A boy. Washing something in the stream, with hectic movements.
Something red seeps into the water, lumps of something.
I still cannot see his face, but I can see his hands quite clearly now, his fingers buried in something bloody, shreds of skin, flesh.
He turns his head and looks at me.
He has no mouth, no lips.
I can see straight to his bones, the three rows of teeth in his gums.
‘Do you want the treatment too?’ he asks.
I turn and run the instant he raises himself up to his full height.
‘YES, YOU DO!’
_ _ _
‘Where the hell have you been? You’ve been gone for three hours!’ Manfred bellows on my return, already on horseback. ‘Another minute and we’d have left without you.’
‘That person … didn’t you see him? Down by the stream?’ I stutter, reeling round to see the tents packed up. The horses are being saddled, the campfires have all been extinguished. A lorry rumbles away down the slope.
‘Who?’
‘There was a boy, with three rows of teeth. He had no … face.’
Manfred swivels his head away, tugs on the rein and the horse turns.
‘What are you talking about … Anyway, it’s a good thing you’re back,’ he says, and smacks the horse with the crop. Its flank tenses as it sets off at a gallop down the hill.
_ _ _
The seventh day, at the campfire.
Manfred is still reading The Adventurous Heart, though not nearly as absorbed as before, no longer turning down page corners but scratching himself, farting, getting up to stretch his legs.
‘That boy you were on about,’ he says.
‘Yes. What about him?’
‘I think we got him. Was he wearing an oversized coat?’
‘Yes, he was.’
‘Michael chased him down on his horse, like a pheasant, and shot him. And you were right. He had three rows of teeth, I checked. Baby teeth at the front, then the adult ones, and behind them an extra row of sharp little needles. He looked like a bloody shark, the little fellow. Only he wasn’t a child at all, he was ancient. Oh, and by the way, the Führer thinks they’re Finnish.’
‘What?’
‘That rus is the Finnish word for Swedes … So the Belorussians are Swedes. Or was it the other way round – the Swedish word for Finns – I’ve forgotten.’
‘Why shouldn’t they just be Belorussians?’
‘Don’t ask me. Something about the shape of their heads, apparently. They’re not like the Slavs at all. It may be one of his more peculiar theories.’
‘But we’ve got nothing against Swedes or Finns, have we?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Then why are we killing their Belorussian kin?’
‘I don’t know, quibbler! You’re no better than Jünger here.’
He snaps the book shut, flashes me a malicious look and tosses it onto the fire.
‘What are you doing?’ I shout, and leap to my feet.
I reach into the flames to rescue the already soot-covered volume and drop it in the grass.
‘What the hell was that for?’
Manfred is on his feet too, his fists held up, tossing his head, quick shadow punches in the summer night.
‘Do you want to fight about it? Come on, then! Take that … and that … you little liar …’
‘Stop it …’
‘All those little poems to my sister … How much he says who utters night, for from this word deep grief and meaning pour, like heavy honey from the honeycomb … How profound. How priceless!’
‘Have you been through my things?’
‘You left me no choice. Clearly you can’t be trusted …’
He ducks and weaves, feigns a step to his left and delivers an uppercut into the air.
‘Come on!’
‘I can’t be bothered …’
‘I’ve even thought up a whole new aesthetic, specially for spineless drips like yourself.’
He relaxes, extends his hand.
‘Come on, shake …’
I step forward and put my hand out. He hits me.
‘That’s it! That’s the way.’
I stagger back, clutching my cheek.
‘A slap in the face, is that it? How original.’
‘Yes. But it’s the principle, isn’t it? What does a hand mean? Nothing in itself, am I right? How do you know if it’s going to be a handshake or a slap in the face?’
‘The context …’
‘Context? It’s to do with being scared of what you don’t understand, that’s all. There is no context here. The peasant you just gave a Reichsmark, whose daughter you just patted on the head, will twist a butcher’s knife in your stomach the very next second … We find a freak in the forest with no face and three rows of teeth. A boy or an old man? We’ve got no language for this.’
‘So what’s this new aesthetic of yours?’
‘It won’t be a refuge, Heinrich. What I want is an aesthetic of the uncertain. Sounds good, don’t you think? You’re not to know if it’s for fun or for real, if I’m coming to kill you or not. It’ll be hysterical! Come to think of it, an aesthetic of hysteria might be better, what do you reckon?’
‘I wouldn’t know …’
‘Things turn in an instant, you can never know for sure, all you can do is laugh in terror. Think of it as Nietzsche and Munchausen rolled into one! And lots more besides! I even know what to call it now!’
‘What? What will you call it?’
‘Manfredism …’
‘Manfredism?’
‘Precisely. You’ll love it …’
_ _ _
Day nine, campfire.
We found Semjon the Hiwi with his head twisted down in the mud this morning, the back of his skull and the right side of his jaw gone. Grenade, accidental. I ought to feel something. His tall body slopped in the mire. In the daily report I put it down to bandit fire and wrote Losses, ours: 1 fallen (Hiwi), attested the signature and sent it off by telegraph. He saved my life, he smoked my cigarettes, he killed a child with his bare hands.
We are having rabbit.
Manfred attends to the wants of nature. I hear him in the bushes, emptying his bowels with a groan as the animal drips its innards onto the flame. It has become a routine, the two
