Gretel and the Dark (28 page)

‘What?’

‘Go for the big fellows, do you? Even that oversized
Schluchtenscheisser.
’

‘No!’

‘Then what is it? We came up here to be alone. Don’t I please you?’

‘It’s not that,’ said Benjamin, thinking furiously. ‘It’s just that I can’t stand being rushed.’

‘Ah.’
Wilhelm nodded and squeezed Benjamin’s shoulder ‘Not only the smoking you haven’t tried before then. You’re new at this game, too. Why didn’t you say? I’m in no hurry.’ He sank on to the sofa, smiling reassuringly. ‘Close the what’s-it, my young friend. Come and sit beside me.’

Benjamin took one last look into the room below and stifled a gasp. The girl was standing now, staring straight at him. The looking glass lay on its side, her hairbrush was on the floor. Inside the curtain of bright hair, her face was gaunt as that of a young witch. Her whisper was hardly more than the thin piping of a bird in winter reeds. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

‘So you’re really not interested in Kurt?’ enquired Wilhelm.

The girl’s lips moved again. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

‘No.’ Benjamin quietly secured the fastening, his mouth suddenly dry. He sank on to the seat beside Wilhelm. The other man moved closer, wrapping his arms around him. His wiry strength alarmed Benjamin far more than the enforced intimacy. When a kiss was demanded, he closed his eyes, imagining the finely stubbled cheek was his brother’s. Wilhelm laughed softly.

‘Not quite what I had in mind, Ben, but time’s on our side.’ He started towards the stairs. ‘There’s nothing else to be up here for. We’d better go.’

Benjamin pointed to the last shutter. ‘What about –’

‘Empty.’

‘No.’ Terror washed over him. ‘No, it can’t be.’ And when Wilhelm kept going, Benjamin threw himself towards the final spyhole, only to find that the room was indeed a dark void, although he was almost sure the faint sound of weeping circled the space below. Above it came the click of Wilhelm unlocking the door on to the corridor. The sobs grew louder as
Benjamin continued to peer through the opened shutter. ‘Where are you?’ he breathed into the gloom. The weeping ceased. A girl’s face emerged from the pitch black, pale and hazy, ill-defined as a photographer’s crayon portrait. Her lips moved, but no sound reached his ears. Slowly her features melted back into the darkness. The hopeless weeping recommenced. Benjamin rubbed his eyes. This time he really had seen a ghost.

‘Ben!’ came Wilhelm’s urgent whisper from below.

‘Coming.’ Benjamin quickly closed the shutter and hurried after him. It was only when he reached the bottom that he realized he might have discovered something of importance: the ghostly girl’s hair had been chopped off; she was almost bald. There was no opportunity to question his companion further. Wilhelm’s face was creased with anxiety as he took the stairs two at a time.

‘We were up there longer than we should have been,’ he muttered. ‘There are a million things I should have been doing. I only hope the boss –’ He paused as they reached the penultimate flight, peering carefully up and down the corridor. ‘All right, my young friend, I’ll take you as far as the kitchen. It’s easy enough to find your way out from there.’ He was hurrying across the vestibule, when the main-entrance door was flung open and Benjamin’s worst fears were realized.

‘What the hell’s he doing in here?’ roared the flaxen-haired man, tearing off his coat and flinging it on the ground.

‘This is the young nephew I spoke to you about, Herr Klingemann,’ said Wilhelm, moving to stand between them. ‘My sister’s boy, from Burgenland. You very kindly said he could work alongside me.’

‘Nephew, my arse, you lying toad.’ Klingemann’s smile was
sweet and deadly. ‘Any fool can see what he is.’ He ran at them, deliberately knocking over jardinières, so the marble nymphs lay chipped and broken among shards and earth and crushed flowers; Benjamin thought of the broken iron table outside, and trembled. ‘He’s also a spy for that filthy hack, Besser. And if he’s a friend of yours, you can clear off, too.’

Wilhelm looked at him, and then moved aside, his expression contemptuous. ‘I was mistaken, sir. He’s nothing to me.’

‘I’m not Besser’s spy,’ cried Benjamin, backing away until he could go no further. Kurt arrived from nowhere to tower over him and, whether male or female, the cook’s stout form blocked any hope of exit through the kitchen. Other men were crowding into the vestibule now; not a friendly face among them. Only Klingemann continued to smile, as he cracked his knuckles.

‘Always in the wrong place at the wrong time. I warned you what would happen,
Judenscheisse
.’

