by Tony Klinger
“Always with the clever tongue, well now I’ve done something even you can be proud of, and you’ll toast me or I’ll pour it down your throat by force.”
“You don’t scare me you drunken oaf.”
“We’ll see about that!” he jumped at her, grabbing her long hair he forced her head back until she was teetering off balance. Laughing at her he poured the brandy into her open, protesting, spluttering mouth forcing her to gag. “How do you like that bitch, not so high and mighty now are you?” He poured more brandy down her throat, “I should have done this to you a long time ago, shown you who is the master in this house, and now I am going to have you on this floor, right now!”
Still holding her head back he threw the glass to the wall and reached inside her gown and roughly fondled her breasts. Hating her body for its submission and weakness they both felt her nipples instantly harden and she felt the moistness betraying her between her tightly clenched thighs. He reached into her and smiled wickedly when he felt her.
“So, you like it rough eh bitch, I should have known.” He pulled her face up and kissed her roughly full on the mouth. She bit him as hard as she could on the lip and it forced him to momentarily back away, she slapped him with all her strength on his face, he grabbed her by the collar of her gown and pulled with all his strength, the cloth of her nightgown ripped from shoulder to flank, and she stood almost naked before him in the flickering light. There was a pause as he looked at her, his eyes registering his animal lust, she started to back away but he simply walked after her.
“Please don’t, not like this.” She implored, but he was beyond listening, beyond reason he unbuttoned his trousers, releasing his rampant manhood. He reached behind her, pulling them both to the floor and ramming his knee between her thighs, forcing her legs apart and thrust himself into her as they rutted on the floor.
“Tell me you don’t want this.” He whispered hoarsely into her ear as he thrust into her repeatedly, in and out, “I can feel how much you want this, go on tell me you love it bitch. Despite herself her passion was engorge, she hated him but loved it, involuntarily her hips began to buck to meet his thrusts, her arms now around his neck, “I hate you monster!” she shrieked as her body began to convulse, “Do it harder, do it harder!” she breathed through racking sobs, she felt herself melting to him as his thrusts roughly hammered her, pinning her to the floor, her breasts heaving with each thrust, she felt him start to jerk and then, for the first time in her life she experienced an orgasm.
A policeman found the missing soldier, drowned, far up river, several days later. No one but Bertie and a couple of others would ever know how he had died, and he was sure that they were going to remain silent. Such things were best left unsaid.
Chapter Three
Darmstadt
1912
Listed in the Social and Personal column of the Darmstadt Chronicle of September 23rd. 1912 there was the following announcement;
HESSEL: The family Hessel of 12 Kaiserstrasse, Darmstadt are proud to announce the birth of their first born son, Arnulf Bertram; Mother and Child are well and happy to receive guests.”
Bertha had carefully worded the announcement in the forlorn hope of enticing someone from her family to make contact. Still, she thought, she did have the consolation of her beautiful son. Arnie was a golden baby, big, handsome, chubby, smiling and everything a baby should be. She called the little chap Arnie, despite, maybe because Bertie really didn’t want her to. Bertha thought deeply about the way their son had been conceived in violent, degenerate, drunken sex but had arrived at the conclusion that despite this she would always treasure her son, perhaps more so, because out of bad had come good. Her hate for her husband deepened into something cold and hard, like a gut of steel deep within her, never truly dissipated, but churning at her like acid.
Soon Arnie was bringing light to the darker corners of her mind and even her dour husband began to take some pleasure in their son, proudly joining them as they walked the baby in his pram through the local park. Other young mothers were drawn to Bertha by her radiance and it wasn’t long before she began to make some new friends. Bertie noticed the change in her, the newly reasserted confidence, the rekindled sparkle in her eyes and was grateful to Arnie for giving him back the wife he had fallen in love with in the first place.
