The Dark Meadow (4 page)

Because when someone is murdered it's not a case for a little village policeman anymore: that's when the specialists come in.


I got in touch with our colleagues in the criminal investigation department, and about three in the afternoon I was back on the scene of the crime with the murder squad, and at four the forensics people arrived with someone from the public prosecutor's office.


The little boy died later in hospital.


He didn't know how long he'd been sitting in this room. They had taken him away with them and brought him here. When they were driving away from the house he had turned and looked out of the small rear window of the car. The washing was still hanging on the line, like an impenetrable white wall. The wind had dropped, the storm had never broken.

It must be late afternoon by now, but he had lost all sense of time. The air in the room was stuffy: in spite of the heat the window was closed and had bars outside. As far as he could tell, it looked out on a small inner courtyard. There was nothing green in sight, not a ray of sun, the view was cut off by the wall at the other side of the yard. It was greyish-brown, the plaster was coming off in
many places and showing the bricks underneath. There was a small square table in the room and two chairs, nothing else. The police officers had told him that he had to wait here, so he waited patiently, still clad only in his undershirt and his work trousers.

The door opened, and a man much larger and stronger than Johann himself came in. That made him uncomfortable; he felt as if the stranger were filling the whole room, every corner of it. The man sat down on the chair opposite him and spoke calmly to Johann Zauner. He briefly introduced himself, but the old man couldn't remember the name. Then he asked Johann for his own full name, his address, the names of his wife and his daughter. But he spoke so softly that Johann had difficulty in following what he said. The stranger was trying to inject a note of familiarity into his voice, just as if they had known each other for years. Johann Zauner distrusted that kind of familiarity; he had encountered it often enough to know that it boded no good. The man opposite him noticed the old man's wariness.

Johann thought how he had come home from mowing that day; he thought of the washing blowing in the wind. Large sheets, as white as blossom. The door was open, and there was no one to be seen in the yard. The morning had been oppressively sultry, and there was an approaching
thunderstorm in the air. He had hurried to get the mowing done before it began raining. On the way home from the railway embankment, dark clouds had come up in the sky. He was sweating, he had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He went into the shed, hung the scythe up in its place, and then he went over to the house. The enamel bucket stood by the door with the big ladle in it. He mopped the sweat from his face with his handkerchief, scooped up water in the ladle and drank it greedily. Only then did he go into the house.

*

A loud noise. The stranger pushed his chair aside and leaned forward. He propped himself on the table with his clenched fists, leaning forward as far as he could, coming very close to Zauner. Zauner could feel the man's breath, smell his sweat. The man's voice rose until finally he began shouting, saying he wanted to hear the truth, the whole truth, he wanted to know everything. Johann Zauner didn't know what to reply. All he could have said was that Afra was dead, and they had taken Albert away. So he said nothing, lowered his eyes and looked down at his hands, folded in his lap. They were callused and cracked. His fingers were crooked, his joints gnarled from the hard work he had had to do all his life. On many days they hurt so much that he could hardly use them. The other man
shouted at him, asking what he had done. What was he supposed to say?

*

He had risen early in the morning, before sunrise. He had said his morning prayers, and then he had gone into the kitchen as usual. Breakfast was already on the table. He sat down in his place opposite the crucifix on the wall, said grace, and ate. Then he had gone out to the shed, had put the whetstone in his pocket, taken the scythe and gone to the railway embankment to mow the little meadow, which belonged to him, and was just large enough to provide for the two goats and the cow. Money had always been short, and poverty was a guest seen only too often in their house, but since there had been two more mouths to feed when Afra and the child came home, it all had to stretch even further than before. However, they would manage, even though the Lord God had tried them sorely. He could have told the man all that, but he said only, ‘I got up and went out to the meadow to mow it.'

Hadn't there been a quarrel that morning?

Johann Zauner couldn't remember any quarrel, only how the child lay on the floor panting for breath. He had knelt down to pick the little boy up and hold him tight. Then he had gone out to get help. The toddler had been heavy in his arms, and his stiff hands hurt.

‘Did you quarrel with your daughter?' The other man repeated the question.

Johann said quietly, without going into the matter, ‘My hands hurt so much.'

‘Why do your hands hurt? Do they hurt because you kept hacking at your daughter and your grandson with that hoe? Is that why you're hurting?' the stranger asked, and he went on, ‘Tell me, do your hands hurt because you hit them? With your hoe?'

‘The hoe was lying there. I pushed it away.'

‘What or whom did you push away? The hoe, your daughter's body?'

‘It was lying there, the hoe was lying there.'

‘Where was the hoe lying?'

The old man said nothing.

‘What was the matter with Afra?'

‘I couldn't tell, she was just lying there.'

‘And the little boy, what about him?'

‘The baby was breathing heavily.'

‘The bastard, did he bother you? The child you didn't want to have there?'

‘He was breathing so heavily.'

‘He was always in your way, wasn't he?'

‘Always getting in the way. Always underfoot. Always there.' And he went on quietly. ‘It wasn't right of Afra.
Wasn't right to have the baby. But what could I have done?'

‘So you hit the bastard child with the hoe, and your daughter too?'

‘Hit with the hoe, yes, Afra is dead. There was blood everywhere.'

‘What about the child?'

