The Right Hand of Sleep (43 page)

Else sat down by the bed and leaned over. Kurt said something too quietly for Voxlauer to hear. Else took Kurt’s hand in hers and held it, whispering. As she whispered to him his body arched suddenly and he began groaning and sputtering, kicking angrily at the sheets and twisting his head from side to side. —Oskar! Else cried. Voxlauer came quickly and together they lifted Kurt and turned him over. The blood had already begun to pool in his mouth and he leaned his head down slackly and let it dribble out through his teeth. —I’ll get the pan, said Voxlauer, running to the kitchen.

In the kitchen he cast about a moment for the pan before finding it. When he came back down into the bedroom Kurt had quieted and was breathing in even, steady gasps. His face glowed sallowly in the light coming through the shutters. Else sat motionless at the foot of the bed, staring dumbly ahead of her. Her hand lay on Kurt’s forearm. Kurt was looking at Voxlauer. He took his arm from Else’s and beckoned to him. —Voxlauer, he mouthed silently.

Voxlauer came and crouched by the bed.

—There you are, Voxlauer. The whites of Kurt’s eyes shone against his yellow face. His left eye socket was running and bruised and the ball had begun to darken around its edges. He let out a sigh.

—What is it? Else said, taking hold of his arm again.

Kurt’s eyes wandered up to hers. —Go away a minute, Liesi.

Else hesitated, opening her mouth to speak, then stood without a word and left. Kurt’s eyes were wide and luminous as he watched her. He turned them back slowly, unwillingly, to rest on Voxlauer.

—The time’s come for me to tell you my regrets, cousin-in-law. Kurt motioned to the stool.

The sound of Else taking dishes from the cupboard carried from the kitchen. —I’m not interested in your regrets, Kurt, he said.

Kurt attempted another laugh, a raw, hacking croak that collapsed on itself immediately. —I don’t believe you, he wheezed.

—That’s your privilege, said Voxlauer, getting to his feet.

—Two of your friends from the colony are dead.

Voxlauer stopped short, staring at the shutters.

—That’s better. Kurt took a breath. —Now sit quietly a minute.

—Else! Voxlauer called.

—No! Don’t call her! Listen to me, Voxlauer! I don’t want her.
Voxlauer!

—Else! Voxlauer called again. He saw her silhouette now through the slats of the shutters, bending over something in the garden.

—Keep her away from me, Voxlauer, Kurt gasped. Voxlauer looked down at him straining desperately to meet his eyes, baring his teeth from the pain and effort of holding himself up. Just like one of my fits, Voxlauer thought, watching the blood rushing to Kurt’s face. He felt no pity or concern, only a remote, sterile curiosity at the tenacity of the life still animating the body propped tremblingly before him. Something in the abjectness of Kurt’s features or in his own faraway state of mind made him think of the soldier he’d killed long ago in the Isonzo. Decades later, near the end of his own life, he would think of those two moments, standing over the deserter in the snow with the military police on all sides, and crouching at the foot of the bed as Kurt suffered through his last few conscious breaths, as connected by a wire that ran through all the moments in between, fixing them in precise order, like glass beads on a string. He waited another drawn-out, deliberate moment before speaking.

—All right, Kurt. Lie back now. I’ll listen.

—I’m dying, Kurt said feebly, falling back onto the sheets like a wooden effigy.

Voxlauer said nothing. The screen door banged as Else came back inside.

—Go now, Kurt murmured, his eyes losing focus.

Voxlauer stepped away. Kurt’s eyes had closed and his forehead was beaded over with sweat. —Voxlauer! he said loudly as Voxlauer was halfway across the room.

—Yes, Kurt? said Voxlauer, coming back to the bed. But Kurt turned his head and waved him impatiently away.

Two days later they woke to find his body crumpled like a sheet of paper, thighs drawn in against the wound in his chest, head turned into the bed, one arm drawn in and one flung wide over the sweat-and blood-soaked bedcovers. Voxlauer reached out a hand and passed it over the blanched, ungiving skin, cool and mottled over with tiny blots. He bent down and with a great effort straightened the tucked and stiffened legs and pulled the sheets over them. Else hung back by the kitchen steps. A warm breeze carried through the open windows, moving the hair on the back of Kurt’s head lightly, ruffling it and smoothing it down again exactly as it would the hair on a living body. Voxlauer bent over the bed and took in a breath but smelled only the faint scent of sweat and the morning damp. Then he stepped away from the body and went past Else up the kitchen steps and out of the house.

