Before We Sleep

by Jeffrey Lent

  Still warm but with a rosy-tint westward, lengthening pale shadows, shafts of golden light pooling down cross-streets. The store was small, the one wide window a spatter of mimeographs, ads, small broadsides; above that on the glass puffy letters in a rainbow of colors naming the store, the two words curled around each other, the letters distorted to make a circle. It took a moment to parse but whenever she glanced back she wondered how it could’ve confused her—so clear it seemed. Another sign with the hours, closed for the night. She leaned close to the glass and cupped her hands against the glare and peered inside. Best she could see it held a jumble of bins and large jars, hanging utensils and cooking equipment she didn’t recognize. And more crazy-quilt paint upon the walls. But also up front and center in that window was an old hand-pushed wheeled garden cultivator, a close replica of the one her dad used. And this glimpse of the familiar was enough to hold her overnight. To find a motel and return in the morning. A welter of curiosity, she was. And, unaccountable, a tremble of delicious excitement. The first articulate glimmer that her own mission was far more than what she’d laid out for herself. Not only chasing the past but some tendrils snaking toward her. Of what to come, was already coming. A new world from that of her parents. Hers.

  She drove around the block twice and had the location set in her mind and then eased out of the old city and found the motel. Then walked down a couple of blocks and found a diner open and mostly empty on a Sunday night. She ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup, broke oyster crackers into the soup and ate. Drank a root beer and paid up and tipped a dime to the older waitress and went out and in the falling warm twilight walked back up to her motel and let herself in. And slept. In the morning she was parked outside Milk & Honey when it opened at ten. As she pressed through the door a set of small brass chimes tinkled, a pleasant welcoming sound. It seemed she was alone in the store although a small turntable was set up on one shelf and speakers attached high in the corners, the music the sweet ache of love, or solace—recordings her mother owned—Bach’s cello suites recorded by Pablo Casals. She wandered. Along with the bins and crocks of dried grains and beans, flour and meal, there were also big jars of nuts and seeds. All with handwritten labels in an ornate script. Most of the varieties were ones she didn’t recognize—some few names she knew but had either never seen or seen in their raw state. There was a rack of gallon Mason jars filled with dried herbs, again all labeled, again only a handful she knew. And some of those few she had never thought of as herbs. These held labels with more description—what the herbs could be used for, in tonics, teas, infusions.

  She wandered on. There was no cash register but the counter near the front was clear enough. Upon it, among many other things, was a small brass ringed dish with a cone of incense burning. A rich and soothing curl of scent throughout the store. She’d heard about incense but never seen any and so leaned close and inhaled and her nose tickled and she reared back, wondering if this was something like pot. Or pot hidden by another name. Then saw a smaller shelf that held packages of different sizes, most labeled in a strange script she’d never seen before—some few in rough block-print English. She picked up two or three at random and smelled—each was different, each was lovely. A vague sense of peace and ease came over her. She wandered on.

  Past food mills and mortar-and-pestle sets (which she recognized from Chemistry) though these were in marble or other stone, others in the same worked brass of the incense burners. Tea strainers made from metal, also bamboo. Distinct designs but their function was clear. Short knives with wide blades and grooves in the blades for a purpose she couldn’t discern. Pottery teapots glazed in colors and designs she’d never guessed might exist, but did. A rack of soaps and lotions; again nothing she’d ever seen but there was a comfortable feel to the smells of the raw bar soaps, reading the labels of the other products—Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap—We Are All One and on down in small print endless or at least she didn’t get through it all—again she felt like she was stumbling toward a home she’d known was waiting her to join but even this moment, she wasn’t sure where she was, what this place, however comfortable, intriguing, confusing, what exactly it was. For her.

  The side of the album came to an end and the needle rested, popping a slow twitch of amplified sound. Then behind her she heard a swish and turned to see a panel of raw burlap lifted as a man pushed through. He walked around behind the counter and, eyes on her, placed the arm back in the cradle and flipped the album with his fingertips and set the needle back in the first groove. And said, “Good morning, young lady. What may I do to assist you?”

  He had an accent she had no means of placing, although in a vague sense he sounded like Groucho. But he was short and gently rounded, with a thick mustache and wispy flyaway thin hair almost down to his shoulders; his face reminded her of Albert Einstein. He was not what she’d expected, though she couldn’t quite say who she’d expected except someone younger, much younger. A few years older than herself. Perhaps in a paisley Nehru jacket or striped bell-bottoms or both. She flushed, feeling her ignorance, ideas born from television and magazines; only the music she heard, the album covers and liner notes she pored over, felt as if that world existed.

  She said, “Yesterday up past Belfast I met a woman who told me about this place. She fed me some bread she’d made; it wasn’t anything like I’d eaten before but it was real good. And I was driving back down today and thought I’d stop in.” His eyes were a watery blue, the whites rimmed a bit red as he held them on her as if expecting more and so she nigh blurted, “Casals. Cello suites. Aren’t they sublime?”

