Mariam and Wanda
When they were shortly before reaching their circle of wagons and about to leave the forest again, Wanda was still cold. Mariam had freed herself from her grip and walked several steps behind her on her right side. Wanda had still not answered Mariam’s question. Not because she didn’t want to. It’s because she couldn’t. Did the girl have any false memories of what happened in the cabin? Was it Mariam who was wrong? Was she too still under the influence of the strange brew that the mysterious man with the fish hand had instilled Wanda? No, not at all. That couldn’t be it. Mariam could very well remember everything that Wanda had said. She hadn’t asked who this Leni was supposed to be. She had heard Wanda’s stories. The girl had to be as clear as Wanda was right now. Did I really tie her to the chair? Why would I have done that? I think I’m losing it. The two of them reached the edge of the forest. Just before they would step out of the undergrowth, Wanda took three quick steps and cut Mariam off. She squatted in front of her, her arms stretched out to the sides, appeasing her. “Listen, Mariam, I ...” Wanda began. “Leave me alone. Let me through! You are ...” It wasn’t Mariam’s words that scared Wanda so much. It was the look on the girl’s face. Mariam looked far too old for her age at that moment. In her gaze lay a disgust that had nothing childlike left. Wanda had expected rejection. With rejection, maybe even with Mariam being afraid of her. But she wasn’t. “What am I?” Wanda whispered hoarse. “What am I? You tell me. Tell me, please, I don’t think I know it anymore.” Mariam tried to push her way past Wanda. Wanda grabbed her around the hip, pressed a kiss on her forehead. “Please, Mariam, understand... I want to be there for you. I want to be your mother. And your sister. And your father too, if I must. I want you to grow up in a world where you can be with people you don’t have to fear. Neither the world, nor the people. And if I first have to light and burn what is left of the world so that it becomes what I want it to be for you, then I will do that. I...” “You killed her! You pushed her in the arrow! You killed one of us! You...” Mariam raised her voice accusingly. Hectically, Wanda looked around backwards. They were dangerously close to their little camp. Regine was on guard duty. Maybe the others were awake too. I hope not. “Sshh ... Please don’t be so loud. You’re right. You’re right. I caused this death.” “You didn’t cause a death. You murdered her.” “Yes,” Wanda relented. “I maybe did that. But she wasn’t one of us. Even them ...” Wanda pointed towards the camp. “… they’re not belonging to us either. They’re good people. But ... it’s good people over there and I like them. Of course I do. But we … that is just the two of us, you know? You know what I mean? We are … only you and me!” “You’re getting more and more like ... like … them!” Mariam broke loose and ran to the camp. Like them, it echoed in Wanda’s ears. The child didn’t mean Armin’s people. Wanda now realized it didn’t make sense to force her into a conversation. If only the child would understand... yes, would understand … what exactly? Was Mariam right in the end? No. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. Wanda followed Mariam’s trail of trampled fern and broken branches. Even before she reached the camp, she heard the voice of Regine, as she demanded to know who was there. Damn cunt, Wanda thought when she saw the woman pointing her big rifle at Mariam in her mind’s eye. Then she apologized in thoughts. Regine was on guard duty. A guard had to be attentive. It was written in the Code of Survivors. She was only doing her job. Slowly and with hands outstretched to the side Wanda went on. In the camp there were already some on their feet. Regine didn’t shout in Wanda’s direction when she saw her. She had certainly been expecting her after identifying Mariam. Her girlfriend, Isahnna, just handed her a cup with something hot upstairs, and Regine bent down from her guard post on the roof of the van to receive the cup. The steam dissolved slowly in the cool air. Regine must have heard my shots, right? Why didn’t she sound the alarm? Maybe... Wanda’s eyes fell on Isahnna. Yeah, maybe she had been distracted. But that much? Oh. Oh. I didn’t shoot the dog at all. Did I? Wanda waved hesitantly at her before she joined the others. Was she mistaken, or did the woman look at her for a second longer than it would have been appropriate for a brief greeting? The motorcycle scouts Breitmann, Karim and Leander were already up. They stood around their machines and talked quietly. The driver of the third transporter, Gerber, stood a few meters away with his back to them and urinated. Yeah. You don’t have to get out of the camp for that. His two passengers had just outgrown their teens and were nowhere to be seen. They’re probably still asleep. That’s typical. Armin, too, was already awake and sat next to the small, modest fire they had allowed themselves. He smiled when he saw Wanda approach. Then he wrinkled his forehead. She had to look terrible, it went through her head. She hoped he wouldn’t ask what’s going on. Of course he did, and she was pretending to have digestive and female problems. “I see. We all slept badly. Karim had nightmares. Pretty lively. So did I. If you need anything, maybe one of the girls can help you out. Here, eat something first.” “I had bad dreams, too. I couldn’t move, I fell. I was under the bike in a dead town. Then came cats, a veritable