The Right Hand of Sleep

by John Wray

  Crossing the square to the Niessener Hof Voxlauer found it locked and shuttered. He rapped on the glass and waited, peering in at the darkened coatroom. A minute or so later Emelia appeared.

  —Good afternoon, Fräulein.

  —Hello, Uncle, she said, not looking at him.

  —Taking a holiday?

  She nodded.

  —I see, said Voxlauer. He was quiet a moment. Emelia stayed exactly as she was, the door partly open, the even dark behind her.

  —The chief in? Voxlauer asked, smiling down at her penitently.

  —In his office, she said, acknowledging his smile without moving any part of her face.

  Ryslavy was sitting much as he had been that morning months before, with his boots up on the desk and the cowhide chair tilted back under him, casting flies through the open office door into the kitchen. —Oh, it’s you, he muttered.

  Voxlauer ducked in between casts and sat himself down on a box overflowing with yellow invoices. —Is today a holiday for your people?

  Ryslavy laughed. —You know I’ve never observed any of those, Oskar. Bad for business.

  —I thought maybe state-imposed, said Voxlauer.

  Ryslavy drew his arm back and cast again. —Ah! That’s different. That’s a different question altogether. He spun the reel back whirringly between his fingers. —You might say that a referendum has been held, Oskar. A quorum of the people has ruled that we might take a holiday.

  —Rest for the wicked, I suppose.

  Ryslavy turned to him suddenly. —What happened to your teeth, for the love of God?

  —A referendum of the people.

  —Frau Holzer’s sons?

  —In quorum.

  Ryslavy whistled. —An able couple of boys.

  —You might say.

  —Smoke? said Ryslavy cheerfully. He tossed Voxlauer the tobacco tin without waiting for him to answer. —Smoke! he repeated. —Sterilize your gums. He waved at the far corner. —There’s paper on the second shelf behind you. Under that minor continent of bills.

  —This?

  —No no, Oskar. That’s the subcontinent at best. Farther to your left.

  —Shall we stuff your briar, too, while the tin is open?

  —I suppose I’d better, said Ryslavy, sighing heavily. He leaned back and put down the reel.

  When Voxlauer had finished they smoked in silence. —Been to see Maman lately? he said after a time.

  Ryslavy shook his head. —Not in ages. I’ve been meaning to. I’d thought of asking her for help, actually, he said, grinning a little. —What do you think, Oskar? She’s still quite well thought of, you know, hereabouts. Our one solitary claim to Culture.

  —“Culture,” said Voxlauer, making a face.

  —Laugh if you want, little man. Your mother was once a justly famous lady.

  —My mother was an ensemble singer in operettas. A solo part thrown in here and there. Strictly bread-and-butter.

  —Nonsense! She was a fine soprano.

  —You never heard her, Pauli.

  —I don’t need to have heard her. You can see it. Even now, when she does nothing all day but roll her blessed balls of dough. It’s the way she looks at you.

  —I suppose you’re right, said Voxlauer after a little pause.

  —She sang in Berlin, Oskar.

  —Once. She sang once in Berlin.

  —Still. That counts for something.

  —I’m worried about her.

  Ryslavy sat forward slowly. —What is it?

  Voxlauer let out a long breath. —I don’t have any money.

  —What do you mean?

  —For a doctor.

  Ryslavy drew a hand over his eyes. —How did this all happen? he said quietly. —All at once, from one day to the next? How, Oskar? He set the rod down cautiously beside him on the desk. —Should we have been keeping some sort of watch?

  —Do you have any money?

  —Ach! said Ryslavy. He shrugged. —Enough for a doctor, if it comes to that. But tell me what it is, for God’s sake. Is it a stroke?

  Voxlauer ashed his cigarette onto the floor. —You need to see her.

  Ryslavy said nothing. Through the open door and the kitchen they could hear Emelia sorting bottles at the bar. —Quite a busy bee, that niece of mine, said Voxlauer. —I’m not altogether convinced she’s yours.

  —She’s mine all right, worse luck for her. Did she tell you already, when you came in? I’ve taken her out of school.

  —Why?

  —You live a hermit’s life, don’t you, Oskar. I’d forgotten.

  Voxlauer stared uncomprehendingly for an instant. —Is it so bad already? he said, the smile gone from his face.

