The Listener Read Online Free PDF Page A

with his face to the wall. “You’re as conventional as your mother,” he said. And then, a little later, “Leila, come over here and you’ll feel better.”
    She went to him at once and he spread the blanket over the two of them. It was dark in the hall, but the light from the next room surrounded them, bluish fluorescent light like a hospital ward.
    “Ralf?” said Leila.
    “Yes.”
    “What did you mean when you said that we never do anything important together?”
    “Nothing much. What I said. We never do anything important, we just get together. Nothing that matters.”
    “And why does this matter? I think it’s nasty.”
    “I don’t know,” Ralf said. “I thought it was a good thing, and I wanted you along. Now I’m not so sure. Let’s try to sleep.”
    “I can’t sleep.” She put her arm around him and whispered, “Maybe you mean that it was a comfort for you to have me along.”
    “Nonsense,” Ralf said. “What do you mean, ‘comfort’?”
    She pulled her arm back and sat up and said, “Anyway, I was the one who thought of getting him a bowl!”
    The man in the next room called out in his sleep, a long cry, as if from a person sinking, lost and distant. They jumped to their feet and grabbed hold of each other.
    “Now he’s dying!” Leila screamed. “Do something!”
    The boy pushed her away and walked stiffly into the room and looked at the man. He had turned and rolled in towards the wall. One hand was pounding the floor, over and over, and now he cried out again, a long, wailing cry. Leila had come into the room and stood by the door listening.
    “Go back and lie down,” Ralf said. “He’s just dreaming.”
    Her face was worried. She came further into the room and said, “He’s scared. He’s awfully unhappy.” She sat down on her heels beside the sleeping man and tried to look into his face. “It’s going to be all right,” she said to him. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
    The man turned in his sleep and his hand touched hers. Suddenly he took hold of it and held it tight.
    “Leila!” the boy burst out.
    “Quiet. Be completely quiet,” she whispered. “He’ll go back to sleep.”
    The man on the floor held her hand. He stopped moaning and turned his face away.
    “See?” she said. “I’m holding his hand.”
    Gradually his grip relaxed and his hand opened. She stood up and looked at Ralf, made a tiny gesture, a command. He lifted the sleeping man’s head and laidit carefully on the cushion, shifted the bowl closer, and spread the blanket to cover him.
    “And some water,” Leila said.
    Ralf went after a glass of water and put it on the floor. It was almost 4.30. They lay down next to each other on the front hall floor and listened to the silence in the unfamiliar building.
    “He’s scared,” Leila explained. “He’s terribly scared.”
    The boy put his arms around her.
    “Wake me early,” she said. “We’ve got to find the coffee.”

Black-White
    Homage to Edward Gorey
    H IS WIFE’S NAME WAS S TELLA , and she was an interior designer – Stella, his beautiful star. Sometimes he tried to sketch her face, which was always at rest, open and accessible, but he never succeeded. Her hands were white and strong and she wore no rings. She worked quickly and without hesitation.
    They lived in a house that Stella had designed, an enormous openwork of glass and unpainted wood. The heavy planking had been chosen for its unusually attractive grain and fastened with large brass screws. There were no unnecessary objects to hide the structural materials. When dusk entered their rooms, it was met with low, veiled lighting, while the glass walls reflected the night but held it at a distance. They stepped out onto the terrace, and hidden spotlights came on in the bushes. The darkness crept away, and they stood side by side, throwing no shadows, and he thought, This is perfect. Nothing can change.
    She never flirted. She looked straight at the person she was