The Wild Girl (42 page)

‘What of my boy?’ Frau Wild wept. ‘Oh, merciful God, please let him have survived.’

The newspaper was half-black, as if stained by smoke and blood, rather than the censors’ ink. Dortchen’s father folded it, laid it neatly by his breakfast plate and went to open a fresh bottle of quince brandy. For the first time Dortchen could remember, he did not open the shop. He sat in his gloomy study, the shutters drawn, and drank his way through the bottle. Dortchen had to do her best with any customers who came; she was unwilling to rouse her father from his stupor but did not want to turn away anyone who was in need of help.

Every day the family waited anxiously for the post to arrive, but there was never anything but bills. Louise and Dortchen went to the army barracks to beg for news, but got only a shrug from the man behind the desk. ‘We do not have names yet,’ he said. ‘It’ll be some time before all the dead are identified. With some, it’s impossible.’ He made an expressive gesture with his hands, like a bomb blowing up. ‘We will never know.’

Frau Wild stayed in her bed, the shutters drawn, her eyes staring blankly before her. She ate very little, only the spoonfuls of soup that Dortchen brought to her mouth, and the occasional sip of tea. She rarely spoke.

Louise was far more voluble. She wept noisily, bewailed her fate, begged for news, then screamed with despair at the lack of it. She paced the floor, she complained, she demanded, and she gave contradictory orders. At times she squeezed her little girl so close to her breast that the baby screamed. At other times she thrust her into Dortchen’s arms, sobbing, ‘Ah, my little one. I cannot bear to see her! It hurts too much. Take her away, take her out of my sight. Let me have some peace.’

Dortchen, Mia and Old Marie did their best to keep everyone fed and the machinery of the big house grinding along, but all carried the weight of fear and uncertainty on their shoulders.

Herr Wild, meanwhile, drank alone in his study.

At last, a letter came from Rudolf. ‘I have seen hell,’ he wrote. ‘The smoke from the cannon fire was so thick it looked like a volcano erupting. The ground was piled high with the dead and dying, as high as my waist. I did my best to help. We had to chop off many men’s arms and legs. We didn’t even have any brandy to give them, let alone laudanum. I was drenched in blood and gore by the end of it, and we had a great pile of severed limbs behind us, still wearing boots and gloves as we had no time to remove them. We had no food or water to give the injured, nor any medicines, and we had to rip up the shirts of the dead to make bandages. Surely the war must be won now. Surely we can come home.’

‘At least he’s alive,’ Dortchen said, trying to comfort her weeping mother and sister-in-law. ‘He’s not hurt. And he’s doing his best for the wounded. That has to mean something.’

Frau Wild wiped her eyes. ‘When will this war end? Are we never to have peace?’

‘France has been at war for as long as I’ve been alive,’ Louise said. ‘Why do people keep attacking us?’

‘
You
keep attacking
us
!’ Mia cried.

‘Not at all,’ Louise answered coolly. ‘We are only defending our hard-won freedoms. Austria and Prussia and England all attacked us first, and Spain and Russia joined in. If they had left us alone, the Emperor would never have sought to subdue them.’

‘Yes, he would have!’ Mia’s face was crimson with rage. ‘He’s a tyrant and a bully and a despot. He wants to be king of the world!’

‘Not just a mere king,’ Louise answered. ‘Emperor of the world. And if Russia surrenders, he will be.’

‘The newspaper says the Tsar has lost half his army at Borodino,’ Dortchen said. ‘Surely he must sue for peace now?’

But the Tsar did not surrender. The Russians continued to retreat, burning their land every step of the way, all the way back to Moscow. The French marched after them.

On 14th September, Napoléon and his army entered Moscow.
Surely now the Tsar must surrender
, Dortchen thought.
Please, let the Tsar surrender!
But the Tsar did not surrender.

‘Moscow burns!’ the headline read the next day.