For days I keep close to the hut, making myself invisible. I try talking to Lena but she’s sick now and does too much crying. Nobody else wants to talk. When they aren’t at work, they sleep or stare, though there’s nothing to look at. Lottie is worn out and it’s no good looking for Daniel: he’ll stay out of the way until the marks don’t show any more. Cuts and bruises only bring more cuts, worse bruises.

Now there’s only school in the evenings to look forward to. Cecily says I’m her best pupil but she doesn’t allow babies in so I have to stop sucking my thumb. She calls me her little polyglot and teaches me about Greeks and Romans and geometry, showing me how Pythagoras’s theorem works by drawing it in the mud with a stick. She started showing me his tetractys too – I like this because it’s magical – but it was raining too hard and the triangles of numbers kept washing away before I could add them up. Instead we sat in the doorway and talked about Pythagoras and his beans. When I said my magic bean plants had been stolen, Cecily patted my hand and told me about two green fairy children who came out of a forest in England and ate nothing but beanstalks. I can get her to talk about English kings burning cakes, hiding in oak trees or cutting off the heads of their wives, but she doesn’t do real stories, only history. When I tell her how boring everything is, she reminds me about the other children and in the end I force some to sit down and listen to me.

There’s
another person doing stories, but not very good ones. Hers come out
bang bang bang
like thin slices of plain dry bread falling on to a plate. Mine are fat, oozing caramelized sugar, bursting with currants and spice. When the other children are really hungry I can take them into even darker forests, do away with the witches in horrible ways and let them eat gingerbread. The other storyteller is called Hanna.

‘Now, children,’ she says, ‘today I have a new tale for you. It’s about two men who were squabbling over an old plum orchard. Each man claimed he owned it. Each said he could prove it was
his
father, and nobody else’s, who’d planted the plum trees many years earlier. The quarrel went on for months. In the end their wives made them agree to put the case before the rabbi. The rabbi listened to everything they had to say. Even then he couldn’t come to a decision, because both seemed to be right. Finally he said: “Since I can’t decide to whom this orchard belongs, the only thing left to us is to go and ask the land.” And so the wise old rabbi walked very slowly out of the village until he came to the plum trees. Here he put his ear to the ground and listened. After a moment the rabbi straightened up. “Gentlemen,” he said, “the land says that it belongs to neither of you. On the contrary, both of you belong to it.” ’

A woman mending her skirt nearby smiles but the children sit and wait, even though anyone can see the story’s come to an end. It was a stupid story and I want to say so, but Greet always warned me to be careful with people who looked funny.

Hanna must be the ugliest-looking woman in the world. She’s even uglier than the hunchbacked gipsy woman who came to the door with baskets of daffodils in the spring, and
Steinpilze
every autumn. Perhaps she was a witch, too. Greet always bought something from her. It was unlucky not to. The flowers she put
into a jam jar, standing them on the windowsill so the gipsy could see if she happened to pass by. The mushrooms were buried deep in the garden; even though they looked like ordinary ceps, they could just as well have been poisonous toadstools. Hanna drags one foot behind her when she walks and wears dirty old rags knotted around her fingers. Her face is as twisted on one side as a wrung-out dishcloth and where her hair has grown it’s striped to match her skirt. When she isn’t telling stories, she talks to anyone who will listen … and if there’s no one she mumbles to herself.

This time Daniel comes to find me before the dog bites have a chance to heal. He doesn’t say he misses me, but I know he does because I missed him too. Some children are hanging around wanting more of my stories and I have to chase them away. One of them keeps close to Daniel and won’t go, even when I pick up a stick.

‘What’s this? Your shadow?’

‘Let him stay,’ says Daniel. ‘He’s not hurting you.’

‘Why should you care? Get out of my way.’

Daniel stands between us. ‘Don’t be like –’

‘I want to talk to you on your own. I don’t want her listening.’

‘He’s a he, not a her,’ insists Daniel, but both of us look doubtfully at this new arrival.

‘All right, then. What’s your name?’ The creature says nothing, only stares at me with its big frog-eyes. It’s as thin as paper and just as pale. I’m not sure it ever had any hair. ‘Well?’ I demand, pinching its arm. I take my hand away quickly. The arm feels funny, as if the bone was made of rubber. ‘Are you a boy or a girl? Say something.’ I lift my foot, ready for a kick, just a small one, to see if the leg is rubbery as well.

‘Don’t,’
says Daniel.

‘What’s it got to do with you?’ He sounds upset, so I just do a little tap with my toe. I hardly touched. It can’t possibly have hurt and yet tears and snot start pouring down the creature’s face. ‘If it won’t say what it is, there’s only one other way of finding out. Are you going to look, or shall I?’

