Skating on thin ice

Eyes tight shut. She holds her breath Cold as death. Water gurgles and rushes above and below her. She can’t move. Her lungs are bursting. Suddenly all is black liquid darkness. Then she’s out in the bright sunshine, wretching and wretching. And he’s there, laughing. Laughing like a lunatic. Slowly he unties the ropes which bind her hands and feet to the wooden plank. Her stomach heaves as she coughs and vomits. Her small blond head streams with water.

“If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you,” he whispers ferociously, his nose pressed up close to hers. She can see his cold blue eyes, feel his scorching breath on her cheek. She trembles with fear. A plague of flies invades her stomach, the muscles tensing and tightening against them. Inside her head the frightening shadows of old men – the old men who usually hang silently in her wardrobe at dusk, looking sad, waiting to die. In her chest her heart is pounding, pounding, urging her to move but she feels paralysed, turned to stone. What to do? Where to go? The pounding floods her brain so that she can barely think. Feels incapable ...of moving... one....single...muscle.

Then suddenly he’s gone and she’s alone beside the river, sitting in a mud puddle amongst the waving corn. In the distance she can see the dark, dense, mysterious forest, where she fears to go. On the edge of the forest the sandy road winds towards the farm buildings where she lives. She shivers. Even though the sun is shining, she’s frozen to the bone. If her mother finds out that her clothes are soaked and smeared with mud, she’ll be beaten.

And then she begins to run, run, as if the hounds of hell are after her, tears and snot mingling on her cheeks, trickling into her mouth. The wind feels good against her cold skin. As she approaches the house, she slows. She can see the white sheets bleaching in the sun, because it’s Monday, washing day. They flap and swirl in the spring breeze, alive with joy, making a snapping noise. Somehow they seem to be angry with the white clouds skudding across the blue sky. God’s washing day, she thinks. She creeps around behind the large Linden hedge, which surrounds her mother’s garden, her pride and joy. She must now attempt to cross the vast terrain which is the farmyard, without anyone noticing. The dogs, she knows, won’t bark because they know her scent, but what about the geese? Always squeaking and squawking into everybody’s business and their beaks can take nasty nips. She moves cautiously behind the barns and creeps into the shadow of the cowshed. The warm sweet smell of cow dung fills her nostrils. The Polish labourers are cleaning out the shed with a hose, whilst the cows are out to pasture, so she’s not observed. She breathes again more easily and moves onto the pigs’ kitchen. This is where the food (pigswill) is prepared for feeding the porkers with their searching snouts and pungent farmyard smell. It really stinks worse than the earth closet, which is set apart at the far reaches of the yard. Beyond that, she can see the wooden outbuildings, which house the itinerant workers who come with their families to help with the summer harvesting. Her blond hair is beginning dry in clumps in the warmth of the sun, but she trembles with cold. If only she can reach the house, without anyone noticing.

“Emma, where are you?” She hears her sister Meta, calling from the kitchen, her voice, clear as a bell.

“Has anyone seen her?” Her mother’s voice.

“Don’t tell me she’s gone missing again!” The angry voice of Hermine, her big sister.

“Emma! Emma!” She can hear Meta calling.

“I suppose I’ll have to go out and look for her again!” Sister Hermine’s voice, full of anger.

She needs to get into the house and up the stairs, secretly change her clothes and come down, pretending she’s had a little sleep. They couldn’t blame her much for that, could they? As soon as she puts a foot across the threshold though, her mother seizes her arm in an iron grip.

“So there you are! Where’ve you been? Always wandering off when we need you! We needed your help to peel the potatoes for lunch – you know that Monday is our busy day for washing!”

She notices the state of Emma’s clothes: “ I don’t believe it! You’ve been playing in the stream again. I told you to stay away from there! Now look at you!”

Emma can seen her mother’s furious care-worn face, weary from the years of drudgery on the farm, looking after a man who wears his religious faith like a stiff suit of clothes and never gets them crumpled. A gentleman farmer, if you please and then all the children. She’s had a child every child-bearing year of her child-bearing life. Her body is bent with toil and her face contorted with anger.