Dortchen read the newspaper over her father’s shoulder as she served breakfast. The retreating Russians had set their ancient city on fire, the article said. They had burnt shops, grain stores, factories, warehouses and arsenals – anything that might have been of use to the French. Russian soldiers had opened wide the doors of all their prisons and insane asylums, spilling criminals and madmen into the streets. The exhausted soldiers of the Grand Army had found themselves fighting desperate, violent men whose only chance of escape was to kill all who stood in their way.

‘The whole city was soon on fire,’ the newspaper said. ‘The heavens were lit red from horizon to horizon. The Emperor was forced to flee Moscow in the middle of the night. Behind him, unfortunate soldiers and
citizens screamed as they were caught in the flames. The ancient city of the Tsars has been reduced to ashes, and with it much of the Emperor’s army.’

Herr Wild lurched out of the room, knocking over his chair.

‘What is it?’ Frau Wild cried, her hand at her throat. ‘What’s wrong?’

Dortchen could not answer her. It seemed to her that the end of the world truly had come. The omen of the comet had come true.

ALMIGHTY FATHER

October 1812

‘Dortchen! Where is that dratted girl? Dortchen!’ Herr Wild’s bellow sounded down the hall.

Dortchen was in the kitchen, trying to put a meal together out of lentils, broad beans, and cabbage. She sighed, wiped her hands and took off her apron, then went reluctantly down the hall towards the study. There had been no letter from Rudolf, and the news in the morning paper was so bad that her father had once again spent the day in his study, drinking. She dreaded responding to his call, but knew that if she took too long he would suspect her of sneaking out.

‘I’m here, Father. What is it?’

‘I can’t take off my dratted boots.’

Her father was sitting in his chair, an empty bottle and glass before him, the newspapers flung all over the floor. His frockcoat was unbuttoned and his cravat was askew, and he was doing his best to tug off his boots but failing in his drunken haze.

‘Pull them off for me,’ he demanded.

Dortchen bent and tugged at his boot. It was stiff over his swollen foot, and she had to exert all her strength. At last it pulled free, but her father tipped over backward and came crashing to the ground. ‘Damn fool,’ he cried. He picked up the boot and flung it at Dortchen, hitting her hard on the side of the head. She cried out in pain.

‘Stupid girl,’ he grumbled, sitting up. ‘Pull off the other one.’

Dortchen wanted to throw the boot at his head and tell him to take his own boots off, but she did not dare. She bent, pulled off the other boot, dropped it on the floor beside him and walked out of the study.

‘No need to be insolent,’ her father called after her.

The day passed. Dortchen carried endless trays of soup and tea up and down the stairs to weeping women who would not eat. The chamber pots all needed to be emptied, the fireplaces cleaned and the ashes dragged out to the hopper. The horse, the cow, the pig and the chickens all had to be fed, and their stalls cleaned out. Dortchen was so exhausted that she could scarcely move.

That evening, as the family sat down to a silent meal, her father threw his soup bowl at her, telling her it was pigswill and not fit for a working man’s dinner. The hot soup splashed her face, and the bowl clattered on the ground, spreading its contents all over the rug.

Frau Wild protested faintly, and Mia looked at Dortchen apologetically. Dortchen cleaned up the mess and said nothing.

The next morning, Herr Wild beat Mia for dropping the jug of breakfast ale. The jug was made of pewter and was not even dented, but he had punished his youngest daughter as if it had been the most precious crystal.

Mia was red-eyed and sniffling on the way to church, wincing with every step. Dortchen walked beside her like an automaton. Herr Wild walked ahead, with Frau Wild, Louise, Dortchen and Mia following along behind anxiously. Marianne’s angry wail was muffled against her mother’s shoulder.

The square outside the church was empty; they were late. As Herr Wild pushed open the heavy arched door, it scraped on the flagstones. Everyone in the church looked around.

Dortchen saw Wilhelm gazing at her anxiously. ‘Is all well?’ he mouthed.

She shook her head. Conscious of her father’s suspicious glare, she looked down at the ground. She had never wanted more to shelter in the warmth and strength of her lover’s arms, but she dared not even look at him again.

