Читать книгу Sleet - Stig Dagerman - Страница 8

It was quiet in Grandmother’s house. The little boy slipped from room to room. He was searching for the quiet. It had to be somewhere. Perhaps it sat rocking in a chair somewhere, reading from a big book. The boy pushed open door after door, and he listened. They were heavy doors. Their thresholds were high and shod with gold. The boy himself was small and very anxious. His heart ticked in his breast like a clock going much too fast. Now he found himself standing on the very last threshold, where he had to shut his eyes. For who could say what quietness looked like? He turned his ear towards the room to see if this was where it lived.

And then he heard so much. He heard a big boat rolling over the sea as a storm howled and raged. And he heard a little girl who could not be seen, because she was buried under flowers. And she was crying because she was dead. He could even hear grandfather’s boots wandering back and forth over the wide creaking floorboards. But the quiet itself he did not hear. So he opened his eyes and entered the last room.

The room was small. Just a tiny bedroom really. But in the middle, on the bright floor, was a big square patch of sunlight. The boy stepped into the square and stood there for a long time, listening. It was so quiet in Grandmother’s house. Nothing stirred but his own restless heart. The boat in the picture was still again and the dead girl on the bureau had finished crying. On the stool in the corner, between the tiled stove and the high window, stood Grandfather’s black boots. And they remained silent. Grandfather himself was on the sun now. And when the sun shined, Grandfather was glad and looked down on him with happy eyes. But whenever the clouds came Grandfather was sorrowful, and he would shut himself up in his house. “When it rains,” thought the boy, “it must be hard to be dead.”

It was now late in the afternoon, and the sun-square was shrinking and shrinking. But the boy did not notice this. Instead, he closed his eyes again, whereupon an odd thing happened. The brightness grew stronger and stronger, until he himself was filled with light. Suddenly he heard a voice whisper: “Now you should do it. Now. Now!” A clock struck. Backwards he crept out of the small radiant strip. When he opened his eyes he was standing there with one of Grandfather’s heavy boots in his arms. He put it down carefully on the floor. And the whole world remained silent.

For a thousand years the boots had stood together side by side. They were as old as the earth and the sun and a path in the forest. But now, when they were suddenly separated, an inaudible sound arose, a lament, which seemed to shake the whole room. Trembling in every limb, the boy stepped up onto the stool and quickly fulfilled his longest-held dream. With both legs he stepped down into the boot, sinking and sinking into the leg, until he finally touched bottom.

And so the boy stood in the boot. What more?

Nothing more.

He just stood there, and the sun died out. Twilight crept into the chamber as softly as a cat. The boy closed his eyes, and as always when he closed his eyes something peculiar happened. Now the boot began to walk around with the boy crouching down in its leg. It went right through the wall and out to the garden. It went through the garden and across the road. It stepped into the barren fields, out over rocks and moss and marshland until at last it came to the forest. And wherever it stepped all sounds died out. The birds in the trees fell silent. In the meadows moose stood frozen with balls of leaves in their mouths. In the heather snakes stiffened to black sticks.

“Where are we going?” whispered the boy to the boot.

And it whispered back, “We’re going to the quiet.”

Suddenly the black wall of a mountain reared up before them, and the boot whispered to the boy, “This is where we go in.”

But they never went in, because now the sound of a cry tore the boy’s eyes open. It was Grandmother. In a kind of daze, he looked around the tiny bedroom. He was back, and Grandmother was calling out to him. It was already dusk, and the boot clung to its silence. Grandmother called out again and the boy struggled to get out of the boot. But to his horror, he found he couldn’t. He was stuck. His feet rubbed against each other in the narrow boot leg as it closed itself around his hips like a skin of stone. He wanted to scream. But it was only his feet that screamed from somewhere deep below as they fought like animals against something in the dark. And then, at that moment, a very terrible and unexpected thing happened. The boot leg split and the boy tumbled out on the floor. And while he lay there, sprawling and terror-stricken, Grandmother called out to him for the third time.

With quiet, frozen movements he freed himself. And then he simply stood there for a while with the torn boot in his arms. He shut his eyes as tight as he could, but nothing happened. On the inside of his eyelids there was only a big quiet darkness. But on the other side the boot was shrieking without a sound. It was quiet in Grandmother’s house, but it was an evil and dangerous quiet. A quiet like a wild and savage animal lurking in the dark. He had to get away. But to do that he would have to commit the final degrading act. And so he bent over and shoved Grandfather’s boot deep into the evil darkness beneath Grandmother’s bed. Then he cautiously opened the door and crept into the other room on feet that moved like paws.

Grandmother sat reclining in a chair with a high, high back. It was dim and the flowers had no luster. Grandmother hadn’t lit even the tiniest little lamp. The boy stepped lightly over the carpet until he stood by her side. She had not yet noticed that he was even standing there. With curious cruelty he scrutinized her white face. Her eyes were closed and he wondered where she was. Perhaps on her way – on her way into the bedroom! He grabbed hold of her arm. He had to get her away from there. Grandmother cried out, her eyes sprang open, and at once the boy could tell that she had been somewhere else altogether. She shook herself like a dog and smiled at him.

