John Wray - The Right Hand of Sleep

A man in a peaked, black-fronted hat, like a chauffeur’s cap, called out commands from the little podium, rocking back and forth excitedly on his heels. The SA themselves were hatless and their cropped, tanned heads rotated briskly in execution of the drills. Here and there in the crowd arms were spontaneously raised in excited Heils. Elsewhere men were drinking beer and laughing and ignoring the SA altogether.

Voxlauer followed behind Else, who was making her way steadily through the spectators to the northwestern corner of the square. The upper floors of the houses were hung with crimson flags and banners. Those who hadn’t been given flags had hung capes and dresses and bedsheets from their windows. The ruin had been decorated with torches and a long red banner with reticulated trim now graced the leftmost of its arches. Else waited for Voxlauer on the Polizeihaus steps.

Column after column of SA filed into the square from its eastern side, forcing the onlookers back onto the curbs. The platform was filling rapidly with officers. A fat, five-pointed star of brown now fulminated in the square, spinning like a leaf caught in a gentle current. The crowd, too, appeared to be twisting along its edges. The black-capped officer surveyed the square a moment, stamped his heels with satisfaction, then stepped back from the podium. Grudgingly the bodies came to rest. — It’s almost beautiful, said Else, looking down at Voxlauer from her place above him on the steps.

— Do you think so?

— No. But it is a thing to see. It’s so very strange.

— Are you still afraid?

— Oh! said Else suddenly, looking past him.

A man in a black field jacket approached the podium with both arms raised. He began to speak into the microphone and his voice seemed to intermingle with its hum, trembling over the massed heads of the crowd and carrying back in waves of half-articulated sound to the platform. The sound spread over the square like an awning, making everything but listening impossible. It kept on and fell back on itself and brightened and became louder and louder. At predetermined points the voice would cease, and the crowd would answer in quick joyous bursts of noise. The speaker would acknowledge the crowd with a brief, careless salute and the Brown Shirts would respond with a deafening chorus of Sieg Heils.

— Blessed Christ, it’s loud, a woman next to Voxlauer said.

Voxlauer didn’t look at her. He was looking at the podium.

— Look! said Else.

— I am, said Voxlauer.

— Look who it is.

— I know. I see him.

On the platform Kurt was smiling now and lifting his arms.

My feelings about the putsch had changed. I was no longer thinking of it in terms of success or failure; I knew now that it could only end badly. I sat a long while on the bench in the little room, thinking only about my own skin. The secretary of security made regular requests for glasses of water, which were just as regularly ignored by myself and the two other boys on watch. Eventually Dollfuss sat up in his corner and mumbled a few words in what might have been Italian. An idea came to me then, or the start of one, and I stood up from the bench.

Going out the paneled door to the cabinet room, I found Spengler and Ley huddled together at the far end of the table, plotting away in their very best church whispers. Neither looked up as I passed. I went to the sideboard and took down the decanter of brandy and poured out a generous snifter, golden and amber-smelling. Ley and Spengler kept right on with their conference. I tipped my head back, downed the brandy and filled the glass a second time. The bottle was very old and clouded over and smelled faintly of cork and mildew. Above the sideboard hung a portrait of some earlier, more normal-sized head of state flanked by his thirteen ministers, examining a weighty-looking sheaf of yellow papers. A muffled, static hum, like the buzzing on a telephone line, rose out of the radio. I stood at the cabinet a moment longer, trying to make out what Ley and Spengler were whispering, then put the bottle down and walked back to the table over the thick-loomed Persian carpet. “Our man’s come to,” I announced in my shrillest, most military tone of voice.

Spengler glanced up at me. “Has he? Well, Herr Minister! Let’s go have a look!”

The two of them stood up from the table, overflowing with mutual goodwill. I pointed at the minister. “Pardon my curiosity, Heinrich, but shouldn’t this one be in the dunce’s corner, with the other dunces?”

Spengler took a deep breath, mustered his resources and smiled the most patronizing smile he was capable of. Even I was surprised by its effectiveness. “No no, Bauer. Herr Ley is our new minister of war.”

Ley stepped out from behind Spengler and patted me on the shoulder. “With all due regard, Obersturmführer, you might learn to treat your representatives in government with a slight bit more civility. After you, my commandant!” he said, turning again to Spengler. It was all I could do to avoid being ill.

“Come on out, boys!” Spengler called, opening the door. The two boys I’d left on guard came out, looking at us questioningly. Little Ernst and some others came in at the same time from the anteroom, sensing that something was about to happen. Ley went in to Dollfuss first and I made a move to follow but Spengler held me back. “We won’t be needing you just now, Bauer,” he said softly.

“What won’t you be needing me for, Heinrich?” I asked. Spengler only blinked and pulled the little door firmly closed behind him.

After a few seconds Ley’s voice sounded dimly through the paneling. I listened for a while with my ear pressed to the keyhole, all thought of saving face with the rest of the boys abandoned, then glanced back to where they stood in a loose half-circle, watching me. After a moment or two Little Ernst stepped over. “Ley’s bought himself in right neatly, hasn’t he?”

“He’s bought himself time, that’s all. Take a look downstairs, will you, Ernst? And take all these Bolshevists here with you. Go on,” I said, pointing at the other boys, who were watching us even more intently now.

Ernst clicked his tongue against his teeth for a few seconds, not answering. “As you say, Obersturmführer,” he said thoughtfully after a moment. Something in his tone had changed, and I watched this change register, slowly but surely, with the others. I pretended not to notice and slapped Ernst cheerfully on the back as he went out. They know something’s gone wrong, or is going wrong now, I thought. As soon as I was alone I crossed the room and poured myself another snifter.

Standing under the portrait sipping at my brandy, I tried again to think. Could this have been the way Glass wanted it? That seemed suddenly very likely. I forgot Spengler and Dollfuss and Ley and the rest of it and imagined Glass reclining that very moment on his couch by the teletype, sleepy and content, or speeding away in his apple-green Horch convertible, a present from the Reichsführer-SS himself, through the flat wheat and fir-covered hills to the border.

One week later, as Voxlauer was working in the villa’s garden, the sound of Kurt’s motorcycle carried up to him. He stood slowly and leaned his shovel against the fence and looked at Else through the parlor window. She motioned to him to come, made another gesture he wasn’t able to decipher, then stepped away from the glass. Voxlauer swung open the low gate and stood for perhaps half a minute in the house’s shadow, leaning against the cool dark wall and looking down at his hands. By the time the sound drew even with the house and stopped he was breathing quietly. — Hello, Kurt, he said, stepping around the house into the sunlight.