Sanctuary

by Luca D'Andrea

  Finally, hugging herself, she followed him out of the Stube into the open air.

  She saw him hunched on all fours like a dog, digging a hole in the frozen snow with his bare hands. She saw blood trickling between his fingers, but she said nothing. She was terrified.

  Keller emptied the bag into the hole, got laboriously to his feet, putting his weight on his good leg, threw powder in the hole and set it on fire. The blue flames rose high in the air.

  Once the flames had died down, Keller took the rifle and shut himself in the pigsty. He stayed there for hours.

  At dusk, Marlene heard a shot. Then another and another. She ran to the pigsty and saw Keller come out through the little door. He was crying, and he was bloodstained.

  Marlene pretended nothing was wrong. She ate, unable to summon the courage to look at him. She pretended to read, pretended not to hear the chanting emerging from his lips.

  “Opasimonopasimonopa . . .”

  Then she went back to her room. She had made up her mind. Tonight would be the night.

  97

  Then it was just the hours of waiting.

  The night.

  Seven days after the king, the boar and the attempted escape. Marlene was certain she had not neglected a single detail. All she had to do was act.

  She waited for midnight and let it pass. Wegener had once told her that the police liked to kick down doors at around four in the morning because that was when everybody’s guard is lowered.

  Marlene did not have a watch, but she had calculated the time by the movements of the night sky through the shutters.

  The waning moon could be seen between the mountain peaks, looking like a child’s drawing. It made her shudder, and she turned her eyes away.

  At the appointed hour, she got ready.

  Not a sound.

  She put on the slippers and took the spoon. She closed the shutters and waited for her eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness. Counting her steps, she went to the door.

  It was freezing inside the maso: even the moss and the double panes of glass could not keep out the winter cold. And yet Marlene was drenched in sweat. She had never felt so hot in her life. Or so afraid. It took her a few seconds to summon up her courage. The oiled hinges moved without a sound. She had done a good job. She stepped out into the corridor.

  One step forward, one to the left. Forward again, then left. A kind of waltz.

  Marlene walked down the corridor, focusing on her mental map of the floorboards: which ones creaked, which ones were sturdy. It was like walking in a minefield. The sharpened spoon in her right hand, her left one clenched in a fist. No more fear, no more nausea. She was determined, and she was strong. Marlene the Brave wasn’t fighting for her own life. She was doing it for Klaus. Klaus gave her courage.

  She needed it.

  She stopped outside Keller’s bedroom, bent down to the keyhole and peeped in. It was pitch black in there. She pressed her ear to the time-darkened wood. All she heard was the buzzing of her over-excited ears. Good.

  He’s asleep. Kill him.

  She tried the handle, lowered it and pushed. The door opened a few centimetres. It slid on its hinges with the grace of a ballerina. She had done a good job. Not a squeak. She opened it a little more, just enough to listen.

  Nothing.

  A few more centimetres. She held her breath.

  She popped her head around the door and looked in.

  In comparison with the corridor, Keller’s bedroom was better lit, because he slept with his shutters open. The light of the half-moon was enough to allow her to make out the extinguished candle on the bedside table, a Bible and part of the bed.

  The door was now half open. She pushed it some more and took one step forward.

  Piled-up blankets, the black hat hanging on the wall.

  As silent as a mouse, Marlene tiptoed to Keller’s bed. She raised her arm.

  She had prepared herself, imagining the scene of the murder: the flesh ripped open, the blood gushing, the screams. Above all, she had prepared herself to have no pity, even though she knew that the memory of what she was about to do would give her nightmares for the rest of her life.

  But it did not happen like that. She struck, with all her might, then struck again. The spoon only cut through the sheets and pillows.

  Then the voice came. A voice like stone.

  98

  Simon Keller had killed them. All of them.

  He had done it for Marlene. For the child.

  He had fired quickly and reloaded even faster. To stop the fear from creeping in. A shot in the back of the neck and they had collapsed on top of each other.

  He felt bad about all these deaths. Their screams still echoed in his ears. Their eyes, imploring pity, gave him no peace. That was why he could not sleep, even though his head was spinning as if he had taken too much poppy. He was tired, infinitely tired. His hands, still heavy with pig blood, reminded him of the scale of the massacre, tormenting him.

  He got out of bed and looked at the moon over the mountains. He stood because his knee was driving him mad with pain and sitting was torture. The moon did not calm him.

  He moved away from the light and leaned against the wall. Lost in the shadows, he started to pray. Even though he knew he was in the right, he could find no peace.

  Peace did not come, and nor did sleep.

  He stood motionless, praying, waiting for a sign.

  The sign came.

  The girl. The betrayal.

  Keller watched as Marlene struck the sheets and pillows. Only then did he open his mouth.

  An old song.

  The same one Sim’l had sung so many times to sweet little Lissy.

  “Nibble, nibble, little mouse! Who is nibbling at my house?”

  99

  Marlene swerved to the side.

  Behind her was the menacing form of a man, arms folded, his back to the wall. For a moment, she thought it was Voter Luis. She screamed.

