ASLEEP A KING
Eleanor Clark
H
E FELT HER HANDS
on his face, cool, the fingers drawing slowly
together to drive out the sun. Is this the girl I am going to marry, my
nursebride? Should I speak? Ssh, ssh.... There is not going to be any
morning this morning. These white fingers have driven away the sun,
by quiet, everything is going to be all right. Now they had drawn all
together, a cloud, a shroud, he could not even remember the white
face of his girl. Only the softness, release from pain, the virgin pallor
of the hospital. Be still. This is the way it was always meant to be ...
"Mark!"
Hold it, cling to it. Hide your eyes. . . .
Gone. That was last year. And this is life again, this leadenness,
one of a million mornings weighting each other down. No whiteness,
no dream. Mother is there, an aging woman who has slept badly and
has too much washing to do. Soon she will come and stand in the
door, half dressed and messed with sleep-always a loose strand of
hair in a vague grey line across her face, like a sign-and scold. The
sun is up, stabs at the window-sill, creeps closer and at last pricks your
wrist that is hanging almost to the floor. There is no fighting it away
now: it crawls on comfortably as if finding itself at home, shows up
bare patches in the rag carpet and the few brass knobs left on the
bureau. And as if from a wound sleep drains away from you, leaving
you weak and hating, face upturned to the day.
David, in the same room, has nothing to get up for and so is able
to hang on to his sleep, a piggish affair. His violin lies upside down in
the chair beside him, he is dreaming, probably, of the girls in Hono–
lulu. God take away this day and every other jackass morning. Let
me sleep.
"Get up! What are you thinking of? It's nearly seven."
"I'm coming."
He pulled himself up, loathing himself and his brown wrist
in
the sun and the sun because he would have to go out in it. Mark
30
