Little Hands Clapping

by Dan Rhodes

  ‘As you now know, Doctor Fröhlicher was a man of many peculiarities, one of which, I am sorry to say, was an extensive collection of photographs of malfunctioning anuses. Frau Klopstock, it doesn’t give me any pleasure to tell you that among these photographs are many close-ups of an anus that is very clearly labelled as belonging to you. In fact it has an entire album to itself. I have seen it, as have many of my colleagues. I hate to be the one to tell you that these pictures leave absolutely nothing to the imagination.’

  Irmgard buried her face in her hands. For the first time since all this had begun she gave in to sobs. Franz placed a hand on her trembling shoulder, and gave it a squeeze.

  ‘I would rather you heard it from me than from a news bulletin,’ said Horst. They all looked at the radio, which had been switched off.

  Irmgard nodded, and sniffed. ‘Thank you, officer,’ she whispered. ‘You are very kind.’

  ‘It looked rather painful,’ he said. ‘I do hope you’re on the mend.’

  She nodded once again. ‘I’ve completely recovered in that department. But tell me,’ she said, changing the subject to one that had been troubling her all day, ‘what of poor Hans? What will become of him?’

  ‘Hans is being kept at the police pound. He is being well-fed and regularly exercised, and in seven days time, in accordance with standard procedure, he will be shot dead.’

  ‘But, Horst . . .’ She checked herself. ‘But, officer, that dear dog . . .’ Irmgard put her hand to her mouth as she remembered the times she had seen him running in the park, how happy he had been, and how good-natured. ‘What if he was to find a loving home?’

  Horst took off his cap and shook his head. ‘I am afraid, Irmgard, that he is already being referred to as The Cannibal Hound. If anybody is interested in taking him in they are more likely to be ghoulish souvenir hunters than dog lovers. It would be impossible to know if he is going to a good home. Trust me, Irmgard, this is the kindest way. It will be a single bullet to the back of his head as he chews on a bone. He won’t know it’s coming, and he won’t feel a thing.’

  ‘But, Horst,’ she said. ‘Franz and I have been talking. Perhaps we could . . .’ She looked at Franz, and smiled. Franz smiled back. ‘. . . perhaps Hans could come and live here, with us?’

  ‘Even after everything you saw in the park?’

  Irmgard nodded.

  ‘I’m afraid that would be impossible.’

  Irmgard looked at the carpet.

  ‘Is there really nothing you can do?’ asked Franz.

  Horst thought for a while. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘under the circumstances, I might be able to pull some strings . . .’ He was quite often placed on routine duties at the pound. He had the keys, and was familiar with all the paperwork. He thought for a while longer. Maybe The Lone Wolf had one final howl left in him. ‘Perhaps we could discreetly arrange a new identity for him. We could change his name to . . .’ He stroked his bristly chin, then smiled. ‘. . . Hansel.’

  Irmgard stood up and fetched her coat. ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ she said. ‘Let’s bring him home. Let’s bring Hansel Klopstock home.’

  The three of them went out to Horst’s car.

  As Horst pulled on his seatbelt he thought of a joke to lighten the sombre mood that had taken hold. ‘Of course you realise you will have to change the dog’s diet just a little?’ He was pleased with this, and his passengers were too.

  Smiling, they drove away.

  II

  Within two hours of the doctor’s death, the police had retrieved a log of phone calls to and from his home number, and following Horst’s tip-off about a museum connection they had read enough of his diaries to have a good idea that something untoward had been going on between him and the old man. Sirens blazing, they raced to the scene, where they battered their way in through the front and back doors.

  He was where Madalena had left him, his eyes wide open, as if he was watching them. Being taller than her, his feet had grazed the floor as he fell. His neck had not broken, and his toes had taken enough of his weight for his blood flow to be stemmed, but it had not stopped.

  He was cut down and taken to the hospital, where they dressed him in white and placed him under a white sheet. Food and water entered his grey body through a tube, and his breathing was assisted by a machine that made a low undulating drone.

