Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  The FBI men took this display of courage in the face of pain to be an attempt to seek their sympathy. Frau Kraus had previously brought coffee without asking and the two cups she’d placed silently beside them now grew cold and remained untouched. The FBI had a policy of not accepting gestures of hospitality from enemy aliens as they were clearly intended by the perpetrator as an attempt to lessen the tension generated by the interview. Ignoring Otto’s stomach cramps was yet another demonstration of their professionalism. When, during one of the cramps, they finally managed to address Frau Kraus on her own they asked, ‘The music you were playing, Mrs Kraus . . . it’s German, isn’t it?’

  Frau Kraus, looking confused, answered in her customary ‘This ist Cow. This ist Goat’ manner, delivering her reply in three distinct statements. ‘I polish. Herr Wagner. Myn husbant like zis music.’

  The FBI men looked at each other in surprise. The Lutheran minister had failed to tell them Frau Kraus was Polish. ‘You Polish?’ one of them asked.

  Frau Kraus nodded. ‘I polish.’

  This put an entirely different complexion on things. Germany had invaded Poland and crushed it mercilessly, just as Otto had crushed his unfortunate Polish wife, humiliating her by forcing the poor, unfortunate woman to race about the room with his triumphant, all-conquering German music blaring at her from the gramophone.

  Otto was arrested, handcuffed and taken to the police station at Somerville where the same sheriff he’d bribed in order to get Jimmy a driver’s licence booked him on suspicion, fingerprinted him and drove him out to the county jail where he was incarcerated. He would be held in a cell prior to passage being arranged on a prison train to the new camp for enemy aliens at Crystal City, Texas. But Otto never made it to Crystal City. He died at approximately two a.m. of a severe stomach haemorrhage while handcuffed to a bunk in the hospital carriage on the prison train somewhere between Little Rock and Texarkana.

  A hurried and carelessly conducted post mortem showed the presence of arsenic in Otto’s stomach, the coroner’s finding being that Otto Wilhelm Kraus, suspected of being a German spy recruited in America, having been apprehended by the FBI and incarcerated, committed suicide by the self-administration of a poison identified as arsenic.

  By peacetime standards this wouldn’t be regarded as a very plausible explanation, but in the prevailing climate of enemy-alien hysteria it was readily accepted and made for excellent propaganda. Otto’s face appeared in newspapers all over the US, where his waxed moustache turned up at the corners and centre parting showing two little winglets of hair resting on the crown of his balding head gave him every appearance of a comic-book German general in the previous war. Americans seemed oblivious to the parody his image represented, and the Department of Justice couldn’t have hoped for a better story and more precise profile of ‘the enemy in our midst’. In the end, the prize-winning tomato farmer, ex-sergeant in the Kaiser’s army, was inadvertently to prove of great patriotic service to his adopted country.

  Many of the members of Pastor Stennholz’s congregation were quick to point out that they’d suspected Otto all along. That he’d given himself away in a hundred small ways, always trying to ingratiate himself. Apart from a good deal of self-congratulation for their sagacity, they also pointed to the fact that the FBI had acted with great probity and even some bureaucratic sensitivity. Realising that Frau Kraus was the innocent victim of a cruel and despotic Nazi spy, they had allowed the dear, sweet, hardworking Christian woman to remain in her American home and to enjoy the life of an American woman safe in the land of the free. All in all, the outcome was a fine example of justice tempered with mercy.

  Frau Kraus attended Otto’s funeral with only Pastor Stennholz and Jimmy at her side. Jimmy, in fact, not quite literally at her side. He’d driven her in the Dodge truck to the cemetery and now stood in the freezing cold outside the gates while the minister and Frau Kraus, wearing a black woollen coat and scarf, black gloves and her polished Sunday boots and on her head her extra-terrible spider’s-body hat with protruding cherry eyes and antennae, got through the funeral proceedings dry-eyed. Fresh flowers at this inclement time of the year were prohibitively expensive so Frau Kraus had fashioned a black paper rose with a picture-wire stem wrapped around with green crinkle paper. As she placed it on the coffin Pastor Stennholz thought he saw her smile and distinctly say, ‘Danke, meine saubere Frau.’