  But wasted no time.

  Marlene the Brave lunged at Keller, who dodged her and grabbed her by the arm, squeezing it hard. The pain forced her to let go of the spoon. It fell to the floor. Marlene felt herself being lifted up. In vain, she struggled.

  Keller shook her and sent her thudding into the wall. She felt the vibration of the impact travel down her shoulder to her elbow and then up to her head. She was seeing double.

  Keller picked her off the floor and lifted her up once again in his steel grip. “I refused to believe it. I refused.”

  He shook her again, his face a mask of animal hatred, and flung her to the floor. Her forehead hit the floorboards. A spider’s web of white lights whirled in front of her eyes.

  Keller took her by the hair and dragged her out of the room. She attempted to struggle free, kicking and trying to sink her nails in the floorboards.

  “I refused,” he cried as he dragged her towards the stairs. “I refused to believe it.”

  Klaus!

  Marlene crossed her arms over her belly, raised her knees and bent her head, instinctively, to protect Klaus at all costs.

  Pain each time she hit a step. Teeth clenched, tears in her eyes.

  Her bones did not break.

  Keller was still shouting. “She told me! Yes, she told me!”

  Marlene mumbled words of apology, words that made no sense.

  “I told her it couldn’t be true,” he went on. “That you weren’t a bad person.”

  They reached the Stube.

  Keller crouched over her, his breath smelling of poppy. “I was wrong.”

  Marlene curled up, but he did not hit her.

  “I knew it. I knew it.”

  “Please . . .”

  “She never lies,” Simon muttered. “Never.”

  Marlene turned just enough to look him in the eye. “Who?”

  He opened the door to the cellar. She tried to crawl away. There was a poker next to the fireplace, which she could have used as a weapon. But her head w
as spinning and her shoulder throbbed. The violence of Keller’s attack had been a real shock. She was slow. Too slow.

  “Who?” she said again in a thin voice.

  Keller lifted her by the ankle as if she were one of the animals he hunted and killed.

  “Who?” Marlene cried one last time.

  There were nine steps down. She did not hit a single one. She landed straight on the floor, in the dark.

  100

  It was the smell, the sickly sweet stench that told her where she was even before she opened her eyes. She forced herself to breathe through her mouth, but it was worse: like having a sponge pushed down her throat. Her stomach churned, and she felt as if she were about to vomit. She managed to resist. She even managed not to start screaming. It would have been pointless anyway.

  She peered around her. The green light from the little window on her right, which looked into the pigsty, cast shadows over the mess under which the room was buried.

  Balls of spiders’ nests all over the place. Buckets tipped over, broken boxes.

  The Vulpendingen bones. And others she did not want to think about.

  In the middle, covered by the leather sheet, the monolith. In this strange light, the patterns seemed to move, like the coils of a snake.

  On all fours, moving like a crab, Marlene crawled to the little window, keeping her eyes fixed on the monolith, as if it might pounce on her.

  The light made her feel better. Marlene peered through. What she saw took her breath away. The carcasses of the pigs. Blood. A massacre.

  She retched and looked away.

  She huddled close to the window, raised her knees to her chest and hugged them tight. She cried, then stopped, then cried some more.

  The pain started all of sudden, at the base of her skull. She felt as if she were being pulled backwards. She slid, unwillingly going along with the force of it, and felt the pain again, even stronger than before, if that were possible.

  She tried to resist, and the pain made her scream. Groping, she felt something humid and alive on the other side of the metal bars, something that smelled rotten and wild, yanking her by the hair. She screamed.

  Again, she was yanked, and this time her hands and the back of her neck hit the bars. She tried to free herself. The pain increased.

  Lissy was strong.

  Marlene pulled away with all her strength, feeling her scalp splitting. The sound of tearing was awful. It hurt, but it worked. She fell headlong amid the junk. Panting, she turned.

  From the other side of the bars, Lissy was staring at her, a lock of hair in her fangs.

  Lissy. The only survivor of the massacre.

  Like Abraham, Keller had stopped short of killing his favourite.

  The panic ebbed away to be replaced by anger. Marlene approached the window and spat at the animal’s snout.

  “Fuck off, you bitch!”

  Lissy blinked.

  I know who you are, sweetie. I know it only too well. And I also know what you’re about to become.

  Marlene punched the bars. “You don’t know anything!”

  Lissy did not bat an eyelid. The hair had vanished from her fangs. Marlene did not want to know where it had gone. She slumped to the floor, her hands over her face.

  She was losing her mind. What was the point of picking on the sow?

  You’re food. That’s what you are, sweetie. Food for Lissy.

  Marlene got to her feet, climbed the nine steps and started beating on the cellar door with her fists. She yelled, thumping and kicking the door. All she got for her pains was scraped knuckles, but at least she had let off steam.

  She felt more lucid. Try to think, she told herself. There’s a lot of stuff down here. Your luck could change.

  She looked through the shelves, knocked over stacks of books, turned clothes and old suitcases upside down. Lifting a leather bag, she heard a metallic sound, and something fell to the floor.