  Tests showed that significant parts of his brain had stopped functioning. There was no possibility of him regaining consciousness, but his heart was beating as it always had. When asked how long he could be expected to live like this, the doctor in charge said it was impossible to predict, but that there was every possibility he could go on for many years to come.

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe he will outlive us all.’

  The old man lay still, thinking of nothing. As his chest rose and fell, the machine rumbled on. In and out, in and out. It all sounded the same.

  III

  Pavarotti longed for his sedated wife to wake up so he could offer her words of consolation, but at the same time he was struggling to think what those words would be. Leaving her in the care of a nurse, he went out of the house, hoping the fresh air would clear his head. He walked through dark streets until he reached the museum. The press had not yet been tipped off about the building’s connection to the doctor, but its lights were on and a policeman had been discreetly placed near the battered front door. The policeman recognised Pavarotti, and didn’t ask him to move along when he sat on the steps.

  Pavarotti’s mind was just as blank as it had been at home, and when he heard a bright Good evening, and looked up to see Hulda, he was glad of the company. She too had spent the day with the police, and there had been an inevitability to the route of her own head-clearing walk. After everything they had heard they both felt as if they didn’t know the museum at all, and they had each felt driven to go there again, to see if it was as they remembered it, and even to double-check that it had ever existed at all. It had been an exhausting time, and they knew there would be more questions in the morning. She sat beside him.

  ‘What a shame about Herr Schmidt,’ she said.

  Pavarotti nodded.

  ‘It’s terrible, isn’t it? All those poor people being eaten like that.’

  ‘It’s a shame for you too, Hulda,’ said Pavarotti. ‘I fear you will soon be looking for alternative employment.’

  Hulda sighed. ‘All good things must come to an end. You don’t have to worry about me though – I’m sure my probation officer will find me something suitable before too long.’ With this she began recounting the highlights of her long day. She had been woken early by a knock at the door, and the unexpected news, and after getting dressed she had been taken to the police station. She had recognised a lot of the people working on the case, and they had greeted her warmly. Hello, Hulda, they said, it’s good to see you again. They treated her just as well as they had the last time, bringing her coffee and snacks, and making sure she was comfortable. Some of them joked that if it hadn’t been for her they would be out of a job. There had been moments when it had been like catching up with old friends.

  One Saturday morning when she was still a schoolgirl, and while her mother was at the market, Hulda’s stepfather had padded up behind her as she tidied the kitchen. He grabbed her. She felt his moustache rub against her cheek. She had lost count of the times this had happened, but this was the first time she had wanted him to grab her, to rub himself against her, and to say, You know what to do. She caught a vicious blast of pickle-breath, and it felt good, it was what she had been hoping for. She was impatient for him to unzip his trousers, and she didn’t have to wait long.

  It poked from his body, this pinkish-grey stamen of which she had once been so petrified, and she looked at it and looked back at him, and took it in her hand as she had so many times before. Without a trace of fear she used her other hand to reach for the knife that she had been sharpening for days in anticipation of this moment, and with a single movement that she
had practised on carrot after carrot, and on parsnip after parsnip, she made sure he would never be able to do his damage again, not to her, not to her mother, not to anybody. He fell screaming to the floor, his hands cupped around the bloody stump. She had heard about surgeons who could reattach these things, and she needed to be sure that would not happen. She dropped the gristly lump on to the tiles and stamped on it again and again, until she could see it was beyond repair. Just to be sure, she picked it up and sawed it in half, from tip to base. He tried to get up and stop her, to grab it and keep it safe, but the agony and the threat of the knife drove him back down. Only when she knew she had destroyed it did she call for help. Just in case he had ideas of revenge or escape she pressed the blade hard against his throat as they waited for the ambulance to arrive.

