The Chosen Ones (19 page)

The Prisoners in the Trees
   He is locked up in the cell where Julius Becker had been held. It is equipped with a bench screwed into the wall, a blanket but no mattress, a washbasin, also fixed to the wall, and a bedpan to do his business in. There is a window but placed very high up on the wall and covered by a grid to make it even more
difficult to look out. Resting one foot on the edge of the bench, he can swing himself up and jam the fingers of one hand under the grid bars. Then it becomes possible to glimpse the gravelled path and the trunks of some of the trees along it. And he sees legs walk past. Some of the legs don’t move, as if they were rooted to the ground; other legs push and strain, as if supporting a person carrying or dragging something heavy. Then, once more, he hears the slow, rasping noise of the tall wooden wheels. The green corpse-cart slides into his field of vision at a majestic pace. Out of the narrow ventilation slit at the top, the stench of death wells in a dense wave. All around, the labourers in their institutional uniforms run away and climb the trees to escape. Adrian bends over the basin to throw up. But when he tries to drink afterwards, the thin dribble of water hardly reaches his lips. In the next moment, keys rattle in the lock and Nurse Mutsch enters.
Wipe your mouth
, she says.
You have visitors
. Doctor Krenek follows her in and, after him, Mrs Rohrbach, then an older woman he recognises as one of the psychologists, Mrs Edeltraud Baar. Mrs Baar is clutching an open folder to her chest. All four lean against the wall as if it couldn’t stay upright without their support.

He feels he must sit down and fumbles for the bench behind him. But he has hardly had time to let his legs buckle under him before Mutsch is there and hauls him upright:

The whole cell sways around him. He wishes that he had a tree to hide in like the others. But there are no trees here, only Doctor Krenek, a gigantic figure towering up in front of the boy. The doctor’s face is bulging with rage:

They leave and, exhausted with sheer relief, he collapses on the bench. But only for a few minutes and then he is back, clinging to the cell window. The corpse-cart is gone but the park maintenance crew is still up there in the trees. They perch on the branches with their heads drawn down between their raised shoulders and their knees bent against their chests, looking like great, brooding birds. They are everywhere, in all the trees he can see. Keys rattle in the lock again and Nurse Mutsch enters, alone this time. She places a plate with two thin slices of bread in front of him on the bench, and then looks at him. What does she expect? Probably an apology. He can’t make himself apologise but must say something. So he says that, in the park, the idiots from the asylum have climbed up into the trees. Her glassy eyes fix on him.
They have done what?
she asks. And he says it again: the loonies have climbed the trees. He can see
in her face that she doesn’t believe him but feels uncertain at the same time. Especially as he doesn’t turn round but keeps trying to look out through the window with his neck and body still twisting in order to hang on. She steps forward, curious.
Where?
she asks. He points: over there. She is about three times his size, so it is naturally much harder to twist her body and neck into the angles that allow her to see out through the window. She raises one leg, he pushes from below at her solid thigh and somehow manages to make the nurse’s white-clad, massive body stand just as he did, one foot balancing on the edge of the bench, left hand around the grid and her face pressed against the wall.
Where?
she asks again and again; and,
there
he says and tries to squeeze a pointing finger between her face and the grid:
there, there, there
– if he smiles in that moment, it isn’t because he feels pleased at what he has made her do but because he is frightened. Frightened, because he knows exactly what will happen in the next moment but can’t stop. And then their roles are reversed. He is squashed against the wall and she leans her huge body over him.
You lying little swine!
she says, and once she has started beating him up she can’t stop. The blows and kicks rain over all the unprotected parts of his body and even though he curls up on the floor with his hands alternating between trying to protect his belly and genitals, and his neck and head, he is struck everywhere all the same. This punishment isn’t in proportion to what he has done, or to what he tried to say to her or show her. No matter. He has betrayed her trust, and everybody else’s too. For that offence, no punishment is hard enough.

