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Show 184 from cinders and his face from cold. Karl was overjoyed to reach Canaan again. Even with its dirt, its pall of smoke that stung his nose and his lungs, its screech of steel mills in what would have been the silent hours of night anywhere else, Canaan was Karl's home, the place he wanted to spend his life. When he came to his gate on Pine Alley, wind momentarily cleft the smoky skies, so that moonlight made the Kerner house look like the flat backdrop of a stage set. Only more beautiful, and real. He opened the kitchen door -- they never locked it -- and turned on the inside lights. Seven loaves of bread stood in a row on the table. Maggie Rose had evidently baked that evening, and set out the loaves to cool. Karl was so starved he wolfed down a whole loaf and half of another. And he was filthy; too disheveled to present himself to his parents as the prodigal son returned. He would rest for a little while on the parlor couch before cleaning himself to face Hugo and Maggie Rose after they woke up in the morning. For hours his troubled dreams reenacted the lurch of a freight train, its racket. Then the pressure of a hand grew heavy on his shoulder -- even in his sleep, Karl knew the hand expressed affection. He struggled to come awake. In the dim light of a parlor lamp, he saw his father's shape bent over him. "Well, son," Hugo said, and his voice held only kindness, "what did you think of the world?" |
