Brother of Sleep: A Novel Read online

  But blast it, he must talk to him today, Seff said furiously to himself, seeing his son in this miserable state. Today, he would frankly beg his forgiveness for the crime he had committed long ago against Roman Lamparter. He finally had the courage to do this. Yes, he would even kneel before him, if the boy demanded it. He must tell him that he was not a real murderer. Nulf, his brother, had egged him on to burn the Lam­parter alive. He must understand: that night the family had stood by the embers of their farm, by the abyss. He must understand that. He wasn’t a real murderer.… Seff threw his hand to his brow and pressed three fingers against his temples. If only that terrible laughter would stop in his brain. That terrible laughter.

  “The black ‘un’s calved,” he said heavily. His Adam’s apple rose; his fleshy lips barely moved. “Yes­terday, after rosary.”

  Elias stayed motionless and stared at the curved boards of the ceiling.

  “People have been talking. Because of the organ playing today. Are you ill?” said Seff after a long pause. His eyes slid down the skinny, cadaverous body. “Eat! They’re hot,” he encouraged his son.

  Elias leaned his head to one side; he did not want to eat. Seff saw his staring eyes suddenly grow watery, and when he saw a silent tear running down it was hard for him to suppress the water in his own eyes. How could anyone suffer so for the sake of a woman? thought Seff. It was not good for a man to let himself go like that. Elias had been lying in bed for four days now, in this airless tomb, refusing to eat, neglecting the school–and all because of that Elsbeth. “Blast it, a man is strong!” He suddenly cursed out loud, and because he could no longer look at his son weeping away before him, he tried to comfort him with a little white lie.

  “Elsbeth says to get well soon,” he said, with an almost tenderly warm voice. He saw Elias’s eyelids close at the word Elsbeth, as if a doctor had given him the medicine he had needed for so long.

  “Is that true?” asked Elias in a clogged voice, cleared his throat for a long time, for he had not spoken a word for four days. “She told me to get well soon,” he repeated, and his features began to calm down. The medicine was beginning to work.

  Seff smiled and went on lying to the sick man in unwieldy words. Elsbeth had been sad that the organist had been away. During mass she had been constantly craning her neck toward the organ loft, she had sat uneasily in the pew, she had flicked impatiently at her missal and shown no reverence. She had looked disappointed, as many people had looked disappointed. For without his excellent organ playing the church had been cold and desolate.

  While Seff spoke, Elias sat up in bed, plumped his pillow, squeezed it behind his head, and leaned into it, and the dry leaves in the pillow crackled agreeably. After Seff had finished, there was another long silence in the room. But Seff noticed that the spark of folly had vanished from the sick man’s eye. Taking enormously arduous detours, Seff revealed all the things that had plagued him for years. The father confessed to the son. For the first time they were talking to each other. After Seff had finished, the silence lasted more than a quarter of an hour. While they were sitting in silence, a memory arose from Elias’s childhood: Had he not taken his father’s stable hat at some point and, on nights when sleep was difficult, smelled the cold sweat, the hair, the smell of the cattle until he was comforted?

  Then they looked each other straight in the eye. Seff felt that Elias had forgiven him. His heart was jubilant, and he knew that the crippling headaches would now come to an end. Since that Laetare Sunday, the quiet light of hope radiated from Seff’s eyes. The time of walking past each other was over. The time of peace had come.

  Now Seff could work happily again, for the piercing headaches actually did go away. And the laughter seemed to grow quieter, as if the dead man had finally found rest. From then on Seff nurtured the idea of renovating and extending the farm. In spring he would go to the cattle market in Hohenberg and buy two bullocks and a cow. The barn would need to be rearranged, and the pigsty would need to be enlarged, for besides the cattle he would buy two pregnant sows. In the pasture by the house he would need to plant some apple trees and pear trees, a lucrative business for the future. They could sell some cider to Martini, in Dorn­berg; the city dwellers, everybody said, paid good prices.…

