“This is the second night your son has made such a fuss. Make it stop immediately, or I’ll shut the little prick up!”
As the crooked guy roared these words, drops of saliva flew out of his mouth again and again and landed on the boy.
“I understand all this is annoying you, but I promise it will soon be over. He snuck away when he realized it was on. My son didn’t want to disturb you. He just hasn’t gotten far enough. I’ll take him back to our place, and I’ll make sure he stays calm. No problem,” her discoverer addressed to the crowd, while spreading his arms soothingly.
“But ...” And now the man sounded angry and pointed to the crooked one.
“... if you, or any of you, come too close to my boy in bad faith, then God have mercy with him - or with his remains.”
He stared the crooked one right in the face.
“Is that understood?”
The two men had now distorted their faces to grimaces, which made especially the crooked look very dangerous and Mariam held her breath. The father asked again, but louder this time:
“Is that understood?”
And finally, to Mariam’s general joy and relief, after two more nerve-shattering seconds, the crooked man lowered its head, turned around and went back to its place. The father carefully picked up his son, and the crowd of onlookers began to dissolve. Mariam was now somewhat undecided what she should do. It would take some more time until the hurters would have calmed down.
How long had she been gone already?
Should she wait until they were all asleep again and then try to find some useful things to steal?
Tools or more fabric or rather metal and knifes?
Or was it better to scurry right back to the upper hall as soon as the opportunity presented itself?
As she thought about it, she watched the hurter-man who carried his son, whose cries had now given way to a quieter but still very painful sounding whimpering, back to his sleeping place and reassured him patiently.
She chose the latter. It was better to come back empty- handed than to be seen upstairs when the morning restlessness broke out and redsleeves began running around everywhere. Wanda had said that a little girl would certainly not be severely punished here, but Mariam knew it differently from the degenerates. There they had been punished badly, and sometimes even Wanda had gotten punished for things Mariam had done wrong. That had been the worst for her. No, she never wanted to be punished again, nor did she want to witness anymore punishment.
When she lay back on her lounger after briefly and incompletely telling Wanda about her nightly adventures and trying to fall asleep, the screaming of the boy in her mind just didn’t want to fade away.
I wonder what is wrong with him ...
Shepard
When Gustav pulled back the tarpaulin and was let in by the two boys who were guarding us, I was surprised. Surprised at how positively Wanda, and especially Mariam reacted to him. Her facial expression turned from mild boredom to a true sunrise at lightning speed when he arrived. She jumped up with a squeak and flew towards the doctor. Wanda’s face also brightened considerably, although she tried to be a little more composure. That she was happy about the visit could still be seen and the purity of her emotions was only clouded by a cautious side glance in my direction.
And she had been right, because in fact a spark of jealousy was churning through my brain, and her smile froze when she could read the correspondence of that emotion unfiltered in my face. She took a quick step back.
Jealousy?
Quickly I gained back control about my facial expressions and smiled, as I hoped, friendly into the round. Gustav had not noticed anything about the small scene anyway, as he was busy putting three children’s books in Mariam’s hands and told her a few words to each one.
The Brothers Lionheart and Ronja the Robber’s Daughter by Lindgren and Momo by Michael Ende. How long would there be people around who knew these works?
Before my brain drifted into an endless spiral of lamentation over everything that had probably been lost forever, I pulled myself together. It was only logical that Wanda and Mariam had become friends with Gustav. Not only had the doctor become a kind of anchor in the lives of the two, he also was for some reason the only person here in the camp who indulged in the luxury of not dealing with the necessities of daily life alone. He took the liberty of being nice. Despite, or perhaps precisely because of all the suffering and death that surrounded him in his hospital tent. I had to admire his inner strength, even though I on several occasions had seen grief in his eyes and the deep red glow of suppressed rage. Gustav now nodded at me, also smiling friendly, but much more reserved than he had done with the girls. I decided to start with a little small talk.
What was the situation in the hospital like?
The dogs worried him. Hardly a day goes by without new casualties, he said.
If he did have enough medication and bandages?
Yes, he’s had enough, he said.
And then I was a little ashamed to realize that we had already exhausted our common ground for discussion. Luckily Wanda jumped in for me, offered him a place at the camping table and pushed the can of ravioli, which she had warmed over a small gas cooker shortly before over in his direction. She asked precise questions about the dog attacks and it could be heard that this was not the first time they talked about the subject.
Yes, the black one had been there again, at least that was reported by the patrol of which two members had been injured at the riverbank yesterday.
Both Wanda and Gustav were concerned about the finesse with which the animals had attacked. Three of the dogs had charged head-on, and only when the fire of the patrol had concentrated on those, almost a dozen others had broken out behind the men’s backs, coming from house entrances and bushes. Gustav estimated that the number of animals was at least slightly exaggerated, but nevertheless, it seemed as if the dogs would become smarter. No one could say why and especially during the worst attacks of the animals a large, completely black specimen was seen again and again, which sometimes attacked together with its fellow beasts and sometimes seemed to wander around at the edge of the skirmish and observe everything.