  He said, “Pablo Casals discovered them, you know. They were not played. Practice, maybe. He found old sheet music and played them for years and years, knowing from the first, I think, that he had found something no one else had. Perhaps that is what makes genius. Seeing what is before us in a new way and then digging, digging, deeper and deeper—for that is what it was to practice those suites for so many years—”

  “How many years?”

  “I don’t know—a dozen, twenty? A long time. Because he was reaching for something he heard in his mind, that he heard from the page, maybe pieces from his instrument, for a very long time, before his cello matched what his mind heard from the page. That is something to ponder, yes?” He gave an almost sly smile and before she could respond he went on: “This woman is Molly Ivey Lucerne. She is an interesting woman. Smart. Smarter than perhaps she knows. But she understands the food. Food. Now wait.”

  He came past the counter and went to one of the shelves, took down a jar, then walked down an aisle for a round package in bright colors with a label she could not read. He came back around the counter and said, “It’s mostly the young people. Which is a good thing, because the young will carry it forward, will bring the world back into balance, if such is possible. Perhaps,” and he looked up and smiled at her. “Perhaps possible is the best we can hope for. But wait again. We don’t know each other—another problem. So much, people today, they go to the supermarket, the clothing store, wherever, and make business with strangers. Is this good? I don’t think so. We need to know one another. The world is big but small, yes? We must know each other or the danger is great. The world only grows larger, out and out and out and soon it does not matter, soon we expect only to deal with strangers. So, I am Ernst Behr. You are?”

  “I’m Katey Snow.”

  He made a small bow of his head and extended a hand and she took his hand. He did not shake it the way she was used to but held it within his and he said, “It is a blessing to meet you, Miss Katey Snow.” Then lifted both their hands and pressed dry lips to the back of her hand and released it, gentle as freeing a small bird.

  She had no idea how to respond, to thank him, to offer a blessing in return, or just wait and see what happened next. So she did.

  He was already at work, there on the counter. He opened the jar and lifted a mug from a rack overhead and poured a dense juice, lighter
than cider but full and thick and then tore open the package and pulled free a thick round of dry bubbly cracker and broke it into pieces and arrayed the pieces next to the mug.

  “There,” he said. “This is organic pear juice from California. You know pear juice? Delicious. Drink this, you drink autumn. The bread is a dry bread made to last most of forever. Originally from Armenia. Made here by Armenians, old family. Old food. This same bread has been made three thousand years. Think of that. Now, try.”

  “It’s good.” The juice was sweet upon her tongue but also she felt as well as tasted the fruit. As if she was drinking a pear. And the bread, the thick cracker, was salty and slightly sweet and then, as she chewed, both bread and juice seemed to transform within her mouth and become some other food altogether.

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes still upon her. As if he saw the transformation. He smiled then and said, “What else can I help you with this morning?”

  “Who are you? Where did you come from? Why are you here?”

  His smile was gone. “Good questions, Katey Snow.” He paused and looked away and then back. “I am the man who is where he is, because it’s where I must be. Such is life. The juice is a gift. And you want the bread—I’ll sell you a new package. And, and, your journey: As Steiner said, ‘That which secures life from exhaustion lies in the unseen world, deep at the roots of things.’”

  Then he went again across the room and plucked up two folded-down and taped brown paper bags from separate shelves and set them on the counter. He said, “These you want, also. Dried apricots without sulfur, and almonds. All together, food complete. Yes?”

  “What do you mean? Apricots without sulfur?”

  He cocked an eyebrow and said, “You have eaten dried apricots?”

  “At Christmas my mother gets them as a treat. Dates, also.”

  “Dates are good, yes. But the apricots. What color are they?”

  “Orange? Maybe bright yellow?”

  “Have you ever eaten a fresh apricot? In summer?”

  “No. They don’t grow in Vermont.”

  “Or Maine. But they are that color. Orange-yellow. So people expect apricots to be orange, always. But when fruit is dried, the color changes. As with raisins, yes? You understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, raisins, they are not called dried grapes. Like prunes; dried plums.”

  “Because they have different names…”

  “Exactly.”

  “What does this have to do with sulfur?”

  “Any fruit can be dried. Always this has been the case. But we have fallen away from that knowledge. A dried grape is a raisin, a dried plum is a prune. But what is a dried apricot?”

  “A dried apricot?”

  “Yes. But then. The problem.” He tore the tape and unfolded the top of the bag and held a round brown oval, wrinkled and ridged, out to her. “You see? This does not look like fruit. Maybe a dried ear. Another story. But so the scientists, the food scientists, they discover by spraying these dried apricots with sulfur, they stay bright orange. They look, what. More like an apricot. Which is good, yes?”

  “I guess.”

  “Exactly.” He leaned toward her. “Except it’s not. Now, everything on earth comes from the earth. Sulfur is not bad for us. As it is, small amounts, in water, food. But to make apricots look different? That is not good. Why must a dried apricot look like anything but a dried apricot? There is no reason. To be able to do a thing, that is not enough reason to do something. Believe me. I know.”

  She thought about all of this, all that had been said. And came back to her question of who he was and his vague answer and something of that morning, something else of those past months rang clear within her and she returned to what he’d said when she asked who he was, where he was from. His vagueness but also his willingness to share.

