"We were twelve children, named alphabetically, with name starting on 'A' for the first, 'B' for the second and so on. This was a family tradition. Father was number seven so he had a name starting on 'G'. He was named Gerhardt.
Yes, it is rather peculiar, I know.
When I was a child, Mother Uta used to say that babies came from a water lilly pond in Heaven. She said that a baby grew in each bud, and when the baby was big enough the bud opened and a stork came to fetch the baby and fly down to Earth with it.
Very pretty story, yes.
When Dieter and Johann died, Mother said that they had had one good look at the world, and had decided that they did not like the place and wanted to go back to the water lilly pond. They were only a few months old when they died.
When Franz died Mother said that God had taken back his favorite angel.
When Lorenz died, three days old, he took Mother with him back to Heaven.
I wonder what she would have said to comfort us when Karolina drowned and Ermengarde froze to death. I wonder what she would have said when Bertha when giving birth to her first child. I wonder what she would have said when Ina got guillotined in the Revolution. And I really wonder what Mother would have said when Georg went mad.
Oh, did you drop your book? I'll pick it up.
Here.
You're welcome. Where was I? Oh yes.
Mother died in the summer of 1746. I was fifteen and had started my apprenticeship at a portrait painter's shop in Kiel. Bertha was about to get married and Albrecht was at the university of Heidelberg.
Father followed Mother a couple of months later, and no-one of us could take care of the kids; Ermengarde, Georg, Hildegarde and Ina, and Karolina.
Fortunately, we thought at the time, a distant relative offered to take care of them, raise them as his own children. He was a very churchly man who could quote the Bible and sing most of the psalms in the psalm book. We thought that he would be a good guardian for the kids.
Later, when it was too late, Hildegarde and Ina told me and Albrecht that *he* had wanted to save their souls from sin by killing them one by one. From what little they could tell of the two and a half years they had spent in this hell-hole, we gathered that *he* thought that *he* might gain entrance into Heaven by saving people from sin.
Well...
The easiest way to prevent someone from sinning is to make sure there is never an opportunity to sin, and you can't sin if you are dead.
We could not get anything out of Georg since he had lost his memory after a violent fever which almost killed him.
*He* had decided to take Karolina first, since she was the youngest. And in the first winter after the kids arrival to *his* house, in january, Karolina was put in a bucket with water. Then *he* placed a heavy rock on the lid so that she could not get out. A whole day passed before he decided that she was now properly 'saved'. This was in january 1747, and Karolina was four years old.
We were told of her death, but since kids die all the time we saw nothing strange in this. And so we never went to the funeral. Why? We simply didn't have neither the time nor the means to get there.
Ermengarde had tried to write to Albrecht, and to me, but neither of us had gotten any letters. One of the servants had, when asked to take the letters to the post office, given them over to *him*. She did not know about this and thought that we did not care about what happened to her and the kids.
To our shame, we had been too busy living our lives in Köln, where I had moved after a year in Kiel, and in Heidelberg that we did not worry when we heard nothing from them. 'No news are good news' as the saying goes.
Yes, rather naive, I know.
The girls told us that Ermengarde had said to them that this is what family ties are worth, absolutely nothing.
The next winter it was Ermengarde's turn to be 'saved'. It was a bitterly cold winter that seemed never to end.
According to what we found in *his* papers, he thought that since Ermengarde was older she needed to suffer more in order for her soul to be saved. So she was chained to a wall in the back of the house, where the Northern wind was on the hardest. Two days later *he* concluded that she was saved from this world. Ermengarde was thirteen years old.
This time we came to her funeral, and found to our chock that the kids, whom we thought had been well fed and well clothed were hidden away in a back room. And when we finally were allowed to see them, we could hardly recognize them. They were so thin, and so dirty. And their clothes were full of patches. Ermengarde had obviously tried to keep them whole and clean, but not have had the means for it.
We decided on the spot that the kids were not going to live there any more. And the day after the funeral, we simply took them with us, and didn't bother to tell any of this to the authorities. *He* had enough money to buy himself out of any trial.
