Hansen's Children

by Ognjen Spahic

  Chairs creaked as everyone waved and gesticulated, trying to persuade one another about this or that, and Robert even grabbed a pencil and drew his vision of Zoltán’s resting place on the table. I did not want to interrupt them because I knew that in talking about the old man’s burial they were actually thinking about themselves; about the last act which would consign their miserable lives, to oblivion with dignity. Several minutes later they spoke openly about their wishes: flowers, large wooden crosses, religious rituals, and the place where they wanted to be buried. I withdrew, letting them enjoy their sweet thoughts about life after death and the secrets which would finally be revealed. They finished two hours later and went off to their rooms. They could not have had better graves.

  When Robert knocked and came in, I was kneeling on the floor and steaming up the paper Danube along the Bulgarian border. We were to bury Zoltán at four o’clock. The others had already gone to dig the grave down by the chapel. The ground was soft and everything would be ready on time, Robert said. I held the map of Europe up to the window. It must have looked as if I wanted to compare the real picture with its graphic representation. The sun revealed little holes in France, illuminated blue blots of sea and red highways. How much longer were we going to rot in this hole with Europe hidden under the mattress, I asked. Robert was dumbfounded by my openness. Was he really as resolute as he had been that morning when he laid the passport on the shelf at my bed head? He told me this was not a good time; we could talk after the burial. He had plans, but everything was so discouragingly complicated. We’d talk later, he said once more as he left and closed the door with a bang.

  I screwed up the map and flung it out the window. Then I rushed downstairs to find it, bring it back to the room and smooth it out again as best I could. After all, it was the only material link, a fragile bridge, between the desperate wish to leave this place and the roads I would have to travel. I spread it out on the bed and weighed down the corners with Robert’s presents. He was downstairs directing the digging of the grave; others were looking for wildflowers along the fence. No one dared to go beyond the bounds of the leprosarium. The dogs had tasted human meat in the night, and we could assume that an insatiable craving was now smouldering in them to sink their teeth into it again.

  Once a Bengal tiger has attacked and eaten a human being, it stops hunting other animals. The primordial gene of that same impulse had perhaps now been activated in these dogs. The isolated colonies of outcasts in northern India were decimated by the jaws of this wild animal, which caught up with the limping lepers with ease and dismembered them with a few powerful movements. To protect themselves, the lepers began to leave their dead out, unburied, which satisfied the tigers with abundant and regular repasts. This was a kind of pact with the devil, as it turned out, because if the tigers missed out for just one day they would attack under cover of night and wreak punishment for the shortage by biting through dozens of jugulars. The lepers thus began to supplement the animals’ diet by killing the older lepers and later even the mute inhabitants of the lonely villages in the surrounding hills. It all thus came full circle: animals and people had the same mission.

  When a special police unit came to set things right, the colony only had ten fear-stricken members left. They did not see the uniforms and automatic rifles as salvation but as a new way of satisfying the hunger of the evil gods of the jungle. They descended on the soldiers wielding staves and rusty knives, screaming at the top of their lungs. But a short and decisive burst of fire stopped them in their tracks, slugs of lead discharged at chest height. The colonel had a clear mission, he was to sort things out, and he had no particular instructions as to whether the victims should be animals or lepers. If he had shot any of the majestic Bengal tigers he would probably have incurred the wrath of a foreign-funded environmental organisation. This way the victims were the ‘dead among the living’ and everything was put right. Needless to say, the leprous bodies were gone when morning came; or so the legend says. And that legend, retold by Robert, made us sit in tense silence and listen for any rustling along the fence. There were no tigers in Romania, of course, but Zoltán’s end echoed elements of that modern Indian tale and made it seem uncomfortably real. It drove us to dream with open eyes and listen to the ominous barking as a ring closed around the leprosarium.

