by Sjón
What made the old woman different from the other misfits in the region (there were plenty of them but they were generally allowed to live unmolested with their quirks), was that nobody could persuade her to sit down and eat with the other stallholders at the end of the working day, yet on the other hand she was not shy about answering the call of nature in full view of her colleagues, preferably when they were eating.
The reason for the old woman’s behaviour, and why no one interfered with her habits, was not that she was particularly coy, had taboos about table manners or was a witch, as the children believed, but simply that she was rumoured to have broken bread with the Kaiser himself.
It’s only natural that after one has broken bread with a Kaiser one is above common social niceties.
They had met in the forest when the old woman was a young girl and the Kaiser a mere prince. The future Kaiser was out hunting thrushes with his retinue when he spotted a fox slinking through the undergrowth and saw at once that this was no ordinary beast. No, it was none other than the golden vixen that had haunted the forest for as long as the oldest folk could remember. She was every hunter’s dream quarry but as she was exceptionally sly and cunning she had always evaded their bullets and arrows. No one was a true hunter among hunters unless he had a tale to tell of his dealings with this fabled beast; how he had caught her by the golden brush but she had slipped from his grasp like a snake. To prove their story they would raise two fingers and show those present the glistening dust that clung to their tips, while those who were in the tedious habit of adapting proverbs would say: “Better a fox in hand than three in the bush”.
So the golden vixen represented a pipedream for many.
The young prince was filled with a fierce desire to capture the beast. He called to his men but they were so busy shooting thrushes that they neither heard nor heeded when he drove his spurs into his Arab stallion and headed off alone on the foxhunt.
The pursuit passed through the length and breadth of the forest. The golden vixen scurried along the forest floor, through bushes, under tree roots and over streams. The prince pursued his quarry with zeal, revelling in the agility of his oriental steed. He longed to catch the vixen alive so he could present her to his father as a gift, thereby softening his mood, as he and his father had fallen out over the prince’s relations with women, or rather his lack of appetite for Adam’s rib, a lack that had become so notorious around the world that the other emperors made merciless fun of his father at emperors’ conventions.
Little by little the vixen drew the prince and stallion deeper into the forest, further than they had ever been before, and the prince had to spur his mount on when the nettles became so thick that the horse had difficulty finding its footing. But at last the vixen grew weary of the chase and the prince managed to corner her in a narrow clearing in the heart of the wood.
The prince reined in his horse, making it sidestep to block the entrance to the glade and close in on the golden vixen. He approached her warily. She crouched down on the forest floor, suspiciously eyeing the man who had come closer to her than any other. Hatred smouldered in the predatory grey eyes; they trapped the prince’s thoughts, and for a moment he sensed he was standing in the presence of an enigma that was infinitely greater than a mere sly fox whose cunning had made her a legend among inept country bumpkins.
Thunder growled in the distance and the stallion grew restive beneath its rider. The prince gripped the reins, curbing his steed, and when his gaze returned to the vixen she seemed to fade before his eyes, the golden pelt lost its lustre and she sank slowly into the ground. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. There was no longer any vixen in the depths of the glade; in her place were two snow-white pearls.
The prince ground his teeth with vexation, but thought to himself that it would be better to return to the Autumn Palace with two pearls than empty-handed. He dismounted, tethered his horse to a low branch and entered the depths of the glade. But he had no sooner bent down to pick up the pearls than lightning flashed over the forest, gleaming on the vixen’s terrible needle-sharp teeth right by his fingers. He snatched back his hand and, black now as pitch, the vixen reared up on her hind legs, snarling: ‘You’ll have cause to remember, unhappy man, that a dumb beast has got the better of you.’
And with that the vixen darted past the prince, between the horse’s legs and out of the glade.
The horse went mad with fear. The prince ran over and tried in vain to control the rearing beast but the stallion tore itself free and struck its master to the ground.
When the prince regained consciousness he was no longer in the clearing but lying in a humble but neatly made bed. A savoury aroma of soup filled his senses; from the next-door room came the sound of a woman singing. The prince cast off the skilfully embroidered quilt that his benefactor had spread over him, rose to his feet with a groan and limped over to the window. His whole body ached from the fall and he felt as if a glowing lump of coal were stuck to his brow. The sight that met his eyes in the rain-lashed glass was a sorry picture of a face, all battered, bruised and crowned with a garish snuff rag, which was binding a handful of thick leaves to the lump of coal on his scalp.
‘I look like a caricature of Dante,’ the prince grumbled to himself; he was known for his enthusiasm for literature and the fine arts: ‘And I haven’t got a stitch on.’
He glanced around in search of his clothes but they were nowhere to be seen so he decided to lie down again, and just as he was clambering into bed, pink princely rump in the air, a young girl entered the room. She didn’t laugh, she was beautiful, she was his saviour, she was carrying a tray of steaming soup and a loaf of bread.
