Benno stopped in front of Johannsen’s store and looked at piles of candy and champagne for 9.99. That was all the Christmas cheer Strathleven had to offer.
“Are you guys playing together at all?”
When Tim didn’t answer him, Benno turned around to look at the boy. He and Rasmus stood rooted to the front of the store and looked at a couple who crossed the street carrying plastic bags and colorful packets. When they were only a few meters away, they slowed their steps.
“Hello,” said Benno in a friendly way. He didn’t know the couple, and it seemed that they hadn’t noticed him until now. They quickly turned to face Tim and Rasmus.
“Merry Christmas,” the man said, nodded, and walked in a wide circle past Tim. Rasmus appeared to have grown, his back was completely straight and he began to growl softly.
“Here you go,” the woman said, put a bag down in the snow and dug out a gift wrapped in gold foil. She approached the boy slowly, as the dog seemed to intimidate her. She nodded, handed Tim the package and then hurried after her husband.
Benno was puzzled. “What the hell was that?”
Tim held the package in his hands and looked directly at Benno. “I also got one yesterday.”
Benno shook his head.
“Sometimes they want to touch me,” Tim said with a mixture of pride and indulgence.
“Sometimes? When?”
“When I go for a walk with Rasmus.”
“How do those people know you?”
Tim shrugged. “Word gets out,” he replied precociously.
“About what? Your skin? The miracle boy? Does Carolin know you’re getting presents?”
Tim didn’t seem to like the question and averted his eyes. “She doesn’t understand,” he said with certainty. “Can I keep it?” He raised the golden package, shook it.
“Sure,” Benno said. “Is that the reason why no one wants to play with you anymore?”
The dog whined, and Tim let himself be dragged away. Rasmus did his little dance and then deposited his business in the snow. Since the two didn’t wait for him to catch up, Benno sighed and ran after them.
Benno had insisted that decorating a Christmas tree was men’s business, and while Carolin was still rehearsing, he carried the tree into the living room. He screwed it into the metallic-green stand he had bought in Lübeck, and then called out to Tim.
“What was in the package?” he asked as casually as possible.
“A toy car,” Tim said just as casually. He seemed unimpressed.
“Will you help me?” Before Carolin returned, he wanted to ask the boy a question, and he did not want to sour the mood with useless admonishments.
The bulbs and tinsel were new since they hadn’t brought anything from Berlin. Without memories of past Christmases, the decorations seemed strangely out of place.
“Tim,” Benno began when he lifted up the boy to let him put the star on top. “Was Thomas, that young pastor, at the peace protest?”
Tim’s face seemed to contract. He was on his guard.
“You remember, the protest in Lauenburg.”
“Yes,” Tim said slowly. It sounded more like a question.
“Was Thomas there too?”
The boy remained silent, his eyes fixed on Benno.
“Was he with you?” Benno tried to sound unconcerned, but something wasn’t right here. “How many people were actually at the protest?”
Tim shrugged. “Fifty perhaps. There was another church with us.”
“Only you and the other congregation?”
For a moment, Tim’s face remained expressionless, then he nodded.
“Pastor Thomas’ congregation?”
Tim nodded slightly.
“Do you have any leaflets left? The ones you were handing out?” He felt shabby. Maybe Carolin had been right. Maybe he was a weasel. No, she had called him a hyena. Yes, maybe he was a scavenger. A coward.
Tim stood up and walked upstairs to his room. A few minutes later he came back. He held a blue flyer in his hand.
“Thanks,” Benno said, and smiled at the boy. The flyer was simple, its message written on a typewriter, all capital letters. Benno stared at the slogan. He tried to maintain a semblance of a smile. He couldn’t show his feelings to the boy.
“Are those real babies?” asked Tim.
Benno shrugged. “Depends on what you mean by ‘real.’ Because people don’t agree on that definition.”
“But that’s bad, right? To kill a baby?”