  —I’m a patient man. I give them six months, a year at best. They’re idiots, Oskar. Garden-variety Punicellos. People in this town have never cared too much for circus comedy. They won’t stand for it, in the long run.

  —They seem to be standing for it beautifully.

  —The trouble is with Rindt, mostly. Rindt and a handful of others. Anton Schröll, from the mill out in Greffen, and some Villachers I outbid five or six years back for wood rights. It has nothing to do with the Germans at all, really.

  —They seem to think it does.

  Ryslavy grinned. —They’re particularly popular in the hills, as I think you’ve noticed.

  —Yes. Well, they don’t seem starved for attention down here, either.

  —I’ve said already, Oskar. It’ll pass. Ryslavy cast and reeled the line in slowly. It came snaking around the doorframe, trailing a black-and-turquoise-feathered fly. —It’s just the waiting now that’s killing me.

  —Why don’t you go, Pauli? Voxlauer said quietly.

  Ryslavy looked at him soberly a few moments, then shook his head. —There’s the land, for one thing.

  —To hell with the land. Sell it.

  —You buying?

  —Plenty would. It’s good timber.

  Ryslavy sat for a while running the leader of the line back and forth across the floor, following it with his eyes. Finally he laughed. —Damn it, Oskar. I’ll not sell to those sons of bitches.

  —Others, then.

  He laughed again. —Yes! Other sons of bitches.

  —Others, that’s all. Voxlauer watched the line as it ran in. —You might sell.

  —Not me, said Ryslavy flatly.

  Voxlauer said nothing for a long while, gazing fixedly at something over Ryslavy’s shoulder.

  Finally Ryslavy glanced at him. —What is it, Oskar? he said, raising his eyebrows. —Is there something outside?

  —That rocket ship of yours, said Voxlauer, still looking out the window to where the Daimler stood in a parabola of shade, dark and proud and otherworldly. —Does it take very long to start?

  They drove in a streak out past the canal and through the town gate and down the toll road at the fullest possible throttle between the bending, blurring willow rows. Voxlauer leaned out over the road with his face to the wind and his eyes tearing over and his hair whipping back and forth across his neck, gulping lungfuls of hot, steaming summer air. It tasted of cut green grass and dried cow dung and tar. Ryslavy let out long, stuttering whoops and beat against the hood with the flat of his hand. The shadows of the trees made perfect widening bands on the hood of the Daimler and flashed by in a cinematic flicker of white and black and green, bowing to let them pass. Flocks of starlings exploded upward from the fields and ruts and ditches. The Daimler rifled forward, banking smoothly as a biplane in the sudden dips and bends. At an abandoned mill they skidded sharply off the tar onto the split yellow clay of the Pergau road.

  Leaving the plain the road narrowed and after a few curves the sun fell behind the walls of the valley. The road was wet in places from the past night’s rains and at one curve they were forced to stop and haul a fallen sapling out of the roadway.

  —Barricade us out, will they? Ryslavy bellowed. A few minutes later they passed through Pergau and rolled once, idling, around i
ts empty square.

  —This place is always deserted, said Voxlauer, shaking his head.

  Ryslavy laughed. —Maybe they’ve all gone down to Italy.

  —Or the Ukraine.

  —Bolshevists, the lot of them, said Ryslavy, nodding fatuously. —Greasy Yid-loving homosexual Gypsies. He sniffed. —Where should I drop you?

  —The fishes will be missing me by now, I expect.

  —I very much doubt it, said Ryslavy.

  —Spend much time here, do you? Ryslavy said, kicking a half-empty tin of peas across the floor.

  —Not so very much, said Voxlauer. He looked up from the hunting locker and made an all-encompassing wave. —Sit down wherever you like. My house is your house.

  Ryslavy looked around him aggrievedly. —Smells like piss.

  —Old man’s piss, Pauli. The piss of the ancients. One develops a respect for it after a time.

  —I’d rather not, said Ryslavy. He lowered himself cautiously onto the stove bench. —Do you have any quarterweights? Any decent sinkers?

  —I thought you were using flies.

  —I might do. Conversely, however—

  —I’m looking, said Voxlauer. —A little patience. He brought out a battered lure case. —Have a look in this. Voxlauer brought the case over to the bench and turned to the stove and began to fill it.

  —These’ll do, said Ryslavy a minute or so later, snapping the case shut.

