stepped inside and slid the door shut behind him on the blossoming cold.
The room Voxlauer had entered was damp and low-ceilinged and bent at its middle around a crockery stove. A narrow bench ran along the stove and he set his pack on it and fumbled in the dark after matches. He found a kerosene lantern and turned it on its side until he could smell the gas, then struck a match and righted the lantern and surveyed the cottage by its light.
To the left of the stove under a deep, ventlike window a table had been propped against the buckling wall. A chair lay beside it, thrown back onto the floor as though stood up from hurriedly. A hunting locker stood open in a corner. The crick of the room formed an alcove of sorts, hidden from his sight, and crossing to it he found a packed straw pallet bearing the imprint of a small, huddled body, like a thumbmark in tallow. A film of silver hair lined the topmost depression. The heaped woolen blankets reeked cloyingly of urine and he pulled them from the bed and went to the locker and stuffed them inside. The blankets, too, were covered in hair, short and stiff as a terrier’s.
With great effort he managed to pull the mattress from its wooden bedframe and taking a poker from the floor he began to beat the shape out of the canvas in a flurry of straw, hair and dust. The old man looked to have been very slight, from the width of the silhouette, and crook-backed. Voxlauer pictured him there asleep, drawn in under the blankets, the steady rasp of his breathing filling the little room. I’ll be like that soon, he thought. But my hair will be white. Père’s was near to it when I left. He remembered a letter to the front, the last from both of them: Maman is getting shrewish. She’s frowning at me, but it’s so. We’re both gone senile with worry. Can it be true things on the lines are as desperate as you say? This pains me very badly. The feelings you mention are understandable but you must never doubt in the eventual victory of Franz Josef our Kaiser. To disbelieve this is a terrible thing Oskar and you must not do it. The Germans started this godawful war in their pride and their death-mysticism but by Christ we will end it for them. I wish above all else I could sit with you in your tunnels but I know you are not a coward and will do your duty come what may and return to us quickly. I miss you My Heart more than I can say. Please send only the best news for a time as I don’t think I can bear the other. That was all. And, later, in her hand: Keep your head low in the trenches. Irma’s Leo was killed last Saturday north of Udine lighting a cigarette. Père is feeling braver. Je t’aime, mon petit soldat! Maman.
He went to the door and opened it and stood for a moment, breathing in the cold air, then propped it open and returned to the alcove. He sat for a while on the frame in the half-darkness, muttering to himself.
He felt worn and brittle, far older than his years. Older than Père had ever been. He sat without moving for a while. —Not quite, Oskar, he said aloud, leaning forward into the quiet. —A few years yet, for that. He looked carefully around the room. I won’t make those mistakes, he thought. No children. No wife. I could do it now and not trouble anybody.
Except Maman, he thought suddenly. Except her. He pictured her then as he had when he’d first gotten her hysterical sheet of scribble twenty years before: dressed in unbrushed black silks and veil with the pale sky above her, not listening to the apologetic sparrow-voiced peeping of the priest, all of Niessen crowding in behind, staring down at the long hole cut into the grass. Was that what she was expecting now? He breathed in effortfully and thought of Anna. She had wondered about him, expected it for a time, after he’d told her about Père.
In a way I have done it already, he thought. Not like Père, but worse: I have done it twice. Taken myself away. Again the crumpled and snow-sodden letter appeared
The room Voxlauer had entered was damp and low-ceilinged and bent at its middle around a crockery stove. A narrow bench ran along the stove and he set his pack on it and fumbled in the dark after matches. He found a kerosene lantern and turned it on its side until he could smell the gas, then struck a match and righted the lantern and surveyed the cottage by its light.
To the left of the stove under a deep, ventlike window a table had been propped against the buckling wall. A chair lay beside it, thrown back onto the floor as though stood up from hurriedly. A hunting locker stood open in a corner. The crick of the room formed an alcove of sorts, hidden from his sight, and crossing to it he found a packed straw pallet bearing the imprint of a small, huddled body, like a thumbmark in tallow. A film of silver hair lined the topmost depression. The heaped woolen blankets reeked cloyingly of urine and he pulled them from the bed and went to the locker and stuffed them inside. The blankets, too, were covered in hair, short and stiff as a terrier’s.
With great effort he managed to pull the mattress from its wooden bedframe and taking a poker from the floor he began to beat the shape out of the canvas in a flurry of straw, hair and dust. The old man looked to have been very slight, from the width of the silhouette, and crook-backed. Voxlauer pictured him there asleep, drawn in under the blankets, the steady rasp of his breathing filling the little room. I’ll be like that soon, he thought. But my hair will be white. Père’s was near to it when I left. He remembered a letter to the front, the last from both of them: Maman is getting shrewish. She’s frowning at me, but it’s so. We’re both gone senile with worry. Can it be true things on the lines are as desperate as you say? This pains me very badly. The feelings you mention are understandable but you must never doubt in the eventual victory of Franz Josef our Kaiser. To disbelieve this is a terrible thing Oskar and you must not do it. The Germans started this godawful war in their pride and their death-mysticism but by Christ we will end it for them. I wish above all else I could sit with you in your tunnels but I know you are not a coward and will do your duty come what may and return to us quickly. I miss you My Heart more than I can say. Please send only the best news for a time as I don’t think I can bear the other. That was all. And, later, in her hand: Keep your head low in the trenches. Irma’s Leo was killed last Saturday north of Udine lighting a cigarette. Père is feeling braver. Je t’aime, mon petit soldat! Maman.
He went to the door and opened it and stood for a moment, breathing in the cold air, then propped it open and returned to the alcove. He sat for a while on the frame in the half-darkness, muttering to himself.
He felt worn and brittle, far older than his years. Older than Père had ever been. He sat without moving for a while. —Not quite, Oskar, he said aloud, leaning forward into the quiet. —A few years yet, for that. He looked carefully around the room. I won’t make those mistakes, he thought. No children. No wife. I could do it now and not trouble anybody.
Except Maman, he thought suddenly. Except her. He pictured her then as he had when he’d first gotten her hysterical sheet of scribble twenty years before: dressed in unbrushed black silks and veil with the pale sky above her, not listening to the apologetic sparrow-voiced peeping of the priest, all of Niessen crowding in behind, staring down at the long hole cut into the grass. Was that what she was expecting now? He breathed in effortfully and thought of Anna. She had wondered about him, expected it for a time, after he’d told her about Père.
In a way I have done it already, he thought. Not like Père, but worse: I have done it twice. Taken myself away. Again the crumpled and snow-sodden letter appeared
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