They Do the Same Things Different There

by They Do the Same Things Different There (v5. 0) (epub)

  On top of the camel you feel like you’re king of the world, you feel like a pharaoh, he’s making you feel so special, he’s making you feel like you’re the only one he’s ever had on his back.

  And you ride out into the desert, tourists ahead of you, tourists behind you, but you try to ignore them, you pretend you’re on your own, that it’s just you and the camel. And he’s in no rush, and by God, he’s solid under there, and strong, and confident, the camel’s got a confidence you don’t think you’ll ever have.

  At last you reach the pyramid. It’s been there on the horizon for ages, of course, but you refuse to look at it seriously until you get close, you want to get the full impact of it—you’d rather look down at the sand, you’d rather look at the camel. But there it is now, finally, unavoidably, it’s not going to get any bigger—“There!” says our guide, rather unnecessarily. And yes, it’s different, but the camel harrumphs a bit, he’s seen it all before, he’s none too impressed. And from now on you’re taking your cue from the camel. As pyramids go you’re sure it’s one of the biggest—but you know, if it’s size that’s the issue, there are bigger things out there, you’ve stayed in bigger hotels, shopped in bigger department stores, parked your car in bigger car parks even. And you say out loud, for the camel’s benefit, you suppose, so he’ll know you’re in accord—“It’s just a little thing, isn’t it? Really. Just a little thing.”

  PECKISH

  There was never any scandal in the Von Zieten family. The Von Zietens did not approve of scandal. Sieglinde knew that there had been a Von Zieten in the war once and that he had done something very bad—she didn’t know which war, and by now it was probably too late to tell—he had either been cowardly when he should have been heroic, or had been heroic when the tide of public opinion had turned against heroism, and discretion would have been the better option. But Captain Von Zieten had made amends by taking his own life, he’d shot himself with his service revolver, and the family had grimly forgiven him.

  And sometimes at parties, sometimes if Uncle Otto got drunk, Sieglinde heard muttered tales about an Aunt Ilse who had harboured an amorous fascination for goats. Otherwise, nothing; the Von Zietens were respectable and decent and clean.

  And so when the scandal broke around Großmutti Greta everyone was surprised, and privately even a little pleased; it gave them someone new to condemn.

  It took Sieglinde a few days to find out what the scandal was. She was still a child, they said, and so everyone’s voices dropped when she came into the room. But at last she was told by her mother, on the pretext that it was for her moral education. She was sat down, with all due solemnity—but Sieglinde noticed how excited her mother sounded, how her eyes sparkled and how fast she talked, how much she revelled in Großmutti Greta’s wickedness.

  And it was this: that after over sixty years of marriage, Greta now wanted a divorce. “Over sixty years!” mother said, and that as far as the Von Zietens could tell, it had been a happy marriage too—certainly the family had never seen reason for complaint. It wasn’t as if Greta had anything she could do with her remaining years—she was at least eighty, and in everyone’s considered opinion there was precious little point Greta should cause a scandal now for a few last gasps of independence. Greta hadn’t given a reason, or, at least, Großvatti Gunther said he’d not been given one; everyone felt a bit sorry for Großvatti Gunther, and that was uncomfortable in itself, Großvatti was a sturdy man of no fixed emotion, feeling sorry for him was just wrong somehow. The family wondered whether Greta had simply gone mad. That would make sense, might even mitigate somewhat in her favour. But surely it would have been better if she’d gone mad quietly without drawing attention to herself.

  Sieglinde had been taught to avoid scandal, and had always done her best. Here she was, a few months shy of sixteen, and she still wasn’t allowed to see Klaus without a chaperone, even though the family knew the two would one day get married—even though the family had chosen him in the first place! Sieglinde knew she should ask no further questions about her grandmother and her heinous ways. But she liked Großmutti Greta. She was her favourite of all her grandparents, probably—Greta was a little stern, but then, they were all a little stern. And sometimes when Sieglinde went to visit, especially when she’d been a little girl, Greta had made her the most wonderful gingerbread men. Sieglinde had never tasted anything as good as those gingerbread men. Sieglinde never knew what special ingredients there must be in them.