  As he set the kettle to boil, Voxlauer watched him through the porthole struggling up the bank on bowed legs with the tackle box in his left hand and the two reels in his right, gasping for air like a great hairy carp. It seemed to Voxlauer he could make out Ryslavy’s lips quite clearly forming passionate chains of curse words in the dwindling light, fine and lovingly crafted insults sent out in all directions to every living creature. He watched until he disappeared into the first cluster of pines above the bridge, then went back to the little table and sat quietly waiting for the water to boil, exploring the sockets of his missing teeth with the tip of his tongue. After drinking the coffee he went up and found Ryslavy sitting sullenly on his heels with his rod held stiff as a broom handle out over the water. —Too late a start, Ryslavy called out preemptively.

  Voxlauer stretched himself out unconcernedly in the grass. —I thought the later the better, in the afternoons.

  —Yes, but not in June, Oskar. Ryslavy spat into the creek. —Never in June, he said, more tentatively. A moment or two later he prodded a stone into the water with his boot.

  —That ought to rouse ’em.

  Ryslavy dipped the tip of his rod into the current. —Never question my methods, Oskar. Never doubt them.

  Voxlauer propped himself up on his elbows in the grass. —Pauli.

  —Present.

  —Tell me about the old man.

  Ryslavy reeled in and cast again. —He’s dead.

  —And yet his memory somehow lingers.

  Ryslavy snorted. —Try turning out your sheets.

  —You remind me of Maman, Pauli. Have a little mercy.

  Ryslavy played the line out, fixing his eyes on the toes of his boots. He coughed once, cleared his throat and spat again into the water. Voxlauer lay back down and looked up at the sky, waiting for him to begin.

  —He was run out of town, said Ryslavy finally.

  —Why?

  —I couldn’t say.

  —I doubt that very much.

  Ryslavy shrugged. —He was strange. Nobody trusted him. His wife drowned in the middle of winter and they told him to leave town. He’d drunk with us for thirty years, so Papa in his unholy goodness offered him the cottage. He was a drunk, Oskar. A drunk. That’s all. They wanted him out of town, old man Herbst and Papa and the rest of them. So he brought himself up here, and his children with him. On the back of a Burmese elephant for all I know or care.

  —Did you say children?

  —Your lady friend and her cousin.

  —Kurt was with them?

  Ryslavy nodded. —For a while.

  —When was this?

  —Five years after you left. Six. The war had been over about five years.

  Voxlauer was quiet a moment. —Did you know them?

  —No.

  —You must have known them.

  Ryslavy threw the rod angrily against the bank. —Why are you asking me these questions, Oskar? I wish I hadn’t. I wish to hell I didn’t know them now. They hated Papa for throwing table scraps to her ass-scratcher of a father and they hate me too, now, the both of them. Don’t think I don’t know it. Kurt Bauer would murder me if he could. The two of them would, together, and the little girl with them. Christ, Oskar! Why in hell should I tell you anything?

  —I’m sorry, Pauli. I’ve been wondering about them a little, that’s all.

  Ryslavy laughed and said something to himself that Voxlauer didn’t catch.

  —What was that?

  —Look to Kurt Bauer for the answers, I said.

  Voxlauer took a breath. —Kurt and Else are not the same person, Pauli. I don’t need to tell you, of all people, that they knew each other long before any of this had come into anybody’s—

  —He was an illegal already, they’d killed the Chancellor already by the time she got that child, Ryslavy said, spitting the words out. —You ask him about her politics, Oskar. Ask him about her views. Ryslavy let out a sour, tight-voiced laugh. —I should be thanking you, really, Oskar. You’re in such a privileged position to find out what they’re going to do to me.

  —What was that you said about the child? said Voxlauer, his voice wavering slightly.

  It rained that night, hard and even, and in the morning every puddle in the road hid a palm-sized toad floating as still as a leaf in its muddy shallows. Voxlauer knew them well from boyhood summers and knew too that when caught in the hand they showed their bright yellow undersides and bled a dark, poisonous-looking ink from tiny vents along their ribs. —India bottle, he said aloud. He caught one and wrapped it in a kerchief and took it with him in his shirt pocket to the villa.

