Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker(3)

Dirk had always wanted to go with the old man and learn his skill. The old woman had always forbidden it. Today she turned to the iron pot over the hearth and said nothing, neither blessing the day’s plan nor prohibiting it.

Before they left, she wrapped bread and cheese in a muslin and pressed it into Dirk’s hands. “Mind your way forward and find your way back,” she said to them once they were over the threshold and through the gate. Did her voice quaver because her little foundling was growing up? Dirk glanced back. She was not there waving. The door was shut.





4.


They walked in silence for what seemed like half the morning.

For a while the branches of pines were low with wet. It was a day in autumn. One of those bridging days between brightness and gloom, though which direction it was headed—which direction Dirk was headed, gloom or brightness—was unclear.

He followed the old man, keeping his eyes on the axe head swaying behind the old man’s shoulder.

The boy was still wondering of what the argument last night reminded him.

Once, according to rumor, Napoleon’s armies had come nearby. On their way to the Battle of Ulm, perhaps. Or the French emperor was said personally to be driving his men forward to Russia. The old man and the woman were unclear on the specifics, but they fretted how best to stay out of the way. To the boy’s regret, no stray infantry battalion came anywhere near them. No runaway soldier, not even a lost bugle boy. Still the old man and the old woman had argued about danger. Fearing conscription, the old man had huddled close to home. The axe, holidaying in the shed, had grown a cobweb beard.

Or perhaps Dirk was only remembering the old woman’s stories. In her repertoire, starving parents abandoned their children in the woods with shocking frequency.

Dirk didn’t want to be sold to an army or left alone in the woods. He didn’t know if the old man would think of such things. Perhaps last night’s discussion had only been about whether Dirk was old enough to swing an axe. He was still young. But not as young as he had been.



They came to an upland stand of trees, very dark and dense though a canopy of yellow foliage crowned their heads. From stout trunks, muscled limbs split into elbows, forearms, and fingers. No sound of bird chatter here, or the chitter of insects, either. Not even the tidal sweep of wind in leaves.

“If we are here, we are here,” said the old man. “Now I will show you a blow so great you won’t soon forget it. Stand there, and don’t move.”

Dirk did as he was bid.

The old man unshouldered the axe. He held it in front of himself with two hands. “Here is how you hold the axe. Imagine the handle is divided into three equal portions, like three sausages the same size. Place your right hand here, and turn it so. Your left hand otherwise. Do you see? How well you hold the axe determines your swing and the force of your blow. You can do a lot of damage with a good blow.”

Dirk tried to understand.

The old man said, “First we clear the lower limbs. This helps us to see higher, and determine the best direction for the tree to drop. This tree here, it is not so old. A young but sturdy specimen. We will start with this.”

With swift strikes and loud, the old man trimmed the lowest branches. Soon all that was left below was a pole of a trunk, bleeding sap. Above, a heaviness of leaves still clouded the sky, though some had been shaken off under the assault.

The old man wiped sweat off his forehead. His eyes were wide. More to himself than to the boy, he said, “A cruel truth: Life demands death.”

“Now will you show me how?”

“There’s making and there’s killing. I never brought down a tree but that I snapped a small limb of it to carve into a figure. You kill and you make. What will I make of you?”

The boy took a step back. “But it’s my turn now.”

“I can’t,” said the old man, “I must.” He turned all around in a circle, as if the boy might be gone when the old man faced forward again. Dirk waited.

“Papi, let me try.”

“Where’s the harm there? The moment is now or it comes in a moment, almost the same thing.” He handed the axe to Dirk. “I need to catch my breath and my nerve. You might as well have a hand at it.”

They exchanged places. Dirk picked up the axe. He knew how heavy it was, because he’d often shifted it around the woodshed. Still, he’d never hoisted it chest-height before. He staggered under its weight.

“Don’t imagine you’ll slay the tree in one stroke,” said the old man. “The first strike is just to make a mark. Swing at an angle from shoulder-height to waist. Gravity will add force to how you land the blow. Keep your grip firm at impact or you’ll lose control. You’ll have calluses in two minutes, but then, they won’t trouble you for long.”

He stood, that old man, one hand in the pocket of his jerkin, fingering his beads, the other raking his beard in a contemplative gesture.

Dirk tried to fashion his stance as the old man had stood. Left foot forward, right leg back and braced. The wood held its breath.

Making or killing. What an argument to have.

He swung. The axe head wavered in a half-circle around Dirk, but it picked up speed. As it came near to burying itself in the tree trunk—or to glancing off it, more likely—something twitched at the roots of the tree. As if the tree were flinching. It was a mouse with six baby mice along her flanks.