  When they had taken him away, and she sat at the kitchen table surrounded by police, she realised the extent of what she had done. Her mind was clear, and she told them everything. She had no regrets for having ended things the way she had, and nor would she ever. She knew in her heart that she had done the right thing, and she would never say sorry.

  She had not been sent to jail, but the authorities knew that they couldn’t simply let her go about her business after what she had done, particularly after her refusal to even feign regret, and since then her life had been filled with criminal psychologists, counsellors and rehabilitation officers, all of whom had grown very fond of her.

  As Hulda and Pavarotti sat together on the cold steps of the museum she felt as if their shared involvement in this latest calamity had brought down the social barriers that had stood between them, and for the first time she was ready to make friendly conversation with him.

  ‘Has anybody ever told you that you look just like Pavarotti?’ she asked.

  He told her, quite truthfully, that nobody had.

  As they sat in silence, Hulda felt something building inside her, a sense that with this new-found rapport had come one of the big moments of her life, an opportunity she could not let pass her by. She felt a surge of confidence, and as calm as anything, she said, ‘I’ve been wondering if you have a brother.’

  Pavarotti looked a little taken aback as he nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do.’

  ‘And are you at all similar?’

  ‘He’s like me in many ways, although he doesn’t have one of these . . .’ He pointed.

  ‘He doesn’t have a face?’ Hulda was overcome with pity.

  ‘No, I mean he doesn’t have a beard.’

  She was relieved, and her courage returned. She ploughed on before it had a chance to get away. ‘And is he married?’

  ‘No. No, I’m afraid to say that’s another way in which we differ. Unlike me, he is unlucky in love. He was engaged for a time, but for one reason or another he and his fiancée never quite made it to the church.’

  The idea of Pavarotti’s brother was making Hulda’s blood run hot with passion. ‘Is he younger than you, or older?’

  ‘He is older.’ Hulda had been hoping for the other answer, but if happiness lay in the arms of a man of advanced years then she would still be glad of it. She wondered just how old he was, and as if reading her mind, Pavarotti continued. ‘He’s twenty-nine.’

  Hulda was amazed. She looked at Pavarotti, and for the first time she saw that he was not a great deal older than she was. The skin around his eyes was smooth and fresh. The years that had only ever been assumptions melted away, and she felt a little ashamed, but this soon passed. ‘I think it would take our minds off the terrible events if you were to call him,’ she said. ‘Will you call him now, and invite him to meet us?’

  Pavarotti was no longer baffled by Hulda’s interrogation. Since they were no longer going to be professionally connected he saw no reason why he shouldn’t make this introduction. He did as she had asked, and after a short conversation he hung up. ‘He’s on his way. He lives forty minutes from here.’

  Hulda was experiencing urges she had only ever imagined, and she told herself she was going to yield to them at the first opportunity. It wouldn’t happen that night, but it would happen soon. She didn’t care what God thought; for once in His life He could keep his nose out of her business.

  They stood up, and as they walked away a police van pulled up, and uniformed officers got out and started taping off the building. Hulda and Pavarotti made their way along the narrow street as men with large cameras raced past them, hoping to get the first photographs of this second House of Horrors.

  With Pavarotti by her side, and knowing she was about to meet his brother, Hulda felt a sense of harmony with the world that she had not known since she had been a little girl, and in a flash she realised she wasn’t necessarily going to Hell after all. God would have known the trouble that had been in her heart on the night she had let Him down, just as He must have known how sincere her apologies had been. She had forgiven her mother when she admitted that deep down she had suspected her husband had been mistreating her for all those years, but she had been so frightened of the man that she had managed to convince herself that nothing was wrong. ‘I’m sorry, Hulda,’ she had said, and Hulda had known she meant it, and had forgiven her straight away. She had even forgiven her stepfather when they had met on an organised prison visit some months after his trial. He had sat before her, a broken, cockless man, and told her how sorry he was for everything he had done to her. If she could forgive them but God still wouldn’t forgive her, then . . . She didn’t know what to think. Everything seemed so new. She was shaken from her thoughts by Pavarotti.

