Keppelberg

by Stan Mason

  ’The damage has been done. You can’t go back on it,’ he stated adamantly. ’I’m not wasting police time on a wild-goose chase with a pointless task of looking for a vandal. For all I know, you did it yourself to stay here in the village.’

  I almost exploded with rage and turned, stalking out of the police station with frustration. What kind of a police force allowed criminals to destroy property belonging to other people and not do anything about it. The situation was utterly shameful! I returned to the cafeteria and ordered something to eat. The menu wasn’t particularly enticing but I order steak and chips which seemed to be the best meal available. On this occasion, there were two women sitting at a nearby table and they were close enough for me to overhear their conversation.

  ‘There’s the stranger behind you,’ stated one woman in a loud whisper. ‘Just be careful what you say.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ concurred the second woman. ‘There’s a meeting in the village hall about him later on.’

  ‘Yes... at eight o’clock. Everyone will be there.’ Returned the first woman.

  ‘Did you see what someone did to his motor car?’

  The first woman shrugged her shoulders. ‘Downright stupid if you ask me. How’s he going to leave here if he hasn’t got transport? I’d like to get my hands on the person who did it!’

  ‘I know who did it,’ declared the second woman. ‘He always spoils it for the rest of us just to make a little money.’

  They continued their conversation in low tones, our of earshot, but what they had to say to each other was of interest to me. I had the information I needed... a meeting at the village hall at eight o’clock. I leaned across to interrupt them as I realised that I had nowhere to sleep that night.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I interrupted. ‘Do you know of a hotel in the village?’

  At first, it seemed that neither of them was going to reply to my question then the second woman lowered her teacup and responded.

  ‘There are no hotels here,’ she told him flatly. ‘And I don’t know of any of the other place to accommodate you.’

  ‘I don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight,’ I bleated lamely.

  ‘The next village is only a few miles away. Perhaps you should try there,’ she went on. ‘You can walk it in an hour.’

  ‘So much for local hospitality!’ I thought bleakly.

  I left the cafeteria to look for an inn. There had to be a tavern somewhere in the village where I could while away the day over a few pints of beer and have a roof over my head for the night. I had been warned by my army colleagues that civvy street could be a damned hard place when leaving the service and they were being proved to be correct. I didn’t expect to find it so difficult. However, despite searching high and low, walking through all the streets, I could not find a tavern. How odd, I thought. A village without a public house. What a loss to the community! It seemed that the only place where the people met was at the village hall. This had to be the strangest place in the country!

  I returned to the shops, looking through the windows at the goods displayed there. It seemed that the villagers thrived on cottage industries. There were no electrical goods... not one with television sets or computers... nor were there cookers or microwaves or refrigerators for sale. Secondly, the provisions stores stocked no branded goods at all. They simply sole fruit and vegetables which apparently had been grown locally. Thirdly, all the other goods sold in the shops were manufactured or produced by the villagers themselves. There was wool to make clothes and blankets, linen to manufacture sheets, bedding, kindling wood for the fire, seeds by which to grow crops, a hardware store which mainly sold minor goods for repairs such as glues and fillers, while others stocked goods relating to weaving, carpentry, pottery and the like. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that the village had moved into the twenty-first century... and there were no motor cars with the exception of my own.

  Lost in the vacuum of eternity, I returned to the cafeteria. The woman behind the counter was tired of seeing me but there was nothing I could do about it.

  Shortly PC7 entered the room and he sat down opposite me.

  ‘They’ve towed your motor car away to a garage to be repaired,’ he told me,’ staring directly into my eyes.

  ‘I know,’ I responded tiredly, dampening down my temper for I felt like striking him between the eyes for the useless information. ‘I’ll be glad to get rid of this village the sooner it’s done!’

  ‘That’s the attitude,’ he said amiably. ‘I’m sure you can understand our wish to remain singular.

  ‘Not really,’ I retorted curtly. ‘I don’t understand why you haven’t got a tavern... or why there’s no electrical goods on sale. Everything here seems to go back a century or even longer.’

  ‘No, no, no!’ he protested. ‘It’s just your imagination. Everyone here loves life. No... we don’t have an inn... nor do we have any of those newfangled electrical things that muddle up the mind... or anything that takes away people’s attention. We live the pure life... the happy life... the contented life.’

  ‘You could have fooled me,’ I riposted. ‘I thought television, the computer and the internet were part of one’s way of life.’

  ‘What’s the internet?’ he asked blankly.

  ‘How does anyone get a job if they can’t use a computer?’

  ‘I don’t know what a computer is,’ he admitted candidly,’ but everyone’s fully employed here.’

  I stared at him in surprise. There’s eleven hundred people living here which means that about three hundred-and-fifty men and they same number of women have to be employed. I see no industry here. How’s it done?’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ he countered. ‘There’s farming, milking, cheese-making, plant and vegetable growing, gardening, weaving, carpentry, pottery, and many other things.’

  He stood up and went to the counter to order a cup of tea. He had clearly given away too much already although I was still pretty much in the dark. When he had collected his refreshment, he went to another table at the far end of the room leaving me in peace to eat.