  She groped around until she found the origin of the sound: a metal file. It was old, narrow and rusty, but . . .

  Lissy grunted.

  “Drop dead, you bitch!” Marlene cried, then burst out laughing and only managed to stop by biting her tongue until it bled.

  Brandishing the file as if it were a dagger, she imagined stabbing it into Simon Keller’s neck. The thought made her feel better.

  “Then it’ll be your turn,” she said, turning towards the window.

  She was answered by a bark-like grunt. Just try.

  She had to get out of here, or she would go mad. She climbed back up to the door, closed one eye and looked through the keyhole. All she saw was darkness, with maybe just the glow of the stove. Marlene inserted the file in the keyhole and started turning it, the way she had seen it done in the thrillers Wegener loved watching. It was madness, but she had nothing to lose. Fortune favours the brave, she told herself.

  The brave and (Mamma) the mad.

  Twice, she heard an encouraging sound, a click that filled her with hope, but twice the file slipped from her fingers. She did not give up. Concentrating hard, hair plastered to her face, she bent over the keyhole, trying once more to click it open.

  “Damned bitch. Damned b—”

  The file curved in her fingers and broke into two pieces, one of which bounced up. Marlene jumped back. The blade had narrowly missed her eye.

  Game over.

  Marlene burst into tears.

  101

  She was hungry, but mainly she was thirsty. The hunger increased by the hour, but the thirst was worse: it increased by the minute. And the more she tried not to think about it, the more it drove her insane.

  The stench in the basement had taken second place. She had got used to it.

  Marlene did not know how much time had passed. Hours? Days?

  Lissy’s grunts filled her with horror and disgust. Every so often, the sow would look through the bars, as if enjoying the show. Marlene had stopped insulting her. She was too thirsty, and it would have been a waste of energy.

  She had drifted off to sleep and woken up so many times she had lost count. Once, she thought she heard Simon Keller’s voice on the other side of the barred window.

  Sweet Lissy, little Lissy.

  Marlene had groped her way closer, pressed her face to the bars and seen him. Keller was stroking Lissy’s head. Marlene had begged him to let her out. She had cried and screamed. He had not so much as glanced at her. Neither had the sow. Marlene had resigned herself.

  Now she thought it must have been a dream.

  She was hungry, and she was thirsty. She had stopped begging some time ago.

  102

  It was the thirst. The thirst made her delirious. She talked to Lissy. She talked to her parents, mainly to her mother, but also to her dried-up little mouse of a father. She insulted them, then begged their forgiveness.

  She talked to Wegener.

  The world had shrunk to this stinking room, with Lissy’s breathing, grunting and snorting as background to the delirium and the thirst. The terrible thirst.

  At the end of the second day (or was it the beginning of the third?), her nostrils started to detect a vague smell of damp. It was a smell that went to her head, and it was torture.

  At first, she thought it was a trick of her imagination. The smell was real, though. Marlene sniffed and realised it came from the worst place of all. The window to the pigsty. No, no, no.

  She would not go near it. No, never again.

  But then she dragged herself to the window, only to turn back. One centimetre, two. Ten. Then back again.

  Time dragged on. Her fear subsided.

  Marlene spent hours looking at the monolith in the middle of the cellar.

  Going back and forth to the window.

  Towards the smell of water.

  After a while, the thirst obliterated the fear. She crawled, one centimetre at a time. When she reached the window, she pulled herself up into a seated, cross-legged position. Her back was aching and her knuckles, whi
ch she had hurt when pounding on the thick wooden door, felt itchy. She kept scratching them, making them bleed. She had tried drinking the blood but it had not helped. She needed water. That was all she asked for. A few drops.

  She reached out and ran her fingers over the metal, feeling the marks left by Lissy’s fangs. At the point where the metal met the stone, there was humidity. She lifted her fingers to her mouth. The water made her feel dizzy.

  She heard a grunt, and pulled away.

  You mustn’t, you mustn’t. You can’t, you can’t.

  Marlene sat there frozen, staring at the drops oozing from the chink in the wall.

  The thirst.

  She knelt in front of the window and put her lips to it. The dampness had a metallic taste. Her brain exploded with gratitude. She started licking, licking and crying, in gratitude and terror and madness.

  She did not stop licking for a second. Not even when she saw Lissy, motionless, staring at her.

  103

  The Trusted Man’s map was covered in red marks. All the places where Marlene had not been seen. All the places where the Wolf had not been seen.

  The red marks multiplied until they were superimposed, one on another. They created a borderline which, as the days and the questions went by, turned into an irregularly shaped patch that looked like the wound from a gunshot fired at point-blank range.

  In the middle, surrounded by all that red, was a tiny village, at the entrance to a long, narrow valley surrounded by tall peaks. A village like so many others, with a small church, steps leading up to its entrance, a few houses and an inn.

  The Trusted Man arrived there in the evening. And, as usual, he began to make friends. Three old men who liked a good laugh, to be precise.

  104

  The lights in the inn were still on well past midnight because the well-dressed stranger who had parked his car next to the church never seemed to tire, and he had the cash to buy them drinks.