  She knew that if she asked her parents whether she could visit her grandmother they would say no. So she didn’t ask. One afternoon, when father was in his study, and mother was busy in the kitchen, Sieglinde snuck away. She didn’t want to go to her grandmother’s empty-handed, and so spent her pocket money at the baker’s, buying a bag full of brioches; some of them had chocolate in the middle.

  Her grandmother didn’t seem surprised to see her. “There you are,” she said. “Good. You can help me find a suitcase.”

  “I brought brioches,” said Sieglinde.

  “I have eaten my last brioche,” said Großmutti Greta.

  “Some of them have chocolate inside.”

  “The same for chocolate,” said Großmutti Greta.

  “So, it’s true, then? You’re really leaving?”

  “Yes,” said Großmutti Greta.

  “Are you mad? Everyone thinks you’ve gone mad.”

  “I haven’t gone mad,” said Greta. “Or, if I am mad, I am as mad as I was before. I have just decided to stop pretending. All the pretence, I am so tired of it. I have baked some gingerbread men, my very last batch. We shall eat gingerbread men and talk.”

  Sieglinde agreed. She hadn’t tasted one of her grandmother’s gingerbread men for a long time, and had rather assumed she was now too old for them.

  “Ach, nonsense,” said Greta. “You’re the perfect age for my gingerbread men. All the other men you’ve eaten, that was just practice. Now, at last, you can eat the real thing. But first,” she added, “we find my suitcase, yes?”

  They went up to the attic. There was no light up there. “Your grandfather,” said Greta, “he always said he’d fix the electrics, but he never did, it was always tomorrow, tomorrow, you’ll have your light bulbs tomorrow.” Sieglinde asked if that was why she was leaving him. “All in good time,” said Greta, as she poked around in the dark, and then she said, “Yes, yes, here it is,” and she was pulling a suitcase out of the shadows. It was big and brown and had brass buckles on it. “Good,” she said. “Now, we talk.”

  The gingerbread men were fresh from the oven; they smelled moist, they smelt juicy, somehow, even though Sieglinde knew there was no juice in gingerbread. She felt her mouth water. Greta picked up the bag of brioches, opened it, recoiled, then dropped it unceremoniously into the swing bin.

  “Do you really have to go away, Großmutti?” asked Sieglinde, and tears pricked at her eyes, and that was strange, for she was not a sentimental girl, sentiment was frowned upon in the Von Zieten house.

  “Now, now,” said Großmutti, and she tapped at Sieglinde’s hand sympathetically, and she wasn’t used to acts of sentiment either, and she did it too hard and too awkwardly, and it felt like being comforted by a wrinkly bag of onions. “I shall tell you the story, the same as I told my husband. And you shall eat.”

  Sieglinde bit into the gingerbread man. It tasted good.

  I came from a poor family, much poorer than yours. I had a brother called Hans, a father who cut wood, and, for a little while, I had a mother. Then the mother died. And my father married again. The stepmother didn’t like us much.

  (“Was she a cruel stepmother?” asked Sieglinde.)

  I don’t think she was particularly cruel, or any crueller to me than my own mother was. Stepmothers have a bad time of it. It’s hard enough to love your own flesh and blood, and I should know. It’s almost impossible to love someone else’s. Ach, this is not a story about wicked stepm
others.

  (“All right.”)

  You’re as bad as your grandfather. No more interruptions.

  (“Sorry.”)

  Stepmother didn’t want us home. She tried to smile when we were there, but Hans and I could see through them, there was effort in those smiles, it was like she had toothache. We played in the forest. Deeper and deeper we’d go, every day, we’d dare ourselves to get to the very heart of it. And one day out playing, Hans said to me, Well, we’ve done it now, sister, we’re well and truly lost. Home could be miles away, and in any direction. We could walk around for the rest of our lives and never find it. Might as well face it, we’re going to die out here—if starvation doesn’t get us first, the cold and the wolves will. And he had a tear, for my brother was an unnaturally sensitive boy.