  I left the cafeteria in due course and drifted towards the far end of the village. Shortly I came across a building with the shingle ‘Keppelberg School’ hanging above the door lintel and entered. I stood in a narrow hallway staring through the window of one of the classrooms. There were over twenty pupils in the room looking at a teacher who was chalking sums on a blackboard.

  ‘Five is a very important figure,’ he addressed the class, ‘for it can only be divided by itself.

  The pupils paid full attention to the master. Contrary to reports I had read in the national Press about misbehaviour among school children, there seemed to be no rotten apples ready to disrupt the class. I turned away to look at a notice board affixed to a side wall the hallway. There were classes in history, geography, mathematics, physics, chemistry religious instruction, English and Latin. There was nothing listed about sports or sporting activities. An idea came into my mind as an opportunity presented itself. I walked along the hallway to arrive at the Headmaster’s office. Knocking, I entered to find the man busily marking examination papers. He looked up astonished to see a stranger walking into the room and he laid down his pen to give me his full attention.

  ‘Good day!’ he greeted pleasantly. ‘Who are you and what can I do for you?’

  ‘My name’s Sam Ross,’ I told him point-blank, ‘and I’m after a job on your staff.’

  ‘I think we have enough teachers for the moment,’ he responded quickly placing the palms of his hands together as if in prayer. . ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘You need a sports master,’ I blurted, hoping that he would invite me to take a seat and think about my offer seriously but he failed to do so.

  ‘I can tell you without reservation that we don’t play sports in Keppelberg
,’ he advised me sadly. ‘It’s not on our agenda.’

  ‘That’s a great pity,’ I countered. ‘Sports are an integral part of the life of young people. It’s very important for them to learn about team work and become part of a team. You have to realise the power of football, rugby, darts, snooker and tennis. Practically everyone supports one of those sports or the other.’

  ‘Well they don’t in this village,’ claimed the Headmaster flatly. ‘We do not believe that sport is important or necessary in life. Those schools which have it on their schedule significantly denigrate their pupils to a lower level of education. The children need to understand the meaning of knowledge not athletics. Remember the writings of Alexander Pope who said ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing, drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring’. All that time away from the class playing pointless sporting games is not an option here.’

  ‘Do you have any other openings?’ I asked pointedly.

  ‘For which subjects?’ he returned.

  ‘How about martial arts?’ I persisted thinking that it was just a short distance away from sporting activities. ‘I’m very good at that. Not only can I teach people to defend themselves and attack when necessary but it also removes a great deal of stress from individuals in the lead up.’

  ‘It’s not in our remit,’ he answered bluntly. ‘I’m afraid I have to turn you down.’

  ‘I beg you to reconsider,’ I pressed lamely knowing full well what his answer would be. There was a distinct stubbornness to any stranger by everyone in the village. I could only hope that he would change his mind even though I realised it was in vain.

  ‘You’ve heard my decision,’ he snapped. ‘There’s nothing more to say. ‘Good day, sir!’

  I left the office feeling rather deflated at being dismissed on such feeble grounds. The school denied its pupils the right to enjoy sport of any kind. I found that fact extremely incredible. I waited outside the Headmaster’s door for a while to reflect the essence of the conversation before hearing his voice as he spoke to the policeman outside.

  ‘Constable Powers,’ he began with an element of concern. ‘You may be interested to learn that I’ve just had a visit from a stranger asking whether the school would appoint him as a sports master. Do you have any idea whom he might be?’ There was a short silence before the Headmaster continued. ‘He’s only just left the school. You might just catch him.’

  I froze at the comment with the words echoing around in my brain...’ you might just catch him... you might just catch him... you might just catch him!’ Then the adrenalin flowed through my body and I surged forward into action. Constable Powers would not catch me... not if I had anything to do with it and I wasn’t prepared to spend another awful night in that filthy cell!