  As he came into the garden voices carried to him from an open window and he stopped a moment. Else’s voice, Resi’s, and another he didn’t recognize. The dampness of the kerchief in his pocket formed a cool dull crescent against his chest and he could feel the toad gasping and scrabbling through the cloth. He breathed in and went the last few steps up to the screen door and pushed it open.

  —Oh! said Else, looking up and smiling.

  —Good morning, said Voxlauer.

  —Oskar, this is Kurti, Else said, rising.

  The man had been sitting at the table but now he rose as well and turned to Voxlauer, his face in an easy grin.

  —Kurti: Oskar, said Else.

  —A very great pleasure, said the man. He made a little pantomime of clicking his heels together and saluting. Resi laughed.

  His hair was reddish and very thick but his eyes were the same as Else’s, dark and heavy-lidded, and his skin was smooth and brown. He was slight and clean-shaven and looked barely over twenty. —Kurt Freiherr von Bauer, he said, extending a hand.

  —Ach, stop it, Kurti! laughed Else. Her voice sounded brittle. —Please pay him no mind at all, Oskar.

  —Oskar Baron von Voxlauer, said Voxlauer. He took the hand Kurt held out to him and shook it.

  —Pleased to meet Your Grace, said Kurt, his hand firm in Voxlauer’s. —Ouch, Herr Voxlauer! A perfect logger’s handshake. The genuine article.

  —And yet I’ve never logged, said Voxlauer.

  —Show him your teeth, Oskar! Resi whispered.

  —I have something better to show, said Voxlauer, going to the table. He took the kerchief out of his pocket and set it down. The toad struggled under the wetted cloth. Voxlauer undid the kerchief with a flourish.

  —What is it? said Resi, taking a quick step backward. —What is it?

  —An inkpot, said Voxlauer. He flipped the toad over onto its back and stroked its quivering belly with his thumb. Beads of
black sprang up up and down its ribs.

  —Nasty, said Resi, sucking in her breath.

  —I wrote messages with these, in my spying days, said Voxlauer. —The ink dries invisible. You run over its belly with a spoon. He glanced over at Kurt and Else. —Didn’t you ever use them? How did you write down your secrets, the two of you?

  Else laughed. —I’m sure we didn’t have any secrets, Oskar.

  —Of course we did, Kurt said. —We don’t remember them anymore, cousin, that’s all.

  Resi had taken the spoon from Voxlauer’s hand and was holding it cautiously under her nose. —Is it poison?

  —The tears of an enchanted prince, more likely, said Else, puckering her lips.

  —Just the smallest kiss will do, said Voxlauer, holding the scrabbling toad down to her.

  —I’ll never! Resi squealed, ducking behind the table.

  —Very well, then, said Voxlauer. He bowed and stepped to the door. —He’ll have to wait for some more willing maiden, I suppose. Such a pity.

  —We have no sympathy for you, Baron! Kurt called out through the screen.

  —None expected, Voxlauer answered, stepping down the steps, the toad cool and slippery and beginning to struggle again in his hands.

  —Good-bye, inkpot! Resi yelled.

  A few days later Kurt brought Resi on his motorcycle and the four of them walked meanderingly through the pines, stooping low along piles of brush, hunting chanterelles. Here and there on the damp ground a cluster would glimmer through the needles, cool and luminous as a vein of ore, and Resi would run ahead and pull them up and arrange them carefully on the ground in rows. A thin film of oil shimmered along their rims and in the grooves of their undersides and caught the weak light under the trees. Else found the most, letting out a low quick cry and pointing them out to Resi, or stooping down in a patched summer dress wet from the damp ground and the dew. She unscrewed them with a small soft pop and threw them one by one into the sack Voxlauer carried with him, flicking dirt at him solemnly after each toss. Kurt kept far ahead of them, hunched over like an ape, hands wandering down and around the tree trunks as he went. Resi followed close behind, shrieking with happiness. After a time he snatched her up and settled her onto his shoulders and the two of them disappeared into the brush.

  The sound of laughter carried back through the pines and the latticed sun as Voxlauer stood with the half-filled sack, damp and heavy and smelling of moss, waiting for Else to come with another armful from a stand of younger trees. She came out a minute or so later, bent over almost double to pass under the branches, rolling down a fold of her dress to show him the bright heap of chanterelles. Seeing her coming down to him proudly and happily he felt a tightness in his throat that ached and tightened even further as another peal of laughter carried back to them.