Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

"'Look,' said her husband; he went into the courtyard with her. 'There are no hoof prints, there are no droppings. We must have dreamed we heard horses.' She did not tell him that there were soldiers, too; or that, in her opinion, it was unlikely that two people would dream the same dream. She did not remind him that he was a heavy smoker who never smelled the soup simmering; the aroma of horses in the fresh air was too subtle for him.

"She saw the soldiers, or dreamed them, twice more while they stayed there, but her husband never again woke up with her. It was always sudden. Once she woke with the taste of metal on her tongue as if she'd touched some old, sour iron to her mouth -- a sword, a chest plate, chain mail, a thigh guard. They were out there again, in colder weather. From the water in the fountain a dense fog shrouded them; the horses were snowy with frost. And there were not so many of them the next time -- as if the winter or their skirmishes were reducing their numbers. The last time the horses looked gaunt to her, and the men looked more like unoccupied suits of armor balanced delicately in the saddles. The horses wore long masks of ice on their muzzles. Their breathing (or the men's breathing) was congested.

"Her husband," said the dream man, "would die of a respiratory infection. But the woman did not know it when she dreamed this dream."

My grandmother looked up from her lap and slapped the dream man's beard-gray face. Robo stiffened in my father's lap; my mother caught her mother's hand. The singer shoved back his chair and jumped to his feet, frightened, or ready to fight someone, but the dream man simply bowed to Grandmother and left the gloomy tearoom. It was as if he'd made a contract with Johanna that was vital but gave neither of them any joy. My father wrote something in the giant pad.

"Well, wasn't that some story?" said Herr Theobald. "Ha ha." He rumpled Robo's hair -- something Robo always hated.

"Herr Theobald," my mother said, still holding Johanna's hand, "my father died of a respiratory infection?

"Oh, dear," said Herr Theobald. "I'm sorry, meine Frau," he told Grandmother, but old Johanna would not speak to him.

We took Grandmother out to eat in a Class A restaurant, but she hardly touched her food. "That person was a gypsy," she told us, "a satanic being, and a Hungarian."

"Please, Mother," my mother said. "He couldn't have known about Father."

"He knew more than you know," Grandmother snapped.

"The schnitzel is excellent," Father said, writing in the pad. "The Gumpoldskirchner is just right with it."

"The Kalbsnieren are fine," I said.

"The eggs are okay," said Robo.

Grandmother said nothing until we returned to the Pension Grillparzer, where we noticed that the door to the W.C. was hung a foot or more off the floor, so that it resembled the bottom half of an American toilet-stall door or a saloon door in the Western movies. "I'm certainly glad I used the W.C. at the restaurant," Grandmother said. "How revolting! I shall try to pass the night without exposing myself where every passerby can peer at my ankles!"

In our family room Father said, "Didn't Johanna live in a castle? Once upon a time, I thought she and Grandpa rented some castle."

"Yes, it was before I was born," Mother said. "They rented Schloss Katzelsdorf. I saw the photographs."

"Well, that's why the Hungarian's dream upset her," Father said.

"Someone is riding a bike in the hall," Robo said. "I saw a wheel go by -- under our door."

"Robo, go to sleep," Mother said.

"It went 'squeak squeak,'" Robo said.

"Goodnight, boys," said Father.

"If you can talk, we can talk," I said.

"Then talk to each other," Father said. "I'm talking to your mother."

"I want to go to sleep," Mother said. "I wish no one would talk."

We tried. Perhaps we slept. Then Robo whispered to me that he had to use the W.C.

"You know where it is," I said.

Robo went out the door, leaving it slightly open; I heard him walk down the corridor, brushing his hand along the wall. He was back very quickly.

"There's someone in the W.C," he said.

"Wait for them to finish," I said.

"The light wasn't on," Robo said, "but I could still see under the door. Someone is in there, in the dark."