Just When Stories

by Tamara Gray

  ‘They get him for you,’ Jean-Francois said with a knowing smile.

  Jurgen knew at once but he felt he had to pull the cloth back just the same. Ludger lay there on his back, dead, blood from the big gash on his brow had trickled down to stain one side of his grey goatee. Apart from that he looked calm, Jurgen thought—his eyes closed, as if he were taking a lengthier than usual nap. Jurgen swore under his breath and felt a wave of strange emotion wash through him. He exhaled and looked up at the sky, veiled with a thin nacreous sheen of cloud. He looked down again and noticed that Ludger’s stump was raw, alive with small beige maggots feeding. Ludger—lost in translation. Perhaps he’d done Ludger a favour—inadvertently saved him from a lingering gangrenous death… He would hold on to that thought—it would help.

  ‘I wanted him alive,’ Jurgen said emphatically, suddenly remembering the French word. ‘Vivant.’

  ‘You never say,’ Jean-Francois replied. ‘What you do with one big chimpanzee? You crazy man?’

  One of the kids spoke.

  ‘He say very good to eat. Good food,’ Jean Francois translated, rubbing his stomach. ‘Yum-yum.’

  ‘They can have him,’ Jurgen said. ‘I don’t want to eat him.’ He turned and began to walk back to the camp. Jean-Francois caught up with him, touched his elbow.

  ‘Jurgen, mon ami, you owe these boys ten dollars.’

  Jurgen paid.

  The train to Waldbach from Straubing was cancelled, Jurgen saw from the noticeboard. The next one left in a couple of hours. Two hours in Straubing, Jurgen thought, wonderful, just what I was hoping for. His mood was bad because when he’d arrived in Munich he had telephoned his mother to let her know he was home from Africa. She said that she’d arranged for him to spend his leave at his sister’s house. Ludger was going to be staying with her. ‘It’ll be easier,’ his mother had said. ‘You know how you and Ludger don’t get on.’ Jurgen deposited his kit bag in the left-luggage office and walked into Straubing. He didn’t get on with Jochen, his sister’s husband, either. A jazz musician, Jochen played the trombone in a casino nightclub. An annoying, opinionated man, he practised on his trombone two hours a day, seven days a week. It was a proud boast.

  The handsome, wide main street of Straubing had been transformed into a Christmas market, full of small wooden huts selling food and drink and articles of woolly clothing. There was some sort of funfair also, Jurgen saw, strolling through the crowds, moving through successive aural zones of competing styles of music, and feeling a little self-conscious in his uniform, aware of the curious glances coming his way.

  He went into a bar and had a few beers, trying to raise his mood, rebuking himself for his irritation and selfishness. His sister would make him very welcome, he knew, and he could easily go out for a walk when Jochen practised his trombone. Then a young girl—seventeen or eighteen—a bit drunk, he could tell, came and stood by the bar next to him to buy a drink. ‘How many babies did you kill in Afghanistan?’ she said, and then swore at him. Jurgen sighed, wished her a Happy Christmas, and left the bar.

  ‘Welcome home,’ he said to himself bitterly, standing by a wooden stall that was selling some kind of powerful and warming gluwein. Here the music was traditional, folksongs and Christmas carols that Jurgen could remember from his schooldays. He drank another couple of gluweins, feeling marginally better. The drink was strong, he saw, with some kind of aromatic schnapps in the mix. He flexed his shoulders, rolled his head: it was good to be back home, after all, one stupid drunk girl wasn’t going to ruin his leave.

  He saw that the traditional music was coming from an elaborate barrel organ, brightly painted, encrusted with carved wooden figurines from folk tales—witches and wizards, bears and foxes, lost boys and girls and gingerbread houses. He ordered another gluwein and wandered over with it to hear the music better. He dropped a couple of euros in the felt hat that dangled from the front. The man turning the handle of the barrel organ smiled and said thank you.