She heard nothing of the pastor’s sermon. His voice was an endless drone. The scrape of boots on stone signalled to her when to stand and when to sit. She sang without knowing which was the hymn of the day, and turned the pages of her prayer book without glancing at the words.

Her father did not drink that day, it being Sunday, but that only made his temper worse. Instead of skulking in his study, he stormed about the house, kicking over a basket of darning Mia had left in the hallway, and yelling at Frau Wild till she wept and ran to her bedroom.

‘Batten down the hatches, bad weather ahead,’ Mia said forlornly, but Dortchen did not have the heart to smile.

She had to get away from the house. Gathering all her courage together the following morning, she went to the study and knocked tentatively on the floor.

‘What do you want?’ her father’s slurred voice asked.

‘Father, it’s me, Dortchen. I need to go to the garden. The fruit has to be harvested. It’ll drop and rot if I don’t go and pick it.’

There was a long silence, then the door slowly opened. Her father peered at her through the gap with red, suspicious eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The fruit.’

Dortchen’s breath gusted out in relief. ‘Can I take the pony trap?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I may need it.’

‘But, Father, I cannot harvest much if I have to carry it home in a basket,’ she protested.

‘You’ll manage somehow.’

Dortchen was not prepared to argue with him. ‘Very well, Father,’ she said, backing away. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

It was a long walk out to the market garden, and Dortchen was tired. It was a relief, nonetheless, to be away from the house. The streets were virtually empty, without the usual crowds of noisy soldiers bargaining for beer and sausages in the marketplace. Many of the barrows were closed down, and those that were open were tended by women. There was little to be bought. A few limp carrots or dirty potatoes, a few small fish, a freshly plucked chicken dangling by its feet.

The narrow, crooked streets of the Old Town gave way to the elegant
squares of the New Town. Dortchen passed the grand residence of the Hassenpflugs just as the large blue door opened and two young men in shabby black coats and tall hats came out. The Grimm brothers.

Tears sprang to Dortchen’s eyes and she hurried on, keeping her face averted. Her old jealousy of the pretty, clever Marie Hassenpflug stabbed her afresh. Wilhelm had time to visit the Hassenpflugs, did he, but no time to visit her? It was no consolation that Dortchen had warned Wilhelm many, many times not to come calling at her house. It was no consolation at all.

As she reached the market gardens, she saw that many of the trees were already turning red. It was going to be a hard winter. She unlocked the high gate and went into the garden. It was quiet and peaceful; the only sound was the twitter of birds. Dortchen looked about, wondering what the most urgent task was. She could not carry much back to the house. She decided to harvest the plums, which were beginning to fall.

‘Dortchen.’

She looked up, her sudden colour betraying her. Wilhelm stood in the gateway, his hat in his hand.

‘I saw you go past the Hassenpflugs with your basket and guessed you’d be here. Dortchen, you look so pale and sad. Is there bad news?’

Dortchen got unsteadily to her feet. She held out her hands and Wilhelm came to meet her, drawing her close, clasping his arms about her waist. ‘Dortchen,’ he whispered. ‘What’s wrong?’

She tried to tell him. ‘Oh, Wilhelm, I’m so afraid …’

‘For Rudolf? You’ve had no news, have you? If he was dead or injured, you would surely have heard.’

She shook her head. She was unable to find words for what she feared. Once again, she tried. ‘My father …’ But it was impossible to speak, and she fell silent.

Wilhelm tried to look into her face. She kept her gaze obstinately downwards. He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. ‘I do not like to see you so pale and wan. Smile, Dortchen.’

But she could not.

‘What can I do?’ he asked in distress.

‘Kiss me,’ she whispered.

So he did.

Dortchen and Wilhelm stood clasped together in the garden, the yellowing and reddening leaves all about them, the bruised scent of ripe plums filling the air.

‘I knew it!’

An angry shout broke them apart. They turned, disoriented, their hands still woven together.

Herr Wild stood in the gateway, a heavy cudgel in his hand. His face was red, and his eyes bulged with rage.