It was shortly before Christmas and as usual Bertie and Bertha were arguing about what to do, and perhaps of more importance, what not to do about the Christian festival in their mixed home. As ever he wanted the whole ornate, particularly Germanic Christmas festivities that had its origins, as she was fond of reminding him, in pagan mid winter celebrations. Bertha, although never having been an orthodox Jew herself when she had been single found herself progressively more uncomfortable trying to be a hostess presiding over a wholly Christian gathering.
“No, I simply won’t do it, I shall not be a hypocrite.” She stamped her foot with a flash of temper which Bertie hadn’t witnessed since Arnie was born. “Remember this is my house, and in my house we shall do things my way.” He replied with some finality, hoping that the silly row would not spoil their hard won recent equanimity. “If you suddenly want to become religious you can do it without me or your son.” She pointed towards the unknowing little bundle wrapped snugly in the swaddling cloth in his pram, “And by what divine right do you hold sway over our son’s upbringing?” he asked. They both realized they had arrived at the nub of their argument, it wasn’t for them, this discussion of religious trivia, but the future of their son which was at stake. The unstated problem always buried deep and unseen had suddenly surfaced with explosive impact.
“We agreed our children would be taught about both our traditions and religions and could make up their own minds about what they want to be when they’re older.” She stated with cold anger.
“My son is a German boy, and he must learn German ways first.” Bertie stated his argument as if it were simply a recitation of fact. “What, I’m not a German?” she asked with incredulity, “My family traces its lineage in this country for more than five hundred years, can your people trace their heritage that far back?”
The volume of their argument had risen until it disturbed the baby’s slumbers. He started to cry and Bertha went to Arnie and hugged him to her breast, soon he was comfortable and quiet in her comforting warmth. Bertie couldn’t help himself, his resolve to be severe crumbled as he watched his child begin to search for his wife’s breast. “Let us agree to disagree,” he said whilst stoking his son’s head, “Because I know you would never do anything to harm me or the little chap.” How little he knows me, thought Bertha as she opened her blouse to suckle their infant. “Was it Voltaire who said I might disagree with every word you say, but I shall fight to the death for your right to say them?” Bertie smiled indulgently as he continued to be enchanted by the image his wife and son presented.
“It was the beginning of the end of civilization when they allowed women an education.” He said, “And who knows or cares if it were Voltaire or some other Latin effeminate, is it pleasurable?” he asked Bertha as she shifted Arnie to suck from her other breast. She looked up sharply, worried where the conversation was potentially leading, “Feeding our son is wonderful, fulfilling, why?”
“And why do your people answer a question with another question?” he responded sharply, “What like you?” she asked with equal alacrity and with a smile playing on her pretty face, her head tilted slightly to one side in the attitude people so often adopt when waiting for a reply. “What is it you really want to know, do you want to know if Arnie sucking my breast arouses me?” Bertie shifted in his seat uncomfortably, clearly she understood him only too well. “Don’t squirm like a boy, after all you’re my husband, you’re not a stranger; yes it’s sensual, but it’s not the feeling you can give me, that’s a type of love to, but our sex is different altogether. You know there are all kinds of differ
ent things that happen between consenting adults that would surprise a stranger. Why, are you becoming jealous of your son, do you want some of my milk?” Bertie’s face went red, the woman was a witch, how did she know everything about him, with the baby at her right breast she held the free one in her other hand out towards him, “I don’t mind, I won’t tell anyone.”
Bertie found himself drawn to the rose tipped globe like a magnet, he sank to his knees and gently, as if a baby himself, sucked at his woman’s breast, Bertha stroked his head as he fed. He put an arm protectively around Arnie not realizing what an improbably but beautiful tableaux he and his family would appear to the world. She smiled as she thought that she finally understood her man and herself.
