Christopher Kloeble - Almost Everything Very Fast

Anni and Markus

As the years wore on, the attention people paid to Anni didn’t dwindle half as much as Anni did herself. She ate now only when her stomach ached or her fainting spells increased — a swig of milk fresh from the udder for breakfast, and half an apple at lunch. When evening came she was often too tired to chew.

Her cheekbones stood out, throwing shadows across her face, and her curls hung slack from her scalp as if exhausted. She could assist with the milking for only an hour or so before black filled her vision, and her arms were so thin one of the somebodies would have to help her lug the milk pail. On her excursions to our former house she was seized with fits of convulsive coughing, so she could seldom enlarge her collection of Most Beloved Possessions. Women beckoned to her, called her over to them, invited her inside; Master Baker Reindl gave her bacon rolls with cheese crusts, the innkeeper foisted jars of sweet rose-hip marmalade on her, and Farmer Obermüller’s widow let her sample her viscous cake batter. Not even the most persistent head-shaking could repel them. It was scarcely more effective at repelling people’s looks.

Sometimes, washing herself in the Moorbach, she found herself breaking out in goose bumps, even though she wasn’t cold, and then she’d glance around and notice half a dozen boys stretched out in the riverside pasture, chewing grass stems and staring at her. Mina explained that it was Anni’s own fault, she’d reached the age when one started to bleed. Shrugged shoulders greeted every question Anni asked: Where, why, when — and who was one?

It was only after months passed without a single drop of blood that her worries evaporated. After all, Anni told herself, Mina’s just a Klöble.

One rainy autumn evening Anni sat atop Wolf Hill beneath the shelter of the oak, running a comb carved from a stag antler through her hair. The moor steamed in the distance. Now and then she ran her fingertips across the I love you carved into the tree’s meandering root overgrown with moss. She liked touching it, this root; she was proud that, apart from Pastor Meier, she was the only person in the whole village who could decipher the letters.

“Aren’t you cold?” came a husky voice. A boy leapt down from the oak’s branches and landed beside her with a somersault. Right away Anni’s heart was beating harder, she did her best not to increase the pace of her combing, and she said, “How long have you been hiding?”

“I could smell your hair. Even from up there.”

At first glance Markus looked slight for his age, he was barely bigger than Anni, yet he’d herded many a fat swine for his father to Butcher Scherfeil; there was plenty of strength in his arms and legs.

“I have to go,” said Anni.

“Just talk with me a little.”

Anni shook her head. She noticed that Markus was handling his words differently than he used to.

“You never play with anyone. Why not? Are you scared?”

“I have to work.”

“You don’t have to work now.”

Anni stood without looking at him, tied back her hair, and moved calmly away from him, which wasn’t so easy. Her legs wanted to run.

“I love you,” called Markus.

Anni stopped short.

“I love you,” he repeated. “That’s what it says there, right?”

She turned back to him.

“Did you carve it?” he asked.

“No!” she shouted. And then softer: “You?”

“Me!” He laughed. “You Haboms, you’ve always had books.”

Anni stepped from one foot to the other. “Then how do you know what’s carved there?”

“You aren’t the only ones who can learn to read.”

“Who helped you? The pastor?”

“You’d like to know that, wouldn’t you?”

“Tell me already, who?”

Markus gnawed at one of his black fingernails. “Let me smell your hair. Then I’ll tell you.”

Anni balled her hands into fists, the comb’s teeth bit into her flesh. “But only for a moment.”

Markus came over and stuck his nose into her mop of hair. Goose bumps broke out across Anni’s back.

“That’s enough.”

“Why?” His husky voice was now very close to her ear, almost inside her head, he tugged at her violet dress, his breath grazed her throat. One of her hands was shut tight around the comb, with the other she clutched Markus’s shirt. “You smell good,” he said, and shoved a hand under her skirt.

A tingling ran through her skin and wandered into her belly. “Don’t do that,” she said. Markus pulled her to the ground. The grass was damp, it prickled and stroked her as if it were alive. Raindrops slipped across her brow, she opened her eyes — when had she shut them? — saw her hand on Markus’s face, her fingers in his mouth, felt the soft, warm wetness of his tongue and lips, the way his fingernails brushed her leg. Lightning split the sky, and she tore herself loose, slashing with her comb at his many hands and words, ran away, slipped, tumbled over, went rolling down the hill, got to her feet again, ran stumbling on, and reached our old home. She threw herself down on a heap of soot in a dry corner, wanting to disappear.

She swore to herself she’d never touch another piece of soap, that she’d shun water from then on, be it rain, the Moorbach, or the weekly hot bath. She wanted to be more than merely dirty, since everybody in Segendorf was dirty already — to be precise, in Segendorf dirty was considered relatively clean. Anni wanted to look filthier than Butcher Scherfeil after a day at the slaughterhouse, wanted her mouth to stink even more than Blacksmith Schwaiger’s. Then nobody would stare at her anymore. Or try to feed her goodies. Or smell her hair and grope around under her skirt.

After four days without washing, the stink of her lap was coming through her clothes. The day after that, one of the somebodies laid fresh underwear on her bed. Another two days and she bit a tiny piece of skin, which tasted like chicken, from the upper arm of a somebody who’d attempted to wrestle her into the bathtub. Three more days of house arrest, and she could smell herself even when she leaned over the hole in the latrine. Early on the morning of the eleventh day, Anni was allowed to leave the house to fetch water from the Moorbach. While filling the bucket she took care not to dampen her hands. On the way home Markus approached her, a sledgehammer over his shoulder. When he saw her he stopped short, just in front of the shadow thrown by her body across the meadow (and the sun was still very low in the sky). Anni smiled, satisfied, and took a step in his direction. Would he shrink away from her? Her shadow head swallowed his foot. Markus didn’t stir, but still, Anni could see how his chest rose and fell. He turned around, as if about to leave. Anni’s smile expanded into a grin, at which point Markus let the sledgehammer fall, leapt at her, and threw her to the ground. His hot face pressed against hers.

“Whatareyoudoingwhatisthiswhathaveyoudone?” Markus’s hands plunged into her hair, his nose buried itself in her armpit. She beat at him, searched with both hands for anything within reach, anything she could use to hurt him, tore up grass, reached again, more grass, then felt something similar, but thinner, denser, more firmly rooted, which she pulled with all her strength, because she knew her life depended on it, and if only she pulled hard enough she’d be able to make everything that had gone wrong, everything bad, false, evil, make all of it right again, with a single jerk.