  We lay down to die, and we were resigned to it, we didn’t use to struggle so much against death as people do now. But before we expired we found an old woman was standing over us. I say she was old; she was probably not old; but I was of the age when I thought that anyone with grey hair and missing teeth and pockmarks was old. She said, You poor children, you must be hungry. Let me take you to a place where there is food, all is food. My pantries are filled to bursting, and the bricks of my walls are made of fresh soft bread, the cement is warm chocolate fudge, the roof is thatched with liquorice sticks. Will you come with me? It isn’t far.

  Hans was my brother; I always did what Hans said; Hans said, Okay. And I wondered whether this woman could be our new mother. I asked for her name, and she said she hadn’t got a name, or if she’d had one, she’d lost it. I began to tell her our names, and she stopped me, and she said she didn’t think we would have that kind of relationship.

  And so it turned out to be. We entered her house, and she locked the door behind us with a big key. I’m so sorry, my dears, she said, and to be fair, she looked very sorry too, and we couldn’t be angry with her. She said, As you can see, the bricks are made of brick, the cement is just some cement, the thatch has largely blown away but when it was there it was very far indeed from looking like liquorice. This is a house of food—but the food is you—you are it—by which I mean, I’m going to eat you both up, are you following me? It’s inside you, your kidneys and your hearts and your chitterlings, you walk about carrying all that tasty grub wrapped up in thin sausage skin, and it’s a waste, and we’re going to let it out.

  She snapped off one of Hans’ fingers, and ate it. Then she snapped off one of mine, chewed at it thoughtfully. Because, as you know, the fingers are the best way of determining whether a child is ripe or not—Not quite ready yet, she said, but not long to go, and what a feast you’ll make! And in the meantime, I promise you, I’ll be kind to you, and nice, I’ll be a mother to you, it’s the least I can do. I really am most terribly sorry, but you must understand, I really am most terribly hungry as well.

  She had to fatten us up. And that wasn’t easy, since there was no food in the house. She would stand us upright in the bathtub, naked, and scrub away at us with a loofah, one of those big loofahs with the hard bristles, do you know? And all the dead skin would come peeling off, and she’d gather it all up, every last wormy strand, and she’d fry it, and tell us to eat—and that skin smelled so good, it was like onions, it’d sizzle so invitingly in the pan. And yet she never ate a morsel, no matter how hungry she got—No, no, she’d say, this is a treat for you kids, don’t you worry about me, I’ll get my dinner soon enough. But sometimes she would watch us eat and she couldn’t help it, the sight of it would make her tummy gurgle, and she would cry. We’d beg her, Eat, please eat. We’d say, Take another of our fingers, snap them off, have them as a snack. One day she did that, and she put them in her mouth, and she winced, and said we still weren’t ripe—and we’d caused her to waste two perfectly good fingers before they were ready, that was very selfish of us. She was angry, I think, for the only time we knew her, and she sent us to bed without any supper. Which was pretty much par for the course.

  One morning, over breakfast, as Hans and I gorged ourselves on the dead skin leftovers, the woman said she couldn’t wait any longer. She was starving; she would be dead from starvation within the hour; then where would we all be? She’d have to eat us both right now. And if we weren’t ripe enough yet, well, she’d just have to put up with any resultant indigestion. She was too weak to prepare the oven, so Hans and I did it all for her, and we did our very best, but somehow we made a mistake, we ended up cooking her instead of ourselves. I kept saying to Hans, Are you sure we’re doing this right, as we folded the woman’s arms together and tucked them underneath her belly so she’d fit through the oven door—and he told me not to worry about it. The woman didn’t blame us. She said, oh well, either way, here’s an end to my suffering—and I suppose it was.

  We took the key and opened the front door and went out into the forest, and oh, the air tasted so fresh, it was almost good enough to eat. And we were free. And we set off home.

  I don’t like that suitcase.

  “Sorry?” said Sieglinde. “What about the suitcase?”

  “I don’t like it,” said Großmutti Greta. “All those big brass buckles! Such ostentation! So shameless! Ach, when you’re lugging a suitcase about, with nowhere you can call home to take it, you don’t need brass buckles weighing you down. No. We go back to the attic. Come on. Back to the attic, we find a better suitcase.”

