John Wray: The Right Hand of Sleep

He chose not to enter by the front gate where Maman was sure to be waiting for him on the verandah, a little smaller than he remembered but otherwise unchanged with the ancient house behind her. At the last bend of the canal he turned down the narrow side lane into the orchard. The trees were still much as he’d pictured them, though they seemed a bit sparer, and the gravel of the lane was near to vanished under scrub. He gathered from this that the old gardener, Greiss, had died or else grown too old finally and moved down to Judenbach, where his son had a small property. Then it occurred to him that Greiss had already been old, very old, twenty years before and that his son had been called to duty three weeks before he, Voxlauer, had been. The son had been five or six years older than Voxlauer with thick orange hair and milk-colored skin and when his sister brought the news to his table at the Niessener Hof he had wept and taken off his shoes and refused to go home. And the old man had come and dragged him back to the garden and had beaten him with a split poplar cane until Maman threw open the shutters and shouted Enough! in that imperious way of hers. And the son had apologized to her and to everyone and had set off for the Isonzo the very next morning.

Coming to the back gate he found it locked and mortared shut at both its joinings. He kicked his pack under the lichened fence boards and proceeded to haul himself over it, no differently than he had in distant summers when he’d come home from Ryslavy’s after she and Père were already in bed. Coming down he landed on a cart leaning against the wall and his right foot drove clean through the cankered wood. He cursed sharply in the dark, pulled his foot back up through the planks, then crouched and felt around him for the pack. Finding it, he stood up carefully and walked as quietly as he could around the barn.

She had heard him crossing the plank footbridge over the creek and the house lights came on as he passed the old wine trellises. He’d not imagined it this way, when he’d still imagined it at all: arriving furtively in the middle of the night with only the empty house and her to greet him. As if nothing had happened in the world. When he came to the front gate she was waiting for him on the steps. She looked at him a full minute up and down pretending not to recognize him before smiling a little, almost ruefully, and leading him up to the verandah.

— Hello, Maman, he said, trying to find in her the person he remembered. She looked old, terribly old, older than even she had a right to look after all she’d lived through. She must be sick, he thought suddenly. The thought broke slowly over the next few moments, spreading inside him with a coldness that seemed to reach back over decades. I wonder how long she’s been like this, he thought. I wonder when it started. It seemed to him now, in the cold light that shone over everything, that he could remember a change in her letters of three or four years past, a sharper sense of reproach, shriller, more urgent. But I never thought she would look like this, he thought. She’s only just past sixty, for the love of God.

Yes. And Anna was only forty-eight, a few months over, and she died. The coldness washed over him again and he stood speechless, motionless, staring at her.

She was still studying him in silence, making the same frightened concessions, the same adjustments that he was making. Gradually a light began to kindle in her crumpled features and she broke into a smile. She pulled him to her and embraced him and he felt her withered arms and the lightness of her body.

— You’ve been away so long, she said finally, almost apologetically, in a voice far kinder than he’d expected.

— Don’t you know me anymore, Maman?

— Ach! I know you, Oskar. She was still studying him, her face knit strangely together, out of sorrow or bemusement or some other long-preserved and near-to-forgotten emotion he could not have said. It was hard to say one thing or the other for the lines and the grimness around her bright, hard eyes. The smile still held somewhat flickeringly to her mouth.

— I’d had things to say, she said finally, slowly. — But I can’t remember any of them. It doesn’t matter. I’m happy I’ve lived to see you back, that’s all. I’m happy to see you, anyway, she said, blinking.

— I’m happy to see you too, Maman.

— But not to be back?

He looked around him at the verandah and the garden. — I don’t quite feel back, as yet.

— You will. She looked at him now without smiling but more comfortably, more confidently than she had before. — You do recognize your mother, don’t you? The woman who gave you life?

He grinned. — I thought you’d disavowed that act, Maman.

She laughed at this. — Only so I could keep my place in church, Oskar. You’ll not begrudge me that, I hope. She smiled again and took his arm. — Are you tired from the train? Hungry? Shall I make you something to eat?

— Thank you, Maman. I’m tired, mostly. Don’t warm up the stove on my account.

She laughed again quietly. — I’ve been keeping that stove warm for nigh to twenty years, you wandering Judas.

— Maman! J’ai mort de faim! said Voxlauer the next morning, crossing to the kitchen table. Outside the sky was a vibrant blue and the sunlight shone full on the back of his chair as it had on those Sundays when they’d taken breakfast late, coming up hungry from service with the meal warming in the oven and his father playing brightly through the parlor door. While Maman busied herself around the table Voxlauer would stand with his ear to the paneling listening to the music and the squeak of Père’s stool as he leaned in and away from the keys and picture him on the other side, elegant and intent, oblivious to small things like service or the setting of the table for breakfast. Sometimes the music would stop abruptly and he would hear the scratching of a fountain pen on paper for a moment or the sound of his father humming to himself, a little flatly, before it began again. — For God’s sake, Karl! Maman would shout when breakfast was laid out and the music would shift from allegro to adagio and shortly afterward Père would come cheerfully to table.

— It’s like a Sunday today, said Voxlauer, pulling out the chair. — I’ve slept late.

She smiled. — You’ve slept clear to Sunday. But I suppose you’re entitled.

He looked at her. — I’ve come a long way, this week.

— I know, Oskar. So you’re entitled. How did you sleep?

— Very well.

— Good.

— A bit cramped, maybe.

She smiled again. — You’ve grown. And I suppose the guest room hasn’t.

He nodded. — Not much has changed.

— More than you think, Oskar.

— What do you mean?

— Well, she said, crossing to the stovetop. — In town.

— Oh. That. He stared out the window at the slate wall with the canal behind it. — Is there really such a difference, now to then?

— I know, Oskar! she said, wiping her hands with a washcloth. — I know about your fine ideas. I read the books you told me to read. I read your letters, what few there were of them. Did you read mine, I wonder?

Voxlauer didn’t answer. — Those were some time ago, those fine ideas, he said finally.

— Certainly they were. She watched him for a while. — There’s a difference now, in town.

Outside the window the canal was brightening even further in the growing light and plate-sized pieces of ice here and there revolved slowly, as if in a gentle current. He wondered idly what sort of fish were underneath them.

— You’ve made it just in time for elections, she said, setting down the coffee and a plate of rolls. — Irma Gratzer’s coming at eleven.