The Wild Girl (11 page)

‘Father, please …’

It was no use. When Dortchen would not lift her nightgown and lay her back bare, her father pushed her face down against the desk and ripped the nightgown away. When she would not lie still, turning and twisting and fighting him, he slapped her face hard, held her down with one great hand and reached for his heaviest switch. Then he proceeded to beat her, hard and long, till the blood was flowing down her back.

After a while, Dortchen tried not to cry and grunt and moan, but it made no difference. Herr Wild beat her till he was no longer angry.
Then he let go of her neck, wiped the blood from the switch, put it back neatly in its slot, muttered a prayer and went from the room, leaving his thirteen-year-old daughter lying face-down on his desk, unable to move for the white flame of agony that possessed her.

It was Old Marie who came. Frau Wild would be up in the bedroom with her husband, praying with him, trying to avoid bringing his rage down upon her own head. It was always Old Marie who came. She took Dortchen, limping and weeping, into the kitchen, bathed her back with cool water that stung like acid, and gently soothed her wounds with a salve made from willow bark and comfrey. She gave Dortchen some of her father’s precious and closely guarded laudanum to drink, then helped her stumble up the stairs to her room.

Mia was sitting up in bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, looking frightened. ‘Go sleep with Lisette, sweetling,’ Old Marie said. Obediently, Mia got up and tiptoed away. Once she reached the door, she turned, ran back and kissed Dortchen very gently on the cheek. Then she was gone, her nightgown fluttering behind her.

Old Marie helped Dortchen lie down on her stomach. It hurt so much that Dortchen gasped and wept.

‘Hush, my darling, hush, don’t weep,’ Old Marie murmured, stroking Dortchen’s hair away from her forehead.

‘But why? Why does he do it?’

‘Not everyone shows their love in the best of ways.’

‘He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t love anyone!’

‘He does,’ Old Marie whispered. ‘He fears for you. He wants to keep you safe. Oh, I admit he can be cruel, my sweet. But love … love is not always easy.’

‘I just wanted to see. He keeps us locked up like prisoners.’

Old Marie bent her mouth to Dortchen’s ear. ‘Do not anger him, sweetling. There was such darkness in his face tonight. I fear for you. Try to be good and quiet. He does not like it when you talk back to him. Try not to say a word.’

Dortchen thought of the old tale about the girl who could not speak or laugh for six years, who tore her hands to pieces weaving six shirts from nettles for her six swan-brothers. Her throat closed.

PART TWO

Weaving Nettles

CASSEL

The Kingdom of Westphalia, 1807–1808

‘We can only be free of our swan-skins for one quarter-hour each evening. If you want to save us, you must weave us six shirts from nettles in six years and not once may you speak and not once may you laugh, otherwise all will be in vain.’ As her brother spoke, the quarter-hour came to its end, and they were once again transformed into swans.

From ‘Six Swans’, a tale told by Dortchen Wild to Wilhelm Grimm on 19th January 1812

GREEN SAUCE

October 1807

‘Dortchen, we need you. You must come straight away!’ Lotte ran into the Wild family’s kitchen without bothering to knock or say good evening.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Dortchen turned from the fireplace, where she was stirring a pot of soup. She was alone in the kitchen; Old Marie was busy turning out the linen cupboard with Frau Wild. The starling was perched on her shoulder.

‘We have visitors come, noblemen, and not a thing in the house to cook for them.’ Lotte clasped both her hands together imploringly. ‘Please, can you help us? Please, please.’

‘Please, please,’ Mozart chirped in her ear.

Dortchen hesitated, glancing out the door. The light was fading. Her father would soon lock up his shop, and he would be expecting his supper. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t understand – these are important people. They wrote that book of old songs and poems that Jakob and Wilhelm have been collecting for. Perhaps they can help us. Oh, please, Dortchen, please.’

‘Please, please,’ Mozart chirped.

Dortchen was torn. ‘How many of them are there? What do you have in the pantry?’

‘Nothing. Not a crumb. And there’s a host of them. Herr Brentano and
his mad wife and his mad sister, and Herr von Arnim. They know Herr von Goethe. They know publishers! Please, Dortchen.’

Dortchen looked in the pantry quickly. She dared not take much from their own shelves, for her father scrutinised the weekly accounts closely and was always scolding her mother and Old Marie for waste and improvidence. Besides, a cup of lentils and a jar of pickled onions would not be much use to Lotte.

‘Here’s a sack of potatoes. Take that – hurry, before anyone sees you – and start peeling. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

Lotte nodded and obeyed. The kitchen door banged behind her as she hurried away, the sack dangling from one hand.

Dortchen felt sick. Now there would be no potatoes for their supper tomorrow, and Herr Wild loved his fried potatoes.

I need something easy,
she thought,
something that will feed a lot of people. Something cheap. Something quick. But what? Fish! I could do a green sauce
…
it’s a Hessian speciality; they might like to try it.

