The Right Hand of Sleep (32 page)

—Do you think so?

—No. But it is a thing to see. It’s so very strange.

—Are you still afraid?

—Oh! said Else suddenly, looking past him.

A man in a black field jacket approached the podium with both arms raised. He began to speak into the microphone and his voice seemed to intermingle with its hum, trembling over the massed heads of the crowd and carrying back in waves of half-articulated sound to the platform. The sound spread over the square like an awning, making everything but listening impossible. It kept on and fell back on itself and brightened and became louder and louder. At predetermined points the voice would cease, and the crowd would answer in quick joyous bursts of noise. The speaker would acknowledge the crowd with a brief, careless salute and the Brown Shirts would respond with a deafening chorus of Sieg Heils.

—Blessed Christ, it’s loud, a woman next to Voxlauer said.

Voxlauer didn’t look at her. He was looking at the podium.

—Look! said Else.

—I am, said Voxlauer.

—Look who it is.

—I know. I see him.

On the platform Kurt was smiling now and lifting his arms.

My feelings about the putsch had changed. I was no longer thinking of it in terms of success or failure; I knew now that it could
only end badly. I sat a long while on the bench in the little room,
thinking only about my own skin. The secretary of security made
regular requests for glasses of water, which were just as regularly
ignored by myself and the two other boys on watch. Eventually
Dollfuss sat up in his corner and mumbled a few words in what
might have been Italian. An idea came to me then, or the start of
one, and I stood up from the bench.

Going out the paneled door to the cabinet room, I found Spengler and Ley huddled together at the far end of the table, plotting
away in their very best church whispers. Neither looked up as I
passed. I went to the sideboard and took down the decanter of
brandy and poured out a generous snifter, golden and amber-smelling. Ley and Spengler kept right on with their conference. I
tipped my head back, downed the brandy and filled the glass a second time. The bottle was very old and clouded over and smelled
faintly of cork and mildew. Above the sideboard hung a portrait
of some earlier, more normal-sized head of state flanked by his
thirteen ministers, examining a weighty-looking sheaf of yellow
papers. A muffled, static hum, like the buzzing on a telephone line,
rose out of the radio. I stood at the cabinet a moment longer, trying to make out what Ley and Spengler were whispering, then put
the bottle down and walked back to the table over the thick-loomed Persian carpet. “Our man’s come to,” I announced in my
shrillest, most military tone of voice.

Spengler glanced up at me. “Has he? Well, Herr Minister! Let’s
go have a look!”

The two of them stood up from the table, overflowing with
mutual goodwill. I pointed at the minister. “Pardon my curiosity,
Heinrich, but shouldn’t this one be in the dunce’s corner, with the
other dunces?”

Spengler took a deep breath, mustered his resources and
smiled the most patronizing smile he was capable of. Even I was
surprised by its effectiveness. “No no, Bauer. Herr Ley is our new
minister of war.”

Ley stepped out from behind Spengler and patted me on the
shoulder. “With all due regard, Obersturmführer, you might learn
to treat your representatives in government with a slight bit more
civility. After you, my commandant!” he said, turning again to
Spengler. It was all I could do to avoid being ill.

“Come on out, boys!” Spengler called, opening the door. The
two boys I’d left on guard came out, looking at us questioningly.
Little Ernst and some others came in at the same time from the
anteroom, sensing that something was about to happen. Ley
went in to Dollfuss first and I made a move to follow but Spengler
held me back. “We won’t be needing you just now, Bauer,” he said
softly.

“What won’t you be needing me for, Heinrich?” I asked.
Spengler only blinked and pulled the little door firmly closed
behind him.

After a few seconds Ley’s voice sounded dimly through the
paneling. I listened for a while with my ear pressed to the keyhole,
all thought of saving face with the rest of the boys abandoned,
then glanced back to where they stood in a loose half-circle, watching me. After a moment or two Little Ernst stepped over. “Ley’s
bought himself in right neatly, hasn’t he?”

