The Right Hand of Sleep Read Online Free PDF

clearly formed the model again for all he knew or understood, as it had from his earliest days.
    Sometime past noon he fell asleep on the carpet. When he awoke he found that a blanket had been draped over him and a half-opened snowbell set on a kerchief near his head. Maman’s voice and the voice of another woman carried through the hallway and across the open stairwell.
    —The wages of immodesty.
    —What was it exactly?
    —Liver.
    —Ah. The liver. I see.
    The woman’s voice was high and reedy and cut into his mother’s even tones like a schilling cast into a puddle of water. It seemed familiar to Voxlauer but he made no effort to place it. He listened to them awhile discussing him and his prospects in town as he might have listened to news of a foreign disaster on the radio, or as a child half-asleep listens to the talk of adults at ease and smoking after dinner. He drew the blanket over his head.
    —I never once gave my approval of the “arrangement,” as he called it.
    —What became of the first man?
    —I haven’t the slightest. Liver most likely.
    —Now Dora.
    A brief pause. The sound of tea being poured, and the smell of it. He was still very tired and allowed himself to drift in and out of waking with their talk always liminally addressing him along the seams and the margins of his memory.
    —Like a Bolshevik, with that face of his.
    —Yes. Well, you definitely should shave him before bringing him to anybody.
    —Ach, Irma. As if he’d once let me near him.
    —Well. A silence. —Where will you take him, then?
    —I don’t know. Herbst’s.
    —With that face? In a gasthaus?
    —He’s a good boy for all that. They know our family still, in town, I believe.
    —Of course they do, Dora. There’s nothing to say in that regard.
    —And they remember him, too, some of them.
    Another pause. —Some of them do, yes.
    —Paul Ryslavy does.
    —He’s been away so long, Dora. And with the Russians the whole while.
    —Because of that woman. She cursed quietly. —That turnip picker.
    —Well.
    —What?
    —Well, Dora—
    —It was cancer of the liver, said Voxlauer, stepping in from the stairwell.
    —You’ll never guess who I saw today, Maman said cheerily, reaching past him for the soap brick. —At the elections.
    —Who?
    —Sister Milnitsch. She looked over at him. —Kati.
    —No. Is Kati a Dominikanerin now?
    —These twenty years.
    Voxlauer let out a low whistle. —I must have made quite an impression on her.
    —Ha! Don’t flatter yourself, Oskar.
    —Well. I’m only saying. He wrung out the dish towel and took three chipped Meissen saucers from her. —Let them out now, do they?
    —Only at elections. They drive them down the hill in one of the bishop’s cars. Drive them back up when they’re finished.
    —Kati Milnitsch. I haven’t thought of her in ages.
    —Well, neither have I, Oskar. She looked lovely in a habit. You’d be surprised.
    —No I wouldn’t.
    —All right then. All right. She poured the dishwater slowly from the tin basin into the drain. —You missed something there, though, Oskar! she said.
    Voxlauer set the plates down and made a face. —Maman. I was sixteen years old.
    —I was barely eighteen when your Père and I were married.
    Voxlauer didn’t answer.
    —Oskar?
    —I don’t want to talk about Père.
    She was quiet awhile then, staring down at the plates. —You’re so old, now, Oskar, she said finally. —Who would have you? She paused again. —You were beautiful once. Beautiful. I don’t mind saying so.
    —I’ve already had a wife.
    She took the plates from the counter in front of him and stacked them and took them over to the cupboard and put them in carefully, one after the other. The plates squeaked loudly as she stacked them.
    —I won’t hear a word about her, Maman. He paused a moment, looking at her. —Not a word. I’m warning you now.
    —What can we talk about, then, Oskar? She was quiet for a time. —I haven’t said anything, she said, still