  Then Jurgen saw the monkey sitting on the top. It was small and grey-furred but it had a white wisp of goatee on its chin, like Ludger, only miniature. There was a chain around its right leg attached to the barrel-organ. What kind of monkey was it? What were they called? A macaque? A gibbon? Jurgen whistled softly at it and it turned its head, its big round black eyes staring at Jurgen and it made a plaintive staccato cheeping sound and bared its sharp yellow teeth.

  ‘What’s this monkey called?’ he asked the organ-grinder.

  ‘Mo-Mo.’

  ‘Mo-Mo? What kind of name is that?’

  ‘You want a different name—get your own monkey.’

  ‘OK,’ Jurgen said, thinking. ‘How much do you want for him?’ Jurgen turned and smiled at the man.

  ‘He’s not for sale.’

  ‘Everything’s for sale,’ Jurgen said. ‘Just depends on the price. I’ll give you a hundred euros.’

  ‘He’s not for sale, man,’ the organist said, his faint smile fading. ‘He’s part of the act.’

  ‘I’ll give you two hundred euros.’

  ‘Go and sober up somewhere, yeah? Leave me alone. Do me a favour.’

  Jurgen emptied his pockets of money.

  ‘Three hundred and twenty three euros,’ Jurgen said, showing the man the money in his hands. ‘You can buy six monkeys for that.’

  ‘You buy six monkeys, you stupid, big moron—’

  ‘I want this monkey. Only this monkey.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He reminds me of someone.’ ‘He’s not for sale.’ The organist stopped turning the handle. He came closer, and lowered his voice. ‘If you don’t stop bugging me, you cretin, I’ll call the cops.’

  For a second Jurgen thought about smashing the man in his self-satisfied face, of knocking him to the ground and kicking the shit out of him, but suddenly he had a better idea. He looked back at the little monkey, then back at the man.

  ‘You think about that three hundred euros when you count your takings tonight. Asshole,’ he said, and wandered off, casually.

  The wire cutters cost eighteen euros. They had thick orange rubber handles and a capable-looking system of levers that quadrupled the pressure applied, so the assistant in the hardware store told him. Jurgen paid and walked back onto Straubing’s main street.

  He circled the organ player for a while, waiting for a few people to gather and claim his smiling attention. Then, with a couple of long strides, he came up swiftly behind the organ, grabbed the chain and cut it through, about three inches from the monkey’s leg. It was like cutting string, it was so easy. The monkey turned and looked at him.

  ‘Go, Mo-Mo,’ Jurgen said softly. ‘You’re free.’

  He stepped back and clapped his hands. And the monkey leapt off the organ and onto the roof of the next door shack that was selling alpaca hats and scarves.

  ‘Hey!’ the barrel-organist shouted. Jurgen darted off into the crowds of the funfair. He looked back. The monkey was sitting on the roof of the alpaca shack, and then suddenly it scurried along the looped electric cables attached to the wall of a nearby house and shimmied up a drainpipe to the guttering on the roof.

  Jurgen felt a sense of ineffable happiness warm him, almost making his head reel. The last he saw of Mo-Mo was as he made his way daintily up the stepped-gable of the house to the rooftop. Then he climbed on to a television aerial and disappeared in the darkness. The whole of Straubing was out there, waiting for him, the whole of Bavaria, of Germany, Europe… Jurgen looked at his watch. Mo-Mo was free. He felt good. Time to catch the train to Waldbach.

  A Duck in India

  by Alice Newitt

  It was approaching the last of the monsoon rains for that year; and the Indian plains were, for the Tapti family, saturated with prosperity.

  The year had brought numerous windfalls, and they had used their errant profits to emigrate to Australia, primarily to indulge in their passion for koalas, opera and modern conveniences.

  They had left their home, a basic s
hack, in the hands of an Egyptian relative who was spending the year in India on sabbatical leave. Before her arrival, the simple hut had been transformed.

  It had become thoughtfully furnished, extravagantly styled and crammed with the rich Indian aromas of decadent spices and incenses; although mostly to disguise the failing roof and the rotting smell.

  Had they known Rashida better, they wouldn’t have made the effort, for she proved herself to be a very poor custodian indeed. The girl would spend her days lazing on the banks of the Ganges, immersed in the vibrancy and clatter, dreaming away to herself.