Benno sighed and handed back the flyer. ‘Abortion is Murder’ was written on it. ‘God loves all children.’ “Maybe,” he said evasively, and began to pick up the empty cartons and boxes and put them in a large plastic bag. “That’s pretty complicated.”
He didn’t know what bothered him more—that Carolin was ready to stand in front of a clinic and protest against abortion, or that she hadn’t told him and asked the boy to keep quiet about it. But when she came back home from choir practice, and stood before him with dark circles around her eyes, Benno just warmed up some soup, without saying a single word about the flyer. On the one hand, he couldn’t betray Tim’s confidence, and on the other he had his own secrets. How could he complain about Carolin and at the same time tell her lies about the scratches on the car?
Silently they sat at the kitchen table, spooning the soup, and only when Tim got up to lie down on the sofa with Rasmus, did Carolin notice the decorated tree.
“Had a bad rehearsal?” asked Benno.
“No. Why?”
“For good luck,” Benno tried to joke. “Bad rehearsal, good performance.”
“We’re not ‘performing’ anything. You still don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me!”
She dropped the spoon, and a splash of pea soup started running down her blouse. Carolin stared at Benno, her eyes large and wide behind the thick glasses. “So you can make fun of it?”
“I’m just trying . . .”
“The hell you are trying.” She got up and left the kitchen. He could hear her steps first on the stairs and then above his head in the bathroom.
Benno turned around to look at Tim, but the boy seemed to have fallen asleep on the sofa. Only the dog looked at him attentively, but he seemed only interested in the crust of bread in his hand.
Above him the Milky Way spread. In front of him shone a single star, and when he stopped to admire it, Benno saw that the glowing spot was moving. Low aircraft noise reached his ears.
At the bus stop, Manfred sat in a black fur coat and an old-fashioned fur cap under the light of a street lamp. He had placed his thick mittens beside him on the bench, and nicked a branch with a Swiss Army knife.
“It’s almost Christmas,” Benno said. Nothing else would come to mind.
“Hmm,” grumbled Manfred.
“What are you still doing here?”
“Uncle Gustav’s mad at me.”
“Why?”
Manfred lowered his head. “I’ve broken his pyramid.”
“His pyramid?”
“The one with the little angels. I just wanted to have one of them. It no longer turns.”
“Oh.” Benno stared after his visible breath. “He’s certainly not mad anymore. You shouldn’t sit alone in the cold.”
“He doesn’t want to see me anymore,” Manfred replied emphatically. “I don’t want to be bumped off.”
“By Uncle Gustav?”
Manfred nodded eagerly. “He can do that.”
“What does your mother say to that?”
“She’s afraid of him too.” The pocketknife looked very small in Manfred’s hand, like a silly toy.
“What do you want for Christmas?” Benno asked.
“A knife.” A smile contorted Manfred’s face.
“What kind?”
Manfred’s voice dropped to a whisper, but was still so loud that any passer-by could have heard it easily.
“I already have it. I found it yesterday. But you mustn’t
say a word. Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Otherwise I have to stay in the basement.”
“The basement? But you don’t have a basement.” Benno was sure he’d asked the widow before moving in. He had been relieved—basements had already intimidated him as a child. He’d never gotten over his fear.
Manfred reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a gently curved dagger. The handle gleamed whitish.
“Genuine Ivory,” he said. “From Egypt. Very expensive.”
Benno nodded. Was it possible that this seemingly peaceful giant could stab a woman? Was there anything that would drive him to madness? Fear of his mother, or of Mr. Heintz? Was the old man really powerful enough to intimidate him? “You should probably return it,” he said. His toes started to go numb, and his nose ached uncomfortably.
“But it’s mine,” Manfred said with a grin. He could neither call him a boy nor a man.
“Merry Christmas.” Benno left him at the bust stop and ran down to the village to revive his toes. The snow still looked brand new, dirt and slosh would come later.