There's one law for those who have money and the right connections, and then there's another law for those without.
Do sit still, miss.
Of course *he* was pretty upset that Albrecht and I would not allow him to save the kids.
Please look *this* way. I can't draw your face if you keep looking away the whole time.
When we came to Hiedelberg, where Albrecht lived, Georg fell ill. He was in a critical condition for a long time. He had hallucinations from time to time, and would try and fight against creatures only he could see. When he recovered, he had changed totally. The Georg I knew was not there anymore.
What he was like before? The sweetest little kid. Look at the painting at your left. No not that one, *that* one. See that boy in the brown coat with the toy horse? That's him, was him, before the disaster.
He was totally changed after his sickness. And he did not recognize us. I'd tell him my name, and he'd wonder who I was. And then he'd ask if that girl was Albrecht, and I had to tell him it was Hildegarde, and that Albrecht was a name for a boy. Then he'd ask why. But he could still read and write. Thankfully.
Yes it is strange. But worse was that he would from time to time go into such rages, that the whole household, including a very strong handy-man, would stay out of his way, and not interfere. He'd bite anyone who tried to restrain him, or throw things at anyone who dared going near him.The littlest thing could set him off into another fit. He became a terror.
And nobody knew what to do about it. Everyone were helpless.
The only thing that could stop such a rage was to simply let him go for a ride on his favourite steed, Herzlein. And as a consequence he spent most of his waking time with horses, since, as he would put it, they don't know how to hurt people. For someone so young he was a very skilled horseman.
That was the only thing left of the old Georg. His fascination, love, of horses. One day, before he was to leave for the Academy, I went into the stables, looking for him. It was dinner-time. I heard him recite something from La Fontaine's Fables. Then I saw him sitting on the floor in Herzlein's stable. Georg was reading a fable for a horse. The story of the raven and the fox, I think. He looked so sane and normal, I thought he was back to his old self. Then I told him it was dinner-time, and he told me he did not want to eat with humans but with people.
(Claus, continued)
Well, Georg was sent of to that military Academy in Berlin. From the letters his teachers sent me, I gathered that he had not changed in his manners against people, or creatures. Meaning that he was rude and obnoxious against his superiors and his teachers, when he was not ignoring them completely. But he was allowed to stay since they thought that he was very good with horses, and the world always have use for good horsemen.
Please turn your face this way, young lady!
Another thing he excelled at was fencing and archery. When he was fifteen he was challenged to duel by the principal's son. Georg won, mostly because the other one was not as agile and fast as he was.
The summer after that he left the Academy, taking only his clothes, and an old sword that he had won in a bet.
For twenty years we heard nothing from him. Absolutely nothing.
Meanwhile I got to Paris to make myself famous, found a few good patrons who'd help me financially, got married to the pretty daughter of my landlady, had children. My speciality were portraits and still lives. Still are.
Your'e getting cramps? Well I think I have your pose down now, so you may shift around a bit.
Albrecht became a secretary to a Prussian duke, who was sent to Paris as ambassador. He married a young widow, with a lot of money, and got a family of his own.
When I look back now, I can't imagine that I did not know how good my life was then. I had a reputation, and a small fame. Life was good. So good.
One day I was summoned to go to Hesse to paint a portrait of the whole royal family. And I went there, because I thought that this was another merit for me. I won't bore you with descriptions of the journey. My family was to stay in Paris since I figured that I'd only stay there for a while, less than three months.
In Kassel, the capital of Hesse, I stayed at a friend of mine, Peter Vogel, who had studied together with me in Köln.
He was strongly critical of Hesse's involvement in the war in the Colonies across the Atlantic, and wanted to protest in a way that would not land him in jail.
So he painted a satire, based on a painting of the king and his advisors sitting around a table. But instead of the king and the other worth people, he put a band of mercenaries around the table, with the leader of the band sitting just like the king.
Among the faces on the sheets I saw one that was very familiar to me. For a moment I thought I saw Father, but then I remembered that Father would never have his hair like that, and that he would never have his teeth filed down like this stranger. Then I thought that this might be Georg, so I asked Peter what this man's name was.