While the prince tucked into the soup, the girl told him how she had been gathering nuts when the thunderstorm broke. As she was running home she had narrowly escaped being trampled by a horse doing St Vitus’s dance along the path. Shortly afterwards she had stumbled across a man, lying battered and concussed on the bank of a quagmire that had swallowed up many a good lad. This had been none other than the prince himself. Of course, she couldn’t leave him lying there in that terrible storm so she had lugged him home with her. Which is why he was now sitting here, eating her soup. How was it, by the way?
Well, the prince couldn’t deny that the soup was delicious.
The storm lashed the forest for seven days and seven nights.
What passed between the prince and the girl during this time nobody knows, but on the morning of the eighth day he took his leave, restored and wearing patched breeches, and in parting he gave her a ring; it was an exquisite object of pure white gold, engraved with a double-headed eagle picked out in rubies.
When three months had passed since the future Kaiser’s visit, the girl stopped attending the Saturday market and wasn’t seen again until six months later. People suspected that she had been with child and had given birth to a little boy whom she had hidden in a cave in the forest.
Although men went on expeditions in search of the boy, he was never found, and this was taken as a sign of how well his mother knew the forest. She who was constantly wandering through its darkest thickets in search of herbs and berries for her potions and elixirs would have no problem hiding an infant in the murky depths of the wood.
The story goes that the girl had hidden her son by the future Kaiser in order to wait for a time when the nation faced great peril and disaster and its people would be ready to accept him as their spiritual and secular guide who would lead them into a new age. But until the boy steps forth in the fullness of time, protected by his origin, his virtues and the treasure his father laid by for him, which is hidden in the cave, he will not age a single day beyond twenty-one.
Of the girl, his mother, on the other hand, the story goes that she grew old like other people and became an eccentric crone, living alone in a hovel in the middle of the forest and conforming to the rules of neither God nor men when she sold her produce at the market.
In the end she d
ropped dead in her porridge without leaving behind any clue as to where men could find the cave, the boy or the fabulous treasure. When a search was made of her dwelling nothing was found but what you might expect from the hovel of any old wise woman.
The prince became Kaiser and was nicknamed ‘the Virgin King’ by wits, because he was never linked to any woman but the girl who had rescued him from becoming one with the soil on that long-ago autumn day. He became an enthusiast for skilled embroidery and swan breeding, he frittered away the riches of his realm on artists and risky speculations, and he drowned young and disastrously childless, as official historians claim. But a sign of the truth of this little tale is that when a post-mortem was carried out on the prince’s body it transpired that his private member was made of gold.
It should be added that for a long time after these events children playing on the edge of the forest would hear the boy creeping about in the undergrowth like a fox, while young girls who ventured in among the trees would feel a young man’s eyes upon them. And many a girl dreamed of meeting the Kaiser’s secret son on some lonely path, falling in love and living happily ever after.
But now so long an age has passed that the forest has lost its aura of fairytale, the golden vixen has not been seen since the death of the old woman, the children no longer fear the hidden boy and the young girls head for towns and cities in search of husbands.
That’s what I did and found my Karl.
The mouse is run, my tale is done.
* * *
— Thank you for the meal.
Marie-Sophie was so shocked when the invalid addressed her that she almost fell off her chair, but when she turned round with: “You’re welcome!” on her lips, he played the same game as before and shut his eyes. He had finished everything but the sausage.
— You’re welcome, anyway.
In Marie-Sophie’s humble opinion, it was wrong of the two men to ask her to watch the invalid like a cat waiting by a mouse-hole. There were no finer points of the invalid’s behaviour to observe; he didn’t behave in any way at all, he was too weak for that. If anything, he perked up when she forgot about him or pretended to ignore him.
The girl felt she was beginning to get the hang of her nebulous duty.
The door of room twenty-three opened.
Marie-Sophie jumped: she was getting fed up with these constant comings and goings. What was the point of taking a wreck into the guesthouse, then denying him the peace and quiet in which to become human again?
— It’s as busy as a lavatory at a children’s birthday party.
She got up and flounced over to meet the visitor, ripping open the door of the priest’s hole.
— What now?
— Heh, heh, she’s right, the girl’s all edgy …
The waiter muttered into his bowtie as usual, pretending not to notice Marie-Sophie’s anger:
— I’ve just come to fetch the tray if I may, heh, heh. We felt it wasn’t right to send the boy, a callow youth …
He squinted past Marie-Sophie. She scowled at him and went to get the tray.
The waiter continued his conversation with his confidant, the bowtie.
— So this is Paradise, heh, heh. I’ve been wanting to get an eyeful of that for a long time. You used to hear enough about it here in the old days …
— You can tell the proprietor that the sick man has eaten and said thank you for the meal.
Marie-Sophie shoved the tray at the waiter.
— The sick man? You call him sick. Is he ill then? Is it catching?
— No, I call him sick because it’s such a funny word, it rhymes with chick!
Marie-Sophie slammed the door in the waiter’s face.’
8
‘— You’re doing a good job, no doubt about it …
The owner had come at suppertime and praised Marie-Sophie’s performance.