  The following Sunday, after attending church worship, several of the women in the congregation came up to Frau Kraus to wish her well and were surprised and delighted when they were rewarded with the first smile they’d ever witnessed coming from her scrubbed-potato face.

  Jimmy had been in the Kraus family employ just over a year, during which time he’d received no wages, although he’d been the beneficiary of two pairs of worn denim dungarees and an old woollen overcoat that had belonged to one of the twins. Otto had also been forced to buy him a pair of work boots for the winter, as his feet were already too large for a pair discarded by the family.

  Alone now with the hated Frau Kraus, Jimmy at last summoned up sufficient courage to run away at the earliest opportunity, though he sensibly told himself it was winter and he’d have to wait until the warmer weather arrived. On the night following the funeral it was bitterly cold when he entered the washhouse for his evening meal only to find Frau Kraus waiting for him. She carried a worn towel and a bar of soap. Jimmy hesitated, starting to back out when she pointed to the washtub and commanded, ‘Wasche!’

  Jimmy took the soap and towel and approached the wash tub to find that it contained several inches of hot water. His mind was in total confusion as he watched the steam rising up to the windowpanes to be converted to droplets that immediately froze, turning to translucent pimples stuck to the inside of the window. As he scooped water onto his bewildered face, he went through a multitude of what, why, how and what-for transitions.

  Having washed and dried his face and hands, he waited. ‘Komm!’ Frau Kraus demanded and, turning on her heels, opened the door to a short passageway that led to the kitchen. Jimmy, afraid he’d heard incorrectly, hesitated. Then, to his surprise, Frau Kraus turned and smiled and with a friendly nod of the head beckoned him to follow her. He hesitated again at the closed door at the far end of the passageway, reluctant to go any further. ‘Take off za coat, also za boots,’ Frau Kraus instructed, pointing to several coat hooks on the wall immediately outside the kitchen door.

  Jimmy’s overcoat was somewhat the worse for wear and very dirty, as he was forced to wear it while at work. Under it, directly against his skin, he wore a filthy chocolate-brown cardigan he’d found wrapped around a tractor part in the barn. It was full of holes but had been knitted by hand in heavy cable stitch from coarse wool, and he greatly treasured it for its warmth.

  Jimmy first removed his boots and placed them against the wall, then his coat, which he hung on one of the hooks. His socks, with the toes and heels worn through, had come from the orphanage, and he now felt cold from the cement floor rising up through the wool on his feet. Shivering, he clasped his arms across his chest against the cold.

  Frau Kraus opened the kitchen door and Jimmy was met with a blast of warm air. ‘Komm,’ she beckoned again, and he entered a large kitchen with a fire blazing in a hearth at one end, the recipient of the wood he’d chopped and stacked behind the house during the summer. Frau Kraus closed the door behind him and, sensing Jimmy’s acute embarrassment at finding himself alone with her inside the house, she smiled and pointed to the scrubbed pine table that he now saw was set for two. ‘Sit!’ she commanded, indicating one of the places.

  Jimmy had yet to say a word, but now he cleared his throat. ‘I cain’t, ma’am. I ain’t allowed.’

  ‘Ja, ja, sit!’ Frau Kraus called impatiently, as she moved to the refrigerator behind him.

  Jimmy sat down slowly, his eyes fixed on the cutlery laid out on the table in front of him. He hadn’t used a knife and fork in a year and he felt a slight panic at the idea of
taking them up again. His knees trembled under the table and he realised that his hands were shaking. He heard a soft clunk as the handle of the refrigerator door locked into place and shortly afterwards Frau Kraus appeared holding a stein of beer, which she proceeded to place in front of him. Then, speaking in German she said, ‘Danke, meine saubere Frau.’ To Jimmy’s surprise she proceeded to giggle, which soon turned to laughter and then to convulsive, hysterical mirth until she was forced to sit on the bench beside Jimmy holding onto the side of the table, her huge frame shaking, jowls wobbling, tears running down her fat cheeks, her laughter seemingly completely beyond her control.