flood of cats from the cellars,” Breitmann mumbled. Wanda accepted the tin plate with lukewarm canned food and ate two small spoons. She was hungry, very hungry, but if you were to suggest digestive problems, you shouldn’t fill your stomach two seconds later. She pulled the face so that Armin could see it and gave the bowl back to him. “Where’s Mariam?” “She’s already in the car. Wrapped herself in the blankets. Did you have a fight?” His honestly worried facial expression somehow stirred Wanda. But at the same time he made her angry. Unsuspecting idiot. “Yes. But only a small one. It doesn’t matter.” “Slowly but surely the little one is getting into a difficult age, isn’t she?” Armin asked with a crooked smile. Wanda knew he was just trying to be nice. Yet she would have liked to have said something hurtful. Just for the sake of it. Instead, she said: “What age is not difficult these days? It’ll pass. When do we leave?” “Well. Once everyone has eaten, I suppose.” The landscape passed Wanda agonizingly slowly. This area seemed like it didn’t know what it wanted to be. Wild fields as far as the eye could see on one side, and again and again industrial areas within them like ugly, dark islands, sometimes there were no distinct borders between those two extremes. Most of the industrial sites were scarred by war. Many buildings were partially burnt down or half or completely collapsed. The same was true for the buildings and supermarkets located outside the villages or in their outskirts. Like rotting whales on the beach, Wanda thought. Armin had been quite quiet since they too had gotten into a little argument. He stared forward through the windshield and drove around obstacle after obstacle at an agonizing walking pace. Were they on the A8 or the B10? Wanda wasn’t sure, and at the moment she didn’t care. The only thing that mattered to her was that they’d get ahead. That’s exactly what her fight with Armin was about. Wanda would have liked to have taken the quickest way. But it would have led through the basin in which Stuttgart lay. Armin had been against it, had thought it too dangerous to come near the city. They had left most of their people with Doctor Mahler at the nuclear power plant. The city, by which he meant Stuttgart, was not good, he had said more than once half-voiced. He had been there before, Wanda knew that. Something must have happened back then. So Wanda could understand his concern. But compared to all the other groups Wanda had met since the war, Armin’s Motorized were the best equipped and most dangerous. She had tried to find out exactly where they had found their military weapons and large ammunition supplies, but Armin had kept a low profile. She’d figure it out some time. Just because he had won the dispute over the route, he didn’t have to think that it would always be that way. In fact, he had only decided the dispute in his favor because he had said: “When you’re angry, you look a little like Eva.” Wanda knew that he had regretted saying this immediately after the words had left his lips. In his face she had read that he had inflicted pain on himself. She had given him a small smile so that he would not lose himself in his memories a
nd grief. Then she had stopped complaining about the route he had chosen. It had also stung Wanda, as she had to admit, when he had mentioned Eva’s name, but she suppressed the guilty conscience. There had been no other way. She had been against her. Right from the beginning. Had blamed her and sabotaged her plans. At least that’s what she had been trying to do. She would have been a constant obstacle when it came to directing Armin. And with him, all the other Motorized. Her small army. Besides, the arrow that had killed Eva had been for him. Wanda took a look over at Mariam. Their legs touched, but Mariam had turned her head away from Wanda and Armin and looked out the window. What Wanda had said to Mariam in the forest, not in the hut, but just before they returned to the camp, had been right. Just not the whole truth. Wanda knew that. She had already admitted that to herself. She didn’t just want to go to Rome to make the world a better place for Mariam. She also wanted it to avenge her parents. To take revenge for everything. And there was something else, and Wanda became aware of it only now during the journey. The degenerates had changed her. And if she ever wanted to have a chance to reverse this change even rudimentary, to become the person she should have been, then she had to kill Da Silva. Cleanse herself. Wanda didn’t know if there was such a thing as a soul or karma or purgatory or nirvana. She knew that in every human being there was a core, a core that had nothing to do with a God if one wanted to use that old, meaningless word, or any external circumstances in general. Nothing about looks. Nothing with the physical appearance. A core that existed independently. Since Silva’s degenerates had soiled her core, and if she wanted to undo it, if that was possible, then ... Armin cursed, stepped on the brakes hard. Wanda, who was not buckled on, could just catch herself before she would have banged her head on the dashboard. Mariam was held by her belt. Wanda felt that the transporter was slipping a little to the side. Armin has been more attentive than me, Wanda thought, before she took a look outside and searched for the reason for the sudden braking maneuver. The brakes of the two vehicles behind them also squeaked loudly. Fortunately, there was no collision. They had driven around