The Wild Girl (46 page)

‘My son says they are being harassed by Cossacks,’ the fishmonger’s wife told them, her eyes shadowed with fear. ‘He says they swoop in on their horses and kill the slow ones, taking everything they own, right down to their underwear.’

‘They’ve had to abandon all the guns,’ the butcher said. ‘My boy is heartbroken; he loves that gun like it was a woman. He says the horses simply haven’t the strength to pull them any more.’

‘It’s begun to snow,’ the miller’s daughter said, tears making tracks through the white flour dust on her cheek. ‘Oh, God, my brother wouldn’t take his warm underthings. He said they’d be home before the end of summer.’

It grew cold in Cassel too. Dortchen’s hands were red-raw with blisters from chopping wood. She and Mia pickled all the cabbages, and Herr Wild killed the pig. The screams as it died were horrendous.

‘We have no food,’ Rudolf wrote. ‘We retreat the way we came. If we scrape away the snow, we find only black underneath where the Russians burnt the fields. The villages are deserted, with dead bodies still lying where they fell two months ago. I have seen soldiers carve a slice from a poor horse’s rump while it staggers along, cramming it raw and bloody into their mouths. Another will do so a few paces along, and when the horse at last falls, we are all upon it, fighting for its heart and liver. A field with a few old cabbage stalks is a feast to us. We boil the stalks up with the stump of a tallow candle and a handful of gunpowder, then we must fight to stop others from stealing it.’

On 11th November, the newspapers reported that a disaster had befallen Napoléon’s stepson, Prince Eugene. He and his men had tried to ford a river, but his heavy guns had been overturned by the swift current. Many men were swept away and drowned, while others froze to death overnight. He lost two and a half thousand men, all his heavy guns and
artillery, plus the baggage trains that carried the food and ammunition for his men. All they could do was stumble on, while the Russians pursued them, bombarding the straggling troops and seizing the fallen as prisoners.

‘They say Napoléon himself was almost taken,’ Lotte told Dortchen as they stood together in the queue for flour. ‘I heard that the Emperor now wears a bag with poison in it about his neck, so he can kill himself if the Russians get hold of him.’

In late November, Napoléon succeeded in building a bridge across the Berezina River, after tricking the Russians into thinking he planned to cross elsewhere. The Russians realised their mistake and came galloping back, determined to stop the French from escaping. A handful of men held the Russians off till the bulk of the French army was safe on the far bank.

The bridge was burnt behind them, leaving the defending soldiers to be slaughtered by the Russians. Most of the soldiers left behind were Hessian. The mood in Cassel was gloomy. Many shops were closed and shuttered, with wreaths hanging on their doors. The people in the streets were dressed mainly in black. Crowds stood outside the army barracks, begging for news of their loved ones. Women wept into black-bordered handkerchiefs. Louise went with Marianne, seeking word of Rudolf. She came home in the twilight, pale, red-eyed and silent. ‘Too many dead,’ she said listlessly to Dortchen. ‘They told us it was best not to hope.’

Jakob and Wilhelm called on Herr Wild, seeking news of Rudolf. He shut the door in their faces.

Two weeks later, another letter came from Rudolf, scrawled on a shred of paper. ‘It is so cold. I do not think I’ll ever make it home. I’m so sorry.’ It was undated and unsigned. There was no way of telling if it had been written before the fatal crossing of the Berezina.

The days passed, and terrible rumours reached the marketplace. Napoléon’s army was nearly wiped out, dying from disease, starvation and the cold. Napoléon himself was dead. No, Napoléon was alive, but he had abandoned his army and driven home to Paris. There had been a coup, someone said. The Emperor was overthrown. No, no, someone else said, he has arrested the conspirators and still reigns.

In mid-December, the newspapers published the Emperor’s official army bulletin. ‘His Majesty’s health has never been better,’ it said. Very little was said about the health of his army.

Every day, Herr Wild drank in the gloom of his study. Every night, he crept through the dark house to his daughter’s room. Dortchen would sit, huddled in her eiderdown, waiting for the creak of his footsteps, the piercing of candlelight through her keyhole, the dark loom of him in her doorway. It was better to wait than to be woken from sleep with his weight upon her, his hand on her mouth to keep her quiet.

