Devotion(79)

They have heard rumours, I thought to myself, watching as Beate Fr?hlich ignored Anna Maria’s request for help and let the Wend’s bottles of dried herbs – fallen from a rip in her canvas bag – roll down the track. Magdalena has troubled them against her.

Whether by design or accident, the Eichenwalds found themselves moving through the gullies and ranges largely alone. They often made camp early and spent the last few hours of daylight examining their surrounds. Friedrich felled trees to examine the wood and Anna Maria, her bag already filled with samphire from the port, picked plants to smell and taste them.

‘They dry my mouth out,’ Friedrich said one night, chewing some small red berries she had kept.

Anna Maria threw a spoon at him. ‘You don’t trust me?’

‘I like them,’ said Thea. She examined one in her fingers. ‘Like a cherry, only the stone is on the outside.’

‘Topsy-turvy, like everything here,’ Friedrich said, spitting the stone into the bush behind them.

I noticed that the Wend had suddenly stilled. ‘Friedrich?’

‘Hm?’

Anna Maria placed a hand on Thea’s knee and I noticed, then, what she had seen. Behind Friedrich, standing a little way off behind the trees, was a group of people regarding them in silence. Three women stood, cloaks draped over their shoulders, with two men and a few small children. Even in the gloaming their bodies shone, hair greased and reddish. I was struck by their upright bearing.

‘Eingeborene,’ Friedrich whispered. He had gone very still and serious. I watched his eyes flick to the small hand axe that sat in the dirt at his feet.

Thea noticed. She shook her head at him, eyes alarmed.

The group calmly looked across at the Eichenwalds before one of the women nodded at the unlit pile of twigs and fallen wood in the centre of the camp. She inclined her head and muttered something to the other women.

It was Anna Maria who moved first.

Eyes not leaving the group, she got up and walked to where she had heaped their belongings for the night. She gave the women a quick smile, hands shuffling in a canvas bag, and then removed a wrapped parcel of ship’s biscuit.

‘Brot,’ she said, approaching the group.

One of the women said something in a language I could not understand and glanced down at the biscuit in Anna Maria’s hand, then back to the pile of kindling. She did not take it.

‘Give them some real bread, Mama,’ Thea whispered. She reached for the crust of rice and wheaten bread she had been eating and offered it. The bread hung in the air for a long moment, before one of the other women stepped forwards and, with a few words to Thea, took it. In the twilight I saw that this woman was the same age as Anna Maria, perhaps a little older. With her free hand she reached up and gestured towards Thea’s hair. Thea removed her headscarf, and the woman peered at her pale braids, looking back at her companions and making some comment that made the other women smile.

‘You can go away now,’ Friedrich said. ‘Off you go.’ He had gone pale. ‘Weggehen.’ He motioned them away from the clearing. The smiles vanished and the men stared him down for a few moments before making their way back onto the path.

They do not look at their feet when they walk, I thought.

Thea and Anna Maria stared at Friedrich as he kicked apart the pile of kindling. ‘Best not to light a fire tonight.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, we don’t want them to come back, do we? What do you think will happen? Were you planning on giving them the rest of our food?’

‘Papa . . .’

‘I suppose I was the only one who saw the spears the men were holding?’

‘You have an axe.’ Thea pointed at it.

Friedrich opened his mouth as if to speak, then thought better of it. He shook his head.

‘It was only a matter of time,’ Anna Maria said, lips thinning as she stood over her husband. I watched her as she wrapped the ship’s biscuit and tucked it back into their bags. ‘We saw them on the plains. Did you expect they would make themselves scarce up here? This is their home, too.’

‘If it is their home, then why can’t they find their own food?’

Anna Maria looked askance at her husband. ‘Doubtless they do.’

‘But you thought it wise to show them they needn’t?’

‘Oh, Friedrich, it was a little bread!’

Thea leaned her forehead into the palms of her hands. She glowed like a ghost in the gloom. Night was falling.

‘A little bread, and then a lot of bread,’ Friedrich continued. ‘And then what else?’

Anna Maria glared at him. ‘This selfishness does not suit you.’

Friedrich looked as though she had slapped him. ‘You call me selfish?’

Thea closed her eyes.

‘Yes!’ exclaimed Anna Maria.

‘I would seek to protect my family.’

‘From what? Families such as ours?’

‘From starvation!’ shouted Friedrich. He stood up, flinging his arms wide to the murmur of bush behind him. ‘Do you see where we are? We are in the wilds! Look. Look! All we have is in that little pile. We have no livestock. We have no money.’ He counted on his fingers, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘No home. All we have is debt!’

‘Friedrich, the Lord –’