'I don't know', he said,' but the others call him Isegrim.'
It took a few hours of persuasion before he agreed to take me to the lodgings.
I've never seen a group of men like those mercenaries. Cold eyes that seemed to calculate how much you were worth either dead or alive, and then those names. Strange names, like Rot-Schwantz or Le Neigeux. I saw the one called Isegrim at a distance, as he was entering the stables. But I recognized him at once. It was Georg. Dressed all in black, with his hair on end, but it was him. My brother.
I was then introduced to the leader of the gang. His name was Captain Suomi. Suomi means Finland in Finnish, I was told.
I wanted to meet this man called Isegrim, and I told Peter why. When I said something about this Isegrim being mad, I got a yelling-at from a young man tending to his horse. Peter told me that the young man was the one closest to my brother.
He lead us to the stables, where we found him yelling at a servant who had forgotten to bring something for his horse. I stepped forward and greeted him. He turned around. I have never ever seen anything that mad before. He was as mad and as vicious as a mob. And he did not recognize me. I tried to tell him who I was, but he said that he had no brothers.
God, how he had changed.
Sorry. My hands shakes too much. I guess we have to finnish for today.
He threatened me with an axe. Peter dragged me out of there. We heard the young man, Rot-Schwantz, yell after us, but we didn't hear what he said.
That was the last time I saw him. Lord, how he had changed.
Sorry. I keep seeing his mad eyes, and filed-down teeth. Such a terrible change. Terrible.
We haven't heard anything about him since then. He's probably dead. And if he is, then I hope he rests in peace. If he's alive, then I can only hope he has gotten his senses back.
Please leave now, Miss. We can continue tomorrow. I'm an old man, after all.
The birds were singing in the trees as the sun sunk down into the red clouds at the horizon. The stars was shining bright, and there was no moon tonight. The air was still mild, after the unusually hot day. It was in the middle of june, just before midsummer. The ghosts at the graveyard was stirring around, waiting for the Hessian. There was something in the air tonight, an expectant mood, a feeling that something was about to happen, though no one of the ghost could tell exactly what it was that caused this feeling.
The Hessian rode quietly through the village on his usual round. The villagers now knew him as Georg Aschenbach, the new gamekeeper of miss van Tassel. Apparently the new clothes had made it easier for him to get accepted by the community, even though he had done very little to change the rest of his appearance. The hair was still spiking in all directions, and his skin was pale as ever. But now it was considered an aristocratic kind of pale.
When he spoke to anyone of the inhabitants of the village, he always had a hand over his mouth, or tried to move the lips as little as possible, to hide his teeth.
When he arrived to the graveyard he immediately felt the anxiousness among the the ghosts coming against him like the proverbial thick waves.
"It's reverend Steenwycke", Hardenbrook explained.
"What is he doing now?"
"We don't know yet, but he's hiding something."
"Hessian!" someone called.
The Hessian turned to see who it was. It was the reverend, waving at him.
"What do you want, reverend?"
"If I could get out of here, could you take me to Hell?"
"Why do you want to go to Hell?"
The rest of the ghosts collectively dropped their jaws in surprise.
"You can't get out of the graveyard!" exclaimed the ghost of Baltus van Tassel.
"Well, I think I can."
"How?" asked the Hessian.
"By walking out through the gate."
"That's impossible, we have all tried to get out of here," said Dr. Lancaster.
"Precisely. But you didn't try to walk through the gate."
"Show us", said the Hessian
The reverend swallowed audibly, but hovered to the graveyard gate. There he closed his eyes, put his hand on the gate and pushed. The gates opened and he, still with closed eyes, walked out.
The surprised silence was thick enough to cut with a knife. Steenwycke opened his eyes and looked around. He was outside the graveyard, and in one piece, as far as ghosts could be in one piece. The Hessian shook his head in puzzled amusement.
Inside the graveyard the other ghosts began to discuss this unexpected success.
"Well," the Hessian said, "seems like you got a brain under that wig."
