CoDex 1962

by Sjón

  Marie-Sophie stumbled over the threshold, out into the street where the daylight hurt her eyes: was it still light? Surely night had fallen while she was with Karl. Could daylight really endure what he had done to her? A deed so wicked that the sun ought to have fled over the horizon. Marie-Sophie longed for night.

  Dear God, grant me night, if it’s in Your power to call down darkness over this hole of a town, grant me a black sky to hide me on the way home; on a grey day like this there are no shadows for a dishonoured girl to hide herself in. Grant me pitch-darkness so I can get back to the guesthouse unseen. Please say for Marie-Sophie: Let there be night! Amen.

  She bit her lip and waited for an answer.

  From the second floor of the house came a whimpering – Karl was hanging out of the window like an obsolete flag: Marie-Sophie, come back, I still love you.

  The sun came out from behind a cloud; the clip in the girl’s hair sparkled, her yellow cardigan glowed, the roses on her dress bloomed, her shoe-buckles gleamed. Marie-Sophie radiated light like a jewel on a rubbish tip and she paled with fury: Karl had defiled her, nature had betrayed her, and now the Lord had scorned her simple prayer.

  — The devil take you, if he hasn’t already got you!

  — But Marie-Sophie, I love you!’

  ‘That was then!’

  ‘Her heart clenched like a fist, she started running along the street: she was late, the cook would kill her: What are you thinking of, girl! Then she would say … no, she couldn’t tell anyone what Karl had done … yes, the cook would understand her, she had seen it all, that woman. She would undoubtedly hug her and stroke her hair: My dear child, there, there! And shoo away the waiter and the boy. Then she’d lead her by the hand up to their rooms and draw a hot bath for her: There now, scrub that filth off you; look, I’ll put some of my bath-salts in and afterwards your body will be as pure as your heart, dearie! Meanwhile the men would hover down in reception; speechless over what had happened, they would plot with furtive eyes and gestures of the hands to teach Karl a lesson he wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Yes, that’s how it would be when she found her way back into the embrace of her workmates, her friends, at Gasthof Vrieslander.

  It took all the girl’s efforts to make herself invisible. It was as if the townspeople had been released from a spell, cast off their customary cold indifference and been filled with a hysterical love for their fellow men. They stood alert on every pavement, acted like fellow citizens, paraded themselves and noticed others, raised their hats, nodded their heads, shook hands, and candidly discussed the chicken in one another’s pots. Some were plucked: No, really? Do you roast it, then, and get a good crispy skin? Others were skinned: Yes, that’s how I like it! That’s the usual way. Or seared: Really? Do you joint it and boil it in a broth with vegetables and black pudding? When they had finished these ingenuous exchanges, people parted with a handshake: Do give my regards to your husband and remind him about this evening’s meeting. Or: I do hope your wife’s earache gets better. And in passing: Any news of your son? No? Yes, those boys are lazy about writing home. Goodbye, madam! – Goodbye, sir!

  Marie-Sophie hugged the walls and skulked in alleyways whenever she thought she spotted a guesthouse regular among the passers-by, reasoning that if she neither looked at nor listened to the people she met, they wouldn’t be able to see or hear her.

  Go away, I want to go home, to bed, I want to sleep, you don’t exist, I don’t want to be here, go away, I want to sleep, I don’t exist, tra-la lalla-la, fading in his embrace, tra-la lalla-la.

  She half ran, paused, broke into a run again, waited, went on, stopped, and dashed along, like an avant-garde dancer in a newsreel she had seen with Karl in the early days of their courtship: the poor man had flung himself from pillar to post, crouched down and jerked to and fro to the accompaniment of clashing cymbals, dustbin lids, pots and pans, or whatever it was that the musicians banged to make such a cacophony. The man was dressed in light-coloured overalls with a pointed hat on his head, while on his feet he wore big shoes that hindered his movements. At the end of the news item he was asked what the performance was supposed to represent and he had replied, still sweaty and grimacing from his efforts: This is Germany today. The audience had collapsed with laughter; God, she and Karl had thought they’d never be able to stop laughing. The poof’s reply – for what else could he be with his face all made up like that? – had become a saying with her and Karl; every time they saw something absurd they had only to catch each other’s eye and repeat the first three words: This is Germany! to collapse into helpless giggles. Oh, oh, oh, I’ll die laughing: if only all newsreels were this good, ha, we wouldn’t need any Hollywoodstadt.

  I’m Germany today, tra-la lalla-la, at a furious pace, tra-la lalla-la.

  Marie-Sophie didn’t slow her frantic pace until she reached Flower Street, where, on rounding the corner, she discovered that the street had narrowed at the other end until only a stick-figure could have squeezed through and instead of the guesthouse appearing on the far side of the square, all that could be glimpsed was a sliver of its corner. Flower Street had been transformed from earlier that day: doors had opened in the grey walls, above which red lamps illuminated the sides of the houses, and the purple roofs leaned in to meet in the middle, shutting off the street over the girl’s head.