  Meanwhile, the rains drove the undergrowth into the sanctuary of the hut, and the once lavish wallpapers became damaged and torn as malevolent locals stole in.

  The resting animals in the roof watched the hut fall into disrepair, and gave forlorn quacks.

  The river was lapping gently against its banks as Rashida drearily decided to spend that morning starting on her studies. Her intentions were noble, but the air was humid and soon she drifted off to sleep. She slept all day, until she was painfully awoken by a panicking cyclist riding over her legs. She was raw with sunburn, agitated by the bites covering her, and irritated by the low sun shining in her eyes. She supposed that the cyclist was mumbling apologies, but not knowing the local language she chose to misinterpret him.

  The young man was rather alarmed when the young, attractive woman jumped on the back of his bicycle demanding a ride home. Nevertheless, he believed that it would be good entertainment to take her off-road, down the bumpy, pot-holed track through the wetlands. He was pleasantly surprised by her strong stomach, while she was unpleasantly shocked by his well-meaning, yet appalling skills as a cyclist.

  He took her right up to the hut, accidently knocking over a few dead pot plants on the veranda in the process. She thanked him wearily as he reattached a wheel that was falling off and went into the shady recluse of the hut.

  Bending down under the table, she frantically rummaged through the assortment of papers, clothes and fruit left there, looking for something that might treat insect bites. She was wondering whether a rotting mango might do the job when to her dismay, but not to her surprise, she found a nesting snake. A little annoyed that it had been making a mess on her favourite tablecloth, she wrapped it up and threw it out of the window.

  It was then that she noticed, for the first time, that perhaps she ought to sort the place out as, after all, it wasn’t her home to wreck. A few weeks before, a surge of creativity had come over her and she had purchased three tins of emulsion (deep magenta, stardust gold and baby pink), several rolls of elaborate wallpaper and an assortment of wall hangings and rugs. She had also dug out a sculpture that she’d won in a raffle a long time ago, along with a rather large vase that came free with her bulk order of rice. It was time, she declared, to put them to use.

  Roping in the assistance of Milind, the man with the bicycle, Rashida spent the evening transforming the hut into a vivid, glowing creation to rival the amber sunset outside.

  Milind took all the exotic creatures back to the Gangentic plains where they belonged, and laughed when a family of ducks kept following him back, diving under Rashida’s coffee table.

  The lantern light casted a orange glow in the dark landscape, while Rashida and Milind lay back on the veranda, listening to the whistles and clicks, and the distant hums of the city.

  Just as Rashida began to doze off, her eyes heavy from squinting at the glistening stars above, she felt something nuzzling her palm. She sat up, curious, and saw an elegant duck trying to eat the grasses growing through the strips of wood.

  Its bottom half was a thousand shades of brown, but its head and neck ware baby pink. It struck Rashida that the duck had been mucking up her delicate paintwork, and she shooed it away angrily. Milind cried out urgently.

  ‘What?’ shouted Rashida in a strained attempt at Hindi.

  ‘It’s a pink headed duck! They’re meant to be extinct!’ explained Milind.

  ‘Stop shouting!’

  ‘Very very rare!’

  ‘What?’

  As Rashida and Milind argued in their dysfunctional way, the duck slipped away into the darkness of the sandy street, out of the light of the hut.

  The duck was desperate for food. Lost in the hut for days, it hadn’t been able to find much to eat, and the candlelight had confused it. Nocturnal, the noise during the day had disturbed its sleeping habits, and the hissing snake had made it wary.

  Quacking quietly, the duck waddled aimlessly in zigzags across the road, lost and bewildered. It passed a couple on a late evening stroll.

  ‘Look at this, Kate!’ said the towering British man, pointing. ‘It’s half duck, half flamingo!’

  ‘It’s cute!’ said the lady, entwined in the man’s arm, smiling down.

  ‘It’s weird!’ jeered the man.

  ‘Don’t be mean,’ scolded the lady, bending down to pat the duck. ‘Take a picture, Dave.’

