The Storyteller Read online

  Then I heard it. The crunch of a twig, a break in the surface of the snow.

  I could run.

  If I ran, whatever was behind me would chase me.

  Once again, I picked up my pace. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, and I blinked them back. Abruptly I ducked behind a tree wide enough to conceal me. I held my breath, counting as the footfalls came closer.

  A doe walked into the clearing, swiveling its head to stare at me before nibbling at the bark on a birch a few feet away.

  Relief turned my legs to jelly. I leaned against the trunk of the tree, still trembling. This was what happened when you let the idle prattle of the villagers seep into your mind like poison. You saw shadows when there were none; you heard a mouse and imagined a lion. Shaking my head at my own stupidity, I stepped away from the tree and started toward home again.

  It attacked me from behind, covering my head with something hot and dank, some sort of fabric or sack that kept me blind. I was pinned by my wrists, with weight on the small of my back so I could not stand up. My face was shoved into the ground. I tried to yell, but whatever was behind me pushed my head down so that my mouth filled with snow instead. I felt heat and blades and claws and teeth, oh, the teeth, sinking into a half-moon on my throat and stinging like a thousand needles, like a swarm of bees.

  I heard hoofbeats, and then felt the cold air on the back of my neck, felt the absence of pressure and pain. Like a great, winged bird, something swooped down from above and called my name. That was the last thing I remembered, because when I opened my eyes, I was in Damian's arms, and he was carrying me home.

  The door opened, and Aleks stood inside. "What happened?" he asked, his eyes flying to mine.

  "She was attacked," Damian answered. "She needs a surgeon."

  "She needs me," Aleks said, and he took me from Damian's arms into his own. I cried out as I was jostled between them, as Aleks slammed the door closed with his boot.

  He carried me into my bedroom. As he lay me down, I saw all the blood on his shirt, and my head began to swim. "Ssh," he soothed, turning my head so that he could see the wound.

  I thought he was going to faint. "Is it bad?"

  "No," he said, but I knew he was lying. "I just can't bear the sight of blood."

  He left me for a few minutes, promising to return, and when he did, he had a bowl of warm water, a cloth, and a bottle of whiskey. The last he held up to my lips. "Drink," he commanded, and I tried, but found myself coughing violently. "More," he said.

  Eventually, when the fire in my throat had turned into a glow in my belly, he began to wash my neck and then spilled whiskey over the open gash. I nearly came out of my skin. "Let go," he said. "It will be better that way."

  I did not understand what he meant until I saw him threading the needle and realized what he was going to do. As he pierced the hollow of my throat, I blacked out.

  It was late in the afternoon when I awakened again. Aleks sat in the chair beside my bed, his hands steepled before him, as if in prayer. When he saw me stirring, a visible relief washed over his features.

  His hand on my forehead was warm. He stroked my cheek, my hair. "If you wanted my attention," Aleks said, "all you had to do was ask."

  JOSEF

  My brother used to beg for a dog, when we were little. Our neighbors had one--some sort of retriever--and he would spend hours in their yard teaching it to roll over, to sit, to speak. But my father was bothered by pet dander, and because of this, I knew that no matter how hard Franz pleaded, he wasn't going to get his wish.

  One autumn night when I was maybe ten years old and asleep in the room I shared with Franz, I heard whispering. I woke to find my brother sitting up in bed, with a small hunk of cheese on the covers between his legs. Nibbling on the cheese was a tiny field mouse, and as I watched, my brother stroked the fur on its back.

  Now mind you, my mother did not keep the kind of house that attracts vermin. She was always scrubbing the floor or dusting or what have you. The next day, I found my mother stripping the sheets off our beds, even though it was not laundry day. "Those filthy, dirty mice--as soon as it gets cold outside, they try to find a way in. I found droppings," she told me, shuddering. "Tomorrow on your way home from school, you will buy some traps."

  I thought of Franz. "You want to kill them?"

  My mother looked at me strangely. "What else should we do with pests?"

  That night before we went to sleep, Franz took another sliver of cheese he had stolen from the kitchen and put it down beside him on the bed. "I am going to name him Ernst," Franz told me.

  "How do you know he's not an Erma?"

  But Franz didn't answer, and before long, he was asleep.

  On the other hand, I stayed awake. I listened carefully till I heard the scratch of tiny claws on the wood floor and watched, in the moonlight, as the mouse scrambled up the blanket to get the cheese Franz had left. Before it could succeed, however, I grabbed the mouse and smacked it against the wall in one quick motion.

  The noise woke up Franz, who started crying when he saw his pet dead on the floor.

  I am sure the mouse didn't feel anything. After all, it was only a mouse. Plus my mother had made it very clear what should be done with such a creature.

  I was just doing what she would have, eventually.

  I was only following orders.

  *

  I don't know if I can explain how it felt to suddenly be the golden child. It is true, my parents didn't have much to say about Hitler and the politics of Germany, but they were proud when Herr Sollemach held me up as the benchmark for all other boys in our little Kameradschaft. They didn't complain about my marks as much, because instead I would come home every weekend with winners' ribbons and praise from Herr Sollemach.

  To be honest, I do not know if my parents believed in the Nazi philosophy. My father could not have fought for Germany even if he wanted; he had a gammy leg from a sledding injury when he was a child. And if my parents had their doubts about Hitler's vision for Germany, they appreciated his optimism and the hope that our country could regain its greatness. Still, having me as Herr Sollemach's favorite did nothing but help their status in the community. They were the fine Germans who had produced a boy like me. No nosy neighbor was going to comment on the fact that my father had not enlisted, not with me as the star representative of the local HJ.

  Every Friday night, I ate dinner at Herr Sollemach's house. I brought flowers for his daughter, and one summer evening when I was sixteen, I lost my virginity to her on an old horse blanket in a cornfield. Herr Sollemach took to calling me Sohn, as if I were already a member of his family. And shortly before my seventeenth birthday, he recommended me for the HJ-Streifendienst. These were patrol force units within the Hitler-Jugend. Our job was to keep order at meetings, to report disloyalty, and to denounce anyone who spoke ill of Hitler--even, in some cases, our own parents. I had heard of a boy, Walter Hess, who turned his own father in to the Gestapo.

  It is funny, the Nazis did not like religion, but that is the closest analogy I can use to describe the indoctrination we had as children. Organized religion, to the Third Reich, was in direct competition with serving Germany, for who could pledge an equal allegiance to both the Fuhrer and God? Instead of celebrating Christmas, for example, they celebrated the Winter Solstice. However, no child really chooses his religion; it is just the luck of the draw which blanket of beliefs you are wrapped in. When you are too young to think for yourself, you are baptized and taken to church and droned at by a priest and told that Jesus died for your sins, and since your parents nod and say this is true, why should you not believe them? Much the same was the message we were given by Herr Sollemach and the others who taught us. What is bad is harmful, we were told. What is good is useful. It truly was that simple. When our teachers would put a caricature of a Jew on the board for us to see, pointing at the traits that were associated with inferior species, we trusted them. They were our elders, surely they knew best? Which