Devotion(7)

‘Food and sun and some mud to roll in. Then a good, swift death.’ I drew my dirty nail across my throat, wondering what the knife would feel like. Would it be painful? Would it feel like an emptying-out, all that blood flooding forth? I never liked to see the way the blood dripped into the open mouths of the pigs once they were hoisted, the fall of it from snout to bucket.

‘Planning murder, are you?’

I looked up and saw Hans Pasche standing on the lower rail of the fence behind the sty, watching me with amusement.

‘What?’

Hans pulled a finger across his throat, copying me.

Heat rose in my cheeks. ‘I didn’t know you were there.’

Hans leaned over and Hulda obediently went to him. He gave her an enthusiastic slap on the haunches. ‘I wish I were a pig too, sometimes,’ he said.

‘You don’t need to tease me.’

Hans looked up at me. ‘I’m not. Lots of food, no work to do. Sleep as much as you like.’ Hulda turned around and, grunting with satisfaction, let herself be stroked by him. ‘Lots of sunshine and fresh air.’

‘She likes you,’ I said.

‘Well, I like her.’ Hans hoisted himself up onto the top rail of the fence and sat there for a moment, looking at me. ‘I saw you the other night.’ He pointed to our walnut tree in the orchard beyond. ‘What are you doing when you lie there?’

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘Is it a thinking spot?’

‘I’m not doing anything,’ I muttered.

‘You gave me a fright, you know,’ Hans said. ‘I went out to the barn and saw the white of your apron. You were so still I thought you were dead.’ He blanched as soon as the words were out of his mouth. ‘I mean . . . not like Gottlob. I didn’t . . .’

‘Never mind.’

Hans stepped along the rail over to me. ‘I have my own thinking spots.’

I leaned away from him. ‘Do you? What do you think about?’

‘Whatever I like. Leaving this place, mainly.’ Hans glanced up. ‘Oh. Your mother is watching.’ Placing a hand on the top rail, he launched himself up and over the fence, landing with two feet on the other side. ‘Goodbye, little pig.’


‘Hans Pasche is turning into a fine man,’ Mama said as we walked along the lane through the village. ‘Don’t you think? Elder Pasche has high expectations of him.’

‘Elder Pasche has high expectations of everyone.’

Mama nodded.

‘I hear him shouting at Hans and Georg sometimes.’

‘That isn’t our concern.’

‘He beats them too, you know.’

‘Papa smacked you when you were naughty.’

‘Only when I was a child, and only because you made him,’ I said. ‘Elder Pasche uses a rod. I saw him flogging Georg in the yard. I told Papa, but he said, “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. The rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”’

‘That isn’t your business, Hanne.’ Mama glanced at me as we turned off the lane into the fallow ground that lay before the pines. ‘What did he want with you, before? Hans?’

I passed the basket of eggs and cheese and sausage from one hand to the other, wiping my sweaty palm against my dress. ‘He was just talking.’

‘Talking about what?’

I shrugged. ‘Nothing.’

‘Tell me.’

I sighed. ‘He overheard me saying that I wished I were a pig. How lovely it would be to eat and lie in mud all day. Become nice and fat.’

Mama’s face fell. ‘Oh, Hanne . . .’ She stopped and looked at me, eyes full of disappointment. ‘Really? You said that?’

‘So?’

Words seemed to fail her. ‘Hanne . . . You have to stop this kind of thing. If you are to be married . . . Oh my goodness, look at the state of your nails! Did you not think to wash before we left?’

‘What? Why are you talking about marriage? What has Papa said?’

Mama lifted a hand against her eyes to block the screel of afternoon sun. ‘Hanne, you have to think of what is expected of you. If you want a home of your own one day, you might start taking a little more care with yourself.’

My voice was small in my mouth. ‘Mama . . .’

‘You are pretending you are still a child. Saying odd things to Hans Pasche. And you were filthy at the Federschleissen, like you’d been rolling around in dirt. People notice these things. They talk.’

I opened my mouth to reply but Mama held out a hand, and I saw that we were already at the forest edge. A blond-haired man was sitting on his heels outside the old cottage woodshed, tools in hand, a halo of staves behind his head. He stood and greeted my mother.

‘Good morning.’

‘Morning,’ my mother replied. ‘Herr Eichenwald?’ She gestured to the basket I held. ‘I’ve come to welcome your wife.’

He smiled at us, flipping the adze he held and catching it again. ‘Go on up to the house.’

Mama nodded at me. ‘Wipe your hands on the underside of your apron.’

As we approached the cottage, I could smell baking bread and wood smoke. A broad-shouldered woman stepped through the door into the autumn sunlight, shaking flour from a cloth. She was wearing a white Wendish headdress, the material tight against the nape of her neck. It brought out the blue of her eyes, her high cheekbones, skin browned by sun. She saw us and waved.