The Sleep of the Righteous Read Free Page B

double or single? Or is it a small-caliber gun? We’d have the ammunition for it . . .
    At the center of attention, I would have loved to say: it’s a Winchester! — That was the kind of rifle the pulp novels were always talking about.
    Some time when we came, couldn’t we bring the gun along . . .? Only then we’d have to go over to the marsh to bathe, where we wouldn’t be disturbed. Or we’d have to fix a meeting place in the forest and bring the gun there!
    I never thought of denying the gun’s existence; I haddoubted it myself until I heard the gateman’s story, but it brought me incredible prestige. However, I could think of no good excuse for its remaining beyond my reach. So I half agreed and half refused . . . This constant talk about the gun would attract way too much attention, I said.
    Do you think we’d rat on you? they asked indignantly.
    Not that, but it’s awfully risky if too many people know about it, I replied. And day by day I went on stalling; on the one hand the big kids got on my nerves with their constant interrogations, on the other hand I feared losing their attention; that would have meant foregoing the bounty of new pulp novels, whose contents floated in my head, nearly monopolizing my thoughts. Should the supply of books break off, I knew, I would have to make up stories like that myself. . .
    The mine pit beaches were not always peaceful places: the big kids took great pleasure in mounting so-called mud fights . . . and not just them, also the female contingent of the beach crowd, who retreated into the background, cheering and applauding from a safe distance—depending on which group of combatants they’d sided with—when a shot hit home with a smack. — Using your hands, or shovel-like objects, you’d dig up fat, sticky chunks of clay and loam at the edge of the water and shape fist-sized balls you’d pile up around you, and once each group had sought out a spot with enough cover, behind hillocks, behind the reeds, or behind the low, leaning trees that sometimes loomed in the reeds . . . spots close to the water, so new balls of clay could be fetched as quickly as possible . . . when all were at their posts, battle was joined with a great roar. When the foe broke cover andventured an attack, the command came: “Barrage!” and a volley of projectiles flew through the air until the attackers had retreated again—only strategically, of course, for the attack had drastically decimated the other side’s supply of mud balls. Someone charged with bringing a fresh supply of clay would have to break cover, coming under a bombardment that would nearly fell him if he failed to seek shelter in deep water. . . and maneuvers like these were celebrated twice as loudly. The whole thing could go on for hours, and ended as a rule with one of the parties capitulating, usually by announcing they’d run out of ammunition. They were ordered to come out with their hands up, and when they did the last of the balls were fired at them, though only up to their thighs; anything else would have been dastardly. — Given the nasty consequences when someone was struck in the face by one of the smartly thrown, heavy, compact clay balls—especially when the ball had previously been rolled in loose gravel to compound its effect—what, I asked myself, would happen if one of the fronts . . . and sometimes there were three fronts, of which the third, weakest one regularly confederated with the one that had the best prospects of victory. . . if one such front had suddenly had my grandfather’s gun on hand . . .
    I need bathing trunks, I said to my mother one day; at the swimming pool you can’t go into the water without bathing trunks. — It was a lie, if only because I virtually never went to the swimming pool. — I used to go there myself as a child, mother said, and as I recall, children always got to use the wading