  Everything was ready. The grave had been dug, bunches of wildflowers picked, a sturdy wooden cross made, and Zoltán’s remains carried down into the dining room. I put on a clean linen shirt and went downstairs. The others were already sitting around the table with the coffin on it. They were talking in whispers, as the burial rites prescribed, and sipping tea from enamel cups. Robert told me that we would be burying him at six o’clock and that I would be giving a speech. No problem, I told him, but why was there a cross? After all, the old man had been a Communist. Robert said he would replace the cross. He would make a nice stone slab with Zoltán’s name engraved. Today they had to put something in the ground to mark the grave and it wasn’t right that there should just be a pile of earth.

  An hour later our procession began. Sobbing broke out when we lifted the coffin from the table. We carried Zoltán through the dining room and down the long corridor to the exit. The coffin was not heavy: lepers’ bones suffer from a lack of calcium and connective tissue, so the weight of a man of average build is less than expected.

  I saw the red sun sinking into the crowns of the trees and the wind brought acidic vapours from the factory’s chimney as we headed for what was to be Zoltán’s grave. The mound of soil was cast up on the right. And on it was a big black dog, just sitting there and licking its testicles. We stopped and put down the coffin. The bloodshot eyes watched us indifferently until I took a stone and flung it at the creature’s snout. It got up and began to growl as if promising to return. It descended from the heap, raised its hind leg and released a jet of yellow at the foot of the wooden cross. Another stone forced him to trot off nonchalantly towards the fence; he cast us a glance and then disappeared into the bushes. As I spoke about Zoltán’s virtues, his gentle nature and readiness always to return a smile, the muffled howling of the hungry pack came from the forest. That bestial requiem was the only music to accompany Zoltán’s funeral.

  We compressed the earth above the coffin as firmly as we could. The mound rose only ten centimetres as if we had buried just a small dog, not a grown man in a metal coffin. At that time, there was nothing to announce the coming rain.

  We all went back to our rooms. Later we finished a brief, silent dinner and went to bed. Robert was first to withdraw under the blanket. When I came in I slammed the door on purpose in the hope that it would force him to keep his promise. He had said we would talk about everything later, but now he was pretending to be asleep.

  I picked up a wet rag from the floor and tried to drive away a swarm of flies around the light bulb. Whenever I missed I would swear loudly, trying to attract Robert’s attention. But he did not move, not until I hit him hard on the head; the rag descending onto his pockmarked forehead with a loud splat. He jumped and sat up in bed without a word. It looked as if he had been crying. He was about to speak but was interrupted by a mighty clap of thunder, followed by a flash of lightning that bathed our faces in a bluish light. A fly landed on his face searching for the nutritious secretions of his leprous skin. The little parasite stopped at the base of the nose, feasting on the trickle of bloody pus that ran down to his top lip. I offered him a clean white handkerchief from my pocket so he could wipe it away; Robert took it and gently dried his eyes. He really had been crying. Sitting on the bed, he looked much smaller than usual. His chin trembled as he tried to control his sobbing. I walked to the window and looked out at the roof of the chapel and the cross; I shifted my gaze whenever they were lit up by the lightning. The thin and unsettled surface of Robert’s world, all the plans and thoughts that made the days at the leprosarium bearable, melted like fine March snow. His deep, self-confident voice had changed to an indistinct mutteri
ng that could not compete with the sound of the rain. In place of his sardonic smile, waves of despair and despondency now swept over his face, and when I called him he only shook his head.

  The courtyard was covered in thick layers of mud. As I walked I lifted my feet high off the ground. Big drops of rain splashed on my bare head. I reached the southern wall and waited for another flash before continuing. The seventh stone from the left in the sixth row from the bottom. My passport was where it was supposed to be. The lightning flashes photographed the surroundings ever more often now, freezing the branches and fallen leaves. Zoltán’s grave was in the midst of a round puddle, and when the lightning powerfully illuminated the ground again I thought I saw that black dog on top of the grave mound. It was digging crazily, with its voracious tongue dangling. I yelled out, not knowing whether I was driving away the animal or an apparition. I squelched down the corridor, leaving thick muddy footprints. I wanted to show Robert the passport and ask if he had forgotten the whole business of leaving which seemed to me more and more like a tiger lying in wait, a muscular beast which we had no hope of fighting. It now had one large paw on Robert, and unless he evaded its grasp now we would be buried here till kingdom come.

