Sasa Stanisic - Before the Feast

The settlers considered the larger of our two lakes uncanny. Yes, its waters were shallow and a healthy brown color near the banks, but farther out the bed of the lake fell steeply to such black depths that folk said: this is where the Devil washes himself once every thirteen years, this is the Devil’s Bath.

The forest was grubbed up, the cultivated fields grew larger, and where there had once been isolated houses and farms there was now a village. Later it was granted a town charter, and a strong wall to mark it off from the land belonging to the town of Stargard. At first people said that they lived in the vörste velden , the first fields beside the Devil’s Bath — today the name has become Fürstenfelde.

At first, when people wanted to get to the new settlement, the ferryman rowed them across the lake. He capably took them and their belongings on board, and instead of money he often asked strangers to the place for stories as his fee, passing the stories on to the locals at the village inn.

One chilly evening — autumn had set in some time before — the frogs fell silent, the water was calm and the wind died down as if it were holding its breath. Then the bell on the landing stage was rung vigorously, and there stood a weedy little fellow in the twilight, gazing grimly over the lake.

“Tell me, old man,” said the little fellow hoarsely to the ferryman, with his bony finger pointing over the water, “what’s all that nonsense going on over there?”

The ferryman couldn’t see any nonsense, only the farmers busy in their fields with the last of the day’s work. Nor did the little fellow seem to expect an answer; he had already jumped into the boat and said he wanted to be taken across the lake. The ferryman hesitated for only a moment. He felt that there was something uncanny about his passenger, but the man was a passenger and the ferryman would treat him accordingly, so he made the boat ready and rowed away.

On the way, he felt that the ferryboat was getting heavier and heavier. Then the manikin asked whether the ferryman wasn’t finding it hard work to row. But the ferryman was proud, so he shook his head and didn’t show how hard it was. Soon, however, he found that rowing was not just hard work but downright impossible. It was as if his oars were dipping not into water but into thick porridge. The little man asked his question again, and this time the ferryman, gasping for breath, said that he’d never yet failed to row anyone over the lake.

The passenger seemed pleased with his reply. “Then I’ll help you,” he cried, and he tore off one of his legs and threw it overboard. Now the rowing was easier, but soon they were making even slower progress. However hard the ferryman tried, the oars stuck fast in the black water — or was it still water? — and the boat wouldn’t move.

Then the manikin took off his hat, which was adorned with a long, red feather, bent his knee and jumped into the lake. Under the water already, he called back to the ferryman, “Wait for me and you won’t regret it.”

The red feather in the hat cast a flickering light all the way to land. Where the manikin had jumped into the water, horrible tangles of waterweeds wound their way, and gigantic pike swam around. But whenever the manikin came close to one of them, the plants ducked aside and the fish swam off. Only the nasty crayfish felt no fear. The one leg with which the little fellow struck out like a whip as he went diving down did not end in a human foot. Instead of a heel, it had a hoof.

The ferryman’s heart sank. He would happily have gone without his fee, only he was a man who didn’t lightly fail to do his duty, and it was his duty to take passengers safely across the lake. At midnight the little man rose to the surface again, holding the leg he had torn off in his teeth like a valuable catch. He nodded to the ferryman as a sign that their crossing could continue.

After a single stroke of the oars the boat came to land — day was already beginning to dawn. His passenger paid the ferryman a princely sum of money. “And since you did not give up, did not complain, and kept faith with me,” he said, “I will give you a special reward.” So he said, and then he promised to spare the ferryman’s life, but the others who had dared to settle beside his lake, he said, would not live to see harvest. “Unless,” said the little man, winking, “you can persuade them to move away from here.”

The ferryman woke the Mayor to tell him to warn the village. But the Mayor did not care for the ferryman’s stories anyway, so he sent him off without hearing what he had to say.

The innkeeper listened spellbound, but he thought the passenger’s hoof could be true only in a fairy tale, and gave the ferryman a drink for telling such a good story.

And so it went on: the blacksmith advised the ferryman, who had been awake all night, to sleep off his hangover, the farmers in the fields had not noticed any red light out on the lake, and they even swore that the ferryman had come ashore alone in his boat. Some may have believed him, but said defiantly that they were well off here, and no one could drive them away.