  She said, “What you said, about the unseen world, the root of things that saves us, something like that? Where did that come from?”

  He studied her a moment. Then said, “Wait.” He turned and walked back through the store, through the burlap curtain and was gone. She fiddled with the paper bags, curious about the apricots. Aware also that there came from Ernst Behr a comfort, a sense of a man who held a weight upon him, within him, but also a man who offered no threat. Who seemed to hold an understanding that he wished only to pass along. And so was patient, curious. She was a little enthralled, knowing she was meeting someone whom she’d only vaguely sensed, perhaps only dreamed about.

  He returned carrying before his chest in both hands a slender book with worn blue cloth bindings. He went again behind the counter as if to keep this space between them was in some formal way important to him. Wordless, he handed the book to her. It was about the size of The Catcher in the Rye but thinner, less than half a deck of cards. Centered on the front was flecked and faded gilt lettering. On Anthroposophy.

  She wanted to open it, scan the pages but did not. She knew, from books her mother and her grandmother had owned that the pages were of thin paper and the type was fine—that the book held more than it appeared it might. She held it and waited.

  Ernst Behr also waited, watching how she held the book. Finally he said, “That is a collection taken from various writings; a book made from other books, if you will. From the writings of Rudolf Steiner. Who I quoted earlier. It is a book you can read from first page to last but also a book you may open wherever and touch upon a thought, a wisdom, that will help explain whatever question life might bring before you.” Then he smiled and lifted his shoulders in a great shrug. “Or not. At that moment. Perhaps it will be later. Some things work that way.”

  “I’m learning that’s true.”

  He smiled and then his smile faded and he was silent a long moment, his eyes cast down, his face serious and she watched him and felt the sadness emanate from him. She waited. Perhaps he felt her waiting, perhaps he only needed the moment but he looked back at her and his features were calm, at ease within himself again as he had been.

  He said, “You asked who I am, where I came from. Those are very important and difficult questions to answer in the usual understanding. But let me say this: When I was your age, even ten years after that, I thought I knew all of what life wanted of me, all of who I was. And then greater events, larger forces took control. Terrible times, times no person should have to endure and times that some way or another it seems most people have to endure. All places, even the ones that think it has not happened to them and so it will not happen. But those terrible times happen over and over, all places. Perhaps not to you. Or not yet. But to others, less distant than you think. But me—what helped me survive those times of my own, beyond a great amount of fortune, luck, were the ideas I held dear and true to me. That I knew were true however much the world around me insisted upon proving they were not true. Because what beats strongest in the human heart is not what is, but what may be. And this leads us, and, also leaves us, with the philosophers, the visionaries—those who think and can articulate that thinking, in ways the rest of us can grasp. And hold on to. Because we know there is truth there. It is almost like religion but with a small but very important difference: We understand we hold the power of change within us. Even if the world does not seem so at the time. We know it is mankind that can make change. Sound simple? No, it’s very hard. But true. And knowing that, for myself, made possible to survive what couldn’t otherwise be survived.”

  Katey placed the book upon the counter next to the food and studied it, ran her fingertips up and down, the fabric so worn she could feel the threads, the small indentations where the gilt was stamped through. Took a breath and looked up and said, “Ernst Behr.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re German. You were in the war.”

  “I am. I was.”

  She held a breath, thinking. Remembering the afternoon before. And did not so much take a chance as say what had to be said.

  “My dad was also in the war.”

  He said, �
��American. The good guys.”

  “Well, they were! The British couldn’t have done it alone. And the Russians, well, we know how that worked out.”

  “Ach, yes. It was all very complicated. Not so much for America but for the Continent, East and West, very complicated. Nothing was as it seemed except for this: There were only bad ideas and worse ideas and all of it was like a very bad rainstorm, where all you got was more mud, long days growing even longer, roofs leaking, cellars flooding. All upside down one day and even more upside down the next. But you go on the best you can, doing what you have to do, what you are told to do. Very much doing your best at all times to at least appear you are doing all you are told to do—also simply hoping to survive—nothing lasts forever although there are things you almost wish not to survive and there are times when it seems the worst might indeed last forever. And then you begin to see that it won’t. In ways those were the best and most horrible of times. There was hope, held hidden deep inside again. And fear. Desperation pushes out the deep ugliness in many men, especially men with any power at all. And … Well, Katey Snow. I am here. So I survived. I see the question in you—No, I was not a Nazi. I never joined the party. That made it more difficult to survive the early years except for the strength within my spirit. Which can be squashed like a bug—I saw this many times. But I also knew others. I was not alone. Even the times it felt that way, deep down, always, I knew I was not alone. Even if I did not survive I knew I was not alone.”

  And he reached then and, much like she had, ran his fingers over the book. Then he looked up at her and said, “So. I am here in Maine. Selling food and other good things. How a life turns out.”

  Then he turned away. But not before she saw the welling in his eyes. He walked the two steps to the turntable and lifted the needle from where it was softly popping and only then did she realize the music was gone. He didn’t flip the record again but only placed the arm in its cradle and dialed the power knob down to off and there came a final pop through the speaker.