Part Three: Prodigies

23. Sunrise

Not even during the well-built and well-protected tea-time, no, thought Madame Helena, there is no silence like that in a house in the hours preceding dawn, and it does not matter at all to be sleeping with the windows open to the noise of the stifling nights at the end of summer, it does not matter if the street and sky enter bedrooms and drag themselves all the way to the foot of the bed, it does not matter how exposed the indoors are to the weather and wind outdoors nor how exposed overwarm bodies are to sudden cold, to the whistles and sirens that blow, to the murmur of the barges and tugboats in the river. In sleep, the world becomes the background of a shop window or simply disappears, crumbling like the painted friezes in old houses where humidity works surreptitiously from inside the walls; sleeping and caring about no one else after the last second of wakefulness and nothing is yet like it is going to be; the heavy bellies of houses puff up, sustain dreams and above all tears, like a dike and refuge, as if the houses do not know the people they protect, as if they had just welcomed them and were still not clear on their names, which one goes with which face, which bodies wear which clothes; they cope with fears, moments and days not yet amassed, tuille curtains piled up on a chair ready to be hung to block sun and light, thick syrups poured down the throats of women in labor, whispered calls, and serene mirrors perhaps comparable to frozen lakes in which the caves beneath the water’s surface remain uninhabited and mute. In dreams, erratic sprits of lost Christmases dance in the windows, impossible colors shimmer in eyes, and whatever happens, it remains within the refuge of pillows: some people hear voices and some overcome their shyness, become their own rivals, form part of the landscape in a book of hours, or work in unforseen professions. Shining dragons; stone mortars where tired bones are milled, long tired leg bones, small flat bones of tired fat hands; deceptive silhouettes from a painful summer in which too many changes have had to be managed in the house; shadowy dragons obliging careful movements down corridors and stairs bearing in mind the time of day and everything that had been said on previous nights around a poorly served table. This during sleep, and by day meddling between the beginning and end of sleep when interruptions have been so bothersome they leave a scuff mark on doors, when mornings have been broken up by commotion and injustice, when there is too much to understand and concerted effort does not suffice for what has not yet taken form but has begun, but for the moment there are only suspicions, marks on the sand, and above all hopes that nothing will happen.

Then, it could be believed since the night and the house are still dark and it is time to sleep, at some moment for no reason, because a reproach has worn away the weft of a world that is trying to repair itself and behave as usual against the tide of what is happening outside, a silence arises and obliges knowing, organizing, not being fooled, running from store to store to learn the prices for everything sold and everything bought, with people present who have always known how to confront the changing series of waves about what is said, people who have not retreated or hidden behind faces devised for specific attractive lies. It is no excuse that the tranquility may not be of this world: the house has been there for a century, more than a century on Scheller Street, following the curve of the river, with its trees and gray facades and flesh inside, thoughts like the buzzing wing of an insect and desires turned into candies and colorful stitches resonating on the still-tense fabric stretched between framework, and the feeling of stagnant water, everything that happens and still has not and stops existing when it has: these thoughts need the grandeur of decisions. At that moment in which the still-missing light seemed to be about to peek over the curve of the river and rise up, erasing the shadow in the garden, Madame Helena Lundgren decided not to wait, not to accommodate, not to pretend anymore. Katja might or might not get well, no one could know, and although Wulda would remain, that was not the problem, she could not continue to serve dinner clumsily with giggles and excuses. She would look, discuss, compare, and at least attempt that very afternoon to have a new maid in the house, someone who knew how to serve food, present platters, fill glasses, and wait next to the sideboard, eyes always vigilant to see what every diner might need. She would need to prepare the suite on the ground floor that opened onto the garden that morning, not wait until the afternoon, and perhaps let Mr. Ruprecht come to occupy it. Somewhere a door softly closed and if she had been sleeping the noise would not have awoken her, but since she was yet in bed at the soft, best threshold of the day, a closing door could still change her mind about those very proper, almost perfect plans birthed by the house if she changed at that moment; a door that closed at that changeable moment could even make her think about the house in Linz which she never thought about or about Madame Nashiru’s stone garden that she would never see, where women’s shadows slide toward other shadows, threatening and triumphant, happy to destroy them. She sat up in bed and, as she did, she broke apart the fragile shell that sometimes holds memory at bay: memory, Madame Helena thought, should not be impeded; without wrappings, smoke, or jewels, it can easily be incorporated into everyday life, the black and green border, the white porcelain that chimed in the dining room, open windows and balconies, steps in the corridor, Lola’s creeper now almost reaching the grille on the first floor balcony, the doctor’s visit—had Wulda spent another night watching over sick Katja?—the locksmith who would have to come to change the window catches in the kitchen, the tea she would drink in the dining room once all the guests had drunk theirs because Wulda could not go upstairs with two trays at almost the same time since Miss Simeoni no longer came downstairs for any meal, and she would ask for a coach to take Miss Esther and her luggage, which was not much, to the station at seven on the dot in the afternoon, and after that she could rest until the evening meal. She hoped that Madame Wunze would arrive when she said she would and not sooner to give her time to make the required renovations. She got out of bed and went to one of the windows: the summer did not seem to have ended, a scarlet line was sharply drawn, a sign from the gods about the day that had not come into being but would, over the river far from Scheller Street.