John Wray - The Right Hand of Sleep

“Yes, Obersturmführer.”

I sighed very deeply. “Why? Why did you kill them?”

The boy looked at me confusedly. “They were making noises, Obersturmführer.” He hesitated, scratching the back of his neck. “We told them two or three times to stop.”

I stepped very close to him. He was sixteen, seventeen at the oldest. Wide pink blotches of acne decorated his cheeks. “This is a suicide pact you’ve all drawn up together. Is that it?”

He looked down at his feet for a time without answering. “No, Obersturmführer.”

“Take these corpses downstairs, in-the-name-of-Christ!”

The boys nodded and said that they would and thanked me and saluted and clicked their heels. The one I’d spoken to looked troubled. “Downstairs where, Obersturmführer?”

The guards lay together in a slack brown pile with their hands still folded neatly against the backs of their heads. Some of them had wide round bloodstains on the backs of their shirts; some of them only looked asleep. The others looked to have been shot in the stomach and there was a huge amount of blood all around them on the floor. “Anywhere downstairs,” I said after a time. “Do you think you can manage them now without too much trouble?”

One of the other of the boys smiled. “Oh yes, Obersturmführer.” He was tall and had a clipped brown mustache and might have been as old as nineteen. “We can manage them now.”

As Voxlauer walked down to Pergau a cool rain began to fall. He wrapped the honeycomb he’d cut from the hives in a handkerchief of Else’s he’d found in a pocket of his coat and hurried through the town. Coming up the drive he slowed to a crawl and then stopped altogether. She was in the garden, working on the hinges of the gate, and he felt himself overcome by a sudden fear of facing her out of doors. He turned and went a short distance down and waited until he heard the clatter of the screen, then walked slowly up the drive again, wondering what he could possibly say to her.

She was in the kitchen, washing her hands in a pressed-tin bowl. At his knock on the door she shifted slightly and granted him a weary smile. — You’ve brought something, she said, almost to herself. She took up a dish towel and dried her hands. — Aren’t you coming in?

Voxlauer opened the screen door, hanging back uncertainly in its frame, one foot still on the topmost step. — What do you have there? said Else.

He set the parcel down next to her without looking her in the eyes and went and sat mutely and penitently at the kitchen table. He heard her behind him pulling away the folds of the handkerchief and letting out a sigh, whether of relief or pleasure or resignation he would not have ventured to guess. A short while later she came to the table with the honeycomb on a china plate.

— The bees disappeared, said Voxlauer.

— What?

— All of a sudden.

— Oskar? she said, putting the plate down. — What is it?

— I don’t know, he said, still not able to look at her. — I didn’t come back for you to take care of me, he said after a moment.

Else smiled. — But you always come back sick, don’t you. It must be a very shabby, disease-infested place you go to, when you run away.

— I hate that goddamned cottage, said Voxlauer, smiling faintly.

She laughed a little and crossed over to the table and took him by the hair. — Oskar Voxlauer! she said after a moment, tugging his head back and forth. — By all rights you should be on the blacklist.

— I thought I was already.

— Not theirs . Mine. I have one of my own.

— I can’t think who would be on it, if not me.

— Yes. She laid her hand against his forehead. — I think you have a fever, she said after a moment. — I’m sure of it.

— I don’t care. Please don’t forgive me this easily, Else. I couldn’t stand it.

— Where did you sleep last night? she said, ignoring him. — Down a rabbit hole?

— In a casket, said Voxlauer. — Did I tell you. . He let his voice trail away.

— What is it?

— I feel dizzy.

Else sighed. — Don’t run out like that again. I was up half the night. You’ll ruin my looks if you’re not careful.

— I went up to the colony.

— The colony?

— There’s the proof, he said, pointing at the honey.

— Why there, of all places? What’s left to see?

Voxlauer didn’t answer for a time. Her hands on his temples lay smooth as polished wood and he was afraid if he said anything she might remove them. — A mouse, he said finally.

— And bees.

— Yes. But they disappeared. I told you before—

— Go to bed, Herr Gamekeeper. She raised his head and smoothed the hair back from his face. — You go to bed now.

— It’s just past noon, said Voxlauer, sitting up.

— That’s never stopped you before, has it? said Else. — I’ll come with you, if you want.

— In that case, said Voxlauer, following bashfully behind her. Sometime after dark he woke alone in the bed with a light streaming over the kitchen steps. He heard voices in the kitchen: Else’s and a man’s. He sat on the edge of the bed, dressing quietly without lighting the lamp. They were talking in a low monotone, his voice often indistinguishable from hers. Voxlauer finished dressing and went up the steps. — Oh! Hello, Pauli, he said after a moment, smiling confusedly.

— Oskar. . Ryslavy said. He rose awkwardly from his place at the table.

Voxlauer looked from him to Else. — Why didn’t anybody wake me?

— You were fast asleep, said Else.

— What’s going on? said Voxlauer. — What are you two plotting?

— Oh, Oskar, said Ryslavy quietly.

Maman lay stretched out on a linen-covered plank over two wooden sawhorses in the parlor. A faint dew had gathered on her waxen upper lip. Voxlauer bent over and brought his face down close to hers. She looked younger now than before, younger and finer-featured and in some strange way more alive. But she was not, not at all. He laid his hands on hers and felt the rigor in them. A vague odor of lilac hung in the room. He turned round to Ryslavy. — Did you have her perfumed?

— I don’t think so, said Ryslavy. He stood a bit behind, shifting from foot to foot.

— You can go, Pauli.

— What? Ah! Of course, Ryslavy murmured. He went out.

The coffin lay behind her under the window, the lid propped against its side. He looked down at her. In the light from the shaded lamp she glowed dully, as though cast in bronze. He reached out again to touch her face through the parted veil. Then he drew the veil closed again and left her.

— I mean to pay for all of this, he said, finding Ryslavy sitting on a low stool in the kitchen, staring at a bottle of beer.

— Ach, Oskar. Allow me this little thing.

— There was no need for any trimmings. She wouldn’t have wanted them.

— Trimmings? Ryslavy said, frowning.

— That casket. The cosmetics.

— This is her last time, Oskar. Allow me this one thing. I don’t think she would have minded.

— Goddamn it, Pauli. Look after your own goddamned business.

— I’d rather not, Ryslavy said, staring down at his feet.

They sat silently for a time. — She was kind to me, God bless her, Ryslavy said. — Kinder than all the rest of them piled together.

— I mean to pay you, Pauli. Voxlauer took a breath. — I’m set on it.

Ryslavy said nothing. He passed the bottle to Voxlauer and Voxlauer tipped it back.

— God knows she always did right by us, Oskar. God knows, Ryslavy said. — She was a goddamned saint in my eyes. He shook his head slowly. — Not that I have much use for saints, needless—