Read The True Story of Hansel and Gretel Online

Authors: Louise Murphy

Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #War & Military, #Fairy Tales; Folk Tales; Legends & Mythology

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel (20 page)

BOOK: The True Story of Hansel and Gretel

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Telek picked up the pistol and slipped it in his jacket. She had nothing useful in her pockets. There wasn’t time to bury her now, and the ground was too frozen to dig. He’d take the child to Magda and come back and hide the bodies in the snow.

He glanced at the dead men. They were meat now. Lithuanians maybe? Escaped Russian prisoners? Polish bandits? Even Jews, but probably not. The Jews had been killed already. It didn’t matter. They were wolves. No. Wolves were innocent of the possibility of evil.

Telek picked up Gretel and carried her. She smiled at him and sang songs that he didn’t know. She offered him a piece of her invisible orange, and he gently declined.

“The flowers are beautiful, aren’t they, Telek? I thought it’d never be summer. Can we go look for the bison now?”

“Soon we’ll look for him.” Telek felt the tears in his eyes and he blinked them back. She was alive. She was too young to get pregnant from this, he thought. Magda and Nelka would nurse her. The girl’s mind was gone, but it might be better that way. Why should she remember?

The ice clinked above them all the way back to the hut, growing louder as the wind increased. Telek had to hurry. He had to come back and hide the three bodies.

“Please eat a piece of orange, Telek. It’s so good.”

Telek opened his mouth and she put an invisible segment of orange on his tongue.

“Thank you, dear one,” he said. He had to hurry. It would snow again before midnight.

Hansel

T
elek walked into the hut carrying Gretel. He laid the child on the sleeping platform, and whispered in Magda’s ear for a moment. He stood looking back and forth from the sleeping baby in its nest of blankets to Gretel.

“It’s a boy,” Magda whispered, but she looked at Gretel as she spoke.

“Nelka?” He moved to the baby and leaned over the tiny child. Gently, Telek touched the cheek that was so soft his finger barely felt the flesh.

“The birth went well. Nelka is outside. She needed to walk a little.”

Gretel lay very still and shivered, and she was singing but not paying any attention to Hansel who stood beside her. There was blood on her legs, and Hansel didn’t want to look at it.

“What’s wrong with her?” Hansel flushed with anger.

Telek slipped from the hut without answering Hansel.

“Go out and play.” Magda was heating water on the stove.

“It’s too cold. It’s ice everywhere.” Hansel stared at Gretel. He didn’t want to cry, but she looked funny. She had stopped singing, and the blood was bright red against her skin.

“Go out.” Magda turned on Hansel and her face was dark and angry.

He went outside banging the door to the hut and not caring. “Nelka,” he called to her where she stood whispering with Telek. “Magda threw me out!”

Nelka didn’t stop to hug him or talk but ran to the hut and went inside.

“I want in,” he shouted. Hansel shivered and threw sticks against the side of the hut until Magda opened the door and shouted at him.

“Don’t bother us. You can come in later.”

The boy looked back to where Telek had been, but he had vanished. Hansel stuck his tongue out at the closed door. Just because Gretel had gone off and gotten hurt. Just because she was so dumb that she got lost and Telek had to go find her. Hansel scuffed his boot against a log and tried to be angry, but he kept thinking of the blood.

“Raus, raus, raus,”
he shrieked, picking up a stick and brandishing it over his head. But how could you play soldier all alone? He was cold, and they didn’t care.

“I won’t be here when you open the door,” he shouted, turning and running fast until he was through the trees and onto the road and had put a bend in the road between him and the hut.

He ran like a dog was after him, snarling and biting at his legs. He ran until he was out of breath. Then he stopped and walked on, waving his stick of a sword. The village wasn’t far and it wasn’t snowing. He’d find someone to play with and come home before Magda knew he was gone.

He smelled the wood smoke of the village before he saw the first roof. Hansel walked past the houses until he came to a pig rooting in the frozen mud.

“Pig, pig, pig,” he crooned. He’d never been so close to a live pig before. Carefully he touched the side of the pig with his stick, and it grunted and leaped away. Hansel was so startled that he jumped backward, tripped, and fell on his bottom with a thump.