Thin wisps of cloud were massing into a palisade above the cliffs and he stood just outside the doorway, watching them. In Pergau the green copper steeple caught the first tentative rays of light and held them fast. A high bending file of rooks rose from it like a standard, thinning as he watched into a fine, dark thread. After a while Else came out and sat next to him on the steps. They sat wordlessly, looking across the valley. Nothing in her face or in her way of sitting beside him would have led anyone to believe that she was suffering. A short time later she stood and went back inside.

That afternoon as they were wrapping Kurt’s body in the bedding Else straightened suddenly, frowning, and went to the window. —Someone’s coming up the drive, she whispered.

—Who is it?

She turned to him, furious, a finger pressed against her lips. —Shut your mouth!

He said nothing for a moment, standing transfixed by the bed, a corner of the bedsheet still in his hands. —Do you want me to go look?

She shook her head. —I’ll go. You stay down here. And keep quiet, Oskar, for God’s sake.

She crossed the floor silently and ran up the kitchen steps. The screen door squeaked as she leaned against it.

—It’s the Holzer boys, she called down a moment later.

Voxlauer sucked in his breath.

—Wait—the mother’s with them. Come up here, Oskar. Have a look.

He climbed the kitchen steps haltingly and stood well behind her in the doorway. The sons had stopped a few paces from the house and stood on either side of their mother, sullen-faced and restless.

—Evening, Fräulein Bauer, Frau Holzer said, curtsying. The sons nicked their heads.

—Evening to you, Else said. —What do you want?

—We’d like to see him, if you please, said the long-haired son. —The Obersturmführer.

—He’s dead.

—Yes, Fräulein. We’d like to see him.

—My cousin is to have a full state service at the Niessener Dom. There’ll be more than enough opportunity to see him then.

—I can’t spare my boys for any sort of services, Frau Holzer said deferentially, keeping her eyes at the level of Else’s hips. —There’s a frightful amount of work to be done, and I’m precious little good alone. She paused a brief instant, fingering the sides of her dress as if debating whether to curtsy again, still unwilling to raise her eyes. —If there were any possibility, Fräulein, any at all, we’d take it as a kindness. I’ll speak for their behavior, if that’s any worry, she added, glancing furtively at Voxlauer.

Else looked back at him and raised her eyebrows. The sons were looking at him as well, staring at him out of their wide-set eyes, whether threateningly or plaintively he neither knew nor cared. He wondered very briefly at his sudden equanimity.

—For all I care, he said, turning back into the house.

—All right, said Else. —Come in, then, the three of you. We’re just getting him ready to be taken to town.

Frau Holzer nodded gratefully, already coming up the steps. —Thank you kindly, Fräulein. If I can be of any help at all, I’ve tended to a fair number of the departed—

—We were nearly done, thank you, said Else, holding the screen door open to them.

Voxlauer leaned back against the counter as they passed down into the bedroom, much as he’d done when the doctor and the SS man had visited three days previous, and waited for them to be gone again. How things would change now that Kurt was dead he had no idea, but to pass the time he forced himself to think about what might happen. We’ll find out now if he was keeping us safe, the way he claimed, he thought. Keeping
me
safe, he corrected himself. That Else was out of danger, the widow of a great man, had been clear already in the way the doctor and the SS officer had spoken to her. She can live like my mother lived now, if she chooses, thought Voxlauer, smiling a little to himself.

It’s a good thing he’s dead, though, he thought. That’s certain. Anything might have happened if he’d lived.

A few minutes later they were out on the steps with the afternoon light all around them. At the bottommost step Frau Holzer paused, fidgeting again with the hem of her dress.