It was the coldest winter Dortchen had ever known.

The River Fulda froze solid, and King Jérôme organised sleigh races from Aue Island to the bridge and back. Bells rang out merrily as the horses galloped along the ice, their hooves throwing up glittering shards of frost. One night he even held a ball on the ice. Couples in thick furs waltzed about an immense bonfire, while the musicians shivered as they plied their instruments with numb fingers. Mia went with Lotte and the Hassenpflug sisters. She came home with rosy cheeks and glowing eyes, describing the scene excitedly as she helped Dortchen serve supper.

Dortchen did not wish to go anywhere any more. She had drawn the boundaries of her life tight around her, like a small animal crouching in a hide. She especially hated going to church, where she would see Wilhelm and his worried eyes, and sense the curious glances of her old friends. She tried to make excuses not to go.

‘I’m not surprised,’ her father said. ‘As steeped in sin as you are.’

THE YELLOW DRESS

December 1812

A week before Christmas, on a bright, frosty morning, a knock on the front door resounded through the house. Surprised, Dortchen went down the hall to answer it. As she passed the door to the shop, it swung open and her father filled the doorway. ‘Don’t you speak to him,’ he warned her.

Her breath caught in her throat. Knees trembling, Dortchen opened the front door. Wilhelm stood there in a threadbare coat, his hat in his hand, snowflakes caught in his dark curls. ‘I have a gift for you,’ he said, and thrust out his other hand. A red leather book was clenched in his fingers. Dortchen took it and wonderingly opened it to the title page.

Children and Household Tales,
she read silently.
From the Brothers Grimm.

She raised her eyes to his. He smiled at her, his face glowing with joy and triumph. ‘It’s here,’ he said simply.

‘Dortchen, get inside,’ Herr Wild said.

‘Yes, Father,’ she replied, slipping the book into the pocket of her apron. Wilhelm lifted two fingers to his mouth, kissed them, then held them out to her. Dortchen could not help a little smile. As she shut the door, he crossed his fingers, wishing for good luck.

Her father’s face was livid with anger, and he had one fist raised.

‘I did not speak to him,’ Dortchen told him, passing quickly by,
hunching her shoulders against the expected blow. He did not strike her, though his breath was harsh. As she reached the kitchen, she heard the shop door shut.

He had not seen Wilhelm give her the book. She hid it hurriedly and busied herself with salting and curing the bacon. Later that afternoon, when she was sure her father was busy, Dortchen sat down on a barrel in the pantry and looked through the little red leather book.

It was dedicated ‘to Frau Elisabeth von Arnim, for the little Johannes Freimund’. Dortchen was hurt. What had Bettina von Arnim done to help Wilhelm and Jakob? She had not told them any stories, or helped write out any manuscripts, or made them soup and healing teas.

With jealousy a hot ache in her heart, Dortchen turned over the pages. First was the story of the Frog-King, which she had told Wilhelm. ‘A tale from Hessen’, the notes read. There was ‘Cat and Mouse in Partnership’, and then ‘Mary’s Child’. Both stories that Gretchen had told him. There was a long note about other stories of forbidden doors, but not a single word about who had told the Grimms this one.

She turned the pages faster. There was ‘The Three Little Men in the Wood’, and the one she had named ‘Hänsel and Gretel’. There was ‘Frau Holle’ and, a few stories after it, ‘The Singing Bone’. In rapid succession were the stories about Clever Elsie, and the wishing-table and the ass that farted gold, and the elves and the shoemaker. Towards the end of the book was the story about the girl who saved her sisters from the bloody chamber – and Dortchen’s favourite, the story of the girl whose brothers were turned to swans.

‘From Hessen’, the notes read. But not a word about who had told the Grimms the tales.

Dortchen jumped up, clutching the book to her heart. Without changing her shoes or putting on her bonnet, she ran out into the garden and through the gateway, with nothing but her shawl to keep off the snow. She ran across the alleyway and up the three flights of stairs to the Grimms’ apartment, and she banged on their door with her fist.