Getting up, he heard the laughter. It was two boys, one bigger than he by a head, the other the same size but with straight black hair to his shoulders.

“The pig knocked him on his ass,” the black-haired boy said.

“No it didn’t.”

“You’re scared of the pig.” The older boy tapped Hansel on the shoulder.

“I’m not.”

“Then go kiss it.”

“You don’t kiss pigs.” Hansel picked up his stick.

“You’re scared to get close to it.”

“Kiss it. Kiss it. Kiss it,” the black-haired boy chanted.

Hansel walked past the pig who was rooting again in the road. It stopped rooting, turned its head and fixed its small eyes on Hansel.

“He’s scared! He’s going to shit his pants he’s so scared!”

“Run home to the witch, baby,” the boy shouted. “Go back to the woods and hide.”

Hansel stepped forward gingerly and kissed it on the back above the stringy tail.

“I did it! I’m not scared!’

“He kissed the pig’s butt! He kissed the pig’s butt!” Overcome with laughter, the two boys leaned against each other and pointed at Hansel. Three other boys had edged up and watched.

Hansel looked at the pig and then at the boys, and he felt the tears in his eyes. The hotness of rage flushed his cheeks, and he clenched his fists. “Shut up.”

They howled with laughter, and Hansel flew at them. The force of his run knocked down the bigger boy. Falling on him, Hansel punched twice and then leapt up. Catching the smaller boy off guard, Hansel knocked him down, and they rolled over and over in the road.

“You dirty Nazi,” Hansel screamed.

“I’m not a Nazi! I’m a girl!”

Hansel stopped punching and lay on the road. The girl sat on him and Hansel put his hands over his face so her punches bounced off. “Girls can be Nazis.”

“No they can’t.” She punched twice more and then stood up.

“I’ve seen them,” Hansel said.

“Where?”

He couldn’t talk about the life before the woods. “I don’t know.”

“They’re all men,” she said.

“There was that woman in the brown coat,” one of the boys said. “She was SS. Do you really live with the witch?”

“She’s my great-aunt.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s your father?”

“He died in the war.”

Silence greeted this information, and the children moved closer.

“I’m Halina. I live with my aunt and uncle. They killed my mommy and daddy too.”

They were silent. Then one of the boys spoke. “Her parents were hanged—”

“Shut up,” the bigger boy ordered, and the other child cut off his words as if he swallowed them. He gulped twice and no one looked at Halina.

Hansel could stand it no longer. And he didn’t want to talk about the thing with her parents.

“Let’s play,” he said.

“Play what?” The children vibrated with interest.

“Soldier.”

“All right. I’ll be the general of the Poles, and you”—the bigger boy tapped Hansel on his shoulder—“have to be the Nazi. I’m Jerzy.”

Jerzy chose first, and Hansel hesitated and then chose Halina.

“I’m the Generaloberst,” Hansel said, “and you’re the Oberst.”

“I want to be a general too.”

“There’s only one general, but you’re next to a general.”

When they had chosen, Hansel had three on his side. The girl and two boys.

“I want to be the Oberst.”

“Me too.”

“You’re the Hauptmann and you take command from the Oberst. And we have to have a regular soldier, so you’re the Grenadier,” Hansel told the youngest boy.

“I won’t. I won’t be a regular soldier.”

“The Grenadiers get to do most of the fighting.”

The Major who was standing on the porch of a house leaned against a post and watched. This boy was sharp. He had properly memorized all the ranks of the army as Polish children were ordered to do, and he was smart enough to know who did the real fighting.

“Good job, Generaloberst. Always respect your men.”

The children shrank back and stared, but Hansel clicked to attention and saluted.

“Heil Hitler,” he shouted.

The Major sprang to attention and returned the salute.

“Come here, boy.” He reached in his pocket and took out a handful of peppermints. He counted out five into Hansel’s hand. “One for the Hauptmann. One for the Oberst. One for the Grenadier, and two for the Generaloberst.”

Hansel gave another salute and stood at attention.

“Dismissed, Generaloberst.” The Major moved on down the street.

Hansel turned back to the other children and was surprised at their still faces.