  ‘In my younger days I would very occasionally go to a bar just around the corner,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if it’s still there.’

  They walked on, side by side.

  IV

  The railway line met the highway, and for a while they ran parallel. Madalena was relieved to see signs pointing to places she had heard of. A billboard was advertising toothpaste, and Mauro’s smile was as dazzling as ever. She checked her phone and found a message from him, telling her that he was halfway up Mount Fuji in a white tuxedo, and asking if she and João were still on for meeting up when he got back. She texted her reply, telling him, just truthfully enough, that the João thing hadn’t really worked out, so it would only be the three of them. She said she was looking forward to it, and she meant it. It would be good to see him, and to get to know Luciana better.

  Everything seemed so clear now. She had let him go, and it had been the right thing to do, and though it had been difficult she had got through it. She had survived. For so many years she hadn’t been able to imagine life without him, but now she was living that life, and she was going to be fine. Like a teenage girl taking down an old poster of a pop star, she was moving her life forward, and growing up. She was being realistic, understanding that happiness, true happiness, lay elsewhere. She had a sense that she was finding her place in the world, and it felt good.

  She had slept for hours, first in a cheap hotel in the city and then in short bursts on train after train as she made her way home. Only ghosts of feelings remained, and it seemed as if the whole episode had happened to somebody else, that she had only been an observer. She would be able to recount what she had done, action by action, but she would never be able to articulate the unbearable feelings that had been inside her all that time. Language had let her down again, but this time it didn’t matter.

  They left the road behind, and the train carried on through farmland. She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out the note she had written. She unfolded it, and as she read it her new-found calm drained away and she was frightened of herself. It no longer felt as if it had been somebody else’s experience: this was her handwriting, and these were her words. She could see how sincere she had been, and how ready, and how blind. She had truly believed that her mother and father would have found comfort in this letter, that they would have accepted her assurance that she had been beyond help. She had really thought that they would be glad to know she was at peace, whatever that
was supposed to mean. She hadn’t been able to see that the rest of their lives would have been ruined, blighted by the thought that they had let her down. She could see that she had been out of her mind, and had been convinced that there was no possibility of ever finding a way through the darkness. If she hadn’t been interrupted by the old man, if he hadn’t stirred her fears and doubts and cleared the way for a spark of hope to reach her through the chaos, then she would have gone through with it.

  She folded the letter. She would keep it, for a while at least, to remind herself of just how wrong it was possible to be.

  The train slowed as it entered the city, and she got her bag down from the rack. She took the bus back to her room, where she changed her clothes, and showered, and once again packed clean things for a night or two away. She lay down on her bed, and as she closed her eyes she saw the little boy and the little girl from her daydreams. They were the same as they had ever been. They were smiling, and loving her, and trusting her.

  In the morning she would go to the bus station, and by the following evening she will have finished her journey.

  V

  It is already dark by the time her bus gets in. As a huddle of old people stand in the shadows and watch, she gets off and walks in the direction of the shops. Her eyes are fixed on the pavement, and whenever she sees a piece of gravel in the light of a streetlamp she reaches down and picks it up. She doesn’t worry for a moment that he will have done as she had asked, and found somebody else to love. He will be there.

  She stands outside the bakery, and looks up. She knows which window is his. Everybody knows his window. It is dark, and closed against the cold air, and the curtain is pulled across, but this is what she has been expecting. The next day is market-day, and he will have gone to bed in anticipation of an early start. She takes a piece of gravel between her fingers, and throws it at the glass. She has a good aim. It bounces off, and the window remains dark. She throws another piece, and nothing happens. She throws another, and another, and she begins to worry, but then a hand appears, and the curtain opens. A face looks down at her, and her confidence drains away. She feels shy, and nervous, in ways she has never felt before, and she wonders if she is making a mistake by standing in the street with a handful of gravel.