John Wray - The Right Hand of Sleep

A man with a car was waiting for us outside the station and we climbed inside and rolled off down the avenue. My hostess asked with infinite gentleness if I wanted the top up or down and I answered: “Down.” The afternoon was hazy and warm. We drove at a slow, stately pace through the university, across the Isar and along the bank past one beautiful villa after another. I was overcome gradually by fatigue and happiness and a vast upsurging of relief. I fell asleep in the front passenger seat of the sedan beside the driver and woke sometime the next morning in a sun-flooded room on a canopied bed, happier than I’d ever been since leaving Niessen. I lay in bed, staring at the intricate plaster moldings of the ceiling, thinking idly about the future.

I’d been awake for not quite an hour when a knock came on the gilt-rimmed, ebony-paneled door and a girl entered carrying a tray of Berchtner rolls and a pot of steaming chocolate. I stared at her. She crossed the room without a word and unclapped the copper legs of the tray, positioning it over my lap. Then she poured a cup of chocolate, set it down, took a few steps back and watched attentively while I ate. I talked to her a little between mouthfuls and learned that my patrons were away from the house and wouldn’t return till the following evening. I was to avail myself of every conceivable comfort. I looked again at the girl, who was small and firmly built, with cropped blond hair and thick-fingered, nervous hands. “Flutter about much, do they, our hosts?” I asked her. She shrugged and stared down at her feet, which were ever so slightly pigeon-toed. I decided to devote myself to the chocolate and the rolls and to ignore her.

The girl stayed put, however, watching me. Every now and again she scuffed the floor restlessly with a heel, making a noise like the squeaking of a wooden hinge.

“Well? What is it?” I asked finally, setting down my cup.

She reddened a little. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“Are you one of them?” she paused. “. . The Legion?”

“What are you talking about, little sister?”

The girl frowned. “Reichsführer Göring’s Grand Austrian Legion,” she said slowly. “Are you one of them or not? I have a bet.”

I looked her over a moment. She was very pretty. I had never heard of any Grand Austrian Legion and was dead certain no such group had ever existed. “Absolutely,” I said, pouring myself more chocolate.

Leaving town that last time Voxlauer walked slowly, committing each relevant detail to memory in a way he hadn’t thought to when first he’d left. The thick slow water of the canal, the three mortared bridges, the Bahnhofstrasse and the square, the double-steepled cathedral with the ruin just above it. The Niessener Hof, now shut down and abandoned. A few people at the far end of the square in the shadow of the fountain, talking in pleasant deep-toned voices and calling a joke up every so often to the open windows of a house a short way up the hill.

The light was just withdrawing from the rooftops as Voxlauer climbed through the tangled summer brush to the ruin for a look across the plain. The three great windows were smothered with ivy, purple and evening-colored, and the roofs of town glimmered a blunt red behind them like stones in a dried-out riverbed. Another train piled high with timber cantilevered its way northward. Voxlauer sat in the grass with his back to the crumbling wall and watched the cool lid of the sky drop forgivingly over the earth. As he had twice before, he felt a vague foreknowledge taking shape within him like a swell building at sea, silently and slowly, gathering itself into a wave. He waited for a time with his eyes tightly closed to see if it would come, but it was still far away, small and dim and unremarkable. A short while later he climbed down and walked through the ruin into the pines.

He woke the next morning on the pallet with the daylight full and bright in the little alcove. His mind was empty and content, like a wide, shallow saucer full of milk, and he lay a long time watching dust motes eddy in the window beams, easing himself slowly into wakefulness. Gradually, one at a time, the events of the past days came and settled on the surface of his awareness and dissolved in it, dispersing a still, quiet sadness that made his body feel heavy-limbed and bloodless under the sheets. An hour passed before he was able to stand and cross the damp floorboards to the cottage door and throw it open, squinting upward at the slate-blue sky. It was already very hot and the steps shone painfully in the sun. Voxlauer took off his shirt and pants and went down along the pond bank to where the water reflected the sky’s color most gently, lacing it with a livid green. Then he let himself fall slackly into the shallows.

He floated face downward with his arms trailing into the green as long as he could without breathing, listening to the far-off, bellows-like sounds coming up through the water, as though the whole of the world were breathing in his ears. Slowly he began to forget. Long thin filaments of bubbles swayed here and there above the green heaving curtain below him. The water was ice cold and soon he felt himself begin to shiver. He rolled onto his back and pushed his face above the surface of the pond. The air felt oily on his skin. A vibration made itself heard, loudening very gradually, and after a time a motorcycle came into view. Its driver saw Voxlauer in the water and held up a hand. Voxlauer found his footing and stood up slowly.

— Morning, Voxlauer! Kurt said cheerily, pulling up before him on the far side of the pond. — You were quite a sight there, bobbing up and down. I’d nearly made up my mind to jump in and rescue you.

— I hope you weren’t in too much of a conflict about it.

— Ha, Voxlauer! Touché. Kurt pulled off his gloves one finger at a time. — Are you busy?

— I did have some rather pressing business, said Voxlauer, looking toward his clothes in the grass.

— I’ll wait in the bunker, then, out of reverence for your modesty.

Kurt gunned his engine and rolled up the bank, bringing the cycle carefully over the pilings to the cottage steps. Voxlauer walked in through the shallows to his clothes. When he came to the cottage he found Kurt sitting at the three-legged table, looking around him doubtfully. — None too cozy, Herr Gamekeeper, he said, clicking his tongue against his teeth.

— I don’t spend so much time here.

— I’m sure of that. Kurt laughed. — I don’t blame you, either. This place has never been anything but a filthy hole. He spat into a corner. — Well. What was good enough for the old bastard, I suppose.

— I’ve taken your uncle for a model in all things, Obersturmführer.

— Bashing the stuffing out of me was a step in the right direction then. Kurt stood up suddenly. — Where do you keep the whiskey?

— That what the old man drank?

— When he had it. He wasn’t choosy. Kurt looked around the room again, crossing after a time to the little alcove. — Here’s where he breathed his last, the sorry bugger.

— I’d heard it was in a snowbank.

Kurt shook his head. — You don’t know the Jews yet, do you, Oskar, though you spend so much time around them. You accept their stories with touching goodwill and faith. Maybe that’s why they find you such a useful mule. He sighed. — Come for a walk.

— Where?

— To the reliquary.

— Are we going on a pilgrimage?

— Don’t be a jackass, Voxlauer. I haven’t the patience for it anymore. Just come along. He glanced a final time around the room. — God, I loathe this place.

Voxlauer followed him out the door. — Are we walking? he said, seeing Kurt step past the motorcycle.