Shelter
   Outside, the air has become warmer and damper. The small ventilation pane is propped open on its safety catch and lets in noises, dead or half-dead sounds from the night outside. Strange
birds race out of the leafy trees on clattering wings; car engines start with a roar somewhere on the road; and, like a dark backdrop behind or above or below these sudden noises, the drawn-out, pained wailing of the children in pavilion 15, interrupted now and then by a shrill scream or a howl as if from someone fighting for survival. In the cell, too, a treacherous angel-light is kept on through the night and feels, if possible, even stronger because the walls are that much closer. He is tired but his hunger won’t let him sleep. Awareness, as light as a feather and as fragile, rests on his half-asleep body. Alien human faces emerge from the walls, somehow squeezed out from inside, as if from a tube. He reaches out with his arms to push them away. Hannes Neubauer had said once that dead children were led into the Mountain. Are they trying to get through the walls, back out to the living? Anguished, he wants to press the dead faces back where they came from. And discovers that the walls aren’t there anymore and that the bench that was screwed into the wall is now in the middle of the cell, like a throne. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling suspended from three chains. The chains run together into a knot above his head and continue to a point on the floor under the bed where a hole opens, like the drain in a tub or a handbasin. It seems there must be an exit below as well. He had always believed that the cell was situated as far inside this repulsive prison as it was ever possible to go, that the only way to get out was to move backwards out of time and somehow render undone all that had been done but, then, who has such powers? Now he realises that if one could just become small enough, the hole under the bed would be an escape route and, as he thinks that, the hole grows wider. All that supported him from below has vanished and he must hold on to the cell walls to stop himself from slipping and falling straight down into the void. But soon his feet touch something solid, there are
high, firm steps under his feet, a staircase that leads down into the shelter. He descends all the way to the bottom step where a passage begins, so low and narrow he can only get in by bending his neck. This, he realises, is because he is inside the Mountain. Although the glow of the angel-light can no longer reach this place he senses that the rock chamber is continuously widening around him. The sounds of his footsteps on the gravel create a chain of echoes inside a greater echo and when the breaths come out from inside his chest it sounds as if thousands of people were breathing. And now he sees them: the boys from his section. They are seated on two long benches pushed up against the walls and each one of them has his knees pulled up against his chest just as Mrs Rohrbach has told them to. Right at the end, he sees Julius Becker with the scissor handles sticking out of his belly. He smiles with teeth coated in black, clotted blood but he still frees up a place next to him and signals to Adrian to come and sit down. Where they are, they can clearly hear the streaming, running flow of water below. It is not like at Ybbs, where you sensed the presence of the river as a slight, whispering noise on the other side of the thick stone walls. In this place, the water is so close that he can feel its cold breath against the side of his face. Becker points to a hole that has opened up in the stone floor between the rows of benches. It would normally be covered but the massive wooden lid with black iron strapping has been pulled off and placed to one side. Below, the water flows so fast it seems to stand still. The boys take turns to go to the hole. First up, the boy at the end of the left-hand bench. He sits down on the edge of the hole, near the lid, and lets his legs dangle. Next, the boy seated at the end of the right-hand bench moves forward and crouches behind the first one, who pushes off and slides into the water. Just briefly, his head is seen above the surface and you sense how the water must be tearing and tugging at his body.
With a measured, almost gentle movement, the second boy places his hand on the struggling head, pushes it down and keeps it there until the body has been flushed away completely. Then he sits down on the edge himself and, already, one of the boys from the left-hand bench is there, standing next to the wooden lid and about to push the second boy’s head under the water. And so it goes. The seated boys move along to fill the gaps in the rows.
There is only one way out
, Julius Becker explains. Soon, it is Adrian’s turn. He stands near that lid and watches Jockerl who is in the water. The little head fights against the current to stay above the surface but, at the same time, his eyes look up at Adrian. Jockerl’s gaze is full of fear but also pleading and trust. All the same:
do it now do it do it …!
the Mountain whispers and it is Julius Becker’s dead voice he hears all around him. But Adrian can’t lift his hand, it is as heavy as lead. A door opens suddenly, a hand stretches out past him and Jockerl’s head vanishes under the swirling, black waters. He stands up and wants to scream but can’t because his lungs have no air in them. Then, in the blue angel-light, he sees Nurse Mutsch’s shadow. It must still be night. Behind the grille over the window, there is only a faint glimmer of daylight. Hidden in the darkness, Mutsch is leaning over him. He thinks at first that she has come to push
his
head under the water. But, instead, he realises that she is holding out a plate with two slices of dry rye bread. You eat this, she says. Then you can come out.

