Oliver Pötzsch: The Werewolf of Bamberg

“I could also put you both in a shrew’s fiddle,” Jakob chimed in ominously. “Then you’ll probably scratch each other’s eyes out and we’ll finally have some peace and quiet.”

“Stop this nonsense, you hooligans.” Magdalena pointed at the two boys, who finally now stopped fighting. “Just see the look in their eyes. I think you really scared them.”

The children stared at their grandfather for a moment, baffled, then shouted at one another and went right on brawling. A moment later, Paul, the smaller one, triumphantly held up a handful of his brother’s hair. His older, far gentler brother Peter, almost a head taller, started crying and sought protection behind his father.

“Maybe we should try the shrew’s fiddle, after all?” Simon asked hopefully.

Magdalena glared at her husband. “Perhaps for a change you should stop reading so much and pay more attention to your sons. It’s no wonder they are always fighting. They’re boys, have you forgotten? They’re not made for sitting calmly on a wagon.”

“Let’s just be happy we found someone to take us part of the way,” Simon replied. “I myself don’t especially want to go to Bamberg on foot. We surely have more than five miles to go, and we don’t have enough money to pay for a trip on the Regnitz River.”

He stretched and sighed, then grabbed the two boys by the scruffs of their necks and climbed down from the wagon with them.

“But, as almost always, you are right,” Simon mumbled. “This long wait can drive you crazy.” He nodded toward the dark forest on the other side of the narrow pass, where the branches and boughs of the pine trees formed a dense barrier. “I’ll take these two little devils for a walk over to the edge of the forest, where they can climb and run around a little. It looks like you’ll have to wait here a bit longer.”

He gave the two boys a friendly slap, and they started whooping and running up the steep side of the pass. In no time the three had disappeared in the forest, while Magdalena remained behind with her father and bored-looking younger sister.

“Simon is much too easy on the boys,” Jakob grumbled. “The little brats deserve a good spanking now and then. When I was a kid, children weren’t allowed to misbehave like that.”

“How can you say that, when you’re always giving them candy and putting them up to all kinds of mischief?” Magdalena laughed and shook her head. “You’re the biggest kid of all. I can’t wait to hear what your brother is going to tell us about you and what a rascal you were as a child.”

“Hah! What is there to tell? The blood, filth, and death, and all those beatings from my father, the old drunk. That’s about all I remember. One minute you’re pooping in your pants and sucking your thumb, and the next minute you get chewed up by the war.”

The Schongau hangman stared into space, and Magdalena’s smile froze. As so often happened when she asked her father about his past, he became even more silent than usual. He hardly ever spoke about his brother, Bartholomäus, who was two years younger than he; it was only a few years ago that Magdalena had even learned she had an uncle who made his living as the executioner of Bamberg. The letter the Kuisl family had received more than two months ago consisted of just a few prosaic words and had come as a surprise to all of them. Bartholomäus’s wife had died some time ago, and now he was thinking about marrying again and, to celebrate this upcoming event, had invited all his relatives in Schongau.

The only reason the Kuisls considered taking such a voyage-almost two hundred miles-was that Magdalena’s younger brother, Georg, had been apprenticed to his uncle in Bamberg over two years ago, and since then, neither Magdalena nor the rest of the family had seen him. This was particularly troubling to Jakob, though he never came out and said so, and it was the main reason he’d decided to go.

Out of the corner of her eye, Magdalena looked at her father as he sat there drawing on his cold pipe. He was now in the autumn of his life. With his wet gray hair, bloodshot eyes, hooked nose, and scraggly beard, he exuded an aloofness that had only increased in recent years. Which did nothing to harm his reputation as the executioner of Schongau. On the contrary, now more than ever, Jakob Kuisl was regarded as a perfect hangman: strong, quick, experienced, and blessed with an insight that was as sharp as the blade of his executioner’s sword.

And yet, he’s gotten old, Magdalena thought to herself, old and careworn, especially since the death of his wife. And he misses Georg, as I do. They’re alike in so many ways.

“Damn it, if those people up there in front don’t get their carts moving soon, there will be another accident.”

The wagon began to rock again when the hangman jumped down from the sacks of grain. The rat-faced old farmer, who had been sitting patiently on the coachbox until then, cast an anxious, sidelong glance at the huge, angry giant. He mouthed a silent Ave Maria, then turned to Magdalena.

“Good God, tell your father please to sit down,” he whispered. “If he keeps raving like that, he’ll scare the oxen.” The farmer gave a disparaging wave of his hand. “Maybe it would be better for you to continue to Bamberg on foot, since it’s not very far now.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll calm down. I know him. He’s basically a kind, peaceful man.” Magdalena lowered her voice and continued in a conspiratorial tone. “At least, until he runs out of tobacco. Is it possible you have a few leaves of it?”

The farmer frowned. “Do I look like someone who’d inhale that devilish smoke? The church has condemned it, and for good reason. The stuff comes straight from hell-at least it stinks like it does.” He crossed himself and scrutinized the Schongau executioner suspiciously.

With a sigh, Magdalena leaned back and bit her lip. In Forchheim, where she’d given the old man a few kreuzers to take them along, she’d prudently mentioned nothing of her father’s trade-and she had remained silent on other topics, as well. As the daughter of a hangman, she knew that if the pious old farmer had ever learned he was carrying a real live executioner and his family, he’d probably run for the nearest church and say a thousand rosaries.

The trip had taken the Kuisls on a large river ferry, first down the Lech to Augsburg and then on a smaller river to Nuremberg. Because they ran out of money there, they continued the journey on foot. But now they were only a few miles from Bamberg, so the delay was even more annoying.

“Shouldn’t we first check to see why the wagon train has stopped?” said Barbara from atop one of the grain sacks farther back. With a bored expression, the fifteen-year-old girl dangled her legs over the side of the wagon. “That would be better than sitting around here listening to Father cursing.” She made a face as she played with her hair, which was just as black as Magdalena’s. In fact, she bore a striking resemblance to her older sister. Barbara had the same bushy eyebrows and dark eyes that seemed to gaze out sardonically at the world around her. She had inherited both from her mother, Anna-Maria, who had died several years ago of the Plague.

Magdalena nodded. “You’re right. Why don’t we walk on ahead and see what’s happening down at the ford? Let the grumpy old guy sit here and grumble to himself,” she replied, winking at her father. “Perhaps we can even find a little tobacco for you.”

But Jakob had closed his eyes and seemed to be listening to another, inner melody. His lips formed sounds that Magdalena couldn’t understand.

She suspected that it was, as usual, some long-forgotten war song.

Soon after Simon and his two sons had disappeared into the dense pine forest on the other side of the pass, the shouts of the wagon drivers became faint and muffled. The ground was strewn with damp, musty needles that swallowed up even the slightest sound. Somewhere nearby, a jay called out, but otherwise a silence prevailed that seemed almost surreal after the noisy wagon train. Even the patter of the rain in the dense forest of firs seemed strangely distant. The boys, too, seemed to notice the almost-solemn atmosphere. They had stopped quarreling and held their father’s hand tightly.