by Tia Nevitt
His eyes snapped her way. “Fräulein,” he said. “Maybe we’ll share a beer together after my performance.”
Gretchen didn’t want to, but she nodded anyway. She would listen to whatever demeaning thing the minstrel had to say in order to hear more about the dwarf asylum.
“Why not meet her now?” Gisela yelled. “Bring her forward!”
“No!” Gretchen yelled, but it was too late. A big man named Karl, who had been sitting with Gisela, jumped up and grabbed her before she had a chance to climb back into her chair. Two other men joined in, although it wasn’t really necessary. A hand clamped around her breast, and fury surged into her heart and stung tears in her eyes. Gretchen began to slap with abandon.
“Stop it! Put me down!” She clouted an ear.
“Ow!” One man yelled.
Emboldened, she began to kick. She heard an “Oof!”
“Gently!” the Spielmann said. “She is a lady, after all.”
This elicited a chuckle all around.
Karl plunked her down in front of the minstrel with too much force. Gretchen’s knees buckled, but the minstrel’s hand shot out to steady her. She glared at him and swiped a tear off her cheek.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Fräulein,” he said. He held out his hand for her.
And he waited.
As she looked at him, she realized the expression that pulled at his face was regret. He had never intended for her to be manhandled in this manner. After a moment to make certain she hadn’t mistaken his countenance, she placed her hand in his. He bent to raise it to his lips and to plant a firm kiss upon it.
“Now,” he said to his audience, “let the little lady return to her seat and enjoy her beer.”
Gretchen felt the eyes of the silent crowd upon her as she made her way back to her chair and climbed back up into it.
“And now, perhaps some music and dancing,” the minstrel said. “Clear a space and make some room. Men on one side, women on the other...”
Gretchen didn’t join the dancers. She would have disrupted the symmetry of the line. Instead, she watched. The men and women whirled together in a dance they had all learned as children. Gretchen had learned it too, but she had stopped dancing once everyone started laughing whenever she tried. But her foot twitched to the time of the music.
She loved music.
As she watched the women dancing, envy again began to clench her stomach in knots. She tried suppressing it, to stopper it in, as a tap stops the flow of beer. But the pressure only built within her, as it always did.
She watched during a turn, when the skirts of the women all flared out in unison. Each of those women, even the very plainest one, was beautiful compared to her. None of them had her bulging forehead, her short, thick upper arms and her bowed legs. All of them had long necks, narrow waists and straight fingers.
How she envied them all.
It was hateful—an ugliness within to match the ugliness without. Occasionally she indulged it by inventing vengeful fantasies, but that only made it worse. Her mother sometimes caught her at it and had warned her that the scowl on her face would etch itself in permanently if she didn’t stop.
Gretchen’s eyes followed Gisela, who was the image of Rhineland loveliness, with blond braids, a generous bosom and long legs. When she was a child, she had thrown stones at Gretchen. Now she hurled words.
Both stung.
Not all of the girls were unkind to her, not all by far. But her childhood friends had all long since married, and with marriage had come children, and with the children had come something that Gretchen was unable to share. If only one—just one!—had been childless!
And she scolded herself again for such a selfish wish.
Finally, the Gastwirt announced the ten o’clock hour and the minstrel put away his fiddle. The inn filled with the babble of farewells that would take at least another half hour to conclude. Gretchen tapped her table and the innkeeper brought over two steins of beer, as she had earlier requested. The minstrel came over and bowed.
“Fräulein.”
“Herr Spielmann.”
“Please, call me Johann. First, let me apologize for my words having resulted in the molestation of your person. It was never my intention.”
She blinked at his grandiose speech, but recognized it as an apology. She nodded, unable to reply.
“May I sit?”
“Please.”
He sat. “I imagine you have questions for me.”
Gretchen studied him. Gone were the belittling demeanor and the showman’s voice. He seemed quite a different person. “Indeed, sir.”
“What can I tell you?”
“Was it true, or just a tale? Is that farm really full of...of people like me?”
The Spielmann regarded her for a moment. “Yes. I exaggerated nothing.”
“Are the people there just as you describe?”
“I can even tell you their names.”
“Are there any women?”
“Only Frau Marta.”
Her mind boggled as she tried to imagine it. She had never even seen one person like her in her entire life.
“Where is this farm?”
“Outside a town along the edge of the Schwarzwald.”
“How would I get there?”
“You’re not thinking of going there?”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
“A young girl, on the road alone?”
“I’m almost thirty—not nearly as young as my size makes me appear.”
He examined her. “I suppose you aren’t. Well, if you’re determined to go, I suppose I’ll head that way as well.”
She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Why would you want to go with me?”
