Johanna at Daybreak by R.C. Hutchinson

Author:R.C. Hutchinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1969-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

When the car stopped again I woke from an oppressive dream where I had tried to talk to Franz and he would not even turn his eyes in my direction. Perhaps I had slept for a few seconds only, perhaps for an hour. In the moment of waking I did not remember who it was beside me, stretching to ease contracted limbs and then rather painfully getting out of the car; only when he turned back to speak through the window did his voice restore to me the formidable companion of that day’s journey.

‘I think they’ll put us up here,’ he said. ‘Just wait where you are and I’ll find out.’

Not yet in full possession of my faculties, I said hazily, ‘But this isn’t Wilpenschoen.’

‘I wanted to come here first,’ was all he replied.

He went a few paces down the road and I heard him knocking on a door with his knuckles. Then there was total silence. The only light there was came from the wing lamps of the car, it showed we were halted beside a high brick wall. Here the air which reached me through the lowered window was dry and warm, almost motionless, as if summer had returned: the stillness was soothing, and this time I found it a relief to be for a while alone. The days were long past when I had needed to think of my virtue or reputation, and in truth I felt no fear of any kind. Often an occasion for terror seems to provide its own remedy—a sense of detachment or disbelief. Here a man of wayward mentality, volunteering to facilitate my journey, had driven me all day in the wrong direction; but I merely thought in a sleepy way that such behaviour was too eccentric to be taken seriously.

High above me a rectangle of light appeared in the wall, then another at a lower level. A door opened, letting a long panel of light fall across the road, and now Albrecht’s voice was joined by another man’s. Presently he came back to me, to say:

‘Yes, they can take us here.’

I still knew that I could only do as I was told. Without answering, I alighted from the car and walked to the open door. There I thought of my case, and turned to see if Albrecht was bringing it after me.

Now once more I was frightened, and this was fear of a new, convulsive kind. A faint breeze came up the road, it bore the scent of phlox strengthened by the warmth following rain, and simultaneously I heard, perhaps from a kilometre off, the industrious grunting of an old steam locomotive and the clangour of bogies on an iron bridge. This complex of sensations brought no image to my mind’s eye, no name, nothing to be located in time or space; yet it seized me as brutal hands might have seized my body—as if a ghostly voice had whispered, ‘Yes, here is the destination of all your journeys, this is the point on the circle of experience to which you must always return.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.