  Chapter Three

  Despite his best efforts, Wayne failed to find me. He had visited all the shops in vain, doubling back to the garage in the hope of bumping into me but I was not to be found. While he continued his search, I was at the other end of the village which I discovered was much larger than I had first imagined. I wandered along the perimeter at one end which was shielded from the outside by a high wooden fence before coming to a building with the sign ‘Village Hall’ over the front porch. It walked slowly to the front stone steps leading to the front double doors and tried the iron latch which lifted quite easily. I entered cautiously to find myself inside an enormous room which could hold over eight hundred people at one time. It was deserted at this time of day with no one else around. Numerous benches had been set out neatly in rows with many chairs stacked up along one of the walls. The light of day shone brightly through four very large windows, one set on each wall of the hall. They had been leaded in parts with strange designs which I was unable to decipher but the strong light was hardly affected by them. A wide stage had been constructed about two feet high at the far end of the hall on which was set a long table and six chairs. Emblems embossed in linen cloth hung from the walls but they were foreign to me as I had never seen them before. High above were long wooden rafters running the length of the building, interwoven with other cross-beams in a wonderful artistic pattern which had be carefully carved by craftsmen. In my mind’s eye, I could imagine a meeting taking place here with the chairperson and five cronies sitting on chairs on the stage, lecturing to the audience and answering their questions. This community had to be extremely close to call a meeting when anyone or anything appeared to threaten them. I was no danger to any of them but my sudden presence here forced the elders, if I could call them that because they all looked so very young, to call everyone together to discuss the issue. I sat on one of the benches facing the stage for a while seriously contemplating the situation. I was a stranger descending on the village on my own, imprisoned temporarily, without immediate transport, and nowhere to sleep or to go. What sort of threat did I pose? What kind of trouble would I bring to a Victorian village and the people who lived there? I intended to leave as soon as my car was repaired and yet my curiosity began to awaken again and I wanted to delve into a mystery that appeared to exist. There was much more to this village than met the eye and I wanted to find out the reason. Why would the people here regard me as any kind of a threat? I was merely visiting my sister in a nearby town and had become lost. There was nothing more to it than that. In any other village, I would have been directed to Bishopstown and simply gone on my way... but not have ended up at Keppelberg! The inhabitants didn’t want to be dragged into the twenty-first century and they did all they could to prevent anyone from forcing them to do so. But why were they so sensitive to strangers... as though they had something to hide? What was their vulnerable secret? Or were they innocent of any secrecy and just wanted to remain the same for time immemorial? More importantly, why were there no elderly people here? There was no one over forty years of age. It bugged me and I felt I had to find out the answer. Were they ashamed of them and hid them in some other part of the village clandestinely so that no one could see them? There had to be a reason for it and I meant to resolve the problem. The meeting was to be held at eight o’clock and I made a point of being there to listen to the proceedings.

  I left the building and walked a short distance away to the edge of the village boundary line. It wasn’t long before I came to another large building which didn’t need to be identified. It was a church the size of a cathedral. I reckoned that all the people in the village could have been housed here for the services held on Sundays. I cannot imagine what I expected to find inside but it was clear that no one stinted when it came to their religion. I opened the exclusively carved wooden double doors to enter the building, becoming astonished at the elegant sight before me. The church was decorated magnificently, far better than any other church I had seen in Britain... not that I had visited many during my period in the military. It was drenched with a variety of wonderful wooden carvings, beautiful fresco paintings and pure golden artefacts and structures. Perhaps this was the reason why strangers were not welcome to the village, in case they stole some of the items from the church It was an Aladdin’s cave of remarkable treasures with an inestimable value. The place glittered with gold, silver and bronze items with a wealth that embellished the inside of the building beyond all dreams and they had clearly taken many years to accumulate. Mosques, churches and synagogues throughout the world prided themselves on their gold and precious paintings yet some of them were definitely less than this church in terms of quality. I approached one of the paintings of the Virgin Mary holding the baby, Jesus Christ. It had to be at least three hundred years old. So who painted it? I walked around the church in disbelief examining the gold and silver artefacts There was a large effigy of Christ in a precious metal... a lectern made of pure silver... beautiful stained glass windows... an altar with a golden surface... the list was endless! I sat in one of the wooden pews crafted so delicately by experienced craftsmen facing the figure of Christ behind the altar. Nothing had been spared. It was the
holiest of holies! I stared up at the pulpit imagining the priest preaching his sermon to eleven hundred worshippers listening to his every word. The effect of the place, with its wonderful aura, was devastating. It led me into conflict with my conscience for after seeing such awful death and destruction taking place in Iraq I had become an atheist. I could not fathom any reason why a God, or Gods, could allow human-beings to inflict such pain and suffering on each other whether it was part of a gigantic plan for humanity or not.

  As I sat in one of the elegant pews at the back of the church I took in as much beauty as my eyes could see when I heard a light whimpering sound coming from the front. I rose and walked down the aisle cautiously. In the past I had held a machine-gun in my hands to protect myself. Now I felt vulnerable at having no protection at all. As I arrived at the front pews, I saw a young boy, aged about eleven or twelve, sobbing his heart out. Large tears rolled down his cheeks and he was clearly in distress. I felt sympathy for the lad even though I knew nothing of his problem and I sat beside him putting my arm around his shoulders to comfort him.

  ‘What’s wrong, son?’ I asked sympathetically, believing that his tearfulness had been the result of breaking one of his toys or that he had been told off by his parents for some misdemeanour. He failed to reply and continued sobbing.

  ‘Come on,’ I went on warmly. ‘It can’t be that bad.’ After a few moments, he began to control himself and stared directly into my eyes but he still did not speak. ‘How old are you, son?’ I continued, hoping to make a breakthrough in the one-sided conversation.

  ‘Forty-two,’ he replied between sobs, his chest heaving heavily.

  ‘No,’ I countered. ‘I asked you how old you are?’

  ‘I told you. I’m forty-two,’ he returned adamantly.

  It was patently obvious that he didn’t understand my question although he looked to be intelligent. ‘What are you doing here in this church?’ I went on inquisitively.