"I wasn't sure if I was right, but I was wasn't I?"
"Evidently."
Behind them the other ghosts tried to get through the gate.
"It's no use. We can't get out!" Baltus van Tassel exclaimed.
"You'll have to believe that the gate isn't there."
"So it all comes down to whether you *believe* you can or not," the Hessian asked the reverend.
"I guess so. I'm not sure. But I got out."
"You said something about going to hell."
"Where is this?" reverend Steenwycke asked as he and the Hessian was riding through the place between places.
"It's the Nowhere", the Hessian answered.
"Where is Hell?"
"On the other side."
They rode on in silence.
Standing outside the gates of Hell, the reverend tried to collect himself long enough to actually lift one hand and knock.
"Why do you want to go to Hell?"
"Because Jane is there."
"She deserved it."
"I know, but I still love her. Even now when I know that she just used me, I still love her."
"So you are going the share the hellfire and the brimstone with her?"
"Yes, if she wants me to."
"And if not?"
"Then I'll tell her I forgive her, and then I'll ask whomever in charge to let me end this existence, and to be allowed to move on to a new existence elsewhere."
"You have read about Eastern philosophers?"
"Once. I like the idea of a second chance to right your wrongs. I liked it even better when I died and found that I didn't go anywhere."
They shook hands, and the Hessian wished the reverend good luck. Then Steenwycke knocked on the gates to Hell.
There seemed to be more to the reverend than anyone had thought, the Hessian pondered. Not only had he managed to get out of the graveyard, he had gone to Hell just to be with that woman!
As Georg rode back through the Nowhere, he thought about that long letter that has arrived a couple of weeks before. Something in that long letter had troubled Ichabod a lot. But he had not shown it to Georg, which could mean two things; either it was not anything interesting, or it was something very interesting. Anyways, Georg thought, anything that troubled Ichabod was of interest to him.
He made his decision.
Later that night Georg walked silently into Ichabod's house. He walked up the stairs to see if Ichabod was sleeping yet.
Ichabod was knocked out by the heat and slept with an open window. If it was this hot in june, then what wouldn't july be like. Now was a perfect opportunity to go and look for that letter. Ichabod used to put the letters he got from miss van Tassel in a drawer, in a slant-front desk in the room he used as an office, and not bother to lock it.
As Georg walked as silently as he could out of the bedroom, he looked back at Ichabod. The young man had kicked off his sheets and lay uncovered in the light from the stars. Gorgeous, Georg thought. But he would freeze a bit in the morning though. The mornings were always cold, and a bit damp. He walked down the stairs to the office.
There they were. Small bundles of letters tied together with black cords, each cord bearing a tag with the year the letters were from. Except for the long letter, the one he wanted to find. Where was it? He dug further into the drawer, and found the letter he was looking for in the far back. Hidden, he thought, hidden so I would not find it. This means it concerns me quite a lot. On the other hand, would he not have locked the drawer if he had not wanted me to read it?
He was still arguing with himself when he opened the letter and started to read.
Georg tried to make sense of Katerina's handwriting. Was that scribble supposed to be an 'e' or an 'r'? And what's an 'easel'? He went to the book-case where Ichabod stored his books. Georg knew that Ichabod had a dictionary and a German-English word-book there. He was so occupied with translating the letter for himself that he did not really *read* it, but rather looked at the words one by one, trying to figure out what each of them meant.
Then he read it through.
An ice-cold feeling spread from his stomach to his heart and his throat. He remembered those bleak days of so long ago. When life was gray and without hope. His hand closed around the letter, and the soft rustling sound from the paper made him think of dead leaves under deep snow, of pages being turned in a book, of hands ripping out pages in the book to light a fire.
'We take the boring tales first', Ermengarde had said when sacrificing her fairy-tale book. 'The ones with saints and angels go first.'
There had been a candle left behind by a kind old woman, which Ermengarde used to start the fire with. That kind woman had been the only servant of the house that Ermengarde had trusted in the end. But the letters she had been asked to send had been left to her master, *him*. So frau Baum had been a traitor after all.