Pototschnik
   In September 1942, a new boy arrives in their section. He is called Karl Pototschnik and if what his notes state about him is true, he is a child embodiment of all that is evil and degenerate. He is idle and cares for nothing, servile and work-shy, false and manipulative, dishonest and a ‘bad comrade’ who respects nothing and nobody and who, instead of lining up with the others in
good order and doing as he is told, starts a row and shouts abuse. Pototschnik is the same age as Adrian and Hannes but his shapeless body and placid manner makes him seem quite a lot older. His body appears to be just hung on his skeleton like a coat that is almost too heavy for its weak hook. On top of his bulk sits a head with a high forehead, and cheeks so childishly plump that the folds of skin leave only two narrow slits for his eyes; it is topped by curly blond hair that looks like a cauliflower. One might assume that his was a face that would be limited to one expression but in reality Pototschnik’s features can at short notice shift into every kind of expression. If one of the staff comes in, with a hand raised to strike, his face goes white with fear. When Nurse Mutsch starts to pull at one of his long arms, Pototschnik’s body contracts like a prodded mussel, and if someone gives him a row, his lips stretch like rubber bands, the corners of his mouth begin to twitch and quiver while real tears are flowing from his eyes. His exaggerated play-acting, which no one can quite fathom (
is
it play-acting or is it real?), maddens the staff. It is clear to all that Pototschnik cannot be controlled by the usual means. One day, there was a much-discussed development: Doctor Krenek came along to beat some sense into the boy. Krenek didn’t take the trouble to march Pototschnik off to somewhere more private but went straight for the rotten little toad in the day room, which meant that everyone had a ringside seat. Memorably, Pototschnik appeared not to be bothered in the slightest by the thrashing he was given. True, he screamed and crouched under the swinging leather belt, and his hands and arms became gashed and streaked with blood because he tried to shelter his face, but after a more than quarter of an hour’s energetic flogging, which took the two of them across and back over the day room floor in long, intricate patterns as if in a dance, Doctor Krenek was the first to show signs of weariness, his shoulders drooping and the
striking arm lifting with less and less vigour while Pototschnik’s lips were shiny and red, and his eyes gleamed with defiance.

You can’t hurt Pototschnik, people were saying afterwards.

And to be invulnerable is to be powerful.

Of course, power is not only based on strength and resilience. Real power will only come to those who see the submission of others as an aspect of the proper world order and who don’t waver for a second from their belief that all is well in a world where they are seen as the unquestioned rulers.

If Pototschnik thought that someone was made for this or that, then this was how he was to behave. Because Adrian was, once and for all time,
the tinker
, he was left alone for as long as he behaved as was fitting for a tinker, cringed and grovelled the way tinkers are expected to. The same line of thinking meant that Jockerl, who was short and fast on his legs, must serve as Pototschnik’s fag every minute of the day. For as long as Jockerl folded towels and blankets, tied shoelaces and ran errands for Pototschnik, he was tolerated. But the day came when Jockerl didn’t fancy any more servitude. He was in one of his dark periods when he hung his head and felt that everyone was out to get him. Pototschnik reacted forcefully. He lifted Jockerl up in his arms and then gripped the smaller boy’s body between his thighs. His next move was to place his arms crosswise around Jockerl’s neck and began to twist, with long, alternating turns, as if turning the handle on a mill. At the same time as he was grinding away so hard his big body shook, there were small bubbles of saliva hanging in the corners of Pototschnik’s mouth and an unearthly, bellowing noise emerged from his nose and lips:
uuh-uuh-uh-uhhhh …!