“You’ll be the first woman among them, other than Frau Marta,” he said. “There’s certain to be inspiration for a song in such a situation.”
“How can I trust you? I can’t tell you how many times men have wondered if I’m the same as other women under my frock.”
“I am a singer of songs, Fräulein, not a raper of women.” He threw down the rest of his beer and put it down. “Can you be ready to leave in three days?”
“I can be ready in two.”
“Two days it is.”
He started to leave.
“Wait.” She touched his arm. “One more question...if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not, Fräulein.”
She frowned at him. “Why not leave those people alone? I’m sure they have enough people laughing at them without you spreading stories about them throughout the region.”
He studied her for a moment. “Frau Marta asked me to spread those stories.”
She blinked. “But why?”
“They’re looking for another farmhand. And they want someone who is...little.” He smiled. “And besides, without me spreading stories about them, how would you have learned of their existence?”
She had no answer.
* * *
By the time she left the Gasthaus, most of the windows in the houses were dark. She took the road that led toward the neighboring farms. Several people walked ahead of and behind her; no one wanted to walk alone at night. Among them was Gisela, walking with Karl. They walked arm in arm, and much closer than her Mami would approve of.
Someone behind her ran up to walk alongside. She glanced over to see Fritz, a distant cousin. She’d often looked after him and his siblings when th
ey were younger.
“Boy, those short legs of yours can move fast,” he said to her. Fritz was the one who had told her of the minstrel’s story.
Those short legs of hers hurt from the effort. “They have to, or I’ll be left behind.”
“So what did you think of what the Spielmann had to say?”
She pressed her lips together. Much as she liked Fritz, she didn’t want to tell him of her decision before she told her parents. “It was very interesting. Maybe I’ll start a dwarf farm of my own.”
He laughed. “Do you think it’s true?”
She shrugged. “It did seem a bit more detailed than the usual minstrel tale.” She looked up at him. “Thanks for telling me about it. It’s good to know there are other people like me in the world.”
He shrugged and walked beside her for a time, but he soon left the line of people for his own house. Soon, the only company she had was Gisela’s as the line of people dwindled away. When Gisela and Karl reached her home, they stopped for a kiss right there in the roadway—probably to evade the watchful eye of Gisela’s mother.
Gretchen hesitated. She wanted to walk by them in the darkness, but couldn’t do so without intruding upon them. She looked around for an alternate route. Except for the path leading to Gisela’s home, a pair of wet ditches ran along either side of the road, and beyond those, the wheat fields.
In the meantime, Gisela and Karl’s kiss grew more and more passionate. They seemed one writhing shadow instead of two. She stopped to gape at them for a moment. It seemed less and less like a mere kiss now, and more and more like something Gretchen ought not be intruding upon. Gisela’s feet had left the ground and Karl’s leg was between her thighs. Gisela seemed to be squeezing Karl’s thigh between her own, and she even writhed up against him. Karl’s big hands moved one by one to her buttocks and clamped her even closer. Gisela moaned and lifted her knee.
Ignoring a disquieting feeling that arose within her—she could not be feeling desire for a man like Karl!—Gretchen edged toward the path to the farm, hoping to slip beside them in the darkness.
They broke apart with a gasp. “Who’s there?” Gisela said.
Karl laughed. “It’s only the dwarf.”
Gisela spun. “Are you spying on us?” she asked.
“No, I’m only trying to get home.”
Gisela turned to Karl and stroked his face. “Run her off, Karl. She used to torment me as a child.”
Gretchen gasped. “The opposite is true, and you know it.”
Likely Karl knew it as well, but still, he advanced toward Gretchen. She lunged to move around them, but Karl grabbed at her. When she lurched away, she fell, as she did so often. She landed right on the edge of the road, and a shove from Karl’s boot sent her into the mud.
Gisela’s laugh silvered the air.
“Gisela?” a woman’s voice called.
“Coming, Mami!”
Karl and Gisela ignored her while they indulged in one last messy kiss. Gretchen struggled to get out of the mud. She shook her clothes as she trudged toward home, in a vain effort to lessen the damage. Her face, hands and one entire side was covered in mud. Her mother was going to have to draw a bath, and at this late hour.
She tried not to cry on the way home but was not quite successful.
Chapter Two
“You’re mad!” her mother said the next morning.
“I don’t think so,” Gretchen replied. She and her mother were at the kitchen table. Her mother plunked a bowl of cabbage in front of her. Gretchen took up a knife and began to shred it. She sat in a tall chair that her father made for her. They were in an open space in the kitchen of a prosperous six-post Einhaus.
“Traveling alone—a young lady—all that distance?”