—Thank you kindly, Fräulein. She hesitated a moment further, beaming up at Else, her face creased into a bright motherly bundle of goodwill. —And you, Herr Voxlauer? she said, leaning to one side of Else to catch his eye. —Won’t you be coming up again for milk?

—Not blessed likely, said Voxlauer, looking at the sons.

—Yes. Well, she said quietly, stepping down.

The sons were already at the head of the drive, dragging their feet impatiently in the dirt. —Good evening, said Else, pulling the screen door closed.

—Good evening, Frau Holzer said, treading carefully on the grass. —Good evening, she said again, suddenly much aged, her sons loping ahead of her along the ditch. At the first bend of the drive they waited, feral again with the dense woods behind them, looking warily back at the villa and the shut screen door. As their mother drew even with them they straightened somewhat and fell in behind her. A moment later they vanished, all three of them, into the top-lit green.

That night Else and Voxlauer climbed to the ridge with the starlight stuttering down through the pines and lines of resin shining wetly on each trunk like ropes of pearls. A mist rose up from the valley floor, sloughing off under the cliffs. At the foot of the Kugel-tree they spread out the old army coat that had once been Anna’s husband’s and sat wrapped in it, shivering against each other, looking down toward town and passing a tin cup of Birnenschnapps between them. Heat lightning flickered far away to the south, over the Dolomites and the plain of Italy and the sea. Now and again the town bells thudded, four soft fluid peals followed by deeper tolls to mark the hour. The old tree’s limbs cracked and murmured. They passed the schnapps carefully back and forth until it was gone. A few minutes later, Else said:

—I think they did it.

Voxlauer looked sideways at her profile, blurred, close to his eyes. —Who?

—They. Them. Pauli and his daughter.

Voxlauer turned his face away from her. The wind was building in the south and the sounds from the tree above them grew steadily louder. He thought about Pauli on the day he left, his strangeness, his recklessness and the overloaded car. He thought about the premonition that had come to him so suddenly in the reliquary, the look on Kurt’s face as he leaned across the pew and the decision he’d made, keeping his decision hidden even to himself, walking down to the villa afterward. Finally he said: —Pauli may have. Emelia wasn’t in the car. Remember?

Else looked at him a moment in confusion. Then all at once she understood and said:—Ach! That isn’t what I meant at all. I meant
did it.
Got away. She craned her neck upward and kissed him, breath sweet and resinous from the schnapps.

—Oh, said Voxlauer.

She turned her head again to look down the slope. —They’ll hang it on Pauli, though, won’t they? Of course they will. Because he’s gone.

—Maybe they’re right to hang it on him.

—Yes. Maybe, Else said. She rearranged the coat around her. —It doesn’t matter now.

—I knew it would happen, Else. With Kurt that last time. In the chapel.

—What?

—That Kurt would die. I saw it plain as day.

—Don’t talk that way, Oskar. What good is talk like that?

—I only felt that I should tell you. He was quiet a moment. —I wanted it to happen.

—Enough! she said fiercely, pulling at his beard. —Enough of that kind of nonsense. I won’t stand for any more of it. Her fingers closed tightly against his jaw. —Promise me now. Not another word.

—All right, said Voxlauer. —All right! Jesus!

They leaned back again and watched the weather coming. —What will we do now? said Else quietly.

—I haven’t the faintest idea, said Voxlauer, taking the cup from her. Else said nothing.

—Else?

—Present.

—What do you recommend?

She sighed. —We’ll behave. Both of us. She leaned away and turned to look at him. —We’ll leave them all to wallow in it, won’t we.

Voxlauer didn’t answer.

—Oskar?

—I’m drunk, said Voxlauer. He took a breath. —Yes, we’ll leave them, he said, shivering a little. —We’ll leave them to it.

Else said nothing then but moved closer to him, drawing the coat up by its corners. A damp cold was mustering along the ground and he could see her breath wisping upward against the dark like smoke from a tiny shuttered house. He looked for his own breath, craning his neck back against the trunk of the tree till he could see it. A blue cloud had formed where the lightning had been and spread slowly now across the whole of the sky. The air grew heavy with electricity. They sat a long time on the ridge, drifting toward sleep, gathering the coat around them. They knew the war was coming but it didn’t matter.