If they had taken the wide road, they could have been at their destination already this afternoon, but it passes too close to the clearing with the old willow. No unborn child may come close to the Cold Woman. Therefore, they have to take the detour by way of the narrow overgrown path that leads much deeper through the forest, past Maple Hill and the large Mouse Pond.
Agneta is talking about the time when she was not yet Ulenspiegel’s wife. One of baker Holtz’s two sons wanted to marry her. He threatened to join the soldiers if she didn’t take him. He would march east, to the Hungarian plains, to fight against the Turks. And she almost would have taken him—why not, she thought, in the end they’re all the same. But then Claus came to the village, a Catholic from the north, which was in itself strange enough, and when she married him, because she couldn’t resist him, young Holtz didn’t march east after all. He stayed and baked bread, and when two years later the plague spread through the village, he was the first to die, and when his father too died, his brother took over the bakery.
Agneta sighs and strokes the boy’s head. “You don’t know what he used to be like. Young and lithe and completely different from the others.”
It takes the boy a moment to understand whom she’s talking about.
“He knew everything. He could read. And he was beautiful too. He was strong, and he had bright eyes, and he could sing and dance better than anyone else.” She reflects for a while. “He was…awake!”
The boy nods. He would rather hear a fairy tale.
“He’s a good person,” says Agneta. “You must never forget that.”
The boy can’t help yawning.
“Only, his mind is never there. I didn’t understand it at the time. I didn’t know that such people existed. How should I have known, I who have never been anywhere but here, that he would never truly live among us? In the beginning his mind was elsewhere only now and then. Most of the time he was with me. He carried me in his arms. We laughed. His eyes were so bright. Only sometimes did he read his books or do his experiments, igniting something or mixing powders. Then he began spending more time with his books and less with me, and then even less, and now? Well, you see. Last month, when the mill wheel stopped. Only after three days did he repair it, because first he wanted to test something out in the meadow. He didn’t have time for the mill, the miller himself. And then he repaired the wheel poorly too, and the axle got stuck, and we had to get Anselm Melker’s help. But he didn’t care!”
“Can you tell me a fairy tale?”
Agneta nods. “A long time ago,” she begins. “When the stones were still young and there were no dukes and no one had to pay a tithe. A long time ago, when even in winter no snow fell…”
She hesitates, touches her belly, and shortens the reins. The path is now narrow and runs over broad roots. One false step by the donkey and the wagon could overturn.
“A long time ago,” she begins anew, “a girl found a golden apple. She wanted to share it with her mother, but then she cut her finger, and from a drop of her blood a tree grew. It bore more apples, though not golden ones, but shriveled ugly nasty apples. Whoever ate them died a hard death. For her mother was a witch. She guarded the golden apple like her most treasured possession, and she tore to pieces and devoured every knight who went up against her to free her daughter, laughing and asking: Is there no hero among you, then? But when winter finally came and covered everything with snow, the poor daughter had to clean and cook for her mother, day in, day out and without end.”
“Snow?”
Agneta falls silent.
“You said there was no snow in winter.”
Agneta remains silent.
“Sorry,” says the boy.
“The poor daughter had to clean and cook for her mother, day in, day out and without end, and this even though she was so beautiful that no one could look at her without falling in love.”
Agneta is silent again. Then she groans softly.
“What’s wrong?”
“And so the daughter ran away in the depth of winter, for she heard that far, far, far away, at the edge of the great sea, there lived a boy who was worthy of the golden apple. But first she had to flee, and this was hard, for her mother, the witch, was watchful.”
Agneta falls silent once again. The forest is now very dense; only high up between the treetops are there still flashes of light blue sky. Agneta pulls on the reins. The donkey stops. A squirrel jumps onto the path, looks at them with cold eyes. Then, as quickly as an illusion, it is gone. The farmhand behind them stops snoring and sits up.
“What’s wrong?” the boy asks again.
Agneta doesn’t reply. She’s suddenly deathly pale. And now the boy sees that her skirt is full of blood.
For a moment he is surprised that he didn’t notice such a big spot until now. Then he understands that just a moment ago the blood wasn’t there yet.
“It’s coming,” says Agneta. “I have to go back.”
The boy stares at her.
“Hot water,” she says, her voice cracking. “And Claus. I need hot water, and I need Claus too with his spells and herbs. And the midwife from the village, I need her too, Lise Köllerin.”
The boy stares at her. Heiner stares at her. The donkey stares ahead.
“Because I’ll die otherwise,” she says. “It has to happen. It can’t be helped. I can’t turn the wagon around here. Heiner will support me, we’ll walk, and you stay.”
“Why don’t we keep driving?”
“We won’t be at the Reutter farm until evening. To get back to the mill on foot will be faster.” Panting, she climbs down. The boy tries to reach for her arm, but she pushes him away. “Do you understand?”
“What?”
Agneta is struggling for air. “Someone has to stay with the flour. It’s worth as much as half the mill.”
“Alone in the forest?”
Agneta groans.
Heiner looks dully back and forth between them.
“I’m here with two idiots.” Agneta places both hands on the boy’s cheeks and looks him in the eyes so hard that he can see his reflection. Her breath whistles and rattles in her throat. “Do you understand?” she asks softly. “My heart, my little boy, do you understand? You wait here.”
The pounding in his chest is so loud that he thinks she must be able to hear it. He wants to tell her that she’s not thinking straight, that the pain has clouded her mind. She won’t make it on foot, it will take hours, she’s bleeding too heavily. But his throat is dried out; the words get stuck in it. Helplessly he watches her hobble away, leaning on Heiner. The farmhand is half supporting her, half dragging her. With each step she lets out a groan. For a short time he can still see them. Then he hears the groaning fading away, and then he is alone.
For a while he distracts himself by pulling on the donkey’s ears. Right and left and right, each time the animal makes a sad noise. Why is he so patient, why so good-natured, why doesn’t he bite? He looks him in the right eye. It sits in its socket like a glass ball, dark, watery, and empty. It doesn’t blink, it just twitches a little when he touches it with his finger. He wonders what it’s like to be this donkey. Imprisoned in a donkey soul, a donkey head on your shoulders, with donkey thoughts inside it—what does it feel like?
He holds his breath and listens. The wind: Noises within noises behind other noises, buzzing and rustling, squeaking, moaning and creaking. The whispering of the leaves over the whispering of voices, and again it seems to him as if he would only have to listen for a while, then he could understand. He begins to hum to himself, but his voice sounds foreign to him.
At this moment he notices that the flour sacks are knotted with a rope—a long one, which runs from one sack to the next. With relief he pulls out his knife and sets to work cutting notches into tree trunks.