The Cannibal by John Hawkes

Author:John Hawkes [Hawkes, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, Literary
ISBN: 9780811222679
Google: xkk6exv24tkC
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Published: 1962-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

When Stella awoke, she was still possessed of the dream; it lingered on in the dim light. When she looked into Ernst’s bed, she saw only a small black-haired Christ on the pillow, eyes wide and still, who trembled, and with one thin arm, motioned her away.

“Maman,” a child’s voice cried below the window, “the old horse is dead!”

LUST

All night long, despite the rattle of the train wheels and the wind banging against the loose window-panes, Ernst could hear the howling of the dogs out in the passing fields and by the rails. The robe hung over his shoulders and was clutched about his throat, the heavy folds coarse and dark, stamped with the company’s seal as railroad property. Robes were piled in all the empty compartments, the dim light swayed overhead, and the cold grew so severe that the conductor, who continually wished to see their papers, was irritable, officious. The compartment, or salon, a public beige color, unkempt, with its green shades and narrow seats, heaved to and fro, tossing the unshaded bulb in circles, rattling their baggage piled near the thin door. Those were certainly dogs that howled. His face pressed against the glass, Ernst heard the cantering of their feet, the yelps and panting that came between the howls. For unlike the monumental dogs found in the land of the tumbleweed, glorified for their private melancholy and lazy high song, always seen resting on their haunches, resting and baying, these dogs ran with the train, nipped at the tie rods, snapped at the lantern from the caboose, and carrying on conversation with the running wheels, begged to be let into the common parlor. They would lap a platter of milk or a bone that appeared dry and scraped to the human eye without soiling the well-worn corridors of rug, and under the green light they would not chew the periodicals or claw the conductor’s heels. As paying passengers, they would eat and doze and leap finally back from the unguarded open platforms between cars into the night and the pack.

A small steam pipe, its gilt long flaked with soot, bent like an elbow, began to rattle and gasp, but after a few more knocks, a few more whistles from the engine straining at the head of the train, it died. The official ticketed odor of dust and stuffing, the chill around the dark ceiling of cobwebs increased, and Stella tried to rest while Ernst watched the night pass by, annoyingly slow and too dark to see. The firebox in the engine was small, wrapped up, steady and dispassionate for the night, the fireman nodded over his shovel, an old soldier moved abjectly about the empty baggage car, and Ernie, holding the shawl, wondered what terrible illness was falling on his shoulders. And all he had to show was the castoff crucifixion of a half-wit, wrapped in brown paper in the bottom of the carpetbag. They stopped at many small stations and crossings during the night, but no passengers boarded or left the train.

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