“What are you doing, my boy?”

“Grandmother,” said the boy. “Where is quietness?”

On the little table in front of them lay a white seashell. He had listened to it many, many times. Now Grandmother picked it up. She pressed it against his ear. It was cold and hard and he wanted to run away.

“What do you hear?” asked Grandmother.

“The sea,” answered the boy.

Strange enough, he was lying. In fact, he heard nothing. He didn’t hear even the slightest surge, and he knew that the shell was dead. He himself had killed it. Devastated and defiant, he put the shell back on the table.

“No,” said Grandmother. “There’s no such thing as quietness. Everything can be heard. That thing that we call silence – it’s not really silence. It’s only our own deafness. If we weren’t so deaf the world wouldn’t be such a wicked place. But lucky for us there are some people who can still hear. They’re the ones who can stand on the plains – do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

Grandmother came from a place that had plains.

“Yes,” answered the boy. “Plains – they’re like fields.”

“There are those,” Grandmother continued. “… those who can stand on the plains and hear how the hills sing. But not only that. They can hear what’s happening on the other side of those hills. They can hear the people who live in the valleys, and even more. They can hear how people struggle and fight in the cities. They can hear all the way to the sea. They hear boats sailing in the night, and buoy-bells sounding their warnings. And even that’s not all. They can even hear people screaming on the other side of the ocean, when war comes. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“War,” answered the boy. “That’s soldiers.”

Grandmother remained silent. But her words hovered around the boy like a thick smoke. He bent over the table. On top, beside the seashell, was a big, yellow apple.

“Grandmother,” he asked. “Can you hear apples, too?”

“You can hear whatever you want,” said Grandmother.

The apple was cold and bitter. He pressed it to his ear.

“What do you hear?” asked Grandmother.

“I hear when the wind blows,” said the boy.

But it was a bottomless lie. In reality, he heard nothing, and would probably never hear anything again.

“Do you hear everything?” he asked her.

She didn’t sense his hatred. Nor did she answer him. Instead, she rose up youthfully, lightly, and took him by the hand. He thought she wanted to go into the bedroom, and he struggled against her. But instead they went outside. They stood together on the porch and looked out on the garden with its frozen dahlias, its apple trees beaming with fruit. There was no breeze, and no one was coming down the road. No birds were crying out and no dog was barking in the village. It was quiet, and the sky above spread itself out, steep and dark blue. Stars bloomed in the clear quietness. And further below, a red wall rose up from the earth – the town’s quiet lights reflecting on the sky.

The boy listened with all his might. He sent his hearing out all over the world, but each time it came back with nothing to show for the effort. And yet, as they stood on the porch amidst this sparkling quiet, an apple loosened from a nearby tree. It fell to the hard ground with a small, clear thud.

“Did you hear that?” asked Grandmother as she put her arm around his shoulder, preparing herself for a speech.

“Yes,” answered the boy. “It must have been a dog.”

He hadn’t heard a thing. Grandmother’s arm suddenly began to tremble, and at first he didn’t know why.

“Yes,” the boy went on. “First a dog walks on the road. And then – then come the soldiers.”

“Soldiers,” he had said triumphantly. Because in that moment he knew why she was shaking. She was afraid. She was afraid because she couldn’t hear what he heard. She didn’t hear the dog. Perhaps she was even more frightened than him. Somehow he sensed his only chance for escape might come from this one advantage, and so he went on with his betrayal.

Grandmother whispered to him, “And what comes after the soldiers?”

The boy listened out into the darkness. But still he heard nothing, not even the hot, staggered breath of his own fright.

“After the soldiers,” he whispered back. “After the soldiers is a heavy wagon.”

“How do you know it’s heavy?”

“Because its wheels are squeaking.”

Grandmother was finding it difficult to breathe. The wind drew reluctantly through the trees, but neither of them heard it.

“And what comes after the wagon?”

“After the wagon there’s a man beating a drum.”

“Why can’t I hear the drum?” panted Grandmother.

“He’s beating it softly,” answered the boy. “Because it’s dark out.”

Now a long moment passed. Frightened and cold, the boy thought: “Maybe … maybe she’ll never go back inside. And if she never goes back inside then she’ll never notice the boot is missing.” Grandmother shivered. If there was anyone in the world who wasn’t deaf, then they would have heard Grandmother’s bones rattling in her body like a rickety old cart. But in this world there were only the deaf. And out on the road, the endless procession dragged past in the thickening darkness.

Grandmother whispered, “And what comes after the drum?”

“After the drum,” said the boy, “… there are two horses.”

“Why don’t I hear them?” complained Grandmother.

“Their hooves are padded,” replied the boy. “Because it’s dark out.”

