In bed that night, I spent hours running my fingers over my face, wondering if I had a face at all.
I remember feeling that I was mostly made of nothing. That, in my case, to grow into a woman was to disappear. I missed being a child, free and wild and at one with my body. I missed lifting arms against the push of spring winds and feeling, just for a moment, for a breath, that I might be lifted, that I might be swept ecstatically into flight.
I remember feeling so unseen I thought I might die. I yearned to be touched, simply to know that I was there.
Strange that, after everything that has happened, even as, years later, I teeter on the edge of it all here under a southern sun, I find myself with those same longings. The difference is that, at that time, I was dormant.
Then.
And then. And then and then and then.
The seed split. The shroud tore.
girl in the fog
Word spread quickly about the newcomers to Kay.
Friedrich Eichenwald was a cooper and a Lutheran of the old faith, as we all were. He had told Daniel Pfeiffer, Emile’s husband, that they had moved to Kay to live amongst fellow believers and because he had sold their house and most of their possessions. It was a story familiar to many of us. A few years earlier, around the time that the church bell had been surrendered and Pastor Flügel forced into hiding, assistance had been sought from sympathetic benefactors. Excited at the prospect of a new life in Russia or America, many had sold their worldly goods to help pay for passage. But the King refused to issue permits and passports at the eleventh hour and many families were unable to buy back their belongings. Some who had sold houses and farmland found themselves homeless, with only dwindling savings to their name. Herr Eichenwald, it seemed, was one of these unfortunates. The forester’s cottage, in its dilapidation, was all he could afford to rent.
When the virtuous reasons for the newcomers’ presence was made known, my father was swift to welcome them to our congregation.
‘You should go and speak with Herr Eichenwald’s wife,’ he said to Mama at breakfast, a few days after the Federschleissen. ‘I want them to know that they are amongst friends. Take them some food this afternoon. Take Hanne along with you.’ He nodded towards me, took another bite of his bread.
Mama sucked in her upper lip. ‘Would that be wise?’
Papa looked up at her, chewing. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Magdalena mentioned the wife is a Wend.’
‘What is wrong with the Wendish?’ Papa licked his finger and dabbed crumbs from the worn surface of the table. ‘God’s grace is for all.’
‘I have heard she is a little different.’
Matthias raised his eyebrows at me from across the table, cheeks full.
Eine Hexe, I mouthed.
He went cross-eyed. I fought a laugh.
‘What?’ Mama spun to face me. ‘What is funny?’
‘She speaks German,’ Papa continued. ‘She is married to a German. She and her husband have suffered for their faith. The same faith they share with us, Johanne.’ He lifted his eyes from his breakfast and looked from Mama to me. ‘They have a daughter her age.’
‘Why do I have to go?’ I asked.
‘To be friendly,’ Papa said, reaching for the loaf.
‘I already have friends,’ I said.
‘You were very recently complaining to me that you don’t,’ Mama said quietly, passing my father the breadknife. ‘Trees are not friends, Hanne.’
I stood up so quickly my chair tipped over.
‘If you’re storming off outside, you can feed the pig while you’re at it,’ Mama said, eyes fixed on the table in front of her.
Eyes pricking with tears, I righted my chair and fetched the slop pail. I could feel Matthias trying to send me a look of sympathy and solidarity as I left the room for the back door, but I knew that if I looked at him I would cry.
I threw the slops into the trough then lingered by the sty, leaning over the post and scratching Hulda behind the ears until my nails were nice and black. She grunted happily, pushing her snout up against my forearm for more. I hoisted my skirt and climbed over the rail to rub the length of her spine.
‘I wish I were a pig,’ I told her.
The sow pressed hard against my thigh. Her eyelashes were so long.
‘Food and sun and some mud to roll in. Then a good, swift death.’ I drew my dirty nail across my throat, wondering what the knife would feel like. Would it be painful? Would it feel like an emptying-out, all that blood flooding forth? I never liked to see the way the blood dripped into the open mouths of the pigs once they were hoisted, the fall of it from snout to bucket.
‘Planning murder, are you?’
I looked up and saw Hans Pasche standing on the lower rail of the fence behind the sty, watching me with amusement.
‘What?’
Hans pulled a finger across his throat, copying me.
Heat rose in my cheeks. ‘I didn’t know you were there.’
Hans leaned over and Hulda obediently went to him. He gave her an enthusiastic slap on the haunches. ‘I wish I were a pig too, sometimes,’ he said.
‘You don’t need to tease me.’
Hans looked up at me. ‘I’m not. Lots of food, no work to do. Sleep as much as you like.’ Hulda turned around and, grunting with satisfaction, let herself be stroked by him. ‘Lots of sunshine and fresh air.’
‘She likes you,’ I said.
‘Well, I like her.’ Hans hoisted himself up onto the top rail of the fence and sat there for a moment, looking at me. ‘I saw you the other night.’ He pointed to our walnut tree in the orchard beyond. ‘What are you doing when you lie there?’
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Is it a thinking spot?’
‘I’m not doing anything,’ I muttered.
‘You gave me a fright, you know,’ Hans said. ‘I went out to the barn and saw the white of your apron. You were so still I thought you were dead.’ He blanched as soon as the words were out of his mouth. ‘I mean . . . not like Gottlob. I didn’t . . .’
‘Never mind.’
Hans stepped along the rail over to me. ‘I have my own thinking spots.’
I leaned away from him. ‘Do you? What do you think about?’
‘Whatever I like. Leaving this place, mainly.’ Hans glanced up. ‘Oh. Your mother is watching.’ Placing a hand on the top rail, he launched himself up and over the fence, landing with two feet on the other side. ‘Goodbye, little pig.’
‘Hans Pasche is turning into a fine man,’ Mama said as we walked along the lane through the village. ‘Don’t you think? Elder Pasche has high expectations of him.’
‘Elder Pasche has high expectations of everyone.’
Mama nodded.
‘I hear him shouting at Hans and Georg sometimes.’
‘That isn’t our concern.’
‘He beats them too, you know.’
‘Papa smacked you when you were naughty.’
‘Only when I was a child, and only because you made him,’ I said. ‘Elder Pasche uses a rod. I saw him flogging Georg in the yard. I told Papa, but he said, “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. The rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”’