John Wray - The Right Hand of Sleep

Voxlauer passed a hand over his face. — Why say anything to me about it, then?

— It can’t go on this way, Voxlauer. Kurt gave his shoulder a little squeeze.

They sat a moment in perfect silence. — Would you harm Else in any way? Voxlauer murmured.

— Listen, Voxlauer! Listen! Kurt was standing over him and stumbling a little from side to side, arms flailing crazily toward the rafters as though pulled and jerked by wires. — It’s you we’re here to talk about, Voxlauer. You, not her. The State versus Oskar Voxlauer, deserter, son of the famous shotgun suicide, toady to Bolshevists, Yid-loving bastard. Hearings postponed since 1918. This is your turn on the stand, Voxlauer. Hers will come.

— I want to know about Paul Ryslavy.

— Paul Ryslavy is a Jew and a homosexual. I promise you he won’t get less than he deserves.

— You haven’t done anything yet, then.

Kurt waved a hand impatiently. — The charges against you, Voxlauer, are long and detailed. He rustled imaginary pages. — Suppose you began with a brief statement.

Voxlauer took a breath. — What was it you hoped to gain by bringing me up here, Kurt? Were you hoping to make me afraid? If so, then you’re a goddamned fool.

— A fool? said Kurt, half smiling.

— I’ve been a coward my entire life. Everything I’ve ever done was done out of fear, and everything I’ve seen has taught me to be more afraid with each passing minute. The only thing that kept me safe was believing that I was dead already, and I stopped believing that four months ago. Since that time I’ve been scared nearly out of my mind. There’s not one thing you could teach me about fear. Do you understand? Not one blessed thing. Voxlauer leaned a little to one side, struggling to catch his breath. — I’d kill you right now if I could. You are lower in my eyes than a maggot and I’d like nothing better than to see you laid out dead in front of me. But I’m afraid of you, Kurt, and so I can’t. I don’t have the head or the stomach for it and because of that I deserve to die. That’s all; that’s all you’ll ever make me say. If you have any more questions for me I hope you choke to death on them.

Voxlauer sank back against the brittle wood. The light was ebbing from the chapel, gilding the pews and the dust and the slow-moving air. A sparrow flew in the door and up to the rafters. Somewhere close by sheep were bawling. Kurt had taken out his pistol.

— If you’re going to shoot me with that thing, do it, Voxlauer said, getting to his feet. — I’m not sitting here any longer.

Kurt glanced up at him. — Where in hell do you think you’re going?

— Straight to the villa, said Voxlauer. — Straight to your cousin’s house. Straight into bed.

Kurt said nothing for a moment. — Listen to me, Voxlauer, he said as Voxlauer stepped past him, in an altogether different voice from the one he’d used before. A quiet voice, tentative, almost pleading. Voxlauer stopped. Kurt had sat down a third time. With his head bent forward and his back half turned to Voxlauer he looked like nothing so much as a farmhand struggling through his evening prayers. His flat, thick hair hung down in front, shadowing his face. — War is coming, Voxlauer, he said, almost in a whisper.

— War? said Voxlauer. He felt again at that moment the presence of a vague fear, curling forward on the periphery of thought, building itself into a certainty. It was coming on even as Kurt sat watching him, bringing itself silently and inevitably to life. — War? said Voxlauer, trying to bring his attention back to the dust-filled room.

Kurt looked at him almost sheepishly, the smile gone altogether from his face. He nodded. — War is coming, Voxlauer, he said again. — Bad things happen under cover of war. Terrible things. To good men, worse men, and even, sometimes, to better women. He laughed at this, letting his shoulders slump forward. He laughed without breaking into a smile, the laugh defeated and hollow, more a clarion of blank despair than of victory or malice or even pride. — Terrible things, Voxlauer, he repeated. — And I’m not going to raise a finger to stop any of them.

Then suddenly Voxlauer knew what would happen.

That afternoon I set out to find Brigadenführer Mittling, our liaison to Himmler and poor dead Spengler’s second cousin. I’d read in that morning’s paper about the Führer’s disavowal of our putsch, his claim to the English and Italian press that our actions had in no way been directed or encouraged by the Reich, and I needed to talk to someone about it right away. It’s possible that he truly didn’t know about us — we’d only had Himmler’s assurances, with Mittling as middleman, that the operation had his approval and blessing. To this day I’m none the wiser. But I’ve certainly never faulted the Führer for saying what he had to say to keep the foreign observers mollified, to keep France, in particular, from starting another war before we were sufficiently rearmed. I’ve certainly never faulted him, but on that particular day I needed to talk to somebody about it quickly.

It was pointless to talk to the girl, or the other servants in the house, or the banker and his wife, either, should they eventually reappear. I had to go to Mittling. The problem with going to Mittling was that I’d never seen him or spoken to him directly. I didn’t even know his Christian name. Glass guarded each communiqué from Munich jealously and burned each day’s total in the lavatory sink before retiring. Not even Spengler had been allowed free contact with his cousin, though that may, in fact, have been Mittling’s own preference; there was little love lost between them.

Once every morning in the month before the putsch the phone would ring, Glass would answer it, and the rest of us would file quietly out into the hall. There was a second receiver in a filing room a few doors down and when the door was unlocked I’d sometimes slip in and pick it up. Mostly they talked about money and Himmler, how there was never enough of the one and always too much of the other. They made bland, forgettable jokes about one or another of the boys, most often Spengler, and in general talked as little business as possible. Mittling was a Sudeten German and spoke with a cloying, timorous accent, as though his mouth was full of marzipan. It had been his idea that we dress as policemen. “One Black Shirt’s as good as another,” he’d said, tittering.

“Ha!” Glass had answered. “Very good, Brigadenführer.”

I left my hosts’ house in the afternoon and walked across the wide stone bridge to the center of town. Dust rose thickly from the cobbles; countless sedans and wagons rattled by. Everyone seemed almost laughably industrious and carefree. Excitement was everywhere in the air — a new, fierce optimism. This was the Germany I’d imagined for myself from the earliest days of the movement, clear-eyed, secure in its future and hard at work, and I felt at home in it. I’d never before been to another country; there seemed to be many more bicycles in Bavaria, and more convertibles.

As I passed into the Altstadt, throngs of housewives bustled past on the narrow walks, humming to themselves benevolently. The light on all the streets was warm and gilded. My heart fluttered in my chest and I realized for the first time that I’d escaped something horrible and entered into something fine. I broke into an idiotic, unembarrassed grin, laughing and bowing to people as I passed. I had only to look at the posters and handbills everywhere around me, on the streetlamps and sides of houses, to know that I was free. Even the thought of Niessen and all I’d lost seemed dim and insignificant to me then.