a bend and Wanda hadn’t even noticed that Armin in the meantime had accelerated to a decent speed. Perhaps the memories of Eva, the grief, had made him stop driving at his usual slow, cautious pace. There lay a motorcycle across the road. Wanda realized it was one of theirs. Karim’s, to be more precise. Right and left in the corners of her eyes, she saw that the two other motorcycle scouts who had been behind the convoy this morning for some reason were rolling past them to the front of their convoy. Where was Karim? Wanda couldn’t see him. With their weapons drawn, the scouts got off their machines. They kept the engines running while investigating the scene of the accident. Armin reached for the radio. “What’s going on? Where’s Karim? Can you see him anywhere?” The two scouts went on. Five meters. Ten meters. Fifteen meters. One of them grabbed the radio on his helmet. It was the voice of Leander. “So far he hasn’t been seen. He knows he has to be careful. I don’t think he drove so fast it would take him that far in case of a fall.” Breitmann had moved on while Leander had radioed. Now he stopped. Instead of using his radio, he just shook his head. Next to Wanda, Armin growled: “This can’t be happening,” and he quit. He grabbed the sub-machine gun he had deposited in the side compartment of the driver’s door. With big steps he stomped towards the scene of the accident. He’s right, thought Wanda. Karim had been an experienced scout. And in addition, as she judged it with her amateurish knowledge, the best driver of the three. She looked over at Mariam again. The girl watched with alert eyes what was going on outside the vehicle. Wanda heard metallic clattering from diagonally behind. Surely that was Regine, who climbed on her usual spy post on the roof of the transporter she and Isahnna were driving to be able to see better. All of Wanda’s instincts advised her to grab a weapon as well, of which there were more than enough in the van’s cab, and follow Armin outside. She was content with the first part. A quick look at the safety lever. She operated it. The gun was now ready to fire. I should stay with Mariam, she thought. More than ever, after everything that had happened that night. Somehow the girl had to be able to trust her again. There were fields to the right and left of the road. Wanda saw a sign which told her that they were now on the A8 again. On the right she could see the roofs of individual farmsteads, on the left the first rows of houses of a small town about four hundred meters away. Dornstadt. Wanda took a closer look at the accident site and the motorcycle lying on its side. There was really no reason in the immediate vicinity for Karim to have had a crash. The next broken down car was about eighty meters ahead. No pothole. No grenade crater or anything else that could be used as justification. Wanda perceived Mariam tightening herself next to her and turning her head. “There!” That was the first word Mariam had spoken to Wanda since their quarrel. For Wanda, it was like a little present. But she could not really rejoice, registered it only marginally, wanted to save the joy for later. The general tension had not excluded her either. She turned her head in the direction Mariam was staring. A breast high shrub, which had grown left of them behind the guard rail and had almost completely overgrown it, had begun to move. Wanda reached for the microphone of the radio system. Armin had dropped it carelessly and Wanda had to tamper with the spiral cable that connected it to the actual transmitter unit to get her hands on it. She hastily pressed the talk button. “Watch out! Seen from you at nine o’clock.” Leander was the first to react. He swirled the gun at the ready. Armin and Breitmann followed his example half a second later. To Wanda’s relief it was a motorcycle helmet, which she recognized first behind the branches. Then a familiar leather jacket. But there was something else. Something was wrong. There was... there was one arm too many. Someone was behind Karim, and that someone had his arm wrapped around Karim’s neck from behind. Now Wanda also recognized the other hand. It was holding a knife. She couldn’t see the corresponding face. The person, whoever she was, took cover behind Karim. Wanda saw a touch of matted hair interwoven with gray strands. The memory of a smell rose in Wanda. She shuddered. The fish man. Is that the fish man?, she wondered in horror. She stared at the two figures. They had now arrived at the guardrail. Karim seemed to be unharmed, except for a wound on his right thigh. No. It can’t be the fish man. That one over there is too small. Besides, the fish man wouldn’t hide like that. It’s not like him. Finally Wanda moved. She slipped away from Mariam, to the left, into Armin’s driverseat. She cranked down the window. Then, as everyone else had done, she pointed the weapon at the figure. Or better said, more in the direction of the figure, because basically they were all aiming at Karim, who was very, very calm. No shit? The blade was only half visible. The other half had disappeared under his helmet. Either the knife was very short, or the figure who had obviously taken him hostage pressed the knife pretty hard against his artery. I hope Armin knows what he’s doing. It would be a tragic, useless death if they killed Karim by accident. Wanda watched what happened next through her iron-sights. The hostage taker did not make the mistake of giving Karim order to climb over the guardrail. In that case, there would