The three thieves must have been diverting weapons and supplies from Ivan’s stock for quite some time now and had bunked them everywhere in the former car dealership, so that there was a lot more to carry back than what they had dragged there last night.
While my gaze glided over Mariam, who – fortunately - was still sleeping peacefully, and had once again snuggled up to Wanda on her lounger, I expressed my agreement with what Wanda had just said.
Yeah, why were three of Ivan’s boys helping a fucking degenerate who, it looked like, had been shot by their own patrols some time ago?
Was there a personal connection between them?
Were those men agents of the Degs who were supposed to make preparations for an attack on Ivan’s camp?
No. Unlikely.
Or had they discovered Onehand by chance in the course of their independent escape plans and then wanted to nurse him back to health out of pure pity?
That was at least as absurd.
Too bad we couldn’t interrogate them anymore, but the brute attack Rolf had ordered had robbed us of this possibility. Something worried me when I thought about it and I was pretty sure that it wasn’t just the fact that Rolf had accepted my death when he gave the order to fire.
On the way back to the station nobody had really been chatty. Ingo and Jörn, two men I knew from earlier patrol missions, were particularly silent. Probably they had realized that they could have shot me with ease and it had only been a stroke of luck that Rolf’s order hadn’t turned them into comrade killers. But that wasn’t really what bothered me most and I didn’t hold a grudge against the two, whose eyes had dodged mine as best as possible. What interested me much more, and what Wanda was also concerned about, was the question why Rolf had followed me at all.
I couldn’t think of an answer at the moment, except that he might have wanted to check up on me. That he suspected me of something. And so I dried myself, threw the threadbare towel with bear motif over a line stretched across the tent and then got dressed again.
I got ready to face Ivan and give him my report.
When I was picked up by two of Ivan’s boys and one, as always ill-tempered Stumptooth, I could guess that Wanda, who had now stretched out on the lounger next to Mariam without waking her up, let her thoughts revolve around the whole story over and over again while she stared at the tent cover above and casually stroked Mariam’s head.
Rolf must have entered Ivan’s tent right before me, because I just saw him reach for a large cup of coffee, add a good shot of vodka and, facing Ivan’s throne-like chair, sit down at the table covered with the remains of an opulent breakfast. At first I was not sure how I should behave. But then, when Rolf began to report to Ivan and the big East European seemed to take no notice of my presence and instead listened to Rolf’s words, who had just laid out his version of the events and finished by telling that the captured and guarded Onehand had been brought to Gustav’s hospital tent, who would keep him alive - at least for a while - Rolf called it fit for questioning - I decided to search Ivan’s tent for a coffee cup myself and after a minute among all the antique and modern weapons, the microwave, the stereo and all of the remaining chaos I found one, too, and then served myself from the big pot on the table.
After the first sip I realized once again that Ivan kept all the good stuff to himself. The coffee tasted great. Real. Not instant. Ivan’s razor-sharp gaze had been on Rolf the whole time and I wondered whether he felt as uncomfortable under Ivan’s eyes as I did.
At least you couldn’t tell. The man didn’t bat an eyelid and in thoughts I paid him respect. Rolf had finished his report and now it was up to Ivan to upgrade his coffee with a big sip of vodka - if in his cup had been coffee at all.
I am sure Ivan would want to hear my thoughts on what had happened, but I did not dare to disturb the uncomfortable silence in the tent, which was only interrupted by Ivan’s deliberate slurping noises, and therefore waited until I got permission to speak.
While Ivan drank loudly and pleasurably, his eyes slowly glided back and forth between Rolf and me. Then, with his deep, accentuated voice he gave me the order to speak. I reported on the pursuit of the three renegades, described the paths and tunnels they had taken, reported on the overclimbed wall, the car dealership and Onehand’s camp that I had found in there. Then about me being discovered by the defectors, the shots I narrowly escaped and then about how Rolf had saved my life by giving the order to shoot after hearing that I was in trouble.
In consultation with Wanda, I had decided to portray the last part of the chaotic events in this way and to let go untold that Rolf had let his men shoot up the entire dealership and not just the area from which the defectors’ shots must have had to be heard. And so, instead of complaining that I very likely could have been killed, in Ivan’s presence I expressed my gratitude to Rolf and praised his prudent style of leadership, as he had not only managed to slay the three renegades and save me from a deadly situation, but also not to lose a single man in course of the whole adventure.
Ivan’s eyes rested on me for a long time and I didn’t know if he accepted false gratitude for the real thing or if he saw right through me.
Then he asked for Onehand.
Was that really the man who chased me around Frankfurt and enslaved Wanda?
Yes, he was, absolutely.
“And so is this Onehand a member of those degenerate sect you were talking about?”
Yes, he was.
“And these three renegades nursed and fed him?”
Yeah, at least that’s what it looked like.
Ivan took note of these answers angrily and with quite some unwillingness.
“Not only do my own people steal from me and ungratefully take advantage of my generosity, now they’re also making a pact with some cult wackos and forge plans against me! Fucking bastards!”, he summed things up angrily.