Winter turned to spring and the talk in the town was of the changing nature of their lives. Who would have ever dreamt that their sleepy backwater was to grow such a size and become so industrialized so fast? Factories were springing up at a pace unparalleled in the nation’s modern history. Farm workers from the surrounding countryside were abandoning ancient rural lifestyles to pour into the city’s mushrooming tenements and tiny houses erected for them like sentinels guarding the giant chimney stacks, iron foundries, steel works and railway construction yards. Bertie saw all this because it was his function to issue these new concerns with the necessary permits. This he did with his usual stolid efficiency, unable or unwilling to spot or use the many chances for personal advancement and gain all around him.
Another thing Bertie seemed to totally miss as he withdraw ever deeper into himself was the growing up of his son. Nurtured lovingly by his mother, Arnie had taken his first steps and uttered his first word, which naturally enough was, “Mama.”
Bertha found herself habitually walking past her family mansion, which was situated next to the park. She never allowed herself the luxury of hope, she realized she was dead to them but she still cherished the hope of catching a glimpse of one of her relatives and she nevertheless derived some comfort form the thought of their sheer physical proximity.
Arnie delighted in taking faltering steps on the grassy carpet of the park opposite his unknown grandparents’ house. Bertha would spread a rug under the protective branches of an ancient oak tree and sit contentedly watching the boy gambol about punctuating his many falls with the exclamation, “Bumps a daisy!” until the little fellow started to say it to himself which would result in them both laughing as if they shared some wonderful joke. Arnie was a boy who was in love with the world though all of his senses, every blade of grass a universe of wonder to him. Whilst he was thus absorbed in everything he could see, touch, feel and smell his mother was transported by her love bordering on devotion of him.
Arnie handed his mother a daisy he had picked especially for her with due solemnity. She patted her son’s head in a mixture of maternal love and gratitude for uncomplicated adoration of her, something we all need on occasion, in moments of vulnerability, she thought. Her son was a boy who gave and took love with a true spontaneity he’d inherited from his mother. Being cuddled by her was as necessary to his well being as eating or breathing particularly so since recently he felt a distance from his father who, for some reason his immature mind couldn’t understand, pushed him away when he tried to get close. His daddy seemed an impossibly distant giant and forbidding figure, too busy to play, but not too busy to scold. A gulf in Bertie’s emotional intelligence had rapidly become a yawning chasm.
Arnie was quick to grasp the rudiments of the three R’s and art by his British nanny, Brigitte, who he called Birdy because her English sounding name was too hard for him to pronounce. But the jolly, well rounded and comfortably proportioned young woman didn’t mind anything her young charge called her, she plainly adored him almost as much as his own mother. Birdy had once harbored artistic ambitions herself but had only demonstrated enough talent to realize her potential was limited by a lack of personal passion and commitment. Instead of seeking to become an artist Birdy had sublimated her creativity and channeled her energies into the teaching of others. Very quickly she discerned the raw talent in Arnie’s raw unstructured daubings, a talent she had never witnessed in others before. Birdy soon started to bring this undoubted talent to Bertha’s attention. His mother was unsure how to react initially, in the Jewish tradition it was almost unheard of for anyone of the age to paint or draw at all. It was considered a sin to render anything in the image of God and as man was himself God’s creation art was, to the more orthodox Jew, a no go area. But Bertha was a modern woman and was thrilled when Birdy came rushing over to her one day to show the proud mother her son’s latest painting, “He has it in him this boy, God’s gift to show us the world a special way, through his eyes that have magic in them.” She said to Bertha, and anyone else that would listen. Any casual observer could see that this tiny boy had a finely observant eye for detail in one so young and his enjoyment was a joy when he daubed a multitude of colors all over the paper his mother so liberally supplied, and it was hard for either of the women to remember that he was not yet three years old.
Despite their enthusiasm Bertie was singularly unimpressed by any discussion regarding art, his son’s. , Or anyone else’s. He thought all art was a decadent waste of time and the only music he could bear to listen to was Wagner. In fact he was totally disinterested in his son’s progress, and even the small regard he had for the boy was diluted in direct proportion to the world’s worsening crisis reported with such apparent relish in each day’s newspaper.