When I suggested that the repeated sightings of the animal could be an equivalent of the well-known sailor’s yarn, and that it was possible for the members of the affected patrols to talk a lot in order to look better in front of the Ivan, Gustav basically agreed with me, but he also pointed out that the increased number of attacks tearing the last weeks was a fact.
He got a point there.
He explained his theory for the whole thing, and what he had to say seemed plausible to me. Adaption. Return to pack behavior. The black one is currently the alpha animal in the area, not only because of his size, aggressiveness and strength, but also because of his higher intelligence. As the icing on the cake, Gustav mentioned the winter and the resulting hunger of the animals, accompanied by the cold and snow. He had mostly addressed his words to me, but while he shovelled the few left ravioli into his mouth between his words, his gaze kept slipping towards Wanda and Mariam, who, apparently bored by the adult conversations, had withdrawn onto Wanda’s lounger.
Oh damn, he would have swallowed the last ravioli in a moment, and I still had no idea how to build the metaphorical bridge to my real concern.
Just as Gustav was holding the can of ravioli in front of his face and peered in to make sure it really was empty, and then, with a small, resigned sigh, began to scrape the remaining tomato sauce from the side walls with his spoon, Wanda jumped in again.
“Say, Gustav... the new prisoner - will he make it?”
“Yeah, Probably.”
Gustav wanted to speak more, but suddenly he stopped. His gaze jumped between Wanda and me. He sensed something. With a self-confident gesture he leaned back on the folding chair, his hands demonstratively relaxed on the camping table. His eyes were not hostile, but very, very attentive, like a teacher who might know that his stud
ents were about to play a trick on him.
“What do you two want?”
Something inside me calmed down.
You two, he had said.
He thought of us as one entity. Had I actually been jealous just a moment ago?
I looked over to Wanda and when I noticed that she had also looked at me, I turned away again. Meanwhile, the noises in the camp had increased. Although it was never completely quiet here, since the camp was also patrolled and sometimes somebody would work at night inside the camp and also there never really was peace and quiet with the hurters on the subway platforms, there has developed a clear day and night rhythm, and while we were talking the camp had completely awakened.
Nevertheless, I lowered my voice so that the two guards outside our tent could hear nothing they could pass on to Rolf or Ivan. Wanda turned her pale marble face in my direction.
“You can tell him everything,” she said quietly but emphatically.
The significance of these five words only became clear to me after a few seconds of absolute silence, which was only interrupted when Mariam turned over one side of the Brothers Lionheart.
Wanda told him.
She had inaugurated him without telling me about it. There it was again, the jealousy. There it was again, that indeterminate fear. I petrified my face as best I could, wanted to avoid at all costs that Gustav saw how much this new insight threw me off course - and then came the rage.
Wanda had not only handed herself over to a third party, but also me and Mariam. Even though I was one hundred percent sure that she had decided to reveal our plan to Gustav to the best of her knowledge and belief, and even though she might have good reason doing so, my head was simply not made for such situations. After years of wandering alone, I was already busy thinking again and again about our little group of three and my position in it, I had just begun to feel comfortable in our “us against the world” arrangement. I didn’t need a fourth person on the team. People are trouble. Always. But it didn’t help. Wanda had decided to trust the doctor, had drawn him into our small circle, and I could do nothing more about it. These thoughts seemed to have lasted for several seconds.
Gustav was still looking at me.
Wanda was still looking at me.
I hoped that my voice would work and began to speak.
“You know everything? Da Silva? The degenerates? How we met each other?”
Gustav just nodded.
“Okay. So you know who the man is they have brought into your tent yesterday?”
Another nod in response.
So far so good. I summarized for him what I had experienced last night and ended my speech with the suspicion that Wanda and I had. Rolf had something to do with Onehand and he wanted it to remain secret. I told him that we assumed that the three thieves I had pursued were also involved in the matter and that Rolf, having somehow learned that Ivan had put me on their trail, had taken advantage of his position as right hand of the Ivan, rounded up a bunch of redsleeves and then set out to finally cover his tracks. Whether Ivan also suspected Rolf, we could not know, but we had to assume for now that Rolf still enjoyed the full trust of the Eastern European. That’s why we had to question Onehand. And best of all, before the official interrogation by Ivan began, at which Rolf would certainly be present.
Gustav remained silent for a moment, pulled a single key from the pocket of his gown, played with it for a few seconds, and then said something that made me shiver.
“If the two of you are right, we have to make sure that you and Onehand stay alive until tomorrow’s interrogation. It will be best if you take care of yourself and I take care of this degenerate. Who knows what Ivan’s blond lapdog is planning? None of us can say who else is involved in the matter, and even if none of the others knowingly works with Rolf - he could still use his plays and hierarchy to pull his head out of the sling.”
With these words, that implied that the Rolf maybe would make an attempt on my life again Gustav stood up.
“I have to go back to the hospital now. I’ve been here for too long anyway.”