  Jimmy sat rigid with fear, unable to decide what to do next. Frau Kraus had obviously gone mad. He thought about making a run for it, but by the time he’d put his boots and coat back on she’d be onto him. Carrying them out into the snow with him was the next option, but then what? Mixed with her laughter he could hear the wind howling in the kitchen chimney as the snowstorm outside gathered momentum. Then, as suddenly as her laughter had begun it stopped, and Frau Kraus rose from the table. Bringing the edge of her apron up to her face she wiped away the tears and moved towards the stove. Jimmy watched fearfully as she took up a pair of oven mittens and, opening the oven door, removed two plates piled with meat, roast potatoes, boiled cabbage and onion. She moved back to the table and placed the plates down, one in front of Jimmy and the other at the second place setting. She returned to the stove and brought back a large jug of gravy and, without asking him, poured a generous amount over his food. While she may have been plumb crazy, Frau Kraus still knew how to feed a growing boy.

  Jimmy, who’d been working hard all day, always looked forward to his dinner. Now, despite his present predicament and anxiety, he began to eat ravenously, expecting at any moment to be told to leave. ‘You drink now za beer,’ Frau Kraus said at one stage. Jimmy had never before tasted beer and he took a tentative mouthful and reacted immediately, the foul-tasting liquid hardly in his mouth before he sent it spraying over the table. Jimmy was mortified and jumped up, ready to run for his life. ‘Sorry, ma’am, I ain’t meant it!’ he cried, distressed. But Frau Kraus was laughing. ‘You like milk?’ Rising, she wiped the beer-splashed table clean with her napkin, removed the stein and commanded Jimmy to sit, whereupon she fetched him a glass of milk.

  The meal was followed by strudel and cream, and Jimmy accepted a second helping, still not quite believing what was happening and expecting the worst to occur at any moment. Despite the warmth of the kitchen, the splendid meal and, except for the laughter, an otherwise benign Frau Kraus, Jimmy couldn’t wait to make his escape into the howling snowstorm outside. He couldn’t possibly explain Frau Kraus’s complete change of attitude towards him, and could only think she must have gone mad – that the death of Herr Otto had been too much for her senses. While she seemed happy enough, calmly smiling at him as he ate, this only served to confirm Jimmy’s suspicion that something had gone terribly wrong in her head. This was the same spider woman who’d spat at his approach. The meal drew to a conclusion and his heart started to pound as Frau Kraus rose from the table and stretched out her hand to him, again smiling, inviting him to take it.

  Jimmy, suddenly panic-stricken at this unexpected gesture, jumped up fearfully, kicking at the bench behind him, tripping and falling, then propelling himself backwards on all fours until he bumped against the wall, and finally scrambling frantically to his feet. He found himself standing between the stove and the refrigerator with the large shape of Frau Kraus, hand still outstretched, advancing inexorably towards him, a benign smile on her plain German face.

  ‘Komm, Liebling,’ she said gently, reaching him and taking his dark, almost paralysed hand in her own and leading him from the kitchen. Frau Kraus led Jimmy through the house, down a hallway and through a door at the end, which turned out to be a large bathroom. It contained a spacious shower recess and no bath, and Jimmy guessed it was probably the bathroom the twins had customarily used.

  Frau Kraus locked the door behind her and, instructing Jimmy to stand on the bathroom mat, she commenced to undress him. Jimmy stood mesmerised, reduced to being a small boy again when his house mother at the orphanage would make him stand naked in the shower room while she examined him for bed-bug bites, scabies and lice. The bathroom was cold and he began to shiver, and when she pulled his dungarees down he quickly covered his genitals and closed his eyes tightly while she removed his brown cardigan. Then he felt her exerting pressure on his right ankle. ‘Up’ she said, as she raised his foot and removed what remained of his filthy orphanage socks, then she did the same to the left foot. With his eyes still tightly shut Jimmy now stood naked. He heard the sudden hiss as the shower was turned on and after a few moments he felt her hand in the small of his back and the words, ‘Komm, Liebling, we wasche now,’ as he was pushed gently under the shower rose.