I listened away, looked for a spot on the table and stared at it, because if I had learned one thing in the meantime, it was that Ivan’s angry tirades quickly began to spin in circles and that they generally only ended when his energy was running low - which could take a while.
I hadn’t gotten any sleep that night, just like Rolf. A quick glance in his direction confirmed to me that he too knew Ivan’s moods well enough and simply waited under an interest and approval feigning mask until the wrath of his leader would subside.
At some point Ivan was actually finished and his predatory intelligence reappeared in his gaze. He said that he had to think about all this first. But tomorrow we should be present for the interrogation of Onehand - and then he dismissed us.
When Rolf and I left the tent, our eyes crossed. I thought that my curiosity and attention were written into my face, I expected Rolf to say something, but he just looked at me inscrutably and strange. Then he abruptly turned his back on me and walked away in direction of the subway tracks. Stumptooth and two gunmen with red armbands had already been waiting for me and escorted me back to my tent.
Mariam had woken up and was sitting at our camping table, having breakfast with Wanda. As always, the little one was happy to see me and her pale face shone. I successfully fought my fatigue and sat with them. Ivan’s coffee had helped something. Afterwards, following the routine we had developed in our captivity, Mariam’s schooling began, which Wanda and I divided among us as best we could. When the lessons were over, I stretched out on my lounger. Now I was completely exhausted and all the facts, all the rules of calculation and grammar, bizarrely got mixed up in my brain with the horrible experiences of last night.
I was woken up by Wanda shaking my shoulder.
“Hey. Come on, get on your feet, Gustav should be coming by soon.”
At first I had no idea who or what she was talking about, but then the clarity, dripping slowly, came back into my consciousness. Gustav, the doctor who, out of kindness, so it seemed, supplied us with books. Gustav, the doctor, with the gloomy, painful look under a mask of impartial kindness and
care. Gustav, whom we believed he would also like to leave Ivan’s camp. Gustav, in whose tent and in whose care the injured Onehand was kept for the moment.
“I’ve been thinking,” Wanda said.
“There’s something very wrong with Rolf. What if he didn’t just want to finish off the three thieves, but all of you? Really all of you, including Onehand? What if he knew about him? Why has he been out with that many men? It was about a dozen, right? Aren’t patrols usually smaller? As you told it, each of the men used up at least three magazines during the whole action. I mean, there are quite some supplies here in Ivan’s camp, yes, but to squander that much ammunition still seems strange, right?”
I proved her right. It all seemed very strange to me too. And now, after sleeping for a while, all the more. Ivan too must have thought about all those questions that Wanda had just expressed. But since Rolf had been in Ivan’s throne room before me, I did not know how he had explained himself to the Russian or whether this whole action had finally taken place at the behest of the Lord of the Rats.
If Wanda was right and Rolf had me in his crosshair, I was doubly lucky. The first time, that I hadn’t been shot and the second time, because I had instinctively and vociferously revealed myself. That’s why not only Rolf quickly noticed who I was and where I was, but also the three boys he had taken along as vanguards. The other men who had secured the area outside with their assault rifles in front of the dealership must have heard me, too, I believe.
Their testimony, their presence may have been my life insurance at that moment. Somehow this whole thought construct seemed ridiculous to me, at the same time shaky but still plausible. The latter especially when I thought about how Rolf had called me a lucky man.
Had there been an undertone in his voice?
A certain lurking in his gaze?
And later, outside Ivan’s tent?
Wanda was right. Something was wrong with Rolf. We had to find out if he had something, and if so, what exactly he had to do with Onehand. And to figure that out, we had to talk to Onehand. And this had to happen alone and undisturbed by bystanders and before the big interrogation would begin or Onehand might have perished on his old or his new wounds. Wanda had looked me in the face the whole time, and when she could read that I had followed her train of thought, she nodded contentedly.
“Gustav,” I said.
“Yes, Gustav,” she said.
Mariam
Mariam peered out from under the tarpaulin. There was nobody to be seen and it seemed relatively quiet all around. This was her third nightly hunt for precious prey and she had already gotten used to a certain routine. Quickly and quietly like a little mouse, she scurried to the tent next door and crouched around it. A reassuring look around the corner, then on to the large accumulation of canisters, bags and pallets with cans piled up on them. This was a particularly dangerous part of her journey, as the supplies were usually guarded very well, even at night.
Luckily Mariam found out on her first trips that the two redsleeves, whom usually were entrusted with this task, often liked to disappear for a while in a tent where even more supplies were stored. She suspected that they would mate there. She had often seen this, only that, in her time with the bad people who stank and were mean, that had always taken place in the circle where everyone could watch and the bad men mostly laughed and the others cried.
Once she too had been dragged into the middle for mating and she had been very scared and ashamed and crying, but then Wanda had thrown a stone at one of the men and then it had been her who had to go into the circle. Things seemed different here, at least most of the time. Those who did it sometimes smiled at each other and here it seemed to be much less bad to her.