“He’s bought himself time, that’s all. Take a look downstairs,
will you, Ernst? And take all these Bolshevists here with you. Go
on,” I said, pointing at the other boys, who were watching us even
more intently now.

Ernst clicked his tongue against his teeth for a few seconds, not
answering. “As you say, Obersturmführer,” he said thoughtfully
after a moment. Something in his tone had changed, and I watched
this change register, slowly but surely, with the others. I pretended
not to notice and slapped Ernst cheerfully on the back as he went
out. They know something’s gone wrong, or is going wrong now, I
thought. As soon as I was alone I crossed the room and poured
myself another snifter.

Standing under the portrait sipping at my brandy, I tried again
to think. Could this have been the way Glass wanted it? That seemed
suddenly very likely. I forgot Spengler and Dollfuss and Ley and
the rest of it and imagined Glass reclining that very moment on his
couch by the teletype, sleepy and content, or speeding away in his
apple-green Horch convertible, a present from the Reichsführer-SS
himself, through the flat wheat and fir-covered hills to the border.

One week later, as Voxlauer was working in the villa’s garden, the sound of Kurt’s motorcycle carried up to him. He stood slowly and leaned his shovel against the fence and looked at Else through the parlor window. She motioned to him to come, made another gesture he wasn’t able to decipher, then stepped away from the glass. Voxlauer swung open the low gate and stood for perhaps half a minute in the house’s shadow, leaning against the cool dark wall and looking down at his hands. By the time the sound drew even with the house and stopped he was breathing quietly. —Hello, Kurt, he said, stepping around the house into the sunlight.

—Sieg Heil, Oskar! said Kurt, giving Voxlauer a mock salute. —Is Her Ladyship receiving visitors? I have no appointment.

—I wouldn’t presume to say.

—Here I am, said Else, coming to the door.

The three of them stood silently for a few moments, Voxlauer and Kurt at the edge of the drive, Else on the steps. —Might I come inside? Kurt said finally.

Else reached for the door handle, then stopped. —Where are you going, Oskar?

—I thought I might take a walk.

—I’d rather you stayed. Or let us come with you.

—Let the man go, for heaven’s sake, said Kurt.

—I’d like to come, Else said. —Would you mind very much?

Kurt kept his eyes on the ground.

—No, said Voxlauer, slowly. —I suppose I wouldn’t mind.

Else came down the steps, much relieved, and took them both by the arm, letting the screen door slam shut behind her. —Where shall we go?

—The ponds? Kurt offered.

—I’d thought possibly the Kugel-tree, said Voxlauer.

Else clapped her hands together. —Yes! The Kugel-tree, Kurti. We’ve never been there yet, the three of us.

—I’ve never been at all, that I can remember.

Else began walking. Kurt waved Voxlauer past him. —After you, Voxlauer. I have the cavalry in my saddlebags. A little malted hops.

—Courtesy of the Niessener Hof?

—Now, Oskar! Kurt said, waggling a finger. —I was dedicating a football green in Treibach on the evening in question. No court of my peers would convict me.

—I’m sure of that.

—Don’t be angry with me, Oskar. Please. I brought Ischinger’s this time, still cold from Rindt’s greasy icebox. Kurt brought out the bottles. —What’s more, I didn’t pay him for it.

—Well, in that case, said Voxlauer. —I’ll go find a place for them inside, away from the beasts of the field.

The light was just leaving the top of the ridge when they reached the tree, a perfect globe of evergreen suspended above the yellow rock and the slope of woods falling away to the south and west. Voxlauer had caught up with them halfway to the ridge and Else had noticed the smell of beer on his breath but had said nothing. Now they stood looking down into the valley, the three of them side by side, catching their breath. Peach-colored bands of sunlight drew softly down into the pines. —What a funny old shrub, Kurt said, squinting up at it.

—Don’t make light of the Kugel-tree, Kurti.

—I’m only saying, Liesi. It looks like a jelly bean.

—Or a Reichs-German, in profile, murmured Voxlauer.

Kurt let out a deep sigh. —For all our sakes, cousin-in-law, I prefer to leave my ideology in town.

—Is that where you’ve left it?