have been a moment when either Armin or Leander or Breitmann or Regine or Wanda would have had a free field of fire. Instead, the hostage taker started shouting something. In the first moment it was only meaningless sounds for Wanda that the man made. They merely told her that she had made a mistake in her initial assessment. It was a woman’s voice, even though it sounded rather deep and scratchy and somehow sick - it was clearly female. Only when Wanda had worked that out and the figure, no, the woman kept screaming did Wanda’s brain take the next step. Why can’t I understand what she’s screaming? It’s loud enough. Then Wanda understood. It was not German that the woman spoke. Not even the linguistic hodgepodge the Degs used to use. It was pure Italian. Wanda didn’t speak the language very well, but still she had picked up a few lumps from the degenerates. Armin, Breitmann and Leander had now formed something like a semicircle around the hostage taker and her victim. Their weapons were still aimed at Karim’s
chest. He didn’t seem to feel very comfortable, but still behaved as calmly as he could. What else is he supposed to do? The woman changed the angle of the knife. The blade was now pointing upwards at an even steeper angle. There was nothing he could do. If he´d just let himself fall, he would at least hurt himself, if not cut the artery. The woman didn’t shout any more sentences. She kept yelling one word over and over again. During the first three repetitions Wanda did not get itt it was. It wasn’t until the fourth time that she realized it. Mangiare. The woman wanted to eat! Her shouts sounded increasingly desperate and frustrated. But also a breath of anger resonated in them. Mangiare! Mangiare! Mangiare! Armin’s Italian didn’t seem that far off. He just yelled back: “Let him go, it’s useless! If something happens to him, we’ll sift you so fast, you wouldn’t believe it, you fucking old bitch!” His face was tense, highly concentrated. He was frozen in a static posture, fighting against his anger, against his urge to act, the sub-machine gun in action and without a visible movement, which had to strain him extremely. He controls his breathing like a pro, Wanda thought. Karim too, on the other hand, seemed to finally understand what the woman wanted. And he shouted into Armin’s grumble: “She wants to eat. She just wants to eat, you hear, Armin?” Armin didn’t listen, kept yelling, kept making threats. The woman hadn’t stopped her screaming either. Karim tried again. “Food! Armin! She’s just hungry!” One shot crashed. From the back, left. Regine. The knife fell out of the woman’s strongly veined hand, Karim made a forward movement, rescued himself from the guardrail and brought as much distance between himself and his hostage-taker as he could. Armin, Leander and Breitmann also fired their weapons. Many red dots were suddenly visible on the worn and for the prevailing weather conditions much too thin jacket of the woman. For a fraction of a second Wanda saw a burnt face disfigured by pustules and scars. A cloud of blood suddenly floated in the air. Then the old lady was gone. Her body had been torn back by the impact of the bullets and then fallen backwards. Wanda heard Armin’s voice: “Nice shot, Regine! Well done!” Wanda looked over at Mariam. On the girl’s face lay neither horror nor fear, neither disgust nor any emotion. She seemed very calm while she watched everything, so calm that it seemed just wrong to Wanda. Slowly she put the gun down again. For a second she looked at the gun, secured it again, then her thoughts fled, away from the current situation, and she thought: I haven’t even thought about having my own gun ready yet. How careless of me. Wanda remained in this mental posture until she had watched Karim get back on his feet and take off the helmet. His face was wet with sweat, and a not inconsiderable amount of blood was smeared on his neck. He now also took off a glove, grabbed the wound and looked at his fingers. If it was possible at all, then he became a bit paler at that moment. He began to stagger, and Armin, who was closest to him, hurried to support him. It was Mariam who pulled Wanda out of her petrification. From somewhere - later Wanda assumed that he must have been under the passenger seat - Mariam exposed a first aid kit and slammed it in front of Wanda’s chest. That helped. “Yes. Thank you.” commented Wanda, slowly waking up from her thoughts. Finally she could move again. She grabbed it, got out and hurried, the first aid kit in her hand, to Armin and Karim. Breitmann and Leander had also approached and wanted to help, but Armin snapped at them that they should continue to secure the surroundings. Wanda registered that her fingers were sweating as she tried to free a shrink-wrapped roll of gauze from its packaging. Karim’s voice was tense but not frightened when he said: “Armin, there’s more! There are...” “He says there’s more! Everybody to arms! Listen, everyone, to your weapons,” Armin shouted in the command tone, and did not let Karim finish. “No, Armin. There’s more. I mean, there’s more women, old people, children and wounded. They’re desperate. They haven’t eaten for days. They’re all Italians.” Wanda froze, dropped the roll of gauze. Suddenly there was movement everywhere in the vegetation. Movement that couldn’t come from the wind. Movement behind the guardrail. Wanda forgot the gauze bandage on the ground and cursed herself for leaving the gun in the car.
Brenner: The Gospel of Madness (Book 5 of 6) Page 13