While the ferryman was going desperately from one to another, two fellows came to the inn. They wore hoods far down over their faces, and spoke like men in a fever. In the evening the landlord found them dead, their skin disfigured by terrible marks. Soon the landlord himself was feeling unwell, and so were others who had gone to the inn to drink.

The prophecy of the ferryman’s passenger came true. The plague carried people away as fast as the wind. In the daytime the ferryman dug graves and wandered among the empty houses as though he thought that the story might have a different ending if he only looked for it. In the evening he bewailed his fate. But at night he put out on the lake and called his warning again, as if the water and the stars themselves might be persuaded to leave this place.

Much time has passed since then. No Devil carries the plague to our village now. But every thirteen years, on an autumn evening, the frogs fall silent, the wind dies down, the water is still, and you can hear gasping and the sound of heavy oar strokes, and a hoarse voice calling, “Tell me, old man, are you finding it hard to row?”

This year the ferryman said yes, because it was the truth.

FRAU KRANZ IS STANDING KNEE-DEEP IN WATER. She props her easel up so that it is at a slanting angle, switches on the light, moves its feet until it is standing firmly on the muddy bed of the lake. Eddie fitted an umbrella to the front of the easel years ago to protect it from all weathers. Frau Kranz is well equipped. We know that the water is cold.

Roughly here one of the six young women could have turned. Turned to the bank, to the ash trees, to the village. Perhaps she also looked at the ferry boathouse. Ana Kranz, at the boathouse window, did not move.

On that or on some other day, a Red Army soldier, an infantryman from Belorussia, is trying to throttle a piglet under the ash trees. His comrades, shaving each other in the sunlight, egg him on. He’s not the most drunk of them, he’s the youngest, his skin still spotty, his beard still downy. The piglet is squealing. The soldier stands there upright. His cap has fallen off his head. His pale hair, his red cheeks, the piglet in his hands. Its snout is level with the soldier’s face. It all takes some time. The men shouting encouragement get tired. Only the infantryman can still be heard, gasping. His legs look like slender young trees taking root in his boots. He groans as if he were the one being throttled. The louder he groans the less noise the piglet makes, quietly putting up with this human joke.

Ana Kranz, under the boat, didn’t move. She heard the squealing piglet, looking through a crack she saw the soldier’s legs. She stayed hidden under the boat for a day and a night. The people had run away from the fear that was advancing with the Russians, or had hanged themselves, or had been found. Ana hadn’t wanted to run away again. She spent another two days under the boat. She drank from the lake. Was found. By the ferryman, who came back. He took her in, hid her in the space under the floorboards, behind the paddles, ropes and other gear. Gave her food. Told her, from the boathouse above, about low-flying aircraft and marauding soldiers, corpses by the roadside. Down below, she heard him through the floorboards. He warned her: don’t show yourself, girl. And once she heard Russian voices. The ferryman didn’t understand them. Ana understood the boots on the floorboards. They searched the cupboard, the chest. There was nothing to be found in the sparse furnishings. They opened the hatch. The space inside was dark and full of things. Ana held her breath. They took the ferryman away with them. Only after days did she venture up from below the floorboards. Stood at the window, peering out, didn’t move. If people came to fish from the landing stage she climbed down under the boards again. The ferryman was gone for days, they had locked him up, or worse. Bells rang. Shots were fired. And then he came back after all, his face bruised and swollen. He had brought some bread, and charcoal for Ana to draw with. Ana looked out at the lake. At the promenade beside it. At spring. She drew, Ana Kranz drew all over the walls, the ferryman didn’t mind. She drew the people coming back, almost all of them old men and children, they washed in the lake. She drew the soldiers going for walks along the lakeside like lovers. She spent a lot of time alone. She ate the bread slowly, she drank from the lake, she drew. A small sketch beside the window, six figures hand in hand, on the banks of the lake. It was April, perhaps May. The soldiers were turning up less frequently. Ana stayed in the boathouse of the ferry for a month and a half. Six years later she would transfer the six women to canvas, clothe them and comb their hair, give them morning colors, and now, on such a night as this, the six take their first step, and one of them looks round.