‘You can forget that!’

I’ve never seen Daniel so angry. His face turns beetroot colour. For a moment you can hardly see the bruises and teeth marks. ‘Neither of us will. Not ever. You hear me? What’s up with you? Haven’t you learned anything from being …’ He throws up his arms. ‘What does it matter to anybody?
Verschwinde!
Go on, clear off! I’m not talking to you.’

‘Good. See if I care. I’m not talking to you either, stupid.’ I walk away without looking back. Lottie is yelling something from inside my vest, but she can shut up, too, because I don’t mind if I never see Daniel again. For all I care, he can disappear in the night, like the others. Good luck to him, if he likes that gristle-bone thing better than me. Anyway, Daniel can say what he likes, but he needn’t think I won’t find a way to get rid of it.

Here I am blinking at the zigzag of light unzipping the black sky. There’s a distant rumbling that sounds like the sleepy dog over the road growling when I poke it with sticks. A mistle thrush is singing in the apple tree – I can see its speckled belly from here – and Greet is rushing to bring in the washing before the storm breaks. One moment she’s hauling down a billowing sheet, the next she has me under her arm, muttering bad words under her breath as she drags me back into the kitchen.

‘I told you to stay there, you naughty girl. Do you want to
be burnt to a crisp by a bolt of lightning? I don’t want you following me everywhere, hanging on to my apron. Why can’t you ever do as you’re told?’ Taking a length of string, she ties me to the leg of the table. ‘There, that’ll put paid to your disobedience.’

I scream and kick, but Greet takes no notice. Without another word, she darts outside again. However hard I tug at the knot, it won’t come undone, so I begin pulling the table, inch by inch, towards the door. It’s too big to go through. One corner jams on the frame. Another flash comes. And another. Finally, there’s a huge crash overhead and the sky opens. Rain buckets down. I crawl under the table and Greet has to do the same, puffing and blowing as she pushes the laundry basket in front of her.

When she’s finished drying her hair and shouting at me, Greet gives me my milk, without cake, and starts on the ironing. There’s usually a story to go with it. I can tell from her face it won’t be a nice one.

‘Once upon a time,’ she says, spitting on the iron and making it sizzle, ‘there was a stubborn child who never did what her elders and betters told her to do. Naturally, God grew displeased with this little sinner and, before long, she became so sick that no doctor could save her. The sexton dug her grave and the stubborn child was carried to the churchyard. After she was lowered into her grave and covered with earth one of her little arms emerged and reached up in the air. They –’

‘Why didn’t they put her in a box? Mama went in a box with brass handles and flowers on top.’

‘Well, they didn’t.’

‘Why?’

‘Who knows? Perhaps they were too poor. Maybe she was
too wicked. I don’t know. They just didn’t.’ Greet slams down the hot iron and a smell of scorching fills the kitchen. ‘Anyway, they pushed it back down and covered the mound with fresh earth, but again the little arm popped out. So the child’s m– … so
someone
had to go to the grave and beat the disobedient child’s arm with a switch for a day and a night. Only then did the arm withdraw and go down into the earth as it was supposed to.’

I push away my empty mug. ‘That’s stupid. Dead people don’t stick their arms up.’

‘Are you sure? If you don’t want to find out, you’d better start doing as you’re told. And, in future, when I say, “Stop following me around,” stay where you’re put.’

More people are disappearing. It’s mostly the very old ladies and the sick people who are taken to hospital to be made better. Some of the children go too. Lena scrubs her cheeks to make some colour come. Last night we heard a lot of noise. This morning the aviary is full of ravens, all hard at work. I try not to look.

Hephzibah says there was a king in the Bible called Oreb, which means ‘raven’. ‘One raven used to raid the Israelites – and look, now they’re all at it.’

Greet’s been in a funny mood all week, sometimes banging and crashing, sometimes twisting the corner of her apron into tight knots as she stares into thin air and sighs. This morning she’s cleaning the yard with the big, stiff-bristled broom, making pale dust devils rise from the corners.

‘Leave me be.’ She elbows me aside. ‘I’ve no time for idle chatter today.’

I
stamp my foot. ‘Want a story.’

‘You can want away, young lady. It’s too bad, really it is. Cast out on to the street with hardly a week’s notice after working my fingers to the bone for your father. And naturally everything must be left in perfect order for when the great lord and master decides to return home. It’ll take me all afternoon to cover the furniture with dust sheets.’ She straightens, kneading the small of her back. ‘And how will he manage you, I ask myself? How will he manage you?’

