The Last of the Freemen (13 page)

Erin felt less than sociable and retired to her room soon after dinner, but found herself unable to sleep.  Silently the hours passed; she listened as the others went by in the hallway, exchanging their goodnights and settling in.  Finally she drifted into a fitful sleep.

Hughie suddenly awoke, crying loudly.  She picked him up and looked at her watch as she bounced him; it was not yet two o'clock in the morning.  When several minutes of pacing failed to quiet him, she decided to venture downstairs.

She put him down briefly and pulled on a flannel bathrobe that Hilda had loaned her, then went with him out into the hallway; though it was difficult to see, a light from the kitchen faintly illuminated the bottom of the stairs.  Stepping softly - even though Hughie was unrelentingly loud - she made her way down and passed through the lower hallway into the kitchen.

There at the table sat Harm, still wearing the same charcoal gray shirt, with the parts of a dismantled tactical rifle laid out on a towel in front of him; also at hand were various small brushes, cloths, and a spray can of gun cleaning oil.  He scarcely looked up as she entered the room.

“Oh, hi, Harm.  I hope we didn't wake you.”

“No. I haven't gone to sleep yet.”

“I'm not sure why he's so upset.  It doesn't seem to be gas.  I’m going to try feeding him,” she said, and went to the pantry where Hilda had put the baby formula.  “He usually sleeps pretty well. I hope we haven't woken everyone.”

“Don't worry.  They’re used to little ones here.”

She mixed the powder with water and warmed it on the stove, all the while feeling as though she should say something.  Hughie accepted his bottle and drank contentedly; she sat across from Harm at the table and watched disinterestedly as he reassembled the rifle.

“I can't really sleep, anyway,” she finally said to break the silence.  “When I close my eyes I see the horrible things from the Cull slaughter.  When I do sleep, I have nightmares that wake me up.  That probably sounds weak to you, but I just can't get it out of my head.”

“No,” Harm said quietly.  “I understand.  I haven't slept well in years. Not since I was a kid, really.  Some things stay with you.”

“It's nice to know I'm not the only one.”  She watched him closely as he finished wiping excess oil from the rifle.

“You get used to it, sort of,” he offered.

“This might sound strange to you,” she began hesitantly, “but I kind of feel like I need to go to church, or pray, or something, to ward off all these terrible things.  And I'm not even a very religious person. I haven't been to church in years. But I feel like I need it now.”

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then set the rifle on the table.

“Follow me,” he said, and arose from his chair.  Her eyes grew wide and she remained seated.

“Where are we going?”

“I want to show you something.  I don't know if it'll help.”

After a moment she stood, and followed him out the back door - Hughie still feeding as they went - into the mild, starry night; a nearly full moon provided just enough light for them to make their way, once their eyes had adjusted.  He led her across the yard and past the garden, where he stopped suddenly.

“Come to join me on watch?” said a voice in the dark; Oscar suddenly appeared in front of them, a rifle at his side.  “Or are you running away?”

“I'm bringing her to the
Friedlinde
,” Harm said.

“Wirklich?
”  Oscar said in surprise, then stroked his beard and mulled it over.  ”Why not? But I hope you’ll be ready to spell me in an hour.  I thought you’d be getting some sleep.”

“I’ll be here.”

“Well, have a peaceful night!” he said, and disappeared into the darkness.

They continued carefully for another minute, until a large tree loomed vaguely before them; as they drew near, a waist-high wattle fence blocked their way, and Harm followed it a for few steps until he found the gate.  He held it open for her.

“Are you sure it's okay for me to go in there?” Erin asked.

“Yeah.  It can't do any harm.”

She entered and together they waded forward a few steps to the edge of the broad, overarching canopy; in the low light it seemed more a hulking shadow than a tree.

“This is where we come to get our bearings,” he said. “It's not something we talk about.  Or share with outsiders.  It's private, a family matter. We have no priests or holy men, no spooks or devils. We come here, to places like this, and we get quiet for a while. We have old verses we say sometimes, but they wouldn't mean anything to you.”

“So - you worship trees?”

“No, we don't. I don't even know what you people mean by
worship
, but it doesn't seem to be anything good.”

“I'm confused here, Harm.”  She heaved Hughie to her shoulder, lost her balance on the uneven ground, and grabbed Harm’s shirt to steady herself.  “I'm not sure I know, either,” she said, and slowly removed her hand.  “I guess I haven’t really thought about it.”

He remained silent for a moment.

“None of you do,” he finally said.  “It's nothing against you. The few of you English I've gotten to know, none of you could explain it to me. But it seems to me, from what I can tell, to mean some kind of submission, prostrating yourselves, a kind of fear-and-reward system. And I suppose it’s none of my business.  But I don’t understand it.”

