John Wray - The Right Hand of Sleep

The noise grew higher and higher in pitch, then stopped altogether. I stepped into the corridor: the guards on the floor had felt it too and looked up at me. A boy I knew only vaguely was there, keeping watch. “Did you feel any of that rumbling just now, Willi?” I asked him.

He looked at me blankly. “No, Obersturmführer.”

I knelt down by one of the guards and tapped him on the back. “What was that just now, citizen?”

The guard only shook his head. I stood up and turned back to the boy. “In case Herr Spengler happens to ask for me, I’ll be downstairs. Watch this crew carefully, now. No gossiping.”

I went downstairs cautiously, as if Spengler might yet call me back, and crossed the lobby to a small barred window with a view of the Ballhausplatz. I glanced out the window once, shut my eyes tightly a moment, then looked again, this time letting out a quiet groan. Directly outside the courtyard gate four khaki-colored armored cars stood idling, ringed by three full Home Guard battalions, a Civil Guards unit and what looked to be the entire police force of the city. Gray-shirted underofficers moved through the waiting rows like prize drones in a beehive, buzzing purposefully together for a moment wherever their paths happened to intersect. Across the square a small civilian crowd had gathered, gaping at the cars and pointing up at the chancellery windows, laughing and calling things out in small, shrill voices to the soldiers. I stepped back from the window, stood still a moment, then ran down another short flight of steps to the lobby. Civil Guard shirts were everywhere, milling aimlessly about; no one seemed the least bit troubled by the circus going on outside. Just then a cadet of mine wandered by and I grabbed him by the collar. “What’s the matter with you, Klintzer? Haven’t you looked out the window lately?”

The cadet gaped at me. “We’d heard negotiations were under way, Obersturmführer. .”

“Why has no one informed me of this? Or Comrade Spengler?”

“We have, Obersturmführer,” he said, looking at me strangely now.

Else and Voxlauer walked arm in arm across the square, past the darkened shopwindows, under the cracked stucco wall of the cloister and out over the arched stone bridge and the reflectionless water of the canal. At the edge of the mill field they stopped, searching in the tussocked grass for the path across. Soft white clusters of light drifted quietly above the grass, resolving themselves into groups of sheep before drifting slowly off again into the dark. — I can hear the mill wheel, Else said.

Voxlauer stepped forward into the field and felt for bare ground with his boot soles. The lights of St. Marein glittered like scraps of tinsel at the edge of the plain. He moved carefully toward the silhouetted willow trees, waiting now and then for her footfall behind him in the grass. — What’s St. Marein like? he said when they were halfway across the field.

— I haven’t spent much time there, Else said, catching hold of his hand.

— I thought you’d lived there.

— You must be thinking of Resi. Resi lives there now.

— With her father’s family?

— Come along now, Else said, running ahead into the trees.

Voxlauer hung back a moment, squinting along the ground, then followed cautiously after her. — Can you see? he called. The sound of the mill brook came very loudly now and under it was the creaking and rumbling of the wheel.

— They’ve left it going! Else yelled.

Voxlauer made for her voice in the dark. — Do they ever turn it off?

He was close beside her suddenly. — Have you never been to a mill before, Oskar? she said.

— Of course I have. He smiled. — But never at night.

She took his arm and led him up a narrow ramp clogged with debris to the steps of the mill. The huge dark wheel turned massively on its hub and drew up cords of light with a noise like the creaking of a ship at sea. It seemed to Voxlauer as he stood above it an ancient, almost prehistoric thing.

— I practically lived here for a time, said Else.

— Here?

She nodded. — In love with the miller’s boy.

— Ah, said Voxlauer. He reached for the slick wooden handrail. — What happened?

— Resi.

— And the boy?

— He left when Kurt left. She shrugged.

Voxlauer looked down at the water. — No bad blood between them?

— The Cause, Oskar! You’re forgetting the Cause. It’s what makes them fanatics, remember. You’ll never understand them without it.

— I don’t want to understand them.

— But they want to understand you, Herr Voxlauer. Kurt Bauer does. Terribly. She stepped forward and kissed him on the chin. — What makes you such a gloomy citizen? Why aren’t you more civil? Didn’t your Maman teach you any manners? Are you a Bolshevist? A secret agent? A Jew-lover? She dropped her voice low. — Do you fancy the little boys?

— No, no, no and no, said Voxlauer, leaning in to kiss her.

— That’s only four of five.

— Say that again about my mother, he whispered.

They crossed back over the weir and walked along the river-bank to the toll road, then turned and followed it out to the station and the long ramp of earth where the rails came down from the gorge at the northern end of the plain. A train loaded high with timber was just passing through the station when they reached the tracks. As it came toward them it rose magisterially above the plain, canting and rumbling, its red and blue hitch lights swaying and clanking from side to side. They watched it make the slow curve to the mouth of the gorge and vanish into it one car at a time. — Are we getting our timber from Italy now? said Voxlauer.

— Kurt says they’re our new Reichs-partners.

— Ah, said Voxlauer. — They’ll be Fascisti at Monte Veritas, then, before too long.

— There’ll be Fascisti everywhere. We’ll be Fascisti, too.

— I don’t care anymore. I’m tired. That sounds lovely.

The last lights of the train disappeared into the trees. They walked toward the station. — He’d sign on, wouldn’t he? said Voxlauer after a time. — If it came to that?

— Who?

— Piedernig. Don’t you think he would?

— Without a doubt, Else said, taking his arm. — You’re sweet to worry about that old con artist.

— I’m not worried about him, exactly, said Voxlauer. — Just wondering what it would take.

— Fresh fillet of trout. A little flattery.

— I don’t think our friends are the flattering kind.

— Of course they are. They’re all the flattering kind.

— I hadn’t noticed.

— You have to give them some sort of encouragement now and again, that’s all.

A boy in tar-blackened overalls walked up the tracks toward them, stopped, bent down and began hammering at a rail switch. A watery blue light flickered on the platform. Two more boys, slightly older than the first, leaned sleepily against the station wall cradling automatic rifles. — Children’s hour, said Voxlauer, sticking his thumb into his mouth.

— Shh! Let’s go up to the road.

On the way back to the square they went around the canal and passed Maman’s orchard and the old house. A light was burning on the verandah.

— Care to face the jury? said Voxlauer.

— Not at two in the morning, thank you. I’d be sure to get death by hanging.

— Not at all. She’ll be relieved we’re not in bed.

— I wish I were, said Else, yawning. — Does Ryslavy have a room for us?

— You’ll be happy to know we’ve been promised the newlywed’s suite.

— I am. I’m very happy to know it.

— There’s a catch, of course. There isn’t any.