“Well, you’ve forfeited your right to have lunch with us young lady. Get out of my sight!”

Emma’s eyes fill with tears. She loves her mother dearly and would give the world not to cause her extra worry. She shivers in her dripping clothes.

“If you’ve caught a cold, you’ve only got yourself to blame. Don’t expect me to look after you!’

She can see sister Ella’s face smirking behind her mother’s back. Ella is only three years older and already a fierce rival for her mother’s affections. She stumbles blindly up the wooden staircase to the bedroom, which smells of yeast and grapes from the huge fermenting wine jars in the attic. She dons her nightdress and creeps beneath her thick feather bed, sobbing as if her heart is breaking.

Some time later, the wooden door creaks open and in tiptoes sister Meta, looking like an angel, in her blue pinafore, with a cup of warm milk and a thick slab of black bread and butter.

“This is for you, Emma. I took it when mother wasn’t looking. Where have you been?”

Emma’s eyes begin to fill with tears, as she recalls her morning ordeal.

“It was August. He tried to drown me!” she whispers. “Please, please don’t say anything or he’ll kill me for sure!”

“Oh! I might have guessed!” says Meta. “He’s a nasty piece of work. Stay away from him.”

“ I do stay away from him. What do you think? He comes after me an’ he’s bigger n’ stronger ! He ties me to this plank of wood an’ throws me into the water. Meta, you’ve got to help me! I don’t know what to do!”

Meta looks at her. “We’ve got to tell our mother.”

“But he’ll kill me!”

“It’s the only way.”

Meta descends the staircase ponderously. Is this really the right thing to do? She loves her baby sister and wants to protect her. It must be right.

Their mother reacts predictably to this news. She’s shocked and enraged, beside herself. Something must be done! Where is August? Meta must go and fetch him this minute. This is serious indeed! He must be severely punished so that he knows that he must never again lay hands on his baby sister. She must inform their father. The boys are really his responsibility. She wrings her hands in dismay.

She marches into the parlour, where her husband, a blond giant of a man, is snoring peacefully. Despairing, she gazes at his sleeping form, carefully dressed in white shirt and waistcoat, his hands as big as hams.

“Wake up you lazy-good-for –nothing! While you’ve been taking your afternoon nap, your son has nearly killed one of my girls! If they didn’t have such a numbskull for a father, maybe they’d behave differently! I want you to go and find him. He’s got to learn that acts of cruelty will not be tolerated!”

“What are you talking about woman? Have you lost your mind?”

“I’m talking about your son August! He’s tried to drown our little Emma in the river! A darn sight of good all your long-winded preaching has done for him!”

“Judge not, unless you yourself be judged.” He intones calmly in his deep sonorous voice, useful in his role as lay preacher at the local church. “Let’s hear what he has to say for himself.”

Eventually, it’s big sister Hermine, who finds August, happily whittling a stick and munching an apple, astride the tallest apple tree in their mother’s garden. He’s dragged home, kicking and screaming, dirty bony knees flailing, bawling like a baby, snot running from his nose.

“I haven’t done anything!”he wails.

“Emma says you tried to drown her in the river. Is this true?”

“We were just playing,” wails August.

Big sister Hermine is tall and as strong as a man. August doesn’t stand much of a chance. His father is waiting for him in the parlour. The old man’s face is grim.

“ I know what you’ve been up to August. The Lord’s gaze is everywhere. The world is full of sin and it is my duty to beat the devil out of you. Spare the rod and spoil the child, saith the Lord.”

Kicking and screaming, August is carried out bodily by his father, to the old ox-cart, which is used for transporting corn to the mill to be ground into flour. Here he’s tied to the wheel of the cart with two stout ropes. Thwack, thwack, goes the wooden stick across the boy’s back. His screams can be heard from Noragehlen to Heinrichswalde.

Emma hears the screams. Her heart is full of fear. She knows that she’s the cause of them. She also knows that this won’t be the end of the matter. August will have his revenge.