“Does she marry the thumbling?”
Nele laughs.
“Why not?” asks the boy. He himself is surprised that he wants to know, but at the end of a fairy tale there must be a marriage, otherwise it’s not over, otherwise things are not right.
“How is she supposed to marry the thumbling?”
“Why not!”
“He’s a thumbling.”
“If he can do magic, he can make himself big.”
“Well, fine, then he casts a spell on himself and turns into a prince, and they get married, and if they have not died, they are still alive today. Good?”
“Better.”
But when Pirmin sees the damp branches that they bring him, he begins to shout, to hit and to pinch. His hands are quick and strong, and just when you think you have escaped one of them by a leap, the other has already seized you.
“Rats,” he shouts, “sloths, stupid, good-for-nothing filthy slugs, you are useless, no wonder your parents drove you away!”
“Not true,” says Nele. “We ran away.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Pirmin shouts, “and his father was incinerated by the executioner, I know, I’ve heard it often.”
“Hanged,” says the boy. “Not incinerated.”
“Did you see it?”
The boy is silent.
“Quite right!” Pirmin laughs. “Bite fight plight, you have no inkling, your brow is wrinkling! When someone is hanged for witchcraft, the corpse is incinerated afterward—that’s what happens, that’s how it’s done. So he was incinerated, and he was hanged as well.”
Pirmin squats down, hums as he fiddles with the wood, rubs sticks together, while saying words under his breath. The boy recognizes a few spells, angel of fire, bring a spark, set this wood alight, kindle the sacred fire, make the flames burn bright; it is an old spell that Claus used too. And indeed it is not long before the boy smells the familiar aroma of burning wood. He opens his eyes and claps his hands. Grinning, Pirmin gives the hint of a bow. He puffs his cheeks and blows air into the fire. The glow of the flames plays on his face. Behind him his shadow, gigantically enlarged, dances on the tree trunks.
“And now perform something for me!”
“We’re tired,” says Nele.
“If you want to eat, perform. That’s how it is now. That’s how it will be until you kick the bucket. You belong to the traveling people, no one protects you, and when it rains, you have no roof. No home. No friends but others like you, who will not like you very much, because food is scarce. That is the price you pay to be free. Not to have to listen to anyone’s rules. The only rules are that you run when you have to run, and that when you’re hungry, you perform.”
“Will you give us food?”
“No, crow, oh woe, no, no!” Laughing, Pirmin shakes his head, then he sits down behind the fire. “Nothing more, not a crumb, not a thumb, and don’t be too loud, for there are soldiers in the forest. Around this time they are very drunk, and they will also be angry because the peasants near Nuremberg have banded together. If they find us, we’re in trouble.”
The two of them hesitate for a moment, for they really are very tired. But in the end that’s why they are here, that’s why they went with Pirmin—to perform, to learn tricks.
First the boy does his tightrope walk. He doesn’t stretch the rope very high up, even though by now he no longer falls down—but you never know what Pirmin will do; he could suddenly throw something or shake the rope. The boy takes a few careful steps to test the tautness of the rope, which he can hardly see anymore in the twilight. Then he gains confidence and walks faster. Then he runs outright. He leaps, spins in the air, lands, and runs backward to the end. He runs back again, bends forward, suddenly is running on his hands, reaches the other end again, somersaults, gets back on his feet, flails his arms only briefly, finds his balance, and bows. He jumps down.
Nele claps her hands wildly.
Pirmin spits. “That was ugly at the end.”
The boy bends down, picks up a stone, throws it into the air, catches it again without looking, and throws it into the air again. While the stone is in the air, he picks up a second one and throws it, catches the first, throws it, picks up a third with lightning speed, catches the second, throws it again, throws the third after it, catches and throws the first and goes down on his knees to take a fourth stone. Ultimately he has five whirling around his head, an up-and-down in the evening light. Nele is holding her breath. Pirmin sits motionless and stares, his eyes narrow slits.
The difficulty lies in the fact that the stones are not the same shape or weight. Hence the hand must adapt to each one, must change its grasp slightly each time. In the case of the heavy ones the arm must yield somewhat more, in the case of the light ones throw harder, so that they all fly at the same speed and on the same course. This is possible only when you have practiced a great deal. But it is also possible only when you forget that it’s you yourself who is throwing the stones. You must to some extent only watch them flying. As soon as you are too involved, you lose the rhythm and can’t do it anymore.
For a little while the boy still manages it. He doesn’t think, keeping himself inwardly on the edge, looking up and seeing the stones above him. Between the leaves he perceives the last light of the darkening sky. He feels drops on his forehead and his lips, he hears the crackling of the flames, and now he senses that it will not be possible for much longer, that in a moment everything will get muddled—and to forestall this, he lets the first stone whirl into the underbrush behind him, then the second, the third, the fourth, and finally the last, and he looks at his empty hands in astonishment: Where did they go? In feigned perplexity he bows.
Nele claps again. Pirmin makes a disparaging hand gesture—but from his silence the boy can tell that he did a good job. Naturally, he would be able to juggle better if Pirmin would lend him his juggling balls. He has six of them, made of thick leather, smooth and easy to handle, each in a different color, so that they turn into a shimmering fountain of hues when you make them fly fast enough. Pirmin has them in the jute sack that he always carries over his shoulder and that the children don’t dare to touch: Try it, just reach in, I’ll break your fingers. The boy has seen Pirmin juggling, in this or that market town. He does it very skillfully but no longer quite as agilely as he must have in the past, and if you pay attention, you can see that due to all the strong beer he is gradually losing his sense of balance. With those balls the boy could probably do it even better. But for that very reason Pirmin will never permit him to use them.
Now it’s time for the play. The boy nods to Nele, she bounds over and begins to narrate: Once two armies assembled outside golden Prague, trumpets blare, the warriors’ armor flashes, and here is the young King, full of courage, in the company of his English wife. Yet nothing is sacred to the Kaiser’s generals. They beat their drums, do you hear them? The doom of Christendom is brewing.
The children change from one role to the next, they alter intonation, voice and language, and since they can speak neither Czech nor French nor Latin, they speak the most exquisite gibberish. The boy is an officer in the Kaiser’s army, he gives the command, he hears the cannons roaring behind him, he sees the Bohemian musketeers aim their weapons at him, he hears the order to retreat, yet he casts it to the wind, you don’t win by retreating! And he advances, the danger is great, but fortune is with him, the musketeers yield to the courage of his regiment, the victory fanfares blare, he can hear them more clearly than the rain, and now he is in the golden throne room of the Kaiser. The sovereign sits mildly on the throne. With a soft hand he drapes a sash of medals over his shoulder: Today you have saved my Empire, Generalissimo! He sees the faces of the noblemen, he inclines his head, they bow in humility. Then a noblewoman comes up to him: A word, I have a mission! He speaks calmly: Whatever it may be, and even if it costs me my life, for I love you. That I know, distinguished lord, she replies, yet you must forget it. Listen to my mission. I want you to—