John Wray

I’m a Bolshevik now as well, I said, drawing myself up proudly. Bolshevism, I continued, drawing on notions I’d mastered just two or three days previous, is an international movement. I raised a mud-stained finger. Along lines of class.

But not along yours, child! said the first woman kindly. I had made the mistake of telling them about my family.

There’d be no place for Karl Peter Voxlauers in their movement, I promise you, the ex-lieutenant put in.

Best thing that he’s dead, then, I suppose, I said. That quieted them awhile.

From that day Anna was my sister and my lover both, never entirely the one thing or the other, not even in bed. She nursed me through my attacks when they came, which was often in those first few months, with a patience that made the most terrible of my visions seem childish. We talked for hours on end about what had happened in the war, the killing of the deserter and the death of my father and everything that had come before and after, until my memories began to break apart of their own accord and to take on distinct shapes, separable from one another and from me.

“Where’s the army, Heinrich?” I said, very quietly.

Spengler raised his eyebrows. “The army?”

“They were supposed to be here by now, if you remember. The army. And the Brown Shirts, Heinrich. Where are they? Weren’t they supposed to put in an appearance?” I could feel my voice rising to a squeak. “Have they decided to stay at home, Heinrich? Is it the ninety-six of us now, verses the Republic?”

Spengler looked at me for a time, half smiling, then shrugged his shoulders.