The Dark Meadow (10 page)

She sees it only dimly when one of the two attackers pushes her down on the sofa and hits her yet again. Then everything goes black in front of her eyes.

From the statement of Matthias Karrer, pedlar and knife-grinder, eighteen years after the events concerned


When I realized that Wackes had escaped the police, and there was only Otto and me left to take the rap, the whole thing rankled. I resented that Frenchman. First he talks big, then he dumps us in the shit. Makes off because he knows what's what – the hell he does! And a man like that talks about the Legion day and night, and how we need guts! I told Otto what I thought of his friend, I thought he was a bad lot, a windbag, not an ounce of honesty in his body.


‘He let us down when we needed him, that's not right! That's a rotten thing to do.'


That's what I told Otto.


At first Otto wouldn't listen, told me to keep my mouth shut, but after a while he let out his own resentment of Wackes. He started telling me other things he'd done along with the Frenchman, how it wasn't the first time they'd climbed in somewhere, and how glad he really is to be rid of him.


‘Wackes is a bastard. Tell you what, though, it has its good side that they caught me now, or I could have ended badly. So he's gone off, but you have to watch every word with him, every damn thing he says. He's fine one minute, the next he has a knife in his hand. You weren't the first to find that out.'


That's what he said to me.


And then, bit by bit, he told me about everything, all the time he was going around with Wackes. At first I didn't quite believe him, because when you're in the clink you hear all kinds of stories, and most of them aren't true.


We were in the same cell, see, and in the night, when Otto couldn't sleep, he kept on talking, telling his stories, specially the
one that wouldn't let him rest, and that's how I found out all about it.


‘Before we met you we came to that house, and that's where it happened. Over in the neighbourhood of Finsterau. At first it was like what we'd always done. I went into the house and asked if we could wash at the well out in the yard, and whether we could have a bite to eat. Of course I really went in to see what was to be had there. I'd be lying if I didn't say as much. So I went in on a pretext, to see who was in the house. But there was only the young woman and the child, I told Wackes, and then he went in after me. He still thought a woman like that is easy to intimidate, and if they had anything he'd get hold of it. Only he had to work fast in case anyone came along.'


Otto himself, he'd been supposed to wait outside the house by the well and keep watch in case anyone came. He didn't go in until he heard the noise they made scuffling.


‘The child was yelling as if he was on the spit, and the woman stood there with the knife in her hand. Wackes had shouted
that she'd cut his hand. So I didn't hesitate, I got hold of an empty bottle and I hit her with it. What else could I do? She dropped the knife and she just managed to catch hold of the table. Then Wackes took two or three steps towards her and pushed the knife away. But she kept going, she staggered up again, and then it all went very fast and Wackes hit her again. First with the bottle – he'd snatched it out of my hand – and then with a little hoe. How he came by that hoe so fast I can't say. I just stood there, I didn't move. Until Wackes yelled at me to get out and keep watch. Because if someone else comes along now, he says, we'd be for it. I went out into the yard and packed up our things. A couple more minutes and the Frenchman was out of there again, and we were off.'


Later, he said the Frenchman told him he'd fucked the woman again. And he hit the child with the hoe.


‘On account of he wouldn't stop whining and whimpering.'


But Otto didn't want to hear that.


It wasn't worth it either, all they brought away was a dried sausage, a few marks and a pocket watch. He'd found the money and the watch in the bedroom after he hit her.


I couldn't forget that story. I wanted to know whether there was any truth in it, and if so what, or was it just all rubbish? And I wanted them to go looking for that bastard Wackes. That's why I told one of the warders about it. But he didn't believe me, he thought I just wanted to make trouble for someone else the way folk do, thinking I'd look better myself and have better cards to play when the bakery case came to court. And Otto, what a coward, of course next minute he said he knew nothing about it. He wouldn't even have owned up to knowing his own mother if they'd asked him. If he'd told all he knew he'd certainly have been for it.


When I got out of prison I hadn't thought of it again for years. How was I to know whether the story was true, or whether Otto had just made it up? I only found out later it was true, and only by chance on the road
because I was in the Finsterau area. A customer told me about it, and it was from him I got the old press cutting.


And when I wanted to report it again nobody would believe me. They all said the ‘real' murderer had been condemned to prison. Wackes was in the Legion, I suppose, and Otto, he never could cope with anything. Later he got stabbed in a tavern brawl. At least, that's what I heard.


But I never could forget the story of the young woman and her child.


When Winfried Niedermayer drove the bus into the works yard at 4.30 after his last round, it had been a working day like any other. He'd come on duty in the morning, had a bite of lunch in the bus, took a little rest afterwards. Nothing else had happened that day.

He parked the bus according to the rules, took his jacket that was hanging behind the driver's seat, and picked up his bag. Looked around once more to make sure it was all in order, then he got out, locked the vehicle, and was going over to the office as usual to hand in the key and cross himself off the list.

The men were coming towards him just as he was going over the yard to the office. They had seen him even as he was driving the bus into the works, but he hadn't taken any
notice of them. Now they asked what his name was, and whether he had been a journeyman roaming the countryside around Finsterau in the summer of 1947. Then he knew that they had come to take him away. All he said was that he'd been expecting them for a long time.

They arrested him. He took it all calmly and didn't defend himself.

When they asked him, later, ‘Why the little boy as well?' he replied, ‘When the cat dies you kill her litter too.'