Sudetenland Tales by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Sudetenland Tales

Page 40

unaccountable. There was in life something which upset all Carol’s care and plans; perhaps that same something; something which made men and women dance to its pipes. ........ Not very likely.

In her “new” abode, she lay staring from deep sunk eyes into the darkness where the unaccountable held sway. You thought you had hold of hie, but it slipped away behind you, took you by the scruff of the neck, forced you here and forced you there, and then, likely as not, squeezed life out of you! It took the very stars like that, he shouldn’t wonder, rubbed their noses together and flung them apart; it had never done playing its tricks. Five million people in this great blunderbuss of a town, and all of them at the mercy of that Life Force, like a lot of little dried peas hopping about on a board when you struck your fist on it. Ah, well! Himself would not hop much longer; a good long sleep would do him good! How hot it was up here! How noisy! His forehead burned; she had kissed it just where he always worried; just there, as if she had known the very place and wanted to kiss it all away for him. But instead, her lips left a patch of grievous uneasiness. She had never spoken in quite that voice, had never made that lingering gesture, or looked back at him as she drove away. He got out of bed and pulled the curtains aside; his room faced down over the river. There was little air,