by Clio Gray
Oft times through the following years Langer and Jaspis sat by their fire on the Öde Insel remembering that day when they had ceased to pray and kneel and took action instead for their fellow men, and boys. And they would laugh softly as Langer pointed out the archipelago of moles just below his crooked knee and what Kwert had said. Federkiel too stayed on the island until he was healed, in body at least; his mind took longer, unable to leave his cage, recalling the boy looking up at him, breathing in his proxy words of love. Lost in the nest of his days.
29
Of Pumpernickel and Pumpkin Heads
‘Oh . . . oh . . . on the la-a-zy water, with his croo-oo-ked stick . . .’
So sings the reed-cutter as he punts his way through the knee-bones and knuckles of pools and streams that make up his world. He isn’t cutting reeds – too far gone in the year for that, scythes all oiled and put away by the end of April, reed-stems dried and sorted, stooked and counted. Instead, he cares for the sharp green blades pushing up through the short-shanks of last year’s growth, watches the cotton-grass bob in the breeze, winds his way through the giant tussocks of sedge grass that hold back the encroaching carr of alder and buckthorn, plucking up any young saplings that have found their way into his beds. He whistles and hums, punts and pulls, at peace amidst the rafts of ducks and moorhen paddling serenely by, listens to the buntings and warblers hanging upside down on thick blades of sweet-grass. The only things that disturb him are the sounds of the drovers a mile or so distant, driving their sheep to the big market at Bremen. A few of them are camped up nearby, taking a couple of days rest, fattening their livestock before the last leg, feeding them on the lush grass of the meadows to the east of the river. It amazes him that people bother to take their sheep so far but apparently it’s common practice, so he’s been told; better prices, better bargains to be struck, better produce to be bought and taken back to their villages. He worries briefly about his wife at home, separated from everywhere by thick fields and meadows, but knows his son can shoot a straight shot, that his wife can snap the neck of a rabbit with two fingers, and that she and her rolling pin could do a heap of damage to the saggy bones of any drunkard who might come hammering at her door.
He knows they are drunk because he can hear their loud voices, the vociferous laughing, the occasional snort of song sung to an out-of-tune accordion or, more likely, an out-of-tune accordionist. He’s heading for his little shack built of stout branches and bunches of reeds, always ready to protect his stacks, which would make easy burning for anyone who happened this way. He starts singing again, and then stops, raises his hand to shade his eyes against the setting sun. He sees figures coming toward him – two, maybe three. He pulls himself up in alarm, cocks his head, can still hear the drovers rowdying over the river so knows it can’t be them. He sucks in his breath and poles the punt quick across the water, ready to up a pitchfork and defend his ricks with his life. He keeps the new arrivals in his sights as he skims through a maze of streams and half-grown hedges, muscles knotting, face taut; then relaxes slightly, sighing with relief as he sees one of them point. They’ve spotted the drovers’ fires and have changed direction, beginning to cross the river on one of the many clapper-bridges scattered down its length where the water between the constant pools is wide and shallow, littered with stones, easy to cross. He slows the punt to make sure they are really going over, which they are, and then swirls his pole through the darkening afternoon and begins again to sing.
‘Oh . . . oh . . . on the la-a-zy wa-ater, with his croo-oo-ked stick . . .’
Philbert was tired, Kwert exhausted – propped on the donkey, barely upright, head lolling with every step. They’d made slow progress since leaving the bridge, the plan was to keep company with the river that would eventually join the Weser and on to Bremen. They’d been on the road for days, detouring when the river stepped into a series of weirs and small waterfalls as it tipped through tussocks into a broad plain of marsh. It had been hard going and wet, but soon the scrubland took hold and the trees grew taller, sucking the spare water into their roots and leaves, shading the travellers from the afternoon sun. Now the river was wending through sparse woodland, widening into pools and reed-beds that made it hard to follow, but they had kept true to its course, the sky dulling into a great copper bowl above them, and Philbert knew it was time to stop. He’d seen the silhouette of a man punting his way through a passageway of reeds, and caught the brief strain and snatch of his song before the sun dropped away and took the man into shadow, when Philbert heard different voices, and the very welcome sight of a fire on the opposite bank. Just a little longer over the nearest ford of popplestones, acutely aware of Kwert’s laborious breathing, the complaint of his joints at every move, the slight grinding of his teeth as he fought to stay awake, too weary to do anything but follow Philbert.