‘Shall I sprinkle the flagstones with water, Greet?’

‘It’s no good trying to get round me that way,’ she says. ‘Besides, all my stories are used up. You’ve wrung me dry.’

I do it anyway, scooping handfuls of water from the bucket and throwing them over the stones to lay the dust. Little pockets of mud form to be played with later. ‘Where will you go, Greet?’

‘Home,’ she says mournfully. ‘I’ve nowhere else. What else does an old maid do at these times but take herself back to the hens and the geese, the fields and the forest? With my parents gone, it’s my brother’s farm now. Of course he’ll be glad of another pair of hands at the moment, but the old maid won’t be welcome after this is all over.’ She sighs very loudly. ‘His boys will return – if, God willing, they’re spared – to take over the work. And what then? Nobody wants another mouth to feed if they don’t need the hands attached to it.’

‘Where did the boys go?’

Greet snatches the bucket and slops water around the yard. ‘To be soldiers.’ She marches back into the kitchen. ‘After the way I’ve been treated, I deserve the best coffee in a fine cup on my last day.’ She brings one of Mama’s from the dining room. It has pink roses all around and a tiny rosebud decorating the
handle. The saucer is so thin the light seems to shine through it. My milk comes in the usual stupid baby mug.

‘There was once an honest and hard-working soldier,’ she begins, cutting us both extra-large slices of gingerbread before I get a chance to complain, ‘who was set upon by robbers. After stealing everything he had, they poked his eyes out and tied him to the nearest gallows tree.’

I’m so busy covering up my own eyes I forget to swallow, and choke, spitting crumbs into my lap.

Greet slaps my hand. ‘Any more of that and I’ll throw your cake to the birds.’ She refills her cup. ‘The poor blind soldier heard a fluttering of wings as three ancient ravens settled on to the gallows –’

‘How did the soldier know they were ravens if he didn’t have any eyes?’

‘By their voices, silly.’

‘Ravens don’t have –’

‘Do you want to hear this story, or not? Well, then. Now, the first raven told its sisters that the King’s daughter was near to dying and the King would give her hand in marriage to any man who could save her.’

‘What if it was a lady –’

Greet tightens her mouth at me. ‘ “And yet,” said the raven, “curing her is the simplest thing in the world. All you have to do is catch the toad from that pond over there, burn it alive and make it into a potion with a little water.” Then the second raven said: “Oh, if only people were as wise as us. Listen to this, sister ravens. Tonight dew with miraculous powers will fall from Heaven. If a blind man should wash his eyes with it, he would regain his sight.” The third raven croaked loudly. “Oh,” she said. “If only foolish Man was half as wise as us.
You’ve no doubt heard about the great drought in the city? And yet if the stone square in the marketplace was removed, water would gush out, enough for the entire population.” With that the ravens flew away to roost, but the soldier, who’d overheard every word, washed his eyes in the precious dew. His sight was instantly resto–’

‘But you said the robbers poked his eyes out, so how did he find –’

‘Quiet!’ roars Greet.

‘Stupid story.’ I kick the table leg and fold my arms tight over my chest.

Greet eyes me over the rim of her cup. ‘Time for me to make a start on the dust covers.’

‘Don’t care. I know the rest. The stupid soldier does all the things and marries the silly princess.’

‘Ah, but there’s more.’ Greet starts to get up. ‘Still, if you don’t want to hear …’

‘What?’

She settles back down again, pours a third cup of coffee and cuts us more gingerbread. ‘It so happened that one day the soldier, who was by now married to the princess, met the robbers who had attacked him so violently. Of course, he was wearing such fine clothes they didn’t recognize him immediately. When he told them what had happened they fell on their knees, begging forgiveness. Instead of having them executed, the soldier let them go. If it hadn’t been for them, he said, he wouldn’t have his present good fortune. And so, the robbers decided to spend the night under the gallows tree to see if the ravens would reveal any more secrets. But the ravens were furious. They knew someone must have overheard their conversation, for all the things they talked about had come to pass. They went in search of the
eavesdropper and found the robbers sitting under the gallows tree.’ Greet hesitates. She leans forward, lowering her voice. ‘The ravens fell upon the robbers, sitting on their heads and pecking their eyes out.
Peck! Peck!
Peck!
’ She wets her finger and –
jab, jab, jab
– uses it to pick up the scattered crumbs of gingerbread. ‘
Peck! Peck! Peck!
They kept hacking at their faces until no one could have recognized them, not even their mothers.’