A silence followed. —Papa did bring us here once, said Else after a time. —Do you really not remember?

Kurt let out a snort. —He never. He’d have burst half his blood vessels.

—This was before, Kurti. He took us with him everywhere.

—The only place he ever took me was the Niessener Hof. But he took me there very regularly.

—Don’t be an ass. You’re
trying
not to remember.

—Stowed me away, first thing, in some piss-smelling corner. Sat and guzzled and messed himself for days on end.

—Well, Kurti. That’s family, said Else, leaning back against the tree. —Our family, at least.

—Yes. Our family, said Kurt, looking at her.

—You forgot Resi, said Voxlauer.

—What?

—To bring her.

—Oskar, Kurt said patiently. —I see Resi nearly every day.

—I don’t, said Else.

—Yes. Of course. I’m sorry, Liesi.

She looked away. —That’s all right. Just bring her along next time.

—Of course, said Kurt. He shaded his eyes.

—That is, if you’re not too busy preserving law and order, said Voxlauer.

—Oskar! said Else.

—I’m only saying. That would keep a person busy, I’d think. What with accidents and fires and so on. He paused a moment. —Does it?

Kurt let out a sigh. —Does it what, Oskar?

—Does it keep you very busy?

Else was looking at him now with a mixture of sadness and alarm. Kurt took a very long time to answer. Up between the trees, falteringly at first but then steadily louder, came the low clattering rumble of a truck. —I have no need of starting any fires, Voxlauer, Kurt said.

—Or of putting any out, either, I suppose, said Voxlauer, feeling his hands balling in spite of themselves into fists, his arms stiffening at his sides. He kept still, waiting for the feeling to pass, feeling the alcohol in his arms and shoulders, waiting as he always did for nothing to begin happening again. Then, as always, the feeling faded as quickly as it came. His arms relaxed.

The noise of another truck carried up to them, and another. —Where could all those trucks be going? said Else.

—God knows, said Voxlauer. He tilted his head back to look at the sky, then let his eyes move down slowly to take in the two of them, leaning shoulder to shoulder against the mottled trunk. In the failing light, with their deep-set dark eyes and soft, childlike faces, they looked as alike as two cameos in a locket. Kurt was smiling at him oddly. —You mean you haven’t heard the news? Neither of you?

—What news? said Voxlauer.

—Ryslavy’s sold his trees.

Voxlauer looked at Kurt a long moment in silence. —Say that again, he said.

—I think you heard me, Oskar, Kurt said, turning to Else. —Ryslavy—he began, and was about to go on when Voxlauer stepped forward and shoved him hard into the tree so the back of his head made a sharp, percussive crack like the popping of a firecracker against the wood and he let out a groan and toppled over.

—
Oskar!
Else shrieked. Voxlauer gripped Kurt’s head by the hair and tilted his ashen face back and screamed into it. He himself could not make out what he was screaming but he saw the face receding further into its ashenness and that was enough. It was enough that the noise was coming from him and that he, Kurt, was suffering under it. The world all around them both had grown pale and dull and slowly he himself became detached from the noise and dull and colorless like everything else and then suddenly very calm. After a time he became aware of Else’s hand on his shoulder.

—Let it be, Oskar, she was saying, almost tenderly. She took hold of him firmly by his shirtsleeves and he allowed himself to be pulled back from Kurt, who was now lying against the base of the tree. He let her sit him down and watched as she stood and looked down at him an instant longer, holding her breath and knitting her face together as though he were something entirely new to her now and strange. —Kurt, he heard her saying a moment later, crouching not before him any longer but alongside Kurt’s legs, shaking them carefully and calling out a name:—Kurt.

—Let’s lay him out on the grass, said Voxlauer. Else looked up at him again with that same look, not disgusted so much as curious, as though he’d transformed before her eyes into a rare species of tropical bird. —All right, she said after a moment. Voxlauer knelt beside her. They spread Kurt out with his jacket folded under his head and wiped the blood from his nose with a kerchief. He sputtered and coughed. —Voxlauer, he said effortfully after a time.