“I wish I could help, but I’m not a theologian.”

“Here, well, we don’t call it worshiping, we say
achten
, which means ‘paying attention’.  We stand here, and there’s the tree, we stand... in relation to each other.  In
relief
, you know? I mean, like the relief in a wood carving, in that we stand out, and everything else falls into the background.  We get that perspective, we get our bearings.  And, I don’t want to confuse you, but it might help you understand - there isn’t just one kind of thinking.  The kind we work out in our heads, the reasoning, that’s what you English know.  But there are thoughts that come to us from without, that we apprehend, the same as we see things, or hear things.  Maybe what you’d call epiphanies.  This is a place for that to happen.”

She nodded and considered.  “Wow.  There’s some food for thought.”

“Yeah?  Well, old Wilhelm Freisasser –“

“Why do you always call him
old
?”

“He’s dead, actually.  But he has two grandsons, and at least two great-grandsons, who go by the same name, so it avoids confusion.”

“Got it.”

“Anyway, he was always trying to find common ground, to find a way to reach you English without giving ourselves away, though I don’t think he ever found it, really.  But he said you have in your language a trace of that other kind of thought, that we have a separate word for. 
Methinks
, he told me, it means ‘it thinks to me’, but the few times I’ve mentioned it, no English ever knew that.  You all guess it’s a funny way to say ‘I think’ or some such.”

“I actually know better.  My husband loved Chaucer and Shakespeare.  He used to speak with all kinds of archaisms for fun. I absorbed a lot of it, whether I wanted to or not. But I thought the meaning was ‘it seems to me’. Although now that I think about it, I’m not sure what difference it would make.”

“There you go.  Maybe old Wilhelm will reach one of you people yet.  He hoped – and I don’t know if he was right or not – that if you people would open your eyes and think, then being led around would become unacceptable, the glint of natural law would draw you off in some other direction.”

“Maybe.  I’ll have to think about that one and get back to you.  But then, does it have to be this kind of a tree?”

“A linden?  No.  It usually is, by custom.  Before Carl the Butcher, it was oak trees a lot of the time, too.  Bern told you about Carl the Butcher and his holy killers, didn't he?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Well, that's where they were looking for us, by the oaks, so we went only to the lindens.  They didn't get it.  They didn’t understand any of it, they thought that chopping down a few trees would break our spirits and change how we saw the world.  It was easy to fool them.

“But different families have different ways, it's their own business.  A few still get their bearings under oak trees.  Sometimes it's not a tree at all, it might be a spring. We don't have orthodoxy police, you know, we have tradition. I think what matters most is to have a place and a time set aside, and to have the old verses, to remind ourselves of what’s important.”

“But there must be something about this tree. Hilda said it’s what sold them on this farm.”

“It is. Customs are the tracks of our ancestors, they shape who we are, and guide us. And custom has brought us here, I think, because if it's something that's been alive for five hundred, or a thousand years, it makes for greater relief, you know? The same way it casts a bigger shadow, it throws more perspective on your life. And that humility is a part of our survival. But it's a humility that has nothing to do with bowing to men.”

She gazed into the darkness and tried to imagine what he was feeling.

“Anyhow,” he said abruptly, “it's cooling off out here. We'd better get the baby back inside.”

Erin awoke to the crowing of a rooster; though it was only six in the morning she heard activity downstairs, and after dressing herself and Hughie in the clothes they’d worn the previous day, she headed with him to the kitchen.  Hilda was at the sink washing dishes, while the old woman sat in her usual place, nursing a warm mug.

“Good morning,” Hilda said.

“Good morning.  The others aren't up yet?”

“Up, and out.”

“Oh.”  She noticed a half loaf of bread on the table, a dish of hard-boiled eggs, and two jars of preserves.

“Help yourself.  We have sloe, and red currant, jam there.  How did you sleep?”

“Pretty well,” she answered cheerfully, taking the seat she’d had the evening before and moving Hughie to her lap.

“Good.  We have a big day here today, with so many coming for the meeting.  Harm said you should keep a low profile, to not stir things up, since some might not agree with our helping you.  And also, to be safe.  Not that we don't trust our own people, but like he said, there's no point taking chances.

“He plans to avoid the meeting himself, because half these men have shunned him anyway.  He’ll meet privately with a few of the family heads, the ones he trusts and gets along with.  And Oscar, of course, will be at the meeting to give them Harm’s opinions, even if he doesn't call them that.”

“So he can't even be seen? They know him anyway, don't they?”

“Oh, he could. It would cause a few dust-ups, though, a few would walk away upset. He likes to spare us, and the
Kreis
, those rifts. And believe it or not, most of the youngsters in these parts have never actually seen him, even though they've heard lots of stories about him.  He wants to keep it that way. He’s always kept a low profile.  That's probably why they've never caught him.”