  Sieglinde thought that the dark of the attic seemed even darker than before, and that was impossible, surely, but the black made Sieglinde’s eyes hurt. “Stay here,” said Großmutti Greta, and then she plunged into the blackness, and Sieglinde knew she wouldn’t be able to see a thing—Sieglinde’s eyes were still young and untainted, how much weaker must Greta’s be, ancient as she was! And she heard Greta grunt with effort, as if she were wrestling with something, as if she were wrestling with the dark itself. And Sieglinde felt the sudden certainty that she would never see her grandmother again, that she’d be lost within the dark, that she’d die, and that the only way she could save her would be if she too jumped into the blackness and put herself at the mercy of whatever was inside and begged for her grandmother’s life—and she hadn’t got the courage, she realized, and what was worse, she hadn’t got the inclination.

  And then Greta emerged, and her hands were tight around another suitcase—this one bigger, greyer, and free of all offending buckles. She looked calm, and matter of fact, as if she hadn’t tussled with the monsters in the black, as if she hadn’t confronted death itself—and maybe she hadn’t. “Some tea,” she said, “that’s what we need, and you can have another gingerbread man, yes? Come along, come along.”

  In the kitchen Sieglinde said, “I won’t have another gingerbread man, thank you.”

  Großmutti Greta said, “Why not?”

  Sieglinde explained she didn’t want to get fat.

  Großmutti Greta said, “There was a time when we didn’t worry about such stupid things. It was good to be fat. It meant we might survive the winter.”

  Sieglinde said that had been a long time ago, and now it wasn’t good to be fat, and that Klaus wouldn’t want her if she put on weight, he told her he didn’t fancy girls with big thighs.

  Greta said, “That Klaus of yours is an idiot,” and she said, “And your thighs are not fat, and believe me, I am an expert, I feel they could do with a lot more fattening. Now eat another gingerbread man, or you will offend me, and we shan’t part as friends.” Sieglinde didn’t want that, and besides, she did like the gingerbread men, they really were quite delicious.

  “Won’t you have one?” asked Sieglinde, as she bit off a leg, and Greta waved the offer aside, and instead clasped hold of her teacup, and Sieglinde noticed that there were indeed fingers missing from Greta’s hand, and she’d never seen that before, how strange.

  “I liked your story, Granny,” said Sieglinde. “But I don’t understand why you’re leaving Großvatti.”

  “Th
at’s because the story isn’t finished yet,” said Großmutti Greta. “Now be quiet, blood of my blood, and listen.”

  I said that the air tasted so fresh that it was good enough to eat. Well, you couldn’t. And though Hans and I enjoyed our freedom, and thought we’d escaped certain death at the hands of the old woman, in truth we were still in danger. We walked through the forest as hungry as before, and as lost. We walked for hours, and our feet hurt, and our stomachs hurt, and Hans said, It’s no good, my sister, we were better off as we were. At least before there was a reason for our deaths; another would have lived through our sacrifice, and she would have buried our bones, and she would have remembered us, and in the darkness of the night when she was all alone she might have patted her belly for company. Hans shed a tear, because, as I say, he was very sensitive.

  Still we walked on, and it was with our last remaining strength that we dragged ourselves to a house. And only as we reached the door did we realize we knew this house; we had spent all this time walking in a circle. We had returned to the cottage where we had been imprisoned, and the bricks were not made of bread, and the cement not made of fudge—but nevertheless, something very tasty smelled from the inside. And we opened the door, and there, of course, was the woman—just as we’d left her, and cooked to an absolute tee.

  Oh, how my tummy cried out for that meat. We have no choice, said Hans, and from the oven he took the roast dinner, and broke off one of the woman’s arms, and began to gnaw at it. The woman stared at us through eyes that had browned in the heat and looked like fried eggs. At least close them, I said, and Hans did one better, he tore off her face altogether and threw it into the fire—You have to eat, he said, my dear sister, you know we can’t afford to be picky with our food now—and I said, Could you find me a piece of meat that isn’t too meaty, something that won’t look too much like it’s from a corpse?—and he had a rummage, and then produced something that looked a little like chicken, and I put it in my mouth, and I swallowed.