  Some weeks later, when the spring of 1825 had arrived, Seff Alder disappeared. The last thing Seff’s wife could say of his whereabouts was his vague remark that he had gone into the young forest to wash the little pine trees. The peasants extended their search and crossed the forest in all directions down to Götzberg. But Seff Alder was not to be found. When they had still not found him on the fourth day of their search, the people of Eschberg assembled eight groups of two men, who were systematically to comb the region from the Kugelberg to the beginning of the valley. That same afternoon, Philipp was playing with his kitten in the meadow, to the east of the Alder farm. The kitten set off in pursuit of a slowworm that was streaking toward the woodshed. It crept into the shed through a rotten plank. That was where the Mongoloid child found his father. He was leaning against the wood block, fallen in on himself; the right-hand corner of his mouth hung loosely down, spittle was running from it, his right shoulder drooped, his right hand was blue and motion­less. But in his eyes the peaceful light of hope still gleamed. Philipp danced around his father, uttering sounds and cries of joy, laughed, and tried to play with him. Fritz, the oldest son, who was about to join the search party with Lukas Alder, came and held his father. Seff had had a stroke. At the age of forty-eight, he remained paralyzed down one side of his body until the end of his life. Fritz, not a single word from whom has been passed down to us, said nothing now either.

  Hope of any kind is meaningless. Let no one succumb to the notion of wishing his dreams reality. One should, on the contrary, realize the vanity of one’s hopes. Having understood this, one may go on hoping. When one can still dream, life has a meaning.

  In Elsbeth’s eyes, too, there now gleamed a quiet light of hope. She had passed her seventeenth birthday and was happy and content as she had never been in her life. During this time she began embroidering on dam­ask and soon discovered her great skill. First she worked for nothing and gave away her cloths and covers. Then Peter made her offer her goods for sale in Götzberg, so that it became profitable. Although she received none of the money, she was still content. The cries of “Pretty, pretty!” and “Ah, how elegant!” were reward enough.

  During this time the girl was thinking a great deal about matters of love, for her heart was full of it. Elias, who had weighed up every word she had ever spoken, saw in all she said a sign of the fulfillment of his life. Although they were the closest of friends, they kept their important feelings secret from each other. This was a quite typical trait of the Alder family and, we might add in passing, of the people of the Vorarlberg in general. No Alder would ever have confessed love to another. Everything had to be unspoken or, if spoken, then only in hints and suggestions. These people were speechless, speechless until death.

  How we should like, with a wrathful fist, to take this dry, black, yellow-eyed, feverishly wandering figure with the thin long hair, grab him by the shoulders, and shout in his face, “Say something, will you? Tell her how you feel! It is better to know the truth than to dream in lies!” It would do no good. Even if we begged him in the name of his genius, he would only smile his tormented smile, for he is unaware of how great a musician he is. And even if he did know, it would still be no use. He would look at us with angry eyes and ask accusingly, “Is love not more important than the greatest genius of this world?” We would fall silent. And because we know that, we do not grab him by the shoulders with our wrathful fist.

  It so happened that Elias was driving his oxen to Götzberg to buy salt, lamp oil, haberdashery, and spices for the people of Eschberg. Previously this task had been entrusted to Charcoalburner Michel, but then it had been discovered that he was regularly set­ting aside a few farthings for himself. That was why Michel was no longer allowed to d
rive the oxen to Götzberg. It so happened that on that very day Elsbeth too wanted to walk to Götzberg to offer her embroid­eries for sale. It was a cold May morning. On the northern slopes they saw a Lamparter mowing the first meager grass–much too early, but the winter supplies had been used up and the animals were hungry.

  Elias, in his black frock coat, was yoking his oxen to the shafts when the girl walked over to him. So unutterably beautiful was she that morning that he heard his heart beating in his fingertips. Elsbeth was wearing her leaf-yellow hair down, the morning sun gleamed on her lips, and her eyes were small and full of sleep. Her face bore an unfamiliar pallor, although her complexion was dark. Elias saw this and asked long-windedly whether she really felt well enough to undertake the journey into the valley. He spoke very quietly, almost in a whisper. This was a habit from his childhood days, for his hearing was always at its most sensitive in the morning. And how he had suffered when his mother had gone about her business in the kitchen first thing in the morning, clattering and shouting.