‘Here, Fager, where’s that good-for-nothing clodhopper gone this time?’
‘He’s away in the bushes pishing on his boots again, ha ha!’
‘Why in God’s Good Name doesn’t he just piss by the hedge like everyone else?’
‘Eh heh,’ laughed Fager, ‘you know what he’s like – can’t fill a finger and doesn’t want anyone to know it.’
‘Pfah,’ grumbled Schtultz, ‘you’re mighty brave of a sudden. You’d be holding it out for him if he told you to. Not me, though. I’ll say what I think to his face. He’s a lout. And he’s as much guts as a cauliflower. Fancy going off so far just to take a leak.’
Fager looked abashed, wondered if he’d spoken too loudly, but Schtultz didn’t bother who might hear him and carried on. ‘Big man like that! He’s a fool. Can’t take a drink and can’t take a joke, and what’s more, can’t look after his sheep neither. You must’ve seen ’em. Bloody lot of ’em’s knackered. Covered in ticks and keds, and I can see blow-maggots crawling in the wool even in this light. And what does that fart-head think about? Nothing ’cepting his next drink, that’s what. You’re a fool to put your sheep in by his. He’s a couple of shiverers in there too – tick-sick, no doubt about it. Be dead before he gets ’em anywhere near a marketplace.’
Fager looked nervous, steadied himself with another mouthful of brandy. A stamping of bushes and the crack of twigs could be heard as someone fell through the hedge close by, swearing loudly.
‘By God,’ muttered Schtultz, ‘but he’s a clumsy lump of a man, and he’s got a mouth like a pus-hole. I’m off to kip up by my sheep. Can’t take him any longer. I’ll be away first light, by the way, if you’re wanting to come.’
The man Schtultz picked up his lamp and marched along the track, speeding his step as he heard the other coming back.
‘Trunkenbold,’ he muttered, ‘no more legs than a fly in a flagon.’
Fager watched Schtultz’s light bobbing away in the twilight and would have liked to follow, but that would mean leaving the brandy alone with Nicolas. He could have taken it with him – he’d been the one to fork out for it, after all – but old Pumpernickel had Fager where he wanted him and, heavy and stupid as Nicolas was, Fager wouldn’t go against him.
‘Ah Pumpernic – ’ he caught himself just in time. ‘Nicolas,’ he amended, ‘you’re back,’ Fager shifted slightly to avoid Nicolas’s large backside which came crashing down onto the log beside him, his boots steaming, wafts of urine hazing with the heat of the fire.
‘What’s to do, Fager? Give us that brandy . . . Ah! That’s better . . . and where’s that pansy-puppy Stultz got too?’
‘Schtultz,’ corrected Fager, though the other didn’t notice.
‘Tha’s what I said, Stultz. Where’d he go?’
‘He’s just out with his sheep . . .’ Fager paused before going on, ‘Says a couple of yours are shiverers . . .’ the sentence hung over a cliff.
‘Shiverers? Wha’s he bloody mean, shiverers! I’ll give him shiverers! ’Course they’re bleeding shivering! It’s cold as a witch’s
tits out here . . . ponced-up pimple. Who’s he think he is?’
‘He was just saying . . .’ Fager mumbled, his hands playing with his beard.
‘Says this, says that! S’all he bloody does is talk. Wossee know ’bout farming anyway? Only been at it a couple of minutes. I been doing it nigh on thirty year! He’s nought but a sodding prick, is what he is!’
Fager didn’t bother replying, eyed the bottle dolefully, wishing it wasn’t swinging so dangerously in his neighbour’s big bullying hands.
‘I keeps me farm good as anybody, I does. Not that I gets any help from that bitch indoors – spends all her time on heat, she does. Touting herself around the neighbourhood like a common trollop . . .’