‘The child was all over blood.'

‘Show me your arms.'

The old man stretched out his arms.

‘Why are your forearms covered in scratches?'

‘It comes of the work, the scratches come of the work and then they heal up.'

He lowered his arms again.

‘How can all those scratches come of the work? Isn't it a fact that you'd been fighting with your daughter? Come on, tell me, why did you do it? What wasn't right about Afra?'

‘I couldn't tell, she was just lying there.'

The old man sat where he was, and from then on said no more. He only thought of Afra, and how she had been standing at the door of the house again in the summer of 1944. He had taken her in then, had simply taken her in. And when she said, later, that she was pregnant, he didn't ask any questions then, either, but he knew she had sins
on her conscience, sins before God. Only later did he find out the whole truth.

He looked at his hands, and whatever else the man asked him he did not reply.

When the man put a piece of paper in front of him and told him to sign it, he signed his name. Then he put the pen down, looked at the man, and asked in a firm voice, ‘Can I go now?'

‘Not yet.'

Saturday, 26 July 1947

Local News

Just the sort of thing, thought the reporter who wrote the story, that you might expect to happen in a place with a name literally meaning dark meadow.

Afra picks up the basket, puts the hoe into it. She pushes the washing on the line aside with her hand and slips past the sheets. She can hear the little boy crying and hurries back to the house to see to him. She puts the basket down on the bench beside the door. Albert is already coming into the corridor inside the doorway to meet her, his face wet and smeared with tears and the snot running from his nose. She picks the little boy up and carries him into the kitchen, where she puts him down on the kitchen table, takes her handkerchief out of her apron pocket and wipes his face with it.

‘Don't be scared, Albert, I'm here. I only popped outside for a minute to hang the washing on the line. I won't leave you alone.' She speaks comfortingly to him, and
hugs him tightly. She feels his little body trembling with his tears.

‘I'm here, darling, Mama is here, do you hear me? Did you have a bad dream?'

Slowly, the child in her arms calms down.

Afra hears a knock at the kitchen door, and next moment the door is opened and the visitor comes in. She lets go of the child and turns round.

‘What are you after this time?' Afra snaps at the visitor. Albert is still standing on the table; she feels him clutching her arm with both hands.

‘The door wasn't locked, so I came in. I thought I'd be welcome,' he tells her.

‘My father isn't here, if it's him you want.'

‘I know he isn't here, I saw him go out to mow the meadow by the railway embankment.'

‘Then what do you want here, Hetsch?'

Afra can't stand him; as long as she can remember she's felt uneasy in his presence. She can't say why, he's never given her any cause for it, at least none that would account for her dislike, but she has this oppressive sense of fear when he's in the same room. It is here now, it's in the air, she can't shake it off, and he seems to feel that himself. Any other man would go away, but he likes it, it spurs him on. He's been courting her in his own way for a year; he turns
up whenever there's an opportunity, he waits around for her when he thinks he'll find her on her own.

‘Don't want anything, don't need anything. Just wanted to make sure everything was all right. I'll be off again if you're in a hurry,' he says with his typical pretence at friendliness, distorting his face into a smile, but all the same he makes no move to leave. Instead, he sits on the bench in the kitchen and grins at Afra.

‘You can see I'm busy. You're not blind, just lame.'

She turns to the little boy and lifts him down from the table. Carefully, she places him on the floor in front of her.

‘Afraid of me, are you, Afra, or why do you put your child in front of you as if he's to protect you?'

‘I'm not afraid, not of anyone, and certainly not of a cripple like you.'

Yet she is holding on to the child with both hands.

‘Tell you what, Afra, I noticed long ago that I'm not the sort you fancy.'

‘You'll try anything, though.'

Afra lets go of Albert.

‘You just don't want a fellow with a hunched back. One foot shorter than the other and something the matter with his back! But there's two sides to everything in life; they didn't want me fighting under Adolf, so that's why I survived,
which is more than you can say of everyone my age.'

Afra is about to walk away from the table and over to the dresser, but he grabs her wrist and pulls her close to him, so close that she can feel his breath on her face.

‘A little something like that wrong with a man has its good side and its bad side. And when it comes to the nub of the matter I'm as good as any other man, and as good as a Frenchie anyway. You needn't wait for him, you know, he won't be seen around here, that's for sure.'

‘Let go of me!'

She twists and turns, wriggling out of his grasp.

‘I have to see to the child and then make a mid-morning snack for my father. I don't have any time to spare now.'

‘Why in such a hurry? Your father won't be home from mowing for some time yet, he's not as quick as he used to be. You can offer me a mug of coffee, why don't you? I wouldn't say no.'

Hetsch is leaning back on the bench.

‘If you want a coffee then go home and make it for yourself,' Afra retorts. She turns away to go over to the dresser, but once again he moves faster than she expects, and he seizes her arm again. But now he pulls himself up by her, and so they are standing face to face. He is holding both her arms close to her body. Afra can hardly move.

‘I wouldn't be a bad catch for you. I need a wife who's a good manager and won't waste money. You're tough, but I don't mind that. I like tough, bitter women. In fact, I really fancy them.'

He puts his arms round her and holds her close.

Afra tries to shake him off, bracing herself against him with all her might, but she can't get free of his grip.