When he arrived at the main road, which lay almost deserted, he could hear the sound of a loud, running engine, and behind Johannsen’s store, where, according to the tow-truck driver, everyone smoked or peed, he saw the black tail of Harald Wehrke’s Jaguar. He wasn’t eager to talk to the young man, but then he heard a woman’s voice cry out. He quickly ran toward the back of the building, and as soon as he turned the corner, he saw Corinna Friedrich hit her boyfriend with her fists. “You weren’t allowed. Not that,” she cried. “Why? Why? I trusted you. Get lost, get lost already!”
“Harald.” Benno wasn’t sure if he was witnessing a lovers’ fight, or whether the young Wehrke had turned violent, but he felt entitled to intervene.
Harald turned to face him, his face flushed, either in anger or shame. “What are you doing here?” he asked harshly, but the girl wouldn’t stop hitting him. Blows rained down on his back. “Get out, you snoop!” he cried angrily, but now Corinna started to kick out, and he ran around the car and opened the driver’s door. “We are not done yet,” he hissed, and a few seconds later he was gone. Only the roar of his car could still be heard.
“Are you okay?” Benno asked.
Corinna, who had gone to her knees, weeping, now shot up and spat at him. “Go away! Why do you get involved in all this?” She kept crying, even as she yelled at him. “You don’t understand a thing.”
Benno raised his arms, as if to defend himself. “I’m leaving,” he said and went back to the main road. Although he had done nothing wrong, he felt like a monster.
He wandered through the village, hoping not to encounter the two young people again, and after half an hour he was so cold and his body so numb that he could finally shake off the ugly scene. He didn’t know why the two had fought, but he had acted properly. At least he hoped he had.
In the lighted windows he could see decorated trees, the icy snow crunched under his feet, and when he stopped and looked around it felt like Christmas for the first time this year. The roofs glittered in the starlight. Benno finally pulled out the bottle of vodka he had slipped into his coat pocket before leaving the house, and screwed off the cap. “Merry Christmas,” he said loudly and took a deep swig. The cheap alcohol burned his mouth and throat. When he stopped coughing, his eyes fell again on Johannsen’s store. Because of Harald and Corinna he hadn’t paid any attention to the store window. With black paint, somebody had written across its entire width, The king must die.
15
Lunch consisted of sausages and potato salad, and Tim spent the afternoon watching TV. Benno’s new suit, the one he had worn to the autumn ball, was a bit tight now, but Carolin made sure that he wore it. After dark, they went together to the Christmas service. He still hadn’t mentioned the “peace protest,” and when he entered the vestibule of the church and saw the four fir trees that the pastor had set up in the interior, they looked neither peaceful nor solemn. The pastor himself—just like Benno, he wore a white shirt and black suit—did not look friendly and engaging anymore, but overzealous and intimidating. Perhaps Friedrich, Johannsen, and Wehrke didn’t attend services for good reason. Perhaps they were right in their opinion about Cornelius. Maybe he really was a self-righteous bully. Benno wondered if the pastor knew that Carolin kept certain things from her husband.
Although he would have preferred to sit far back, Carolin led Benno to one of the front pews. The peace at home was perhaps only a tacit agreement not to spoil the holidays with quarrels.
Tim couldn’t sit still, constantly scratching his neck where the starched collar pinched his skin, and he was making whining noises. “But afterward we’ll exchange gifts, right?” he asked.
“Dinner’s first.”
“We need to eat first?”
“And wash the dishes.” At least they wouldn’t send Tim to his room and make him wait for Santa Claus, the way Benno’s parents had done in his youth. Carolin had raised Tim without Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. He’d first learned about them in kindergarten.
Benno had not been to church since the bazaar, and he looked discreetly but curiously around him. It might well have been a hundred people, and he knew many faces. But as small as Strathleven was, the last six months had not been long enough to know who sat behind him constantly blowing his nose, who was the woman with the antiquated beehive hairdo, or whose children were sitting in a row like organ pipes.