He could feel the evil growing within him like a tree of stone.

“And after the horses?”

“After the horses there is someone crying.”

And in that instant a bird cried out from the hedge. The boy heard nothing, but Grandmother heard it. She said, “I hear, I hear. I’m freezing. Let’s go in.”

And she hurried in to lock the door against the evil. But when she looked for the boy he wasn’t there. He realized now that everything was lost, and so he shouted back as he rushed down into the garden:

“I just want to get my ball!”

There was no ball there. There was nothing there. But he quickly threw himself down below a tree, and he began to pray out loud.

“Dear God, please fix the boot. Dear, dear God, please let me hear again.”

But God did not hear his prayers. Instead God allowed the quiet to spread itself out over the boy like a giant black wing.

And yet the creek was there. It flowed steadily on the other side of the road, throwing itself from stone to stone with an anxious whisper. He had to go there and listen. So he shot up and rushed to the gate. But he never made it through the gate, because a man was coming down the road.

The man came forward in the darkness. And clearly, things were not altogether right with him. First of all, he walked so strangely, staggering from ditch to ditch. And even though he walked forward most of the time, sometimes he would step back, too. And then, of course, he sounded funny. One moment he’d quarrel with someone who wasn’t even there, and then the next second he’d sing a snatch from a tune. Then, once he’d finished singing, he’d begin to quarrel all over again. With a pounding heart the boy followed the man’s peculiar wandering from behind the hedge. He followed him as far as he could, until the man disappeared into the night and could no longer be heard.

Be heard? Yes, the boy had heard him. But he was only a person, and people can always be heard, because they’re there. The boy needed to hear something that wasn’t there. But he couldn’t. So because of this, and because he was cold, he sneaked back inside.

As he slipped into the kitchen Grandmother was standing just outside the bedroom door. And the moment he saw her face, he knew. It was sunken in, as if someone had dug into it with a spade. And her eyes clung to him, rigid and huge. He knew now that she had learned everything. Suddenly, before he could stop himself, he yelled out to her.

“Grandmother! There’s a man lying in the road!”

Fascinated by his own lie, he watched her come towards him, trembling and weak. Her mouth moved a few times, but no words came out. As if in a dream, he watched her poor shivering arms reach out for her sweater on the hook. A moment later they were outside again in the dark. They made their way through the mute garden each trembling. Hand in hand, they stepped out onto the black road. It was cold and quiet and above them a haze of stars was wavering in the sky. All at once, Grandmother stopped by the hedge and whispered:

“Where?”

“Not here,” said the boy in a low voice. “Farther down.”

They walked along in the shadow of the hedge, and it protected them. But then the hedge ended, and Grandmother stopped. She would not go any further. Nor did the boy dare to – but he had to. Step by step he forced himself out into the black unknown. Just a little ways off, he stopped on the side of the road and bent over.

“Here!” he cried softly to Grandmother.

She would not come closer, but he heard her call out:

“How does he look?”

The boy looked down into the gravel. He grasped a couple of small stones in his hand and answered:

“He’s tall. He’s awfully big. And there’s a hat over his face.”

“Take away the hat,” said Grandmother.

The boy lifted his hand from the road.

“Is he breathing?” asked Grandmother.

The boy turned his head and lowered his ear to the gravel. With tearless eyes he stared out into the depths of night, desperate and lost. It was quiet all over the world. Some black trees stood out on the meadow, like darkness over darkness. It seemed as though they were walking towards him. He closed his eyes and lowered his ear even more. And then, just then, a very remarkable thing happened. A warm stream of air rushed into the boy’s ear. From the gravel below rose the calm, steady breath of a sleeper.

“Grandmother!” he shouted, excitedly. “He’s sleeping! He’s just sleeping!”

From the end of the hedge came a deep sigh.

“Wake him up,” said Grandmother. “He can’t lay out in the cold like this.”

The boy shook his empty hand in the air. Then he closed his eyes and lowered his ear. From the gravel came a grunt and a hoarse whisper.

“What’s he saying?” asked Grandmother.

“He says to go inside. He says he’s not sleeping, just resting. He’ll move on in a minute.”

With a quick leap the boy was back beside the hedge. He found Grandmother’s hand tucked inside the sweater, and taking it, he led her back along the safe black shadow. Suddenly the wind picked up from out of the darkness, and all of the branches began to sway, their leaves rustling. On the other side of the road was the creek, holding the stones awake with its whispers. And in reply, the forest of clouds above them let out a strong, calm murmur.

“Grandmother,” said the boy. “You don’t have to be scared anymore. He wasn’t dead.”

And with his hand he could feel how she stopped shaking altogether. They walked through the garden. The grass rustled. An apple fell. And each of them heard it.

“Grandmother,” whispered the boy. “One of Grandfather’s boots is broken.”

And Grandmother said, “Oh, honey, that doesn’t matter. We can fix it.”

So in silence they continued on to the bright, quiet house, and to a new and good night.