She crept on to the tent next to the big one where Gustav lived and worked. From there, she went down to the stairs. She often took breaks to peek around corners or to listen to how far a patrolling group of two of the redsleeves might be away. She took her time because there was nowhere to hide on the stairs. She had to be absolutely sure that no one was there, before she could set foot on them.
That night, too, the girl was lucky. On this platform, directly at the foot of the stairs, she had already found a lot of loot. She had stolen some things, but now and then one of the frail inhabitants was still awake and had seen her. People down here were different from the ones with the red armbands on top. Where the men and women up in the hall were rather angry, tense and loud and screamed and pushed each other sometimes even beat each other, almost like the degenerated tent people, folks down here were rather sad - sad and weak and slow, but they argued only rarely. Most of them even tried to smile when they saw her.
During her last round of thievery, an old woman lay awake, next to her little fire, and in the faint light Mariam had been able to see the smile with which the woman tried to get her to come closer. With a well-meaning gesture the old woman had waved at her and Mariam had simply known that she did not want to harm her. They hadn’t talked much. The old woman had only pointed at a tin can on the almost burnt down fire. Mariam, with the help of a rag nearby, had taken it down and waited a little until the stew in the can had cooled down. The old woman pointed to a dirty spoon, and then Mariam had alternately fed the old woman and herself. When the can was empty and Mariam held it out in such a way that the old woman could see that the tinny floor had already been reached, she smiled, then nodded and fell asleep again. Mariam left her the rag with which she had taken the can from the fire and the spoon. But everything else that lay around the small fire and seemed useful Mariam took with her, taking great care not to awaken anyone else from the people lying close together, whom Wanda called the “hurters”.
Mariam had slung her prey into a large piece of tent fabric, which she also had found and made her way back. Darling, that was a right away raid, Wanda had said with a smile and praised her and Mariam hoped very much that she today would be as lucky as she has been that day.
She heard something from the right and quickly ducked behind a rusty barrel in which the remains of a fire were still glowing. Although she enjoyed the warmth, she became a little cold as the two redsleeves, which were assigned here today, passed the barrel, not interrupting their quiet conversation.
In the back of the two men she scurried on ahead. Now she was on the platform. She was strangely happy to be among the hurters, because on the one hand the girl felt closer to the people down here than to the armed men and women up in station hall and on the other hand they lived that close to each other that it was easy for her to find shelter behind boxes, tents and improvised partitions built up for privacy reasons when necessary. Even more, she didn’t stand out down here. Firstly, there were significantly more children among the hurters than there were above and secondly, someone was always awake somewhere. Someone was always talking quietly with a relative or a neighbor, but not like above. Upstairs they often yelled or at least spoke in some ugly command tone. Down here, people took the sensitivities of others into account, at least most of the time. Nevertheless, there was a constant background coming made of general noises of life in which she could immerse and hide herself.
Only once before had she witnessed something like an argument among the hurters. But it had been an argument Mariam could understand the reason for.
While sneaking around the sleeping and dozing at night to get the things Wanda needed - Wanda said they wouldn’t be here much longer and that when the time came they had to be as well equipped as possible - a boy had kind of screamed. He had screamed in a way that Mariam had become frightened and afraid and he just didn’t want to stop. Soon people all around were waking up. The first looked after the boy, who had curled up on his dirty blanket, as Mariam could see after a few seconds in the relative darkness behind her cover. Those who woke up later asked concerned questions. They shook his shoulders, bent over him, thought he had nightmares and just needed to be woken up, but Mariam could see that it was not a dream that the boy was screaming about.
He
was in pain. His eyes were wide open.
The other handicapped and war-scarred people all around wanted to give him some water, but the boy fiercely fought them off, wriggled and twisted while he held his belly. Meanwhile more hurters had woken up and soon a bunch of people gathered around the boy and they began to shout for quiet, showed some well-meaning advice or just to be let through so that they could see something. When someone stepped behind her and put an arm on her shoulder, Mariam was deeply shocked, so that the blood shot in her face and her head got very hot.
“Come on girl, this is nothing you should see. Go back to your place.”
And then the man was already past her on his way to the screaming boy. Mariam did not move for a few seconds in shock, but soon she realized that the man had not paid any further attention to her. Children were more part of the picture down here, and it wasn’t uncommon for children to get scared when there was so much yelling all around. She didn’t have to hide as much down here on the platforms as she did up in the hall, she remembered. Of course, no one should see her taking things, but simply being around was obviously no reason to sound the alarm.
This realization had dampened the screaming of the boy and the others in her conscious perception to a certain degree when she registered how the voices changed. They became angrier and after a few seconds of noisy confusion only the constantly crying screams of the boy and the voices of two men yelling angrily at each other could be heard. The circle that had formed around the pitiful child had grown wider, people had retreated a little and the gaps between them were now bigger so that Mariam could see again. One of the men was the one who had just put his hand on her shoulder. He faced another man who was tall but had an oblique posture and his face looked as if a lot of bees had stung him. The boy twisted between them on the floor.
Under Ivans Knout: The Gospel of Madness (Book 2 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series)) Page 5