  I took off my shoes. He was sitting on his bed, smiling, as he turned the map of Europe into a pile of little paper shreds. When he had torn up the last pieces of Scandinavia, he picked up some irregularly shaped pieces and tried to recognise where they were from. I opened the damp passport and held it in front of his nose. I told him I would consider him a hopeless coward unless he pulled himself together and reconsidered his behaviour. The black cloud floated away across the plain, leaving thick, fresh air behind it. Robert had stopped crying. He asked me to close the window. It was getting cold. I went off down to the dining room to get a cup of tea. The muddy footprints had dried and were now like the footsteps of a Man Friday. If I had followed them, I would not have been surprised if I had ended up in a completely different room or another world; they really looked so strange.

  Robert’s hands trembled, creating a miniature storm on the surface of the tea. Finally he managed to concentrate his gaze. He stared at the scattered shreds of Europe and sipped the tasteless liquid. I did not insist on conversation but he began to shake his head and tell me that I had already heard what he had to say many times. Mr Smooth was able to guarantee transportation. Robert took a sip of tea. We would be taken in a Red Cross lorry, the driver was easy to bribe. Robert picked a piece of elm bark from between his teeth. We would use minor roads so as to avoid police checkpoints and army patrols. That would take us all the way to the Danube. Robert put the cup down on the floor. All we had to do was decide where to go after that. Mr Smooth would put us on board a dilapidated Russian tanker with a two-man crew heading for Vienna, later to return to a harbour on the Bulgarian coast. Robert picked up the cup again and ran his fingertip round the enamel rim.

  My heart was pounding. Beads of cold sweat dotted my forehead. It was not plans like this that scared me but Robert’s compelling resignation that had turned the Blue Danube into a cup of insipid, cloudy liquid under his nose and reduced Europe to a heap of shredded paper. I stood with my arms flung wide, and he threw himself onto his bed, covered himself with his blanket and cold-bloodedly wished me good night. If I had had a stick or a knife just then, I would probably have killed him without thinking twice. Just as he had cut the throat of my hopes for an escape from this place. I sprang onto the bed and straddled him. My hands went straight for his throat. I squeezed and paid no attention to his knees which drummed against my back and burst the swollen blisters there. I thought he would be stronger and would easily free himself from my grasp. He was frightened. He waved his arms, begging me to let go, but I did not stop. I watched the jugular veins on his neck and the swollen capillary network across his forehead with curiosity. They looked like rivers flowing together, like a map that had surfaced from beneath the skin. He began to whistle through his nose, and in spite of the pressure I heard that familiar melody, ‘I am a poor wayfaring stranger / Travelling through this world of woe’. I accepted this as a message of repentance and released my grip slightly. Robert tried to grab me by the nose. ‘You fool,’ he said. ‘Where will you go? Got a wife with nice tits and a warm bed just waiting for you? Friends, maybe? Huh? Do you really think there’s any other place for us? Huh?’

  I looked daggers at Robert and wanted to put my hands back where they had been. He was still talking nonsense, but now without struggling. Drops of blood trickled from his nose. He tried to wipe them away but only smeared them over his face. I called him a stupid arsehole. Could he not see that the only thing in our lives still worth doing was to leave this place? He answered with a cynical laugh. I replied by slapping him in the face, and he giggled even louder.