  “Praised be Jesus Christ!” said Elsbeth, without answering his questions. She put her basket on the ground and wrapped her gray woolen plaid around her shoulders. “May I climb up?”

  Elias returned her greeting. They settled themselves and set off. The spokes groaned, the oxen’s hides steamed. Elias and Elsbeth barely exchanged two words. That was doubtless, one might imagine, the effect of the early hour, when yesterday’s thoughts have yet to reassemble for the coming day. But it was not so.

  At this time Elias had already abandoned hope of Elsbeth. It was said in the village that there was soon to be a wedding in Eschberg. It was not the Lamparter gossip who had put this rumor into circulation; no, it was Nulf Alder himself. He wanted to have Lukas Alder as a son-in-law. Lukas Alder, fleshy but not rough or crude, came from the richest farm in Esch­berg. For some years he had visited what was now Peter’s farm, but it would have been untrue to claim that a passionate love had ever flared between Lukas and Elsbeth. No, over the years the girl had grown used to following her brother’s wishes. She had grown used, we might say, to the idea that she might one day marry Lukas Alder. And when that had happened, then she would love him.

  Elias sat silently on the seat, closed to Elsbeth and the world.

  He was a curious boy when you looked at him, Elsbeth thought during their journey. She had known him for many, many years, but she basically knew nothing about him. Did he have a secret girlfriend? No, he was far too respectable for that. He was just like a real scholar, very little concerned with the things of everyday life. The same could not be said of Lukas. He had both feet firmly on the ground. She would have liked it if he had paid rather more attention to her than to his cattle. But that was how it had to be, her mother said. And it was true: Lukas was good to his cattle. She had never once seen him beating or shouting at them.

  Elias sat silently on the seat.

  Ah, love, she sang to herself, unheard, love was such a sad thing. While it set the mouth to laughing, the heart remained a dark forest. And she threw her head back, squinted into the bright green leaves of the mixed forest as they flowed quietly over her head, and pressed her eyelids together when the gleaming sunlight burst into her face. She kept her eyelids closed and imagined how it would be if Elias were to ask for her hand. Maybe he did not even love her? She would be a poor catch, it was true, for there was nothing at home for her to inherit. Ah, he would certainly say fine words to her! He would stand straight before her, look into her eyes, and see her blushing. He would remain tactfully silent, and when she least expected it he would ask, “Miss Elsbeth–will you be my wife?” His hands would surely accompany his words with fine gestures. What silly things were running through her head! Elsbeth opened her eyelids.

  Elias sat silently on the seat.

  He was simply far too shy. That was what her dear mother said. A man must stride boldly and confidently through this vale of tears. That was what her dear father said. And there was a curse on his brother’s line; all Seff’s children had been frail in constitution and unstable in spirit. That might be hereditary, her dear father said. Nevertheless, she believed, he would definitely be a faithful husband to her. You could never know for sure, but she believed it. If only he did not have that weird mark on his eyes. And he would simply have to be stronger and more resolute in life. Then, long since, she would secretly have hinted to him–as women can–that she wanted him. Thank heavens Lukas was quite different. What she had experienced with him after the fair–how thirsty it had left her! Like the others, she was nothing but a wretched woman and had only a wretched woman’s feelings. But this one understood nothing of that. No, Elias Alder was not a man. She could see that, sadly.

  Elias sat silently on the seat.

  It seemed to her that he simply wanted to live without a wife. He could certainly become a spiritual leader, a prelate, or finally even a bishop. If it came to that, she would go to his ordination, even if she had to go to Feldberg on foot. Then she would kneel before him, kiss the ring on his hand, and say quietly to herself, “That is Elias Alder. He was my friend.”