Each morning Bertie would sit at the table in the bright and airy breakfast room ignoring his family’s chatter and the convivial yellow floral decorations while he buried his head in that morning’s journal.
The morning Bertha was destined to remember started with the normal pattern. The routine mutterings and grumbles from Bertie suddenly erupted as he read the front page which read, Archduke Ferdinand Assassinated in Sarajevo. “This means war!” he said, and then looked his wife in the eye, “A war we will win within six months.”
Bertie was right about the war but not the time it would take out of his life. He had the distinction of being the first volunteer to join the army of the Fatherland in the town of Darmstadt that promising spring of 1914. His farewell to his wife and son were perfunctory as he had mentally already left for the front, such was the eagerness of Bertie to prove himself the only way certain men can, in uniform, holding a gun.
Chapter Four
Darmstadt
1917
Certain funny little things fascinate most small boys, usually tadpoles or puddles, something wet and messy will do but green slimy muddy places and objects are by far the best. But Arnie Hessel was an unusual little boy. Seven years old and big for his age he loved to look at the world around him and marvel at the shape, color and texture of the things around him. He seemed unaware how disconcerting it could be for an adult if a small boy decided to stare at the bump on the end of your nose or the swell of your bosom, but he did know, with the certainty only possessed by a seven year old that he wanted to look and look he would.
The day promised much excitement for Arnie. He was so excited that he was awake far earlier than normal when his mother came into his room to rouse him from bed. They both loved their shared morning ritual of her first kiss on his smooth warm cheek as he lay bundled comfortably in the snuggled up, body warmed eiderdown. Every morning she would kiss him and every morning he would feign sleep and suddenly reach out with both arms to hug his adored mother around the neck. He loved the way she looked, smelt and felt. She just loved her son, without thought as most mothers love their sons. Bertha was still an unconventionally beautiful luminescent woman, her raven hair totally at odds with Arnie’s almost white blond and curly locks. What struck people first when they met Frau Bertha Hessel was an overall impression of beauty rather than noticing one particular feature. Her eyes were also blue, but of a different, deeper hue than Arnie’s, hers giving a distinct ec
ho of the Mediterranean whilst his were of the cold blue northern skies on a cold clear winter’s day.
Bertha has promised to take him for a special outing to his favorite place, on the river, if he was good the previous day, and of course he had been exceptionally good. So they set off in the little horse and buggy before nine with all the necessary accoutrements, including a bulging picnic hamper from which Arnie had already artfully purloined a piece of his mother’s special honey bread to supplement his meager, rushed breakfast which he had been too excited to eat. As ever the drive into the countryside was full of pleasure for them both. They sang songs and Arnie continually pointed out all the small things of boyish interest that Bertha might not have seen despite the fact that they had driven this particular route on many previous occasions and he always pointed out the self same objects of interest. If his mother didn’t turn to look where he pointed he would gently place his hands on either side of her cheeks and direct her face where he desperately needed her to look. It had become a game for them both, for Arnie to embellish and give new, richer, ever more elaborate descriptions of every interesting tree, or bird and today a hedgehog, which received minutes of rapturous and detailed story telling by Arne that made it appear as if the boy imagined the small prickly animal was in fact one of the lesser known survivors of Hannibal’s attack on Rome. Such rich nonsense was terminated by their arrival at the riverbank.
Arnie didn’t wait for his mother, but simply leapt to the ground, and from there reached up to grab his painting kit from the seat next to the one he had just vacated. “Be careful” Bertha called after him, a chuckle of pleasure in her throat, “Yes Mama!” he shouted back over his retreating shoulder as he ran towards a field some distance away that he had been impatiently waiting to paint for weeks.
Bertha set out their traveling rug by the river and on it placed the picnic hamper. She started to take out their settings and in the distance she saw that her son had already set up his small easel and was preparing to paint.