“You saluted him.” Jerzy spit on the snow. “He didn’t make you. You just did it.”

“Look what we got!” Hansel grinned and showed the candy.

“Dirty Nazi,” Jerzy whispered. He hit Hansel’s hand and knocked the candy onto the road.

Hansel picked up each piece. They were stupid. He had gotten five pieces of candy.

“We’ll all eat it,” he said. “Here.”

Hansel laid the candy on a porch rail and carefully cracked it into smaller pieces, catching them in his hands. He turned and held out pieces. “Why throw it away?”

First the littlest boy and then Halina took candy and put it in their mouth. Their eyes grew round with the shock of the sugar and sharp flavor.

“Lovely,” the girl sighed.

They all took the candy except for Jerzy.

“I don’t want to play,” the littlest boy said. “I don’t want to be a Nazi.”

“Me neither.” Halina tied her scarf more tightly.

“We’d just beat you anyway,” said Jerzy.

“I have to go. Magda will be mad.” Hansel turned and moved a few steps down the road. The other boys ran back down the street playing tag and shouting.

“Don’t go.” Halina shook the hair out of her eyes. “We can get potatoes and roast them.”

“All right.” Hansel didn’t want to go back yet. He’d show them. They’d miss him, and he was glad.

Halina’s house was like the others in the village, raw boards and a sloping roof that nearly touched the ground. Bales of hay were piled around the sides for warmth.

“If my aunt asks what we’re doing, you have to talk to her so I can get the potatoes.”

The aunt sat near the fireplace with the daylight coming through the oiled paper onto her lap. She was sewing pieces of cloth over the holes in a pair of pants.

“Yes, children? Are you cold?”

“He’s cold.” Halina pushed Hansel toward her aunt. “I want a drink of water.” She went to a curtain and pushed it aside. The pantry and buckets of water were behind the curtain.

“You are the boy who is staying with Magda?”

“My sister and I are staying with her. For now.”

“For now.” The woman looked at him and put down the sewing. She looked into Hansel’s eyes and then stared toward the curtain. “Magda brought you to the village today?”

Hansel shook his head.

“You came alone?”

“She said I could,” he lied.

The woman watched him until the flush spread up his neck to his cheeks.

“Halina! Get in here!”

The girl came out from behind the curtain.

“You don’t play with this boy again. You never bring him in our house. Never.”

“But we just—”

“Halina, you never talk to him. You leave him alone.” The woman was standing now. She turned to Hansel and waved her hands at him. “Get out! Go away!”

“We were just playing.”

“You should play in the woods. It’s better that you not play in the village.” The aunt reached out and pulled Halina to her. She held the girl’s head tightly, looking down into her face. “You never play with him again.” Halina’s aunt leaned over, burrowing her face against the child’s neck, kissing her cheek. “You smell like snow. Don’t stay out late. I don’t want you getting sick.”

Hansel watched from the door.

“You, boy, you heard me. She can’t play with you. Go back to the woods.”

Hansel ran out and jumped off the porch. He began to walk very fast down the road. He didn’t want to cry in the village where other children would see.

He heard footsteps behind him and slowed, looking over his shoulder. It was Halina.

“Don’t run off. Come on.”

“She hates me. She said I had to go back to the woods.”

“I’ve got three potatoes.”

“I don’t care.” Hansel wiped his nose on his sleeve.

“Let’s go cook them. Just us.” Halina took out one potato and showed it to Hansel. It was clean and didn’t have any mold on it.

“How do we cook them?”

“You didn’t cook potatoes in the city?”

“We cooked them on the stove.”

Halina crept close to a woodpile on a porch and took an armload of dry sticks. She led Hansel out of the village, and in a field near two trees, Halina showed Hansel how to cook outside.

It took a long time. Halina had used up three matches before the bit of candle caught and the smaller wood lit. Then they had to wait until the fire burned down, and they could put the potatoes on the coals. The potatoes roasted slowly, and the children burned their fingers turning the charring lumps so they’d cook evenly.

Just when they were nearly done, Hansel heard Halina’s aunt calling.

“Halina! Halina! Come home now. You’d better come right now.”

BOOK: The True Story of Hansel and Gretel

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