  While she was passing the time with such thoughts, she suddenly found herself strangely out of breath. Three times she gasped open-mouthed for air, then her face grew sepulchrally white and she fell forward in a faint. Elias, who awoke with a start, just managed to grab her by her hair. And her head cracked sharply against the rim of the box. Elias dropped the reins, pulled the girl up lest she fall under the wheels, threw her arms around his neck, and, with all his strength, pressed the lifeless body to him. He was about to cry, She is ill! but he had no time to do so.

  For the second and last time in his life Elsbeth’s heart lay on his heart and Elsbeth’s heartbeat entered his own, as perfect and as at one with his as when he had lain, as a five-year-old, in the bed of the stream. Then Johannes Elias Alder once more uttered that terrible bellow, as if he were about to die, fully con­scious. And his cowardice was refuted, and hope surged within him, and he cried into the deep blue of the heavens that he could not live without Elsbeth. Oh, how could he ever have doubted that Elsbeth had been predestined for him by God?

  He held the girl’s hand in his infinitely gentle hands, and when she awoke he diffused her confused questions with a calming “It’s fine, Elsbeth. Every­thing’s fine.” Then he laid her down on the coarse sack of groats he had brought for the oxen, turned around, and set off homeward, being careful not to drive into a hole or over a stone or a root. While he was driving this way, he wondered whether it might not be good to break his oath and cautiously hint to the girl, once she had recovered–and over a very long period of time– that he loved her and wanted her for his wife. He actually considered this, for his courage was great.

  Some ten weeks later, on a sultry July evening when everything in Eschberg smelled of dry hay, Peter crept to Seff Alder’s farm and threw gravel at the boy’s window. He had urgent matters to discuss with his friend, he cried. Elias bade him enter without further ado. Then Peter revealed to him that Elsbeth was pregnant by Lukas Alder and it was her personal desire for Elias to play the organ at their wedding. He had come to tell him in his own words, before Elias heard it from other mouths.

  But in truth Peter had come to see the light in Elias’s eyes and what glow it would assume at this news. And Peter saw the light go out for several moments.

  Now Elias had the irrefutable certainty that his hopes had been meaningless. Now he acknowledged that God had deceived him his whole life long. He decided to spend another night in the little church in Eschberg. He went there and, crying with all his might, he killed God within himself.

  GOD FEARS ELIAS

  THE church door thundered shut with such violence that the noise transferred to the iron chandeliers and set them singing. Or was it the echo of his pain-racked laughter that set the chandeliers in motion? When he had locked the door behind him his suffering knew no bounds, and he laughed as terribly as the devil might laugh over his final conque
st of this world. His heart was as dark as the nave itself, and the Light of Hope that trembled anxiously in the gallery was, for him, just a cold, broken wick.

  He dipped two fingers in the font and licked his fingers and dipped them in once more and licked them again. Then he walked forward with wild, heavy steps, jumped over the carved hip-high balustrade, and stood in front of the tabernacle. He had not stopped laughing when he suddenly felt he was not alone in the church. He immediately fell silent and turned around fearlessly, and his eyes pierced the black nave. He stood motion­less like that, listening with half-open mouth, watching, but he could neither hear anything nor discern anyone. He turned back, drew his tinderbox from his coat pocket, and lit the altar candles and then all the candles that could be lighted in the little church. It had to be bright, so God could see him if he wanted to speak to him. When he had lit the candle of the last Station of the Cross, he returned to the tabernacle, touched the carving with both hands, caressed his face with his hands, and stood still for a long time. Then his face grew darker and darker, and the veins stood out be­neath his brow.

  “God, where in my life are you?” The words burst from his lips, and he cried and cried and went on crying that question. And when he had cried himself hoarse, his fingers rose, clenched together in a perverted par­ody of prayer. He fell on his knees, and only now could he speak more quietly.

  “Great and powerful God,” he began, in a husky voice, “Creator of all men, of the beasts, the world, and all the stars. Why have You created me, Johannes Elias Alder? Does it not say in the scriptures that You are perfect? But if You are perfect and good, why did You have to create misery, sin, and pain? Why do You revel in my grief, in the deformity of my eyes, the sorrow of my love?”