Fager nodded dumbly. He knew how well the farm was kept, had seen its broken-down shacks; was forever fixing fences and digging out the drainage ditches that abutted his own land, blocking hedge-holes so Nicolas wouldn’t steal his sheep. He’d also seen Margarete, ‘the bitch indoors’, humping great stacks of wood, milking dirty-skinned goats, wiping back what was left of her hair, getting thinner and thinner as the years went by. The brandy bottle was thrust at him as Nicolas readjusted himself on the log, nearly pushing Fager off, scratching at his balls with one hand, taking a bite out of a cold and greasy faggot with the other.
‘’Ere, Fager,’ bits of pork-lights flew from Nicolas’s mouth, ‘what d’you reckon to a bit of play in the village? See what new meat we can lay our hands on? Saw a couple of pretty lasses waiting table in the tavern . . . reckon they’d do it on the cheap. Probably haven’t seen real men like us for a long while. Strong, bit of a rutting – know what I mean? They likes a bit of rough-and-tumble, types like that.’
Fager closed his eyes in the dark, but was pretty sure Groben could barely stand, let alone walk to the village and abduct some poor child for a squalid job-and-poke behind a house, hand over the girl’s mouth, couple of coins in her pocket after they left her crying in a heap on the grass. They’d done it before, though Fager had only sort of participated, just to keep his friend company. Mates was mates, after all, that’s what he told himself, though afterwards he always felt sick and couldn’t touch his own wife for a week, and could barely rest his eyes for a second upon his daughter.
‘Ay well, ne’er mind,’ Nicolas slurred and made a grab for the bottle – missed. ‘Give us that brandy, Fager, you greedy bastard. Giz it here before you cop for it.’
Fager handed over the bottle, resignedly filling a cup with beer from the near empty keg. The night was hard down now and Fager would gladly have sidled off for a bit of sleep in his makeshift tent but Nicolas’s presence held him fast. He listened to his scratching and hoisting, heard him fart wetly, felt the man shift his buttocks on the log to avoid the ensuing trickle in his pants. He felt sick. He frequently felt sick in Nicolas’s presence, but as a boy he’d been bullied into submission and as a man he was bullied still, though now it went by the name of friendship. He looked up in the darkness, thought he heard a snatch of singing but saw only a couple of figures stumbling their way towards them along the track. He nudged Nicolas, who nearly went flying.
‘What the bloody hell d’you think you’re doing, you balls-head! Nearly had me in the fire.’
Fager pointed up the path. ‘Someone’s coming,’ he whispered.
‘So what?’ said Groben. ‘Probably them lasses from the village. What did I tell you? Gagging for it, they are, hey, hey! They’re in for a good night of it!’
Groben shrugged in his sweaty shirt and put a finger below his collar, smartening himself up for imagined impending amorous activities. They both watched, Fager blinking in the dark, swallowing hard, Nicolas grunting in anticipation. Out of the blackness they heard the clip-clop of a donkey, saw a man on its back, a boy leading it on, Kwert and Philbert emerging into the circle of light surrounding the fire.
‘Shit!’ said Nicolas, baring his teeth, slurping from the bottle, uninterested.
Fager let go a small gasp of relief. He hadn’t really believed it would be women, but he knew from experience to expect the worst.
‘Good evening,’ Kwert muttered politely, the wear and tear of illness evident in his voice, looking like he was about to drop. ‘And apologies . . . but we . . . wondered if you might share your fire with . . .’
‘Bugger off!’ Nicolas interrupted Kwert’s stuttered speech.
‘Perhaps we could . . . just sit . . .’
‘You deaf or summat? I told you, bugger off!’
Fager heard the man on the donkey droop and sigh, steeled himself and intervened. ‘Let them sit, Nicolas. They’ll do us no harm.’
Nicolas scratched and grunted as Fager motioned the strangers to join them.
‘We’ve nothing to give you, you understand, but you’re welcome to sit by the fire. Cold night, eh?’
‘Cold indeed,’ agreed Kwert as he slid from the donkey, collapsing gratefully by the meagre flames. The boy sat down beside him, his large hat putting his face in shadow.
‘You didn’t stop in the village, then?’ asked Fager.
‘No,’ Kwert replied, rubbing his hands, revived a tad by the warmth. ‘Came from the other side of the river . . .’
