Poachers Road by John Brady

clutch of finger and thumb. Then he sat heavily down at the head of the table.
    “Hansi won’t talk.”
    Behind him a feral-looking cat lay against the kachelofen staring at Felix. Herr Himmelfarb took the napkins off and began folding them. There was strudel, another pie with red berries, a jug of cream. Felix eyed the big eyebrows moving around as Herr Himmelfarb seemed to be looking for a way to say something further.
    “We get that too,” said Gebhart. “Days, even.”
    It was several long moments before Himmelfarb spoke.
    “Yours is, what, fifteen?”
    Gebhart nodded. Felix found that he was staring at Gebhart.
    He suddenly seemed very different. Even his voice had changed.
    And in the back of Felix’s mind something had burst remorse, some anger too, spiralling into itself. How had he not known? Why had Gebhart not told him?
    The only sounds now were Frau Himmelfarb’s careful arranging of things over near the sink.
    “Is he not able?” Felix asked.
    Himmelfarb exchanged a quick look with Gebhart before turning to him.
    “Oh he’s able, all right.We can’t shut him up some nights. Isn’t that so, Mutti? The junge, how he’ll talk?”
    “He likes to talk, it’s true,” Frau Himmelfarb said.
    “He talks to himself,” she went on. “He talks to the dog. He talks to the cows.”
    “That’s often a wise move,” said Gebhart.
    Frau Himmelfarb’s face seemed to ease a little. You take your humour as you find it up here, Felix thought.The Himmelfarbs had an accent stronger than any he could remember in a long time. The half-finished words, some of them fired out and others barely audible, were even beyond the baying, “bellen” tones of most Styrians.
    “But he won’t even talk to you, I’m afraid. I told him, and, well, you don’t see him here, do you?”
    With that, Himmelfarb leaned forward and narrowed his eyes.
    He nodded toward a door that led into the rest of the house, and he winked. Gebhart raised his eyebrows and nodded at Felix too.
    “Schade,” said Gebhart. “That’s a great pity. I do like to talk with Hansi.”
    Himmelfarb cocked his head and kept his eyes on the door. Gebhart waited, and then spoke in the same clear, slow tone, addressing the door.
    “We have the patrol car outside, of course. There are quite a number of toys in that, you know.”
    Frau Himmelfarb undid her scarf then. Felix imagined her careful braids golden yellow again, a younger Mrs. Himmelfarb dancing, laughing. It would have been centuries before she became mother to a retarded kid way up here in the middle of nowhere.
    “Well,” said Gebi. “Fair enough. But I wish Hansi were here.
    We could show him our toys. It’s too bad.”
    The door handle went down and Hansi Himmelfarb stood in the doorway. He was holding a kitten. Felix thought he heard Gebi sigh.
    “Well, Hansi,” he said in a voice Felix hadn’t heard before.
    “May we meet your kitten?”
    Felix didn’t want to stare. He’d seen Down’s people before.
    Who hadn’t? But there was the look of a deer or something to him.
    Maybe it was the stubble hair or freckles. He could be 20, or 40.
    Gebhart was on his feet now. He was allowed to scratch the kitten’s belly and have his fingers chewed a little in return.
    Hansi was suddenly unsure of something. He walked away, and stopped by the sink. He closed his eyes as he stroked the kitten.
    Gebhart sat down again and looked at Himmelfarb.
    “The boy is up at night,” said Himmelfarb. “He is afraid to sleep, he says.”
    “Regressing,” said Frau Himmelfarb, and glanced at her son, who seemed oblivious to their words. She began pouring hot water from the kettle into a jug. Instant coffee, Felix believed. It was better than nothing: a little.
    “Well what has he told you? You said ‘puppets,’ was it?”
    Himmelfarb hesitated.
    “‘Puppets.’ Mostly that. Puppets, forest.”
    Hansi opened his eyes and looked at his father, before turning his eyes toward Felix.
    “The woods? He