  I’ll make it through, I’m like a cat, I was like a kitten when I was a little girl, in and out of all the windows, under the sofas and fences; the cook says I’m nothing but skin and bone: You’ve no flesh on you at all, my girl, what are men supposed to grab hold of if there’s nothing on your bones? But I don’t care, I’m glad: being a waif will come in useful now. The pain’s the same whether the body’s large or small, but that bastard Karl would have hurt me even more if there had been more of me. I’ll get through.

  She wrapped her cardigan tighter around her and set off: figures, the like of which she had never dreamed of, stepped out on to the pavement and screwed up their eyes as the fresh air touched their pinched faces, like cats when someone blows in their eyes. God, they were as grotesque on the outside as she felt on the inside. A man with a gigantic head stretched his calloused paws out of a doorway, hooked his deformed fingernails into a crack in the pavement and dragged himself puffing and blowing over the threshold.’

  ‘Is there no end to this freak show? What happened when she got home, hmm? How was your poor father?’

  ‘Try to control yourself; she’s in a mental state that’s hard to describe. I’m doing my best!’

  ‘Tch!’

  ‘Marie-Sophie was about to make a detour round the huge-headed cripple when he gave an almighty shriek and hurtled out on to the pavement where he landed right by her feet and started rubbing his behind. From inside the house came a whisper.

  — This is my doorway, you freak!

  Big-head shook his fist in the direction of the whisper and rumbled some ugly curse about what gave her, a woman who didn’t even own her own crack, the right to shoot her mouth off?

  A head and foot appeared in the doorway.

  — Don’t you try and talk dirty to me, old man; you know who this girl’s protector is?

  Marie-Sophie was taken aback: were they whispering about her? The whispering couldn’t refer to the face and foot in the doorway, they didn’t belong to a girl as she understood the word: the gaunt face was covered in pale powder and garish rouge, the varicose foot stretched a silver shoe with a rapier heel. No, a girl was a young woman, someone aged no more than twenty like herself.

  — My good madam! Could you spare a trifle for an old soldier?

  The girl yelped when the cripple pinched her knee.

  — Excuse me, I didn’t mean to frighten you, but with the way I look I’ve come to expect people to back off. I lost my legs in the last war and now I can’t take part in this one. Does madam have a small coin she could spare?

  Marie-Sophie stared at the begging head: how could she have failed to notice this creature before? Kük
enstadt was so small that a man who looked as if he had been drawn by a five-year-old ought surely to be the town freak.

  — Change?

  The cripple suddenly struck his brow.

  — I mean, madam knows how this sort of business goes, doesn’t she? I hold out my hand – looking mighty hungry – and beg for alms from your purse. You put a little something in my hand, averting your face – I understand and don’t take it personally – and continue on your way. You feel better – you’ve been called madam and given God’s blessing – and I’ve now got enough for meat stew or a pilsner, depending on how generous madam has been. Shall we try again?

  The girl didn’t answer. Around the beggar’s neck was a sweat-stained priest’s ruff: now she was sure she had seen the man somewhere before.

  He flushed.

  — Ah, you’re wondering why this unfortunate war hero should be so attired. There’s no time for my life-story, hmm hmm, but I suppose I was an army chaplain, God’s servant on the Western Front; because even there men had need of their crucified Jesus when the going got tough. Yes, many’re the last rites I’ve administered to the blown-up bodies of God’s children with this hand that now patiently awaits your alms.

  The beggar spread out his fingers and before Marie-Sophie knew it she had slipped him a coin.

  A hoarse voice swept down the narrow street like a cloud of dust on an autumn morning:

  — A war hero with healing hands?

  A shorn-headed woman in a scarlet dress stood on the pavement diagonally opposite them, sucking on a cigarillo through a foot-long holder.

  — There can be no doubting the priestling’s love of the truth …

  The cripple flinched and hung his head. Crop-hair jerked her head and breathed out the words in a stream of blue tobacco smoke.

  — You should tell your benefactress about the acts of charity you carried out with your feet; it would be a laugh to see her reward you for those good deeds.

  The legless man clenched his fist around the coin and darted pleading eyes at Marie-Sophie. She looked in bewilderment from the man to the head in the doorway, receiving a stare as sharp as the stiletto that had driven the man howling from the house.

  — Don’t waste your pity on a child-killer.

  The girl was shocked. The accused hid his face and whined:

  — Don’t listen to them.

  But Marie-Sophie knew better: she had devoured an article about the child-killer Moritz Weiss in the weekly magazine UHU. The magazine was a treasure trove of information, publishing lace patterns alongside blueprints for tanks, and she was allowed to read it at the house of the kind woman next door, in return for helping with the housework.

  At first she hadn’t been allowed to read the unsuitable pages, the articles about corruption, degeneracy, crimes that were common in the old republic. The kind woman kept a close eye on her reading and said firmly: “Turn over!” every time Marie-Sophie came to them. Either the woman knew all the issues off by heart or else she sensed whenever the next spread contained a picture of a murderer, pervert or corrupt politician. It didn’t matter whether she was somewhere else in the house at the time or standing out on the steps chatting to the postman; at the very second, the very instant the girl touched the corner of the page her voice would ring out: “Turn over, two pages, thank you!”