Wilhelm answered the door. ‘Why, Dortchen,’ he cried in pleasure, opening up his arms to her.

‘Where are our names?’ she cried. ‘Why aren’t we named in the book? We told you the tales. Our names should be there too!’

He was taken aback. ‘Jakob thought it best,’ he stammered. ‘The tales belong to no one. They are a genuine expression of the spirit of the folk—’

‘Rubbish,’ Dortchen said.

He took a step away. ‘But, Dortchen—’

She pointed to her mouth. ‘I told you these tales. I told them. Does that mean nothing?’

‘The tales came from many places, many people … We thought it best—’

‘You! You thought nothing. You think nothing that Jakob does not think.’ Dortchen slammed the book shut, then flung it open again. ‘Look! All these pages of scholarly notes.’

She began to read out loud: ‘In Müllenhoff, No. 8, the manikin is called Rümpentrumper. In Kletke’s
Märchensaal,
No. 3, he is Hopfenhütel. In Zingerle, No. 36, and Kugerl, p. 278, Purzinigele.’ She looked at him scathingly. ‘You can list a whole lot of other names for Rumpelstiltskin, yet can’t find room to add one line that says “told by Dortchen Wild”. Four words – that’s all it would take. Yet in this book, in all these thousands of words, you couldn’t fit in another four.’

‘Dortchen, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise it mattered.’

‘You’re a fool,’ she screamed. ‘A weak, spineless fool, in thrall to your brother.’ Vaguely, she was aware of Lotte and Jakob in the hallway, staring at her with shocked eyes. She did not care. She flung the book in Wilhelm’s face and turned and fled.

He did not follow after her.

There was no goose to kill for Christmas supper.

Dortchen went to the marketplace, hoping to buy a chicken or a duck. Most of the stalls were shut, and the ones that were open were selling useless things, like silver snuffboxes, gold watches on chains or silken petticoats. She was able to buy only a few old turnips, and a ham hock. Dreading her father’s anger, she trudged towards home.

A little girl ran past her, carrying the dangling body of a dead stork. ‘They’re falling from the sky,’ she cried. ‘Look, it’s frozen to death, the poor thing.’

‘Where?’ Dortchen shouted after her.

‘Down by the river,’ the little girl called back.

Dortchen hurried down the road, then went carefully down the icy steps under the bridge. The frozen river showed black under its dusting of snow. Leafless trees shivered in the wind. She heard mournful cries and the slow flapping of wings. Storks were flying overhead, on their long journey from Russia to the south. She gazed up at them, remembering how her father used to bring her here at Christmas-time as a child, to feed the storks with a bag of old crusts. Tears stung her eyes, and she rubbed them with her gloved hands.

An ungainly body came crashing down from the sky, landing with a twisted neck out on the ice. Heedless of the possibility of the ice breaking beneath her weight, Dortchen ran to claim it, racing other children who had been lurking along the riverbank. She reached it just before a small boy, who attempted to wrest it from her.

‘No, it’s mine!’ Dortchen cried, snatching it away. The boy kicked her in the shins but she hugged the stork close and limped away.

The bird was heavy in her arms, its head dangling down, and by the time she reached home her arms were aching. It felt wrong to pluck its long white feathers; the gaping pouch of its beak reproached her. But Dortchen turned her face away and persevered.

Church service that night was half-empty. Dortchen saw the Grimms, who all turned their faces from her. Dortchen did likewise. The Grimms lingered in the church afterwards, giving the Wild family time to walk home alone through the blowing snow. It was so cold that Dortchen’s skull ached and she found it hard to breathe.

‘What’s wrong, Dortchen?’ Mia whispered, slipping her mittened hand into her sister’s. ‘You look so sad.’

‘I’m wondering where Rudolf is tonight,’ Dortchen said. It was not entirely a lie.

‘I think he must be dead,’ Mia said miserably. ‘It’s been so long since we’ve had any word. Surely no one could survive a night like this?’

‘Knowing Rudolf, he’s probably singing by a fire somewhere, with a good bottle of wine and a fat roast goose,’ Dortchen said, trying to sound cheerful.