They had played a game, pretending that their room was a cave in a big dangerous forest. The servants were trolls that would hit the children if they saw them, and the master of the house a cruel dragon who ate plenty but shared none of his riches. The children had snuck out of the room to steal firewood and food. Most of the time it was Ermengarde who did the stealing while Georg stayed and looked after Hildegarde and Ina. But then Ermengarde had broken her ankle, and it had healed badly, so the responsibility had gone over to Georg. Unfortunately, Georg was not a good thief.
Claus had no idea what they have gone through, those four children huddled in front of a tiny fire in the fireplace in the darkest room in the house. And what had he said about Captain Suomi's troupe? They were *not* monsters! They did *not* have cold eyes, they were *good* humans! Fury mingled with the cold feeling.
Yes, Georg remembered the day he had met Claus. Such a wimp. Thought a smile and a few nice words could make up for his ignorance. 'No news is good news' indeed! The thought put a furious snarl on his face. Everybody knew that if there was no news, then it meant the messenger was either killed or a traitor, and that was not good news.
Georg recalled it all so vividly now, and the memory shook him. The ice-cold fury melted, giving way to a deep sorrow. He had not mourned those days of so long ago, at first because he did not remember them, then because he did not want to think about them.
He stood up and walked out of the house, not caring if he woke anyone when he slammed the door.
Ichabod woke from a disturbing dream, in which people called him Johnny, and Georg had been called Chris. Somebody was shooting with a gun, or was that a door slamming shut? Could that be burglars entering, or leaving, the house?
After a few seconds Ichabod decided to fight his instinct to crawl under the bed and hide, and walk down the stairs to see if anything had been stolen. Gun in hand, wishing for Georg to be there next to him, he left the relative safety of his room.
Nothing had been stolen, but someone had read the letter he had hid in the back of the drawer. Since that someone also had picked down a dictionary and a German-English word-book, he could deduce that it had been Georg. The letter was rather crumpled, indicating strong negative emotions.
Ichabod guessed that Georg needed him right now. Even if his bad-tempered lover would rather go to Hell than admitting to it. Making a decision, he walked back upstairs and put on his clothes. He was going to look for Georg and provide as much comfort and listening as Georg could bear.
Ichabod was into this relationship for better and for worse. And now, obviously, the 'for worse' time had come.
The forest was silent, a curious, nervous silence. Ichabod felt as if every creature in the woods watched him as he walked down the old indian trail to the Tree of the Dead. He thought he saw the trees move out of his way to let him through the forest easier. Or maybe that was just his imagination.
Daredevil trotted down to Ichabod as the notary entered the clearing where the Tree was. The horse shook his head as if saying 'follow me.'
Ichabod was lead to the grave near the Tree. Georg sat beside it, resting his head on his knees, arms folded round his legs.
"Hello", said Ichabod tentatively.
No answer.
Ichabod sat down on the ground next to Georg.
"I wanted you to read that letter, but I could not get around to actually hand it to you."
No reply.
"I'm sorry."
"For what? For my sisters who died without anyone trying to do anything about it? For my brothers who didn't do anything before it was too late? For my screwed-up life?"
Ichabod heard the intensity in Georg's tirade. But he also heard the held-back tears behind the bitter words.
"No. For me being a coward and not show you the letter. Miss van Tassel did want to hear your side of the story."
"I have nothing to add to that letter."
"I think you do", Ichabod said with quiet conviction. "And I'd like to hear it."
"There's nothing to tell."
"Then at least tell me what happened to the toy horse."
It was like opening a dam. Georg talked and talked until noon. Ichabod listened patiently.
The toy horse had been burned together with his sisters' dolls when their guardian had decided that toys was something that could keep the children from salvation.
Georg told of other things as well. Of make-believe worlds, of storytellers, of hopelessness, of unexpected kindness and expected cruelty. Of war as a way of living, of a life where the choice was between 'kill them or get killed yourself.'
Then Ichabod's stomach grumbled quite loudly.
"I haven't eaten since breakfast."
To be continued