A Burnt Child: A Novel

Prelude to a Dream

34 PRELUDE TO A DREAM when someone is dead, there is, on the one hand, a big empty hole. But on the other hand, there is a lot left over. You go up to these things and look at them, twisting and turning them. But you don’t really know what to do with them. You start by gently touching them. But after a while, your fingers grow tired. That is why you end up hating them. Dresses are the worst. After that, shoes. On certain nights, when the father thinks the son is sleeping and when the son thinks the father is sleeping, the father pulls the shades down as far as they can go over the two windows in the room. Then he locks the door to the hallway. But over the keyhole to the son’s room, he hangs Alma’s black hat. Not because he plans on doing something he shouldn’t. He simply wants to be more alone. And when he is more alone, he turns on as many lights as possible: all five lights on the ceiling as well as the lamp on top of the radio. He doesn’t do this because he’s afraid of the dark. He only does this so that he won’t be entirely alone. When all of this is done, he opens the closet door. It creaked on the first night, so he greased the hinges. Now it no longer makes a sound. The deceased’s shoes are on the floor of the closet. He takes 35 Prelude to a Dream them out, pair after pair. There are four pairs, and he puts them all on the table because it has the most light. Eventually, the green tablecloth becomes dirty because he doesn’t spread newspaper over it. He used to spread newspaper on the chair where he stood to wind up the clock. Now the chair is also dirty. But the clock has stopped. Next, he leans over the shoes. Brushes his hands over them. Holds one shoe at a time up to the light. If he ever finds a smudge on an upper, he rubs and rubs the spot against his sleeve until it’s dirty and until the leather shines immaculately in the harsh light. If there is ever a little dried mud under a sole, he scrapes it onto the floor with a used match. Then he flicks the match onto the linoleum , since it’s no longer good, of course. There are eight shoes to look at, and he studies each one of them at length. One pair has holes in the soles and cracks on the upper. It’s a wide, heavy pair with low heels, and the label inside has been worn away by Alma’s feet. She was wearing these shoes when she died. Some sawdust is stuck between the cracks, and there is a streetcar ticket hanging from the broken heel. He takes it off on the first night. And when he scrapes off the sawdust four nights later, the ticket is still on the floor. He doesn’t pick it up. With his fingers he feels the smooth interior of the shoes. He thinks it’s beautiful. He finds it very beautiful that a woman’s foot can polish the inside of a shoe. Otherwise, he thinks the shoes are ugly. Even so, on the first night he spent nearly the longest time on these shoes. He held them underneath the ceiling light and was glad that it was so bright. But even though it was bright, he couldn’t help feeling that a dead person had once worn these shoes. He felt this less on the following night. On the third night, he found them exceptionally ugly. On the fifth night, he doesn’t even hold them up to the light. He places them by the door. Now they can be thrown away. After all, what use is a pair of worn-out shoes? Now he studies a different pair for a long time. A pair of bulky walking shoes. Stiff and black, but not ugly. She hardly wore them, had said that they were tight and that they pinched. On the first night, he quickly puts them aside. They aren’t particularly beautiful and she wasn’t wearing them when she died. But on the second 36 Prelude to a Dream night, he...