29
As Time Goes By
I don’t remember ever being here. I feel like I’m in a brochure. Beautiful lake. Birds chirping on cue. Even the sun’s angled just right. Everyone’s smiling, all the time. It’s like they put something in the water. It’s gorgeous. I just feel really… out of place. I also wish I knew what I was looking for.
“I didn’t think you’d come back, not after what happened in Bad Saarow.”
Something happened here, only I don’t know what that something is. I just hope it was newsworthy or I’ll have spent the day digging through the local paper’s archives for nothing. I have hope. I mean, the bar for newsworthiness is… low. Heavyweight champion Max Schmeling at the local golf club. Plans for a miniature train. Oh, the town choir won some kind of prize.
This is interesting, sort of. A list of people who didn’t donate any money after One-Pot Sunday. Families were encouraged to cook a “one-pot meal” on Sundays during the fall and donate the money they saved for charity work. Hitler’s party took credit for it. Happy Nazi charity work, and if you didn’t give, they shamed you in the local newspaper.
Kuchen contest. I could use some cake right about now.
Memorial service for the victims of the… something-camp tragedy. “A ceremony was held on Sunday honoring the two young girls who lost their lives at the Glücklich Entenküken summer camp.”
…A few days by the lake. It’s beautiful out here.
“Ten-year-olds Gisela Mayer and Renate Neuman were brutally murdered…”
I’m dizzy.
“…brutally murdered by another campmate on September 16…”
Renate. I remember that name but that can’t be it. I wasn’t here. Renate. Blue eyes. Angel face.
I’ll cut you up, you little bitch.
No… This isn’t real.
All dressed up in her little white dress.
She’s calling me names. “Stinky Gypsy! Stinky Gypsy! My mother says Gypsies shouldn’t be allowed at camp!” They’re all calling me names. “Where’d you get that necklace? You stole it, didn’t you?”
My necklace. The one I’m wearing right now. They’re pulling at it. “Criminal! Stinky Gypsy stole a necklace!” The chain broke. She took it. Renate’s holding it over my head. “Give it back! Give it back!”
None of this happened. This is a dream. My dream. I can make it what I want.
A few days by the lake. It’s beautiful out here. Mother’s dropping me off. She looks so young. We’ll go boating, maybe some fishing. She’ll… “Stinky Gypsy stole a necklace!” NO WAIT! Where are you going? Give it back! The bathroom. They’re all laughing. She… She dropped it in the toilet. Wake up, Mia!
“The perpetrator, a seven-year-old child, was found covered in blood, the carving knife still in her hand.”
The knife.
I’m in the kitchen… I’m hiding in the meat locker trying to cool down. They found me. They drag me out. They throw some cabbage at me. Renate pours milk on my head. The milk is cold but I’m burning inside. The fever’s so loud I can’t hear their screams anymore. The knife rack is on the counter.
I’ll cut you up, you little bitch.
This isn’t real.
White dress. Cold milk. Knife.
I grab it with both hands.
This is a dream. My dream. I can do what I want.
Blue eyes. Angel face.
I want this dream to end! I want to wake up now!
I put the knife to her chest. She winces as the tip of the blade digs in. I push harder.
MAKE IT STOP!
…
She puts both hands on the wound to stop the bleeding. She’s looking at me in disbelief, still not sure if this is real or not. Someone pushes me and I fall on top of her.
…
“No one knows what prompted this tragedy. When questioned by the police, the child had no recollection of the event.”
Give me back my necklace!
White dress. Cold milk.
Her friend tries to stop me. I swing at her neck.
Screaming. Arms around my chest, my neck. I can’t move. I’m on the floor, wrapped in grown-up arms.
“The child had no recollection of the event.”
…
…
“I didn’t think you’d come back, not after what happened in Bad Saarow.”
ENTR’ACTE
Rule #6: There Can Never Be Three for Too Long
Young Varkida lost her first child when the Tracker’s army slaughtered her village. She heard the dogs rip her daughter to shreds as she ran for the river. A week later, she came across a caravan and chose to travel east with them to the steppes. A small group of people constantly moving would be hard to find. It also provided a modicum of protection. Varkida needed a daughter, and she quickly found a suitable progenitor among the merchants.
Varkida was the seventh of her kind. She feared the Tracker, the Rādi Kibsi. She knew that someday more like them would come and kill everyone. Her task was to save a few, to take them away before it was too late. Varkida dreamed of ships that could traverse the heavens, of a million wonders her mother had described but that she would not live to see.
Varkida studied the sky almost every night. One evening, she left the caravan to track a star that hid behind a hill. It was late by the time she came back, and she made nothing of the silence. It had been a long day, she thought, everyone must be tired. She had ventured far enough, she had not heard the horde attacking. She had not heard the screams of the people the Tracker had tortured. She found a pile of torsos in the middle of camp. All the arms and legs were arranged around it like sun rays. She thought of running, but the Tracker had left no one alive and was unlikely to come back. Camp, as gruesome as it was, was the safest place to spend the night.
The next day she awoke to the sound of horses. She immediately recognized the small tribe of nomadic warriors whose path they had crossed a few days earlier. The caravan members called them the Arimaspi. Varkida noticed how nearly half of them were women. Even the sight of two dozen arrows pointing at her head could not dampen Varkida’s fascination with the intruders. Their double-curved bows were a lot shorter than Varkida’s. Their small size meant they could be raised without hitting the horse’s back. They had a much shorter draw and could be fired quickly while riding. The horses were short-legged with a large head, rugged animals perfectly adapted to the extreme temperatures. Varkida had never seen mounted warriors. For nearly two thousand years, the people of the steppes had been breeding horses and using them as livestock, but their use in warfare was usually limited to pulling chariots. Everything about these people was designed for speed and mobility. Ride fast, shoot fast.
The archers did not release their arrows. Perhaps they did not see Varkida as a threat. Perhaps her pregnancy was beginning to show. Varkida asked if she could ride with them and offered the caravan horses as tribute. A few months later, Varkida gave birth to not one, but two beautiful daughters.
A year after the twins were born, she was asked to take a husband. She chose the best archer of the group, a seventeen-year-old man, a year younger than her. Each warrior carried a bow and an akīnakah, a short blade, halfway between sword and dagger. Handling sharp objects came naturally to the Kibsu, but a father who mastered the bow would be beneficial for the girls. Varkida gave birth twice more in the first three years of marriage.