Pulling the pot of soup off the heat of the fire, she grabbed her shawl, her basket and her gardening knife and went out into the garden. Above the walls, the sky was streaked with sunset colour, catching the golden fruit of the apple trees. The garden glowed above and was soft with shadows below. She slipped out the gate and across the alley, running up the three flights of stairs to put her head into the Grimm family’s kitchen. ‘Lotte,’ she called. ‘Quick, run to the market and buy some fish. I’ll make you some green sauce. All you need do is toss the fish in a little flour, then fry them in butter. Can you manage that?’

Lotte nodded, dropping her paring knife into the pile of dirty peelings.

‘Put the potatoes on first,’ Dortchen said. ‘They take longer.’

No more was said. She ran back downstairs, across the alleyway and through the gate into her own garden, then dropped to her knees and began to cut handfuls of borage, sorrel, watercress, burnet, chervil, chives and parsley, placing the fresh green leaves into her basket.

A shadow fell across her.

‘What are you doing?’ Herr Wild asked. He must have seen her through the stillroom door, which opened out into the garden.

Dortchen’s hands paused. ‘I … I’m cutting herbs, Father.’

‘I can see that. I’m not a fool. Why are you cutting herbs? Is supper not yet ready?’

She forced herself to look up. He stood over her, his hands on his hips, his legs planted wide. ‘Yes, supper’s ready. I’m just making a quick sauce. It won’t be long.’

‘Then what were you doing outside the garden gate? Were you meeting a boy out there?’

‘No, Father, of course not. I … I was just making sure none of our apples had fallen over the wall.’

‘Where are they, then?’

‘What?’

‘The apples. Where are they?’

‘There was none out there. None had fallen.’

He grunted. ‘More likely some thieving boy got to them first.’

She did not reply.

The church bells began to ring out, marking the hour. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘I must finish.’ Her skirts brushed against his leg as she passed him on the narrow path. He smelt of sweat, alcohol and tobacco smoke. Her father had drunk only rarely before the French invasion. Now he drank all day.

‘See that supper is not late,’ he said to her back.

It had been a year since the French army had marched into Hessen-Cassel. Many things had changed for Dortchen in that time. She was now fourteen and a half, and confined within stays that compressed her ribs and made her feel like she could not breathe. Her hair no longer swung free in a long plait but was curbed with a fistful of pins. She no longer went to school but stayed at home, helping her mother and sisters. Worst of all, she was no longer allowed to go out into the forest by herself, or even to the garden plot outside the town walls.

Hessen-Cassel itself had changed. It was no longer a free country with its own Kurfürst but part of the new Kingdom of Westphalia, which had been formed by mashing together the Duchy of Magdeburg, the Electorate
of Hanover, the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and a few other small territories.

At first it seemed as if the new kingdom would be given to Napoléon’s brother Louis, who was already King of Holland, but in April news had come that the youngest Bonaparte brother, Jérôme, had been named king instead. Jérôme was twenty-three years old, the same age as Dortchen’s brother. Like Rudolf, Jérôme was more interested in gambling and hunting and cockfights than in matters of state. It was said that he had danced while Berlin was ransacked, and that he had already run up debts of millions of francs. Although so young, he had already caused a great deal of scandal. He had married an American heiress while visiting the New World, but had abandoned her and his newborn son at the command of his imperious older brother to marry instead a German princess, the daughter of one of the oldest ruling families in Europe. Jérôme and Catherine of Württemberg had been wed in Paris in April and were slowly wending their way towards Cassel.

In the meantime, the town was full of French soldiers. They drank and gambled and danced, taking what they wanted from the shops and houses, and paying with paper
assignants
that were virtually worthless. The palace had been plundered of its art treasures, and wagons filled with paintings and statues had trundled away from the town towards Paris. The arsenal had been taken over, the French taking all the guns and gunpowder and heavy cannons for their own use. Herr Wild’s shop had been cleaned out of its drugs and medications, so the Wild sisters had all been kept busy in the garden and the stillroom, helping their father make new remedies to replace what had been taken. Although Herr Wild was promised reparation, he said he never expected to see a thaler of it.

The Grimm family was suffering even more. Jakob had quit his job at the War Office, exhausted by the demands upon him and unable to bear working for the French. He had applied for a job as the librarian at the palace, but had been passed over for someone with fewer credentials but nobler blood. Since Aunt Zimmer had fled with Princess Wilhelmine, she was no longer able to help them with gifts of food and money. It had been a hard summer, and Dortchen was not alone in dreading the coming of the winter months.

She flew about the kitchen, hurriedly putting eggs on to boil, and crushing the herbs with oil in her mortar. She would serve some with the boiled beef already prepared for their supper, then slip over to Lotte’s with the rest as soon as she could.