  Jimmy immediately opened his eyes to locate the taps in the wall and turned to face them, his back to the opening of the recess, in this way hiding his abused private parts from Frau Kraus’s scrutiny. Despite his anxiety, the hot water tumbling over him felt glorious and he simply stood, eyes tightly shut again, relishing the hundreds of warm spikes from the shower rose beating against his skin.

  He felt a hand begin to travel across his back, tenderly soaping him, caressing him. Jimmy couldn’t remember another human hand touching him, though it must have happened at some time when he’d been a child. The hand slipped down to his waist, the bar of soap within it sensuous as it glided smoothly across the surface of his skin. Now it slipped in between his buttocks. He stiffened, waiting for it to grasp at his genitals, but it glided away, returning to soap his buttocks and slipping down the back of his legs right down to his calves and ankles and then he felt the fingers working the lather between his toes. Jimmy was afraid to open his eyes, afraid of what he might see. So he kept them shut.

  Now the hand grasped his elbow and pulled him slightly backwards so that the shower beat against the front of his thighs and, as suddenly, he felt himself being turned. His hands clutched at his privates, concealing them from view. The shower fell against his back and the hand, which seemed to possess a will of its own, started to soap and caress his stomach in the area immediately above his cupped hands.

  Almost immediately Jimmy felt his penis begin to stiffen under his protective grasp. The remorseless soapy hand kept moving in slow circles, the fingers dancing across his stomach moving ever closer to his own hands until he felt his fingers being slowly, almost casually, prised apart. He seemed unable to resist, and the soapy hand now contained its rigid prize and began to work up and down its length, stopping just as Jimmy, gasping, thought he could contain himself no longer. The hand now pushed him gently backwards so that the shower splashed down his chest and stomach rinsing the suds from his crotch and erection. Jimmy gasped as he felt himself once again encompassed, though this time it was different, soft and urgent, not unlike the soapy hand that had preceded it, but even more sensuous. He could contain himself no longer and climaxed, shuddering, the joy of it far in excess of his own attempts at masturbation. He opened his eyes at last to see he was being engorged by what appeared to be an enormous spider, its hairy striped body glistening, its long white legs only just visible as they disappeared into the steam-clouded atmosphere of the shower recess.

  Thus began Jimmy’s halcyon days in the care of Frau Kraus, who made no other demands on his body than the pleasure she obtained from performing fellatio. This always occurred in the shower recess, where her hands created movements that became agonisingly sensual. Frau Kraus was the grand mistress of touch, and her oral seduction became a performance with its own developed rituals involving elaborate sequences of soaping that brought Jimmy slowly to the point when she would take him in her mouth, the gobbling spider becoming the gift of pleasure she generously brought him as she found someone she was permitted to love at last.

  Jimmy took up residence in the room the twins had shared even as
adults and wore freshly laundered clothes each day, selected from the combined wardrobes of the dead Otto and the twins away fighting the Japs in the Pacific. He ate at the dining-room table, freshly showered and changed, his feet encased in a pair of red leather slippers that had belonged to Otto and now had the heel uppers cut out and neatly stitched so as to accommodate his larger foot. He would enter the dining room ravenously hungry to find a stein of foaming lager, which he’d grown to enjoy, placed to the side of a steaming plate piled high with a delicious dinner.

  Frau Kraus and Jimmy formed a good working partnership and the farm began to prosper under their combined care. At night, seated happily at the dinner table, she would discuss the day’s work with him and her English improved out of sight, although her Bavarian accent spiked with Jimmy’s peculiar vernacular required an accustomed ear. To her great delight he never failed to admire the pretty embroidery contained in each of the ceremonial pinafores she carefully selected to present her strudel.

  He even rose and kissed her tenderly on the cheek when one evening she wore the pinny with the embroidered words, ‘Today is my birthday’. It was the first time Jimmy had kissed a female person, even in such a circumspect way. It was also the first time since the twins were born that Frau Kraus had received a kiss from an adult male. In that instance it had been Otto, who, overcome with the news of twin boys, had planted a wet, hairy kiss on her cheek. For she no longer regarded Jimmy as a child. He did a man’s work and stood nearly six feet, with more than sufficient tackle between his legs to qualify him as an adult male.