Brother of Sleep: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

and ears–mud, gravel, insects, salamanders, grass, and rotting leaves–Seff had called him by name, to show he was not alone in the wilderness. This so terrified the child that he began to cry, and it was a long time before he would be consoled. And he refused to move an inch from a particular rocky protuberance, so that Seff had been obliged to pull him from it by force and take him under his arm. On the basis of this observation we may see that the miracle did not strike Elias like a bolt from the heavens but announced itself gradually, in an almost human way.
    This afternoon the stone was calling. Elias had to go to the river. He stole down the hill and out through the pasture and reached the steaming stable. From there he took the path that could not be seen from any of the house’s windows. Still, he ran the first part of the way, until he knew he could no longer see the farm. He whistled with joy, tumbled, and scampered through the hamlet down to the bed of the Emmer. But Seff, scattering dung in the next hamlet, saw him. He saw the little airy dot of humanity against the great whiteness of the field. He saw it disappearing in the zigzag behind the forest’s rim. Seff shoved the pitchfork into the frozen ground, cupped his hands to his mouth, and was about to cry out to his son when he stopped. He did not wish to disturb the child in his happy solitude. Seff looked glassy-eyed at the forest shadow behind which the lad had disappeared. Then he picked up the fork and drove it powerfully, furiously, into the steaming dungheap. “Blast it if there isn’t something wrong with the boy!” And that forkful of dung flew farther than all the rest.
    There he went, that strange child, stamping through the fog-frozen landscape. Walked for half an hour or more, climbed skillfully around the first water­fall, then the second. On his walk he had to stop frequently, because he could not hear enough of the whirring sound of the ice flakes that fell rustling from the branches all around him. Filled with exultation, Elias pushed the tips of his heavy, tight leather shoes into the frozen snow. And the rough crust whirled into a thousand sparks, whispered and groaned in sounds so diverse that Elias had never heard their like. Even the wonderful sound of the snowflakes the other night was as nothing in comparison with this magnificent concert.
    On walked Elias, ever onward. He pulled up his trousers, lifted his nose, and tugged a felt hat lower over his face. On difficult nights he drew this hat from his pallet and smelled it until he was comforted. He smelled the cold sweat, the hair, the smell of the cattle–it was the hat his father wore in the stable.
    The closer Elias came to the water-polished stone, the more uneven his heartbeat grew. It was as though the sound of his steps, his breath, the whispering of the frozen snow, the groaning of the trees, the rushing of the water under the ice of the Emmer–as if everything surrounding him was swelling up, ringing out with ever greater force and brilliance. When Elias had finally climbed up to the stone, he heard a thunder emanating from his heart. He must have had an inkling of what was to come, for he suddenly began to sing. Then the miracle happened. That afternoon, five-year-old Elias heard the sound of the universe.
    Because his head was freezing again, he grabbed his hat, to pull it farther down on his face. This produced such a violent explosion in his ears that the shock sent him sliding from the stone and he fell back into the snow. His last glimpse of reality was a tuft of blond, bloody hair. While he was falling, his sense of hearing multiplied.
    The little body began to change. His eyeballs sprang abruptly from their sockets, sticking out from between their lids until they protruded beneath the eyebrows. And the fluff of his brows stuck to his tear-drenched corneas. His pupils dissolved, engulfing the whites of his eyes. Their natural color,