Oliver Pötzsch: The Werewolf of Bamberg

Jakob rolled his eyes. He hated it when his brother wrote off, as he so often did, all their father’s faults. But perhaps, too, he felt disdain because Father had turned away from Jakob long ago, after realizing that his eldest son didn’t care to follow in his footsteps. Jakob wished fervently that he could love his father-but he couldn’t. Johannes was a drunk and a failure. Long ago, he’d been a great executioner, feared almost as much as his father-in-law, Jörg Abriel, who more than sixty years ago had tortured, beheaded, and burned women in the famous Schongau witch trials. The Kuisl brothers had inherited from their grandfather those strange, evil books that Bartholomäus loved almost more than his sick animals. Nearly every week he would go to his father’s room, and the two would take them out of the chest to read. The books reminded the family of the great bloody times when their name was known and feared. But those days were long gone, and in the meantime Johannes Kuisl had become a wreck. People made fun of him behind his back. They were no longer afraid of him, and that was the worst thing that could happen to an executioner.

Unless he was feared, he was nothing.

Now Jakob saw contempt flaring up in the eyes of many spectators as they looked disapprovingly at the trembling, sweating drinker. Fear gripped Jakob. Twice already his father had almost botched an execution, and the people would not tolerate that again. A bungling executioner quickly landed on the gallows himself.

And with him, sometimes, the entire family.

“Hurry up and be done with it, Kuisl,” cried the fat baker, Korbinian Berchtholdt, whose son Michael had sometimes brawled with Jakob and Bartholomäus. Berchtholdt pointed at the trembling shepherd-who was still standing there muttering to himself-and then at the stake. “Hey, do you want us to do that ourselves, or have your young brats gathered so much wet wood we’ll still be standing around here tomorrow?”

Johannes Kuisl reeled slightly, like a willow branch broken in a storm, but then he pulled himself together, grabbed Hans by the collar, and dragged him over to the ladder. Jakob knew now what would follow. Last year he had been present at the burning of a witch. Often the punishment was mitigated by placing a bag of gunpowder around the condemned person’s neck or strangling him first. Dumb Hans had a few supporters in the town council, and it was agreed that before burning him, the executioner would strangle him with a thin piece of rope-a fast, almost painless way to die if it was done right.

As Jakob watched his father stagger toward the ladder, however, he doubted that this time the strangulation would be as fast and painless as they’d hoped. Bartholomäus, too, was noticeably uncertain. With frozen gazes, the boys watched their father climb the ladder to the scaffold, pushing the blubbering man in front of him.

When the two men had almost reached the top, it happened.

Johannes Kuisl lost his grip, waved his arms around helplessly, and then fell backward into the slushy snow like a sack of flour, and didn’t move.

“My God, the executioner is drunk as a fish!” someone in the crowd shouted.

Some people laughed, but from all sides there was a hostile murmur that made Jakob’s hair stand on end. It sounded like a swarm of angry bees, coming closer and closer.

“Burn him, too, along with the dirty bugger, then we’ll finally have some peace in town!” someone else called. Jakob looked out over the crowd. It was the master baker Korbinian Berchtholdt. He turned around to the spectators, looking for support from his audience. “This hangman’s performance is a disgrace. It’s been like this for years. Even in Augsburg and beyond, people make fun of us. We should have gotten rid of him long ago and taken the Steingaden executioner in his place.”

“To hell with him! To hell with him!” others were shouting now. First snowballs then clumps of frozen sod, pummeled the hangman. Long-pent-up anger suddenly seemed to give way to a single explosion of rage. The court clerk, his face flushed beneath his official headdress, waved his arms ostentatiously, demanding order, but no one seemed to be listening. The four bailiffs who had accompanied the procession stood uncertainly beside the pile of wood.

Up on the scaffold stood Hans, staring down openmouthed at the spectacle below. Now the first of the fine citizens of Schongau attacked the executioner with rocks and knives in their hands, and the crowd closed in around Johannes Kuisl like a huge, dark wave. Someone let out a scream, and for a moment Jakob thought he saw, amid all the arms and legs, a dismembered ear lying on the ground. Red blood flowed like sealing wax across the dirty white snow. Then Jakob caught sight of his father’s crushed face, one dying eye peering toward him, as more rocks rained down on the hangman.

With a pounding heart, Jakob turned to his younger brother, who was staring incredulously at the swirling mob. “We’ve got to get out of here!” he shouted over the noise. “Quick, quick, or we’ll be next!”

“But. . but. . Father. .,” Bartholomäus stammered, “we. . we’ve got to help him. .”

“Jesus Christ, Bartl, wake up! Father is dead, do you understand? We have to save ourselves. Come!”

Jakob was pulling his horrified brother away from the execution pile when suddenly they heard a shrill voice behind them.

“There are his brats, running away! Stop them, stop them!”

Jakob cast a quick glance behind him and saw a crowd of young hooligans storming toward them down the icy street. In the front of the pack was the baker’s son Michael Berchtholdt, whom Jakob had given a good thrashing just a few weeks ago. Now the skinny weakling saw a chance to get his revenge.

“Stop them! Stop them!” he screamed, picking up a piece of wood from underneath the scaffold and sending it sailing through the air. There was no doubt in Jakob’s mind that Michael would beat his head in with it, if he could. This was his chance, and after such an incident no one would ask any inconvenient questions. The life of a hangman’s son wasn’t worth very much.

Bartholomäus just stood there gaping, so Jakob gave him a shove that made him yelp and stumble forward. Now, finally, the younger brother seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. They ran toward the open city gate, pursued by the howling mob.

Jakob turned off into the narrow lane by the city wall and, moments later, realized he’d made a big mistake. Their pursuers had split up, and some of them had already arrived at the gate ahead, blocking it. Grinning and swinging sticks in the air, they approached their victims.

“We already got your father,” Michael Berchtholdt shouted at his archenemy, “and now it’s your turn, Jakob! You and your brother.”

“First you’ve got to catch us,” Jakob answered, panting for air.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a wagon loaded with barrels, standing in front of one of the houses. On a sudden impulse, he grabbed his brother by the hand, climbed on top of the barrels, and pulled himself up onto the low roof. Bartholomäus followed, gasping, and soon they both were standing atop the snow-covered ridge of the roof with a view over the entire town-all the way to the execution site. Jakob realized they weren’t safe yet. Howls, catcalls, and the sound of running feet announced that the others were hot on their trail. At that moment, Michael Berchtholdt’s grinning face appeared above the gutter of the roof.

“And now, you Kuisls?” he snarled. “Where do you think you’re going? Maybe fly away like the birds? Or will Bartl, this idiot, send for an eagle to carry you off?”

Jakob looked around desperately. Of all the rooftops, they’d picked the one farthest from the other buildings on the block. Jakob guessed it was at least three paces-nine feet-to the next house. He himself had a big, athletic build, and he could make it. But what about his younger brother? Bartholomäus was heavier, and besides, he looked worn out. Just the same, they at least had to try.