  The duck dived away as Kate’s hand came close. The camera flashed, capturing only Kate’s outstretched hand.

  The creature didn’t belong on land; its home was the wetlands. It needed to get back with a flock, any flock. The solo life was a threat to its survival, even more so than fiery women or naïve tourists.

  Plodding on, the duck passed many silent, dark houses with gated driveways. It passed bright houses, with music blaring and party guests falling out of them. It passed sheds filled to the brim with worldly possessions. It passed holiday lets, with swimming pools and barbeques. It passed shops, with vegetables next to laundry baskets, carpets next to newspapers.

  The world span around the duck, but gradually the houses became less frequent and the ground grew wet and squidgy beneath its feet. It was approaching the wetlands, and getting nearer to a flock.

  All of a sudden, the duck felt the ground shaking, and there was a low rumbling. Glaring headlights lit the dirt track. The duck darted off the road just in time, as the van screeched to a halt. A man leapt out of the truck, and grabbed the duck. It struggled helplessly. They were discussing it in Hindi, about how it would look nice in their windowsill, get the profits up, fetch a good price.

  Just as they were stuffing it into the van, Milind crashed into the vehicle. He fell into a heap on the floor, causing one of the men to lose his grip on the pink headed duck, and it broke free.

  Milind had been pedaling everywhere, trying to track the duck so that he could take it to the wetlands. Rashida had been running not far behind him. They had almost given up hope, but after a lot of arm-flapping trying to ask after the duck, a British couple had managed to understand them and pointed them in the right direction.

  Frantic, Milind had ridden as fast as he could, but pot hole after pot hole had caused him to lose control. The men with the van were not impressed with Milind, but he and Rashida didn’t stay to listen.

  Leaving the bike in the road, which the men took in place of the duck, Milind and Rashida ran through the undergrowth, listening out for the quacks and whistles of the duck.

  They found it, nesting under a leafy bush, with deep magenta coloured berries. Milind picked it up gently, and they trekked to the edge of the wetland to set it free.

  When they reached the marshland, the duck quickly waddled away, quacking, searching. He disappeared into the reeds as the stardust gold halo of the sun could be seen setting behind the dark silhouette of the city.

  Rashida and Milind stood close together, listening to croaks, tweets, chatter, clicks and one more noise that could defy any language barrier.

  The lonely quack of the last of the pink headed ducks.

  (Alice Newitt aged 14 is the winner of a competition for children to write a story for Just When Stories).

  Zushkaali and

  the Elephant

  by Angela Young

  Of all the creatures in all the world, the elephants are the most like us. They can be sad like us, they can be frightened like us, they can be happy like us and, lik
e us, they can be angry. Elephants who are left alone for too long are never happy elephants. They like being with their fellow elephants. Just like us.

  But it was not always so.

  A long, long time ago the elephants who lived in the heart of the heart of Africa were, well, just elephants, and not at all like us.

  And it was in those times that, one very hot day, a strong young bull elephant was so busy eating delicious shoots and leaves that he didn’t notice his fellow elephants moving on. When he stopped eating and looked up, they were gone. The elephant found himself all by himself for the first time in his life, and strange things began happening to him. His eyes filled with water and a lump grew in his throat. His skin tingled and his knees went weak. He lifted his trunk to bellow for his fellow elephants, but the lump in his throat was so large that his bellow got stuck behind it. Only a soft sad bleat found its way past the lump and it wasn’t loud enough to summon his fellow elephants.

  It was then that the earth heard the soft sad bleat deep down in her heart and, because it was the saddest sound she’d ever heard, she decided to do everything in her power to help the elephant. First of all she cried some large tears from her clouds because she felt so sorry for the elephant—and her tears cooled him down—and then the earth spoke to the elephant.

  ‘Don’t be sad, oh please don’t be sad.’ She said, ‘I’ll give you all the powers you need to help you find your fellow elephants. You’ll soon see them again. I promise.’

  The water stopped spilling from the elephant’s eyes and his knees felt stronger. He felt cooler from the rain and, while he listened to the earth, he felt his heart fluttering and jumping.