“What youngsters? I thought it was a meeting of the heads of families, old men.”

“It is, but a lot of them will be accompanied by their sons and grandsons, some who come along for the ride, to visit and exchange news, and some, the unmarried ones, for a chance to see Frieda.”  She turned her head and listened. “Someone's coming down the driveway.” With a hint of concern she locked the back door, then hurried off to the front.

“
Not them!” she yelled.

“Wer?
” her mother asked.

“Hartmut and his sons.”

The old woman climbed to her feet and took Erin by the elbow.

“Come on,” she said; Erin stood with alarm and lifted Hughie to her shoulder, then was led down the hall to a cluttered sitting room on the left.  A couch in the center was made up with a comforter and pillow, while a reclining chair was crowded in the corner, with a small television on an end table next to it. After tossing the comforter onto the coffee table, the old woman kicked aside a few of Bertie’s rag dolls that were on the floor, and gestured for Erin to sit.

No sooner was Erin on the couch, propping Hughie next to her, than Hilda came carrying a tray table with bread, jam, and coffee.

“Here, Erin. You might have to stay in here a while. It will seem strange if I don't invite them in.  Sorry about that.  We have to keep peace in the
Kreis
. At least Oscar intercepted them, so that buys us a few minutes.  Does Hughie need a bottle?”

“He will soon.”

“I'll get it,” she said, and slid the pocket door closed behind her.

“Some families are friends,” the old woman said as she drew the curtains, “and some, we have to put up with.” She settled into her recliner and turned on the television with a remote controller.

“Anything good on?” Erin asked.

“Don't think I like to watch this crap,” she grumbled.  “It’s the job they give me. So we know what the English are up to. Harm was on the news last night.  They had a drawing of him.  They’ve shown pictures of you since the day before yesterday.”

“So it's probably only a matter of time before they catch us.”

“These people, they've been trying to catch Harm for twenty-five years.”

“That's encouraging, I guess. But just to think that they'll never stop looking, it's hard to get my mind around that.”

“Don't fear them. They’ll eat themselves to keep from starving. Stay away and let them eat.”

Erin frowned as she considered the remark. The old woman pointed at the television.

“There you are.”

A news update showed Erin’s photograph as it appeared on her driver’s license, side-by-side with a rough sketch of Harm; the newscaster spoke of the ongoing search, and the need for public help.

“That’s such a strange feeling, to see myself on television. At least it's not a very good picture of me. Maybe nobody will recognize me.”

The door opened and Hilda entered with Hughie’s bottle; Harm came in behind her.

“Harm! How did you sneak in?” the old woman asked.  “And why is Hartmut here?”

“Pitching a plan, that's my guess, for him to come all the way here uninvited. They must have driven all night. They're likely trying to win Oscar’s support before the others come.”

”Was für ein plan?”
she demanded.

“No time to talk, Mutti.  We have to get upstairs while we can.” He lifted the tray table and addressed Erin.

“You two will be more comfortable upstairs.  And it'll be safer, in case the baby starts to cry.”

She lifted Hughie and followed him out, slightly confused - Hilda gave her the bottle as they passed by - and proceeded back up to the bedroom. Harm went in first and placed the tray table near the window, then looked out obliquely.

“Sorry to hide you away like this,” he said tensely, wringing his hands as he watched the barnyard.  “This could be a long day.”

“You seem very stressed.” She sat on the bed and lay Hughie down beside her. “The way you were the first time I saw you, back at your house. You seem to have a lot of anxiety sometimes.”

“Yeah?  Maybe.  I hate it when I'm not in control of a situation.”  He remained with his gaze fixed out the window.

“So you have to hide, too?”

“It’s easier that way.  These folks shunned me years ago.”

“You think they would turn us in?”

“No, Hartmut wouldn't, whatever he thinks of me. I don't know his sons well, but no one trusts the English. No, the problem is that it would put Oscar, and the whole family, under threat of shunning from these guys and their allied families. They don't need that.  And the
Kreis
doesn't need any more trouble than it has already.” He turned and headed out of the room, pausing with a hand on the doorknob. “Well, I'll see you -”

“Where are you going?”

“To the attic.”

“Why?”

He stared blankly back at her.

“You can stay here,” she suggested. “We can keep each other company.”

A look of discomfort came over his face as his weight shifted back and forth over the threshold.

“Harm,” she said with a touch of authority, “there's a chair over there.  Just sit down.”

He squinted at her and looked at the chair.

“I suppose.”

He closed the door, moved the tray table to within her reach, and pulled the wooden chair away from the desk; then he sat, stared at the floor, and wrung his hands.

“So tell me,” she began, pausing with her eyebrows raised as she searched for something to say, “how... how is your day going so far?”