Then he reached again into the inside pocket of his worn out gown, stained with dried blood and who knows what other kinds of substances and liquids, made sure with a glance towards the tent entrance that he was unobserved and the tent tarpaulin was still closed and then put a bundle tied with hemp cord in front of me on the camping table. As he left the tent, he casually snorted at one of our guards to get out of his way - then he was gone.
As I slowly stretched out my hands for the bundle and began to lose the knots and Wanda seemed to be looking for something next to Mariam and her lounger, the girl asked why Gustav hadn’t said goodbye to her, but neither I nor Wanda answered her.
When I finally managed to untie the bundle and looked down at the metal parts, the bullets and the small knife with a big question mark on my face, Wanda took a seat opposite me on the chair Gustav had just sat on, put another bundle on the table and opened it. Then she started putting the gun together.
While I wordlessly watched as her fingers assembled the individual parts into a functional unit and finally loaded five rounds into the magazine, I tried to fight my anger with moderate success. When she was done, I started hissing and whispering at her.
“What are you doing? How long has he known? Why didn’t you tell me? Do you really trust me that little? Why does Gustav supply you with guns? What if you get caught with it? What...”
“Idiot!” she hissed back.
“Do you really think I’d leave everything to you? You really think I want to wait here in the tent until you get home from your ... heroics? In fact, I don’t even know why you’re with us in the first place. But one thing I know for sure: I will never again be dependent on anyone. I don’t want anyone’s charity and I will never let anyone else make decisions for me again. If you think you can handle everything on your own and are the only one who has a clue, then you are wrong! While you’re out there hanging out with your new buddies, playing tough guy and mucking around with Ivan, I’ve found us an ally. Maybe even a friend.”
She continued her tirade whispering angrily and I disengaged my conscious from the stream of her syllables. I was just too surprised about her outbreak. I really underestimated how hard it must have been for her to be stuck here. After her imprisonment and her traumatic powerlessness with the degenerates and the crumbs that fucking Thomas had thrown at her and left to take she had been forced to, it was probably really pure hell for her to every day wait for me and my reports of the world out there. And while I thought I had everything halfway under control and made good progress with our plan, she was suffering torments here in the tent.
At some point I succeeded in suppressing my surprize, my anger and my fears. I raised my hands soothingly and indeed the gesture caused Wanda’s torrent of words, which had obviously been accumulating for a long time, to slowly dry up.
Her otherwise pale face had reddened strongly during the emotional outburst and somehow she now looked embarrassed about herself, while she pushed the magazine into the pistol, probably just to keep her hands busy, then secured the gun and stowed it under her pillow next to Mariam, who watched us anxiously. The small knife she pushed in my direction and I took it and after short consideration wrapped its blade in the rags of cloth in which the weapon parts had been and pushed the small package at the inside of the leg into my left boot.
After we had settled down a little in this way, I turned again to Wanda, who was now sitting next to Mariam on the lounger, soothingly stroking her head.
“Okay. So you told Gustav everything. He knows about us, about Da Silva and that we want to get out of here as soon as the winter’s over, right?”
She nodded affirmatively.
“But what do you know about Gustav?”
She started talking. First a little faltering, but then faster and safer. Gustav wanted to get out of here, too. He too had his own agenda. But first things first.
Before the wa
r he had been a doctor in a military hospital in Landstuhl. And while the war was still raging and taking ever more cruel and ludicrous forms, he had served there. At the beginning his family had been accommodated in an apartment in a tranquil house with garden in Mittelbrunn, a close by town. A wife, a son and two daughters.
After the orderly fronts continued to break up and migrated from the national borders to the inland to finally collapse completely and the civilian population was increasingly affected, Gustav asked to be allowed to bring his family on the secured and guarded hospital grounds. But the officer responsible for the security of the military complex refused Gustav this favor.
What, if everyone would ask for favors like this? And so on, and so on. It then happened as it had to.
The turmoil of war brought a small, half-starved troop of deserters of some lost national force to Mittelbrunn and they did what traumatized, disillusioned and hungry soldiers were supposed to do.
When the troop had moved on, the house was burned down and Gustav could do nothing but bury the charred bodies of his loved ones. Then, mad with grief and anger, he killed the officer who had denied his family the protection of the fortified and guarded hospital. After that he escaped. From the first time that followed this helpless act of despair, he had told Wanda nothing but either by chance, luck or wise foresight, he had managed to survive the last battles and the final, pointless use of weapons of mass destruction in the last phase of the war.
After some time of lonely wandering he found connection to a small community of other survivors in the Black Forest. The war had largely spared this area, but when the supply of food and other goods became delivered less and less frequent at some point and finally the trucks did not show up anymore at all, hunger also came there. Although the area had a lot of agricultural tradition and one should think that the remote and not completely industrialized places in general should have it easier to deal with emergency situations and supply bottlenecks like this, it quickly came to unrest within the small municipality.
Under Ivans Knout: The Gospel of Madness (Book 2 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series)) Page 6