  I didn’t mean to really hit him, but I was overcome by a wave of sadness that rose from somewhere deep inside. I felt like running away that very moment, dashing naked across the field like those two stupid workers. I would jump over stones and wade through the wheat field, devouring the endless dark of the Romanian plain. The grass would sting my legs. A herd of horses would stampede when they heard my pounding feet. I wanted a full moon to appear on the horizon as well as clouds that travelled south. I would screech joyously like a hawk. No, scream like an Indian chief in his feather headdress. It would be like flying. Great fires were burning far away in the west. Who were the people that sat around them singing? I stopped, lit up by the red light. They called to me to join them. A tender warmth ran all through me. The women had big breasts and breast-fed handsome babies. A girl started to dance. The others clapped their hands rhythmically and watched her wonderful body. Everyone was attractive and healthy. But the merriment was interrupted by a commotion, at first faint, then ever louder. The children began to cry. The women whined in fear. No one paid any heed to me anymore.

  Then a howling and wailing came from out of the darkness. The men kissed the children farewell and signalled to the women to turn the other way. The fires went out, and we heard the howling at the very edge of where the circle of light had been. A bloodthirsty growling grew louder and big black dogs jumped right into my dream. Robert shook the bed hard and forced me to open my eyes. There was still dried blood on his face, and I was about to open my mouth and ask him if he had been by one of the fires too. He held his head close and said that something was happening down in the courtyard. Leaning out the window, he pointed to Zoltán’s grave; he thought he had seen a dog. That black one. He called for me to come and look and I tottered towards him, pursued by the tail-end of my dream. A full moon had come out after the storm, making the smallest of things visible. A heavy silence hung in the humid air outside. I told him I couldn’t see anything. I stared into the darkness for several seconds more while Robert sat on his bed. His feet played around with the remains of the map on the floor. He smiled when he found the piece of Germany with Berlin on it. He apologised for his unacceptable behaviour and said that he had never felt that kind of doubt in his life before. I asked him to explain what these doubts were about, but he kept saying what a mess his life was and how absurd it was to try and do anything to rectify it. In the end he waved dismissively and said that he had decided we ought to leave after all. He thanked me for the sobering slap in the face and rubbed his reddened cheek. I said I was sorry, I hadn’t meant to hit him. He told me that no one had hit him like that since his captivity in the cellars of Berlin.

  I think that was when I hugged Robert for the first time.

  We spoke until first light and then went to sleep peacefully, secure now in our seemingly clear decisions, precise plans and hopes for a better tomorrow. A little hole in Zoltán’s grave the next day was the only thing to remind me of the bad dreams of the past night. The dog had been there and desperately tried to reach meat.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Summer was passing. Robert was around less and less, but I did not want to bother him with questions. I watched him jump the fence i
n the late afternoons. I assumed he was going to secret meetings with Mr Smooth to make arrangements for our departure. Every evening when we turned off the light I expected Robert to speak and explain what was going on, but he was tight-lipped, and I did not want to seem overly curious. I did my best to make good use of my time. A month’s hard work and Zoltán’s gravestone was ready to be raised. Another fifteen days and the mound was adorned with a mosaic of stones which I had brought from the rubbish-heap at the factory. Several of the patients, led by Mstislaw Kasiewicz, were willing to help. We built up a large stock of firewood. Cion Eminescu found several rusty fox-traps up in the attic and dug them in along the fence in the hope that this would stop dogs from coming into the courtyard. Robert did not participate in the work but was always prepared to admire the results. I could not help but be reminded of The Little Red Hen.

  He found out about the plan irregularly and in small doses. By the end of August I knew we would be leaving in two or three months. The whole plan had to fall into place before our journey could begin. I realised this when he told me that most people rejected the job regardless of the money. As soon as they heard we were lepers they threw up their hands in horror.

  ‘Why did Mr Smooth have to find that out?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s an honest Romanian who doesn’t want to expose his fellow countrymen to a hidden risk,’ Robert maintained. ‘That’s why he’s trying hard to find a driver who used to have tuberculosis.’

  It was a known fact that people who had had TB were not affected by Hansen’s bacillus.

  ‘I don’t understand why you try so hard – the guy probably just wants to get as much money as possible.’