelling cider. — Will you be partaking of spring’s bounty this afternoon?

He lay himself down with his head on her lap and his feet pushing into the warm sun-bright grass. — I think I’ll just lie here at present.