“I don’t intend to look like a young lady,” Gretchen said. “My figure is easy enough to disguise.” Gretchen didn’t dare tell her mother about traveling alone with a minstrel, the wisdom of which she still questioned, herself.
“No, Gretchen. I forbid it.”
“You can’t forbid it. I am almost thirty years old.” She sighed. “You and Vater won’t be able to provide for me forever. I must either find someone to marry or find a way to fend for myself. The Kleins’ farm—”
“Sounds like a child’s tale!”
“I have no reason to doubt the minstrel.”
“What do you expect to do, go there and pick out a husband?”
“Yes, Mami. That’s exactly what I intend to do.”
Gretchen felt her mother’s eyes upon her as she concentrated on shredding the cabbage. “Finding a husband isn’t that easy.”
“Maybe not, but if I find a man who looks like me, won’t he want a companion just as much as I do?”
Her mother was silent.
“I’m not looking for love, Mother. Just someone who will accept me. Maybe love will come in time.”
“I hate the thought of you with a man who doesn’t love you.”
“And I hate being a burden, Mother. No ordinary man will have me. All I propose is finding one who might.”
“At least take your father with you.”
“It’s time for spring planting. He needs to be here. I’ll go alone.”
* * *
As usual, supper was boisterous. Twenty people sat at the long table, laughing and eating. Her father was silent, but no one noticed except Gretchen and her mother. By his silence she knew that her mother had already discussed her leaving with him. Her sister-in-law and her oldest daughter squabbled about some boy. Two of their daughters giggled at one of the milkmaids, who was flirting with one of the farmhands.
After supper had been cleared away, Gretchen’s father summoned her to the parlor with her mother. His brown eyes were sad. He placed his hand on her head in that affectionate way he had. “You’re not a burden, Gretchen. And one day, you’ll be able to help us when we’re old.”
“Wouldn’t I be even more helpful if I had a husband with me?”
He pursed his lips.
“And what of me?” Gretchen asked. “Don’t I need a child to help me when I grow old?”
“You have your brothers and sisters—and their children.”
“Ah, yes, the spinster aunt. Don’t you want better for me than that, Vater?”
He sighed and then was silent for a moment. Both Gretchen and her mother watched him. Normally his argument would have been much more vigorous. Gretchen longed to say more, but she didn’t know how to say it. Now, she wondered if maybe a part of him agreed with what she had already said.
That thought was confirmed when he brought out a pouch. “This is your dowry,” he said. “If you don’t find a husband, you can at least live on this for a time.”
Gretchen pushed it back to him. “If I don’t find a husband, I’ll come back here. And if I do find one, you can give him the dowry yourself.”
He pushed it back to her. “I am giving it to you now. You’ll need it for traveling expenses. Trust me, Gretchen. Take it. A young woman should not travel alone without coin. But hide it well.”
She hesitated, and then she took it.
“I will, Vater. And thank you.”
* * *
Before she retired, Gretchen took stock of her body.
Her arms and legs were stunted, but her head and torso were near normal sized. She had small, high breasts, a rather nice but short waist and narrow hips. Her upper arms and upper legs were especially short, and her
legs were bowed. She had normal-sized hands and feet, but there was a space between the two fingers in the middle of her hands.
It was no good to wish her body normal. Therefore, over the years, she’d learned to work with what she had. She always kept her breasts supported, so they remained pert. Her share of work around the farm kept the fat at bay. Her arms were no plumper than a typical woman’s but they appeared to be so because they were so much shorter, especially her upper arms. She sewed all her clothes to fit well, to demonstrate that she did have the figure of a woman and not of a child. Her hair was long, blond and shiny—her one beauty. She kept it in a braid across her forehead and looped on the opposite side, rather than the more typical manner of braided loops around both ears. She knew it was a becoming style, designed to minimize her forehead and make her neck look longer.
All her efforts had made no difference. None of the village boys had been willing to marry her, not even the ones who had been kind. And the men who passed through town only regarded her as a curiosity.
She climbed into her bed, her mind fixed on that last thought.
A curiosity. Lord, how she was tired of being a curiosity. She was not a curiosity, she was a woman. Not a child. Not childlike. She bled like every other woman, and she had breasts like any other woman. Presumably, she could have a child like every other woman. And most likely, she could even do those...those things that her married friends often spoke of, those things that were, as they described them, so sinful and wonderful that a woman like Gisela would risk staying out with a man like Karl just to experience them.
Things that were so powerful that even the illicit sight of them could stir up longings in Gretchen that she could do nothing about—except to recall one kiss that had turned out to be nothing but a dare.
* * *
Gretchen was awake long before the dawn, and she lay there, imagining the journey ahead. She arose with the sun and pulled out the gear she had packed.
