Ma called him Jochim. Johann knows who Jochim is: a character out of those folk tales. Ma read him the story of Jochim when he was little. And he read it to her when she was depressed.
Johann runs his finger over the booklets on one of the shelves, pulls one out, leafs through it. The Tinker’s Ring. Jochim turns invisible, people are scared, he decides against invisibility in spite of its terrific plus points, The End. Hmm. Ma tells it differently. Jochim stays invisible and annoys the people who always used to make fun of him.
Ma scared Johann more than being locked up here.
But Johann is keeping his cool again. He climbs on the chest and reaches his arm, with his phone at the end of it, up to the ceiling. No network. He clears books away and pushes the chest over to the opposite wall. Still no network.
Johann is keeping his cool again. He has time. There’s light here, there are books, and under the table is a can of Cola Light, still half full. Johann starts reading.
AFTER PRACTICING INIQUITY MANY A TIME IN THE Uckermark with their Attacks, Robberies and rascally Conduct, doing heinous Deeds against God, the Law and all that is Meet, Right and our bounden Duty with evil Intent, causing Uproar and manifold Violence, and last of all, in the village of Lychen, turning a Church into a Stable, keeping Beasts therein, moving the Altar and the sacred Vessels into that same Stable and forcing the Priest to preach there, those notorious Thieves, Deceivers, Agitators, Smugglers and Footpads Hinnerk Lievenmaul and Kunibert Schivelbein, the latter being otherwise known as Long-Legged Kuno, were taken and deliver’d up to the Uckermark High Court in Prenzlow, on Saint Andrew’s Day in the year of Our Lord, 1599.
The presiding Judge was His Worship Justice Joachim von Halvensleben.
Lievenmaul and Schivelbein spoke in their own Defense.
Besides the well-known Case that had come before the Chamber not long since, concerning the Matter of whether the Flight of the aforesaid Rapscallions were an unpunished Crime or no, on this Occasion a new Plaintiff, Count Poppo von Blankenburg, accused the Defendants of stealing nine Thalers from him in a false Game while attempting to abstract a Barrel of Beer from his Cellar.
Lievenmaul and Schivelbein let it be known, firstly, that there had been no False Game, Blankenburg himself being False through and through, more particularly his Hair, which much resembled a Besom Broom — but by all that was holy, the Count play’d a very poor Game.
The Defendants were reprov’d by His Worship for such scurrilous Talk.
Secondly, the Defendants could not, said they, have stolen the Thalers from the aforesaid noble Lord, as they did not belong to him. Rather, the Thalers were the property of the town of Fürstenfelde, as laid down by Law in the Ruling of 1514 whereby one Thaler per Cartload of Crayfish — nine in all this Year — was to be paid into the Town Coffers, and not therefore into the Coffers of Herr v. Blankenburg, albeit that Noble Lord took the money Year after Year. A second Verdict had indeed been given, but by a Court so influenced by Herr von Blankenburg that the Trial had turned out in such a way that not just the Plaintiff, but also the Judge, all seven Jurors and every other Person attending the Courtroom were involv’d. The People of Fürstenfelde had to accept this outrageous Miscarriage of Justice, they being threaten’d with Guns and other Engines of Murder, and not wishing to end like the Mayor of Göhren, who defended himself and was beat to Death in Unexplain’d Circumstances. They — Schivelbein and Lievenmaul — swore before God and the Court that they had returned the Thalers and the Beer, save perchance for two Pitchers of the latter, to the folk of Fürstenfelde.
And as for all the other noxious Deeds with which they were charg’d before the Court, they would plead guilty to only one, namely running away from the Tower in Prenzlow after they were condemned to Death the previous Year, but this could credibly be seen as the Work of two Desperate Men.
All their Talk, however, was in Vain, likewise Schivelbein’s plea that they had never hurt any Person corporeally. Sentence of Death was therefore pass’d on these incorrigible and habitual Offenders.
His Honor acceded to their request to determine the Place of Execution themselves, intending no doubt to placate the Common Folk, with whom the Condemn’d Men stood in High Regard, since they reliev’d only those who, they thought, deserv’d it of their Possessions. So the Condemn’d Men chose to die in their Birthplace of Fürstenfelde.
AND THE VIXEN LEAPS, TAKING OFF FROM AN OLD idea, on such a night as this the chickens are making a noise in the henhouse, her first leap is not enough, again, again, and again, she does it but she lands hard and clumsily, limps, the vixen limps to the henhouse, the chickens inside are scraping the ground with their claws, there is no gap in the wood of the henhouse, the vixen scents that a human was at work on it, she scratches at a little metal thing with her left paw, the wood opens, gets inside, a tunnel, her right paw hurts, it’s cramped, she can hardly get round the corners, the warmth of the chicken, droppings, little feathers, blood, the walls are closing in on the vixen, it’s so tight she can’t turn round, zigzag, can’t manage the corners, this will give her nightmares, and the vixen sneezes. The vixen sneezes, and somewhere inside the nightmare labyrinth a chicken sneezes too.
On, and now the chickens at last, beating their wings violently, singing, scratching, just a moment, just a moment, the eggs, there, there and there, the first breaks, it isn’t easy in the confusion, just a moment, there’s a lot of noise, she kills one chicken, tears its head off to make it a little quieter, the second egg, careful now, she takes it behind her teeth between her tongue and her gums, it’s all right! There it is, it breaks, yolk, lovely yolk, with yolk in her mouth she kills another chicken, impatient now, the last egg, the last egg gets trodden underfoot, who, the vixen looks round, the chickens are wagging their heads, and then — then the rooster wants to fight, the rooster pecks the back of her neck hard, deep, and blood, her own blood, runs, stings, the vixen has dust in her eye, keep calm, out of here, her right paw hurts, the back of her neck, but most of all her eye, it isn’t dust, the large fowl is pecking at her, out, out, zigzag, she’s in flight now, this is the vixen in flight, her eye hurts, bothers her, she climbs on the wooden henhouse, heaves herself over the woven metal, lands on her injured paw again, her mouth full of feathers, yolk, and the night is full of blood, on such a night as this, the night is blind in one eye.
ANNA IS SHIVERING ON TOP OF THE WALL. THE rain has slackened off, but the wind is stronger. The trick of it, Herr Schramm explains, is to squint slightly, like with those colored 3-D pictures, and in the end you can make out a heart or a rocket in them. Anna doesn’t know about 3-D pictures, she knows about 3-D films and 3-D printers, and Herr Schramm is surprised that she doesn’t know about 3-D pictures, it’s not really a question of different generations.
But squinting doesn’t help — Anna still can’t make out the Güldenstein. “I thought,” she says, “it was only a fairy tale. A farmer, a donkey and a stone shining like gold. I think someone drowns in the end. The farmer?”
Herr Schramm is an upright military man with poor posture. Herr Schramm is so thirsty for a cigarette, so thirsty, and every second without one is a second in a hot desert of salt.
A bat swoops over the promenade.
The stone exists. Herr Schramm knows that, Herr Schramm doesn’t need to explain what he knows to the girl now. It lies in the water just off the little island with the barn on it. As children they used to go out to it on a wooden sledge, when there was thick ice over the lake. It was best at night, because they weren’t allowed to go out then.