— I hear he’s spoken to you, said thank you and I don’t know what else? They’ll be happy, I should think they’ll be bloody pleased when they hear about that. Yes, there’s no doubt you’re the right man, I mean, right girl for the job. And it’s clear that you must stay, yes, I think we’ll have to …
He grew awkward and started rubbing the hip flask in his back pocket.
— Ahem, do you think you could, well, er, stick around? Better let the wife … She knows how to … I won’t be a moment …
Marie-Sophie heard him pause on his way downstairs to reception to take a fortifying nip from the flask, before going to find the Inhaberin, who was on duty in the dining room which converted into a tavern in the evening. “They only come here to drink, they don’t eat a sodding thing, why do they think someone sits for an hour every day writing out decorative menus for them? I ask you.” The Inhaberin never received an answer to this question. Marie-Sophie couldn’t bring herself to tell her what everyone else knew: that the cook was useless, the waiter rude, the china chipped and the choice of dishes, so beautifully written out on the menu, hadn’t changed since the paint dried on the sign outside the inn.
The noise from the dining room magnified as the owner entered, dipped when the door shut behind him, then rose again as he came out accompanied by his wife.
Marie-Sophie listened to the Inhaberin huffing her way up the stairs, her husband rambling on, clearly in great agitation, but when they entered the room they fell momentarily silent.
— So …
Whispered the owner to his wife. She whispered back:
— So what?
— So here we are.
— I’m aware of that …
— I mean, er, good grief, is that the time? It’s probably best if I leave this to you …
— You’re not going anywhere!
The Inhaberin gripped her husband by the upper arm and hissed:
— It was your talents at the card table that got us into this mess, so you’ll jolly well accompany me every step of the way while I extricate you from it!
Marie-Sophie peeped out of the priest’s hole.
The Inhaberin let go of her husband and turned smiling to the girl.
— Ah, there you are, we were just saying how diligent you’ve been …
The owner gave a quick sniff and looked daggers at his wife:
— Yes, we’ve decided to give you a bit of a pay rise for all this, yes, indeed.
The Inhaberin jabbed him with her elbow and shook her head slowly and menacingly. He beamed at Marie-Sophie.
Marie-Sophie beamed back: it was a great blessing for the staff of the Gasthof Vrieslander that the owner’s method of getting back at his wife was to be kind to them.
— And you’re to take the next few Sundays off …
The owner dodged his wife like a rabbit, she spun in a circle when her blow went wide, he fled squeaking into the passage, she shook her fist after him, he stuck his head back through the door and made a face at her, she tore off her shoes and hurled them after him, he parried the missiles with his arms and clicked his tongue, she groaned, he laughed and left.
Marie-Sophie pushed the door of the priest’s hole to and waited patiently while the Inhaberin discussed with God and the devil the minuteness and flaccidity of her husband’s penis. When the woman had finished conversing with the two supreme powers she cleared her throat and spoke gently to the girl behind the door:
— Are you there, dear?
— Er, yes …
— You know me, don’t you?
— Er, yes …
— You know I’m not the sort of person who corrupts young girls?
— Er, yes …
— Neither I nor my husband tolerate any immorality here at the guesthouse, am I right?
— Er, yes …
— Though many people in our position do: they turn a blind eye, have a weakness for an easy profit, simply raise the price of the accommodation, do you understand what I’m getting at?
— Er …
— No, we set great store by employing decent, hardworking and God-fearing s
taff, and we set the same standards for ourselves, don’t we?
— Yes …
— And that’s why we employ you and not someone else, isn’t it?
— Er, yes …
— I don’t quite know how to put it but I think you catch my drift …
— Er…’
‘Is the woman deranged? Is she never going to get to the point? Isn’t it obvious that she’s trying to ask the poor girl to sleep in the priest’s hole with the wretched man? Sorry, your mother with your father.’
‘EXACTLY!’
‘Marie-Sophie yessed and noed her way through the Inhaberin’s catechism. At long last, the woman got round to stating the request that was so difficult to put into words and required a preamble so convoluted that it came close to the book of dialectic that was opened when God halted the construction of the Tower of Babel. After the Inhaberin had asked the girl whether she would mind, whether she would consider, whether it would be all right to approach her about, whether it would be against her better judgement to spend the night with the foreigner in the priest’s hole, Marie-Sophie asked her to wait a moment and went into the invalid’s room.
She looked at him enquiringly. He had pulled the eiderdown over his face.
— Should I stay with you tonight?
Through the eiderdown she thought she saw a wicked twitch lift the corner of his mouth, and as far as she could tell he nodded his head.
— I see, my good man, so you’re like that, are you!
Marie-Sophie called out to the Inhaberin that of course she would sit with him, but she wanted her mattress, her bedclothes and the book she was reading. If they expected her to sleep then they could hardly complain if she looked at a book.
— Because reading books is a kind of dream sleep, you see.
The Inhaberin said she would fulfil all Marie-Sophie’s wishes; she was an angel and deserved only the best. With that the woman left, whooping hurrah, while the girl stayed behind, which was all she could do.’
‘Amen to that.’
‘Marie-Sophie held her breath: yes, there it was again; scratch-scritch-scritch from the wall. Then nothing for a while.