  But when Marie-Sophie began to leaf through the paper backwards, upside down and at every other imaginable angle to fool the woman, and everything the woman said was punctuated with the exclamation: “Turn over!”, she gave up on the girl and after some debate they agreed that she was old enough to learn about the shady side of life.

  Which was precisely where Moritz “Bloodfoot” Weiss belonged.

  * * *

  “Bloodfoot” Found!

  — Berliners celebrate after years in the shadow of child-killings.

  Moritz Weiss was a trainee priest and child-killer, and no different from others of that ilk: those who knew him were unanimous in declaring that he had a heart of gold. He was abstemious in his intake of alcohol and tobacco, a volunteer at the church soup kitchen and a true friend to the older members of the parish. He worked hard at his theological studies – and if he had understood Nietzsche it’s not inconceivable that he would have made it to bishop.

  No one could have dreamed that Moritz Weiss, that dear chap with the big head, was the scourge of Berlin’s little children, none other than “Bloodfoot” himself.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to hear the story of Bloodfoot?’

  ‘What do you think I am?’

  ‘Then I’ll leave it out.’

  ‘Of course I want to hear it, isn’t everyone obsessed with murderers nowadays?’

  ‘Have you ever shaken hands with a murderer?’

  ‘No, but I’ve shaken hands with an author.’

  ‘Apparently that doesn’t have the same cachet.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘So I’m told.’

  ‘Make me better acquainted with Bloodfoot then, and be quick about it!’

  ‘Bloodfoot went about his child murders in the following way: he would sneak into the sacristy of the university chapel in broad daylight, “borrow” a priest’s habit and hasten to the scene of the killing, one of Berlin’s numerous public parks.

  There he would hide in the bushes and spy out his small victims.

  If an unfortunate nanny took her eyes off the little charge that she had promised to guard with her life, the monster Moritz Weiss would creep over the lawn to where the innocent victim sat wondering at creation and deliver a kick to its soft skull. Afterwards the murderer would dive into the dense undergrowth and wait for the nanny to return and find the infant, the crushed apple of some unknown parents’ eye, whose name he would learn from the evening papers.

  The nannies’ shrieks of horror sounded like holy music to Bloodfoot’s ears; just so must Mary have cried out when her Son committed his spirit to the Father on the cross. The comparison was not wholly absurd: the only sound the infants emitted when the heavy foot smashed into the back of their skull was a mournful sigh.

  After the murders, Moritz Weiss savoured the echo of the grown-ups’ wails, which gave him peace of mind and enabled him to carry out his daily tasks in the service of the church of the suffering mother of Christ. But, as is the nature of echoes, the propitiatory sounds would gradually die away. And the trainee priest would be driven to don his bloodfoot once more.

  Weeks became months became years; the number of victims rose to twelve.

  The authorities were helpless in the face of this wave of killings: conventional policing methods, increased surveillance wherever the murderer was thought likely to strike, and countless arrests as a result of information from mediums and detective novelists, who saw in the tragedy a golden opportunity to promote themselves and their work, had not furthered the investigation one iota.

  The child-killer, who had been christened Bloodfoot, remained at large in Berlin and no one could do a thing about it.

  Then one day a street urchin, on the prowl for purses in the park, saw a scrap of paper fall from the trouser leg of a clergyman who was passing through his hunting ground, a path that wound along beside the park wall. Since the boy was a pickpocket – i.e. he relieved his fellow citizens of the loose change that weighed them down on their walks – he had no interest in things people shed of their own accord.

  He picked up the scrap from the path, and although it was nothing but a yellowing newspaper cutting, he set off in pursuit of the cassock-clad figure, waving the paper and shouting: “Mister! Mister! You dropped something!” But when the gentleman failed to acknowledge the boy’s call and instead half ran across the playground, the boy was hurt and couldn’t be bothered to chase him any further.

  — That’s what comes of being a pickpocket. No one trusts us; we’re even feared by those who should have a better understanding of human failings than most. But I suppose it’s like that in all walks of life: the pros and cons c
ancel each other out.

  Muttering something along these lines to himself, the street urchin smoothed out the cutting. He had resolved to throw it away, since he’d had bad experiences of being caught in possession of printed matter that didn’t concern him, but first he meant to read it.

  He was brought up short: the cutting was a seven-month-old police notice warning people to keep a close eye on their children as a full moon was due and psychiatrists believed this increased the likelihood that Bloodfoot would go out on the prowl.

  The street urchin spat on the notice, crumpled it up and stuck it in his pocket. He knew the park like the back of his hand and knew that the clergyman couldn’t have gone far; if the man turned out to be the wolf in priest’s clothing that he suspected then the boy was in luck: Bloodfoot happened to be wanted by more than just the department of criminal investigation.