Читать книгу The Wooden King - Thomas Maxwell McConnell - Страница 9

Now that the history of their country had come to an end he told the boy stories of the brave little Czech nation, and night after night Aleks listened, though the hour stretched his mouth into yawns. When the time came to switch off the light the boy delayed the dark with questions. Trn listened to them all.

“This morning, when we were walking to school? Remember? Why did you pull me over the ice, like I was skiing?”

“Because I thought it might make you laugh.”

“Oh.” In his fist he tried to hide a long yawn.

“Why don’t you teach me German?”

“You don’t need German.”

“But you know German.”

“I had to study it in school.”

“When you were as old as me? In the empire?”

“Yes. Under the empire.”

“Viktor?”

“Mother’s calling you,” the boy said.

“I will go in a moment.”

“Mr. Director says that we will all begin to learn German next year.”

“We will see,” Trn said.

Aleks turned his face away, his head deep in the pillow.

“Will there be aeroplanes tonight?”

“No. No aeroplanes tonight.”

“In Poland they had aeroplanes.”

“That’s true. But we’re a long distance from Poland.”

“The windows are covered?”

“You saw me hang the blankets, remember?”

He laid a hand at the boy’s elbow, reached and found his hand.

“Viktor. Let him go to sleep now.”

“Should you make sure? At the edges?”

“I will. I promise. As soon as you’re asleep.”

The clock spent its seconds. A January wind from Siberia shouldered snow against the windows. The boy’s breath eased and Trn leaned for the lamp.

“Daddy, will I be alive in the year 2050?”

“Do you ask your mother these questions, or only me?”

“Only you.”

“Why? What is going to happen in 2050?”

“I don’t know what will happen. Will I be alive?”

“You will live a long time.”

“Like Grandfather?”

“Like Grandfather. Yes.”

“How old will I be?”

“In 2050? One hundred and sixteen.”

What current ran through this boy that his little hands should always feel so fevered?

“Time for sleep now.”

As Trn rose for the lamp the boy huddled into the back of the couch, tugged the covers over his head. As he did every night now, this metamorphosis, nature inverted, a chrysalis of bedclothes. You could have said anything else. You could have said that was a problem of subtraction you couldn’t do in your head.

“I hope you’re not chewing your nails there.”

“No.”

“What’s that squelching sound I hear?”

“My tongue’s feeling for my spit makers.”

Trn stayed his hand, prolonged the light for them both a few moments more. No map in the world had a place for their country now. Vague beneath the blanket he felt the knots tight in the rope of the little spine, the unfledged blade of the shoulder. In the dark he sat a while longer, a hand at rest over this spare cradle of bones. How could anything I might ever do possibly be enough?

He whispered, “Good dreams, I love you,” and rose to leave in the dark.