Then the lights dimmed, until only the Christmas trees were ablaze, and the choir was already singing as its members emerged from the sacristy. After they had taken up position in front of the altar, the choir director gave the sign, and “Silent Night” began. Despite his anger, despite their ugly dispute, Benno couldn’t shake the peculiar effect the singing had on him. He closed his eyes and felt a grin spreading across his face.
The congregation sat in silence when Benno thought he heard the distant clatter of hooves. Astonished, he opened his eyes.
“What is that?” Tim whispered in Benno’s ear.
He shrugged. He would have loved to stand up and move past the believers in his pew to rush to a window and see what was going on outside. But the choir could not be deterred, even when the noise came closer and loud voices could be heard.
Benno now saw shadows flitting across the walls. Light came from outside the church, it seemed to flicker and pulsate, and a terrible howling began. Finally, the choir stopped, the director stepped aside and lowered his head. After that, it was completely silent in the church. The entire congregation held its breath.
Then Benno saw Cornelius standing by the altar and waving his arms. “Light,” he cried. “Light. Damn it!”
A woman’s voice mingled with the howling outside, a voice full of rage and anger, but Benno couldn’t understand a word. Cornelius shouted angrily, “We’re not afraid.”
Seconds later a window shattered. Something landed two or three rows in front of Benno and some people jumped up in terror.
“You helped us chase,” the shrill female voice cried, “now also help us gnaw.”
And then the voices of her male companions started their ruckus again. The clatter of hooves and the neighing were so loud that Benno was afraid the door might fly open and the riders would storm into the interior. But finally the noise faded as the horses seemed to gallop toward the center of the village.
Benno took advantage of the confusion to climb over two pews to the front and pick up the package that had broken the window. It was wrapped in butcher paper and a lot harder than it looked. A stone.
Then suddenly the light went on, and Benno looked around. No one had followed his example. He alone stood before the congregation and the pastor, who with a reddened face approached him. “Hand it to me,” he thundered. “Give me that!”
Benno did as he was told. The pastor seemed to become aware again of his office, thanked Benno loudly enough that the churchgoers could hear it, and held the stone high in hi
s hand. “A stone,” he cried, “cannot put fear into our community. A stone cannot break our faith.”
Through the broken window to Benno’s left cold air penetrated the church, and the altar candles flickered more wildly than usual. After a brief look at the damage, Cornelius asked the choir to gather again, and two minutes later, the congregation once again sat in near darkness, listening to the song “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen.”
Benno took his seat next to Tim, but his hands were shaking. He didn’t know what was more terrible, the noise of the horsemen, or the disheartened singing of the choir in front of the Christmas trees. And only he and the pastor knew what else the package had contained. Only he and Cornelius had seen the bloodied raven head.
The congregation dispersed very quickly after church, with only a brief nod in the direction of the pastor. Cornelius and his wife couldn’t find any takers for biscuits and fruit juice.
“What was that?” Tim asked.
Benno looked at him but didn’t have an answer. “Maybe an old tradition,” he said.
“With horses? Where did they get them?”
“No idea, but the farmers must have some.” After the service he had tried to run after Mr. Heintz to ask him a few questions, but he hadn’t been able to catch up with him. He could have sworn that the old man had noticed him and sped up.
“What did your choir members say?”
Carolin did not correct him this time, did not tell him that it was a singing group. “Nothing,” she said, and outrage made her voice sound hoarse. “Just nothing. They disturb us during the Christmas Mass, and everybody just shuts up.”
Benno enjoyed that she was mad at her church members. It might have been shabby of him, but he felt closer to her.
Once they were home, he poured more red wine and got a new bottle of sweet woodruff soda for Tim. The three of them sat at the kitchen table, opened a bag of potato chips and then got some pizza from the fridge.
“Can we exchange gifts now?” Tim finally asked. “We don’t even have to do any dishes.”
Knives, Forks, Scissors, Flames Page 13