‘Hmmph,’ grumbled Nicolas, ‘no bleeding money, I’ll be bound.’
The boy in the hat was looking at him curiously.
‘And tell your bloody monkey to stop staring at me,’ Nicolas added, ‘or I’ll wring his neck and teach him to dance.’
Kwert cricked himself towards Philbert, who lowered his head.
‘No money, sir,’ Kwert placated, ‘is precisely our position. But we hope to meet up with friends at Bremen.’
‘Ah yes. The Bremen Fair,’ nodded Fager, ‘we’re taking our sheep there. Nicolas has a couple of bulches too – bull calves.’
‘Shut up you,’ Nicolas was angry. ‘You’ve a tongue that blabbers like an old woman. These two could be looking to rob us blind. You never heard of fishing expeditions? Christ, man, ’s a good job one of us can take his drink well enough to watch our skins don’t get taken while we sleep.’
Kwert waved his hand wearily. ‘You’ve nothing to fear from us, sir. We just want to rest for the night. We’ll ask for nothing more.’
‘They all say that,’ muttered Nicolas, but even he could see the newcomers didn’t look like assassins. Groben’s eyesight was made weak and blurry at the edges by the brandy, but something was tickling him. He squinted, leaned in for a better look, pork-faggot breath leading the way.
‘Don’t I know you, pipsqueak? Hey, boy, I’m talking to you! You with the hat.’ The boy looked up, dark eyes wide, though he did not remove his god-awful hat. ‘Ugly little bugger, ain’t he; but then, mind your Maria?’ He punched Fager in the side with his fist. ‘Right bunch of bones and squawking she was not long back, always running snot from her nose and playing with her hair. Couple years on and she’s ready for the bed, and no mistake.’
Fager’s pale cheeks reddened, a shiver running through him from head to toe but he said nothing, recognised the signs, Nicolas finishing off the brandy in one long swig and throwing the bottle into the fire, blue flames playing briefly over the shattered glass as the strangers jumped. The time of drinking when Nicolas would want a fight.
‘What you got in your bag, boy? Bottle of brandy perhaps? Flagon of wine?’
‘Nothing,’ mumbled Philbert, twiddling the strap with his fingers.
‘Cunning little shite! Don’t you answer me back. Gi’s it here . . .’
Philbert didn’t move. He wished he’d not led them over the river. The moment they’d walked into the circle of light he knew who Nicolas was, the telescope of memory zooming into Groben’s barn, Huffelump and his pitiful mother, before slamming shut. Kwert intervened.
‘Please sir, we don’t want any trouble. We’ve no drink, believe me. No drink, no food, no money. We�
�d give it you if we had it. Come on, Philbert, we’ll leave these gentlemen to their fire.’
Kwert went to stand, creaking and cracking, Philbert clutching his satchel in one hand, helping Kwert with the other. Only two yards they got towards the donkey they’d tethered by the river so it could eat and drink, when they heard a rumbling behind them and on came the staggering Groben, hoisting at his Hödensacke with one hand, opening and closing his fist with the other.
‘Nobody walks away from me like that, d’you hear? Nobody!’ he shouted, ‘and especially not a little shite like you!’
Fager scrambled to his feet and hung behind Groben like a spent breath, his heart hammering beneath his ribs like woodpeckers, lips moving without words. Kwert was shocked into immobility, Philbert gripping his bag-strap tighter, determined not to let it go, Raspel beginning to squiggle inside, bumping against the Philocalia. Groben was on them in a second, lumbering into Kwert, knocking him to the ground, yanking away Philbert’s hat, fat-glistened teeth bared in recognition.
‘I knew it,’ Groben growled, ‘knew I’d seen that ugly little pickelkopf before. You stole my prize calf. . . pretending to be fine gents you were, and all along just common swindlers. I seen that midget girl dancing pirouettes and that lump-calf prancing, raking in a fortune. My fortune, you thieving little bastard!’
Groben grabbed Philbert and shook him like a bag of dice, Fager dragging ineffectually at Groben’s arm, flung off in a moment, bleating as he fell.
‘But it’s only a boy, it’s only a boy!’
