Episodul 247 · The Empty Bed

Three months before Soles came to Vatra, Varren stood in the doorway of the seamen’s hostel while the retired tram driver packed his shirts.

The bed had been made. Beside it stood the lantern the man had carried on their walks along the river, its handle still wrapped in a rag against his hot palms.

— Your wife came?

— Yesterday. While you were out.

— You could have told me.

— I’m telling you now.

The man pressed a shirt into his bag. His hands were still too warm. At home he would have to sleep with the window open, and his wife would complain, and they would settle it between them.

— Is she all right with it? Varren asked.

— She brought my slippers. Said if I wasn’t coming home, she wanted my half of the wardrobe.

He smiled, waiting. Varren found a smile for him.

For weeks the man had offered his hand every morning. He had needed someone to hold it without flinching. Now he pulled his gloves on himself and fastened the bag. Varren searched for the hesitation that would tell him where to help. The man only wanted to get home before his wife left for the market.

— We were going to try the lower landing today, Varren said.

The driver looked at the lantern.

— I can come tomorrow.

Varren almost accepted. With someone above to hold the light, he could examine the bank without leaving his way back in darkness. Tomorrow would give him another evening here, another breakfast, time to ask whether home was really ready for him.

— No. Go home.

— You’re sure?

— Take the lantern. That street of yours is badly lit.

The man hesitated, then took it. At the door he caught Varren’s hand between both of his. The warmth was familiar. Varren held on until the man began to turn, then let him.

The others were at the bakery. Varren stayed beside the empty bed, listening to the front door close.

He could ask Zora to check on the man’s wife. A careful question about sleeping arrangements would be enough. The wife might worry again; the man might come back. Varren knew how to make the question sound kind.

He sat down instead.

He remembered a woman sitting among empty beds, trying to find someone who needed her. He had felt the cold of that room before. Now he understood why she had remained in the chair. Without a need to answer, she had no reason to get up.

The urge to follow the driver pressed against his chest. He waited until it eased, then closed his eyes.

In the garden, the old woman sat beside her plant. She watched the empty place near Varren, as though someone should still be standing there. He sat down without bringing her anyone.

After a while she moved her hand toward him. He took it.

Go on.

She kept looking toward the empty place. He could bear that without filling it.

When he left, he took his own flashlight.

Along the river, the steps down to the lower landing were wet with spray. Across the water the hostel windows caught the afternoon light. Varren could still go back for company.

He had spent days checking where the men from the dark van went. One doorway had led to a fish store. Another had belonged to a woman who charged him for the crate he knocked over. Yesterday a man in a good coat had descended here and stayed below the bank long after the last boat left.

Varren went down to look.

The landing ended against a stone wall beneath the embankment. The river washed over its outer edge. Near the wall, damp footprints crossed the silt and stopped at a slab taller than he was.

He held the flashlight close. The slab’s seam was clean, although mud had collected against the rest of the wall. Someone had been through recently.

The patient presence in him stirred. He had felt it on reaching Vatra, when he first heard the river running through the frost. Here it drew his attention to the stone before he touched it.

He put his palm against the slab and wanted it open.

It withdrew from his hand. Warm air came through the gap, smelling of wet stone. Steps led down beyond it, wide enough for two people to walk together. He shone the flashlight down to their foot, then looked back across the river.

Nobody stood at the hostel window.

He went in.

The stair went down toward the river and ended in a long chamber. Varren stopped on the bottom step. Water sounded overhead, a low, continuous weight of noise. Behind him the open doorway remained a pale rectangle at the top of the stairs.

His light reached pillars sunk into the walls and roots carved across the ceiling. Some had been worn almost smooth. Beneath them stood a broad stone table, low enough to kneel beside. Something pale lay in a hollow on its surface.

He moved closer, keeping the stairs behind him.

A blade. Narrow, with a curved cutting edge and a hole near the base. He had seen another like it in Soles’s hand, dark where this one caught the light.

Recognition struck through him so sharply that he stopped breathing.

For an instant his hand expected a weight it had never held. Then came the need to step back, urgent and sickening. He caught the edge of the table. The stone was warm beneath his fingers.

Away.

Varren straightened. He had followed this presence through streets and along the river, trusted the patience that had brought him here. Now it wanted him away from the thing he had found.

— You know it.

His voice carried to the far wall.

Away.

He waited for more. The feeling only worsened, an old distress with no explanation he could reach. He wanted a name, a place, anything that would tell him what had happened. The presence recoiled from the blade again.

Varren took out his handkerchief and spread it beside the hollow. He could bring someone back to look at the carvings. He could ask questions. If he left the blade here, the men who knew the entrance might take it before he returned.

He lifted it by the base.

His fingers shook while he folded the cloth around the cutting edge. He waited, holding it clear of his body. Nothing in the chamber moved.

The distress stayed with him all the way up the stairs. At the doorway he stopped and looked back. He had wanted the old voice to recognize something.

Now it had, and he was carrying it home.