The True Story of Hansel and Gretel

  Telek rose, still not looking in her eyes, and she moved against him and kissed his mouth until some of the rigidity of his jaw softened.

  I can do it, she thought. I can make love to him, and I can give blood to the German, and I can wait and steal the baby away when the Russians come. I can do all of it. She was still thinking this as she led Telek to the bed.

  Christmas Eve, 1943

  “If the beaters can’t find another one, I’ll shoot them,” the SS man said.

  The Oberführer carried the beautiful gun on his shoulder, and the Major winced when he saw that it was not broken. Unbroken guns were how hunting accidents happened. Even the Major knew that, and he had never owned such a glorious, expensive gun in all his life.

  “The gun is worth ten of the man,” the Major whispered to Unterfeldwebel Rahn, the sergeant who followed at his elbow.

  “How long will he keep us out here?”

  The Major shrugged. Half the boys of the village were strung out in the woods. The man who should have been there, the one most likely to find a boar, Telek, was mysteriously absent.

  “Probably trapping rabbits,” Wiktor had offered, but the Major didn’t believe it, and the boys of the village had flushed only one small sow who had squealed her way through the beaters.

  “It’s here someplace.” The Oberführer stopped walking. “I can feel that he’s near. This is a smart, old boar.” Hunting in Poland was as bad as he had feared it would be. His father would have laughed at him, trying to kill a boar with a handful of children and the deformed Major.

  “It’s getting dark.” The Major didn’t want to meet a boar under these giant trees at night.

  And then they heard it. A rumbling grunt, loud and unafraid. The hair rose on the back of the Sergeant’s neck. It didn’t sound like a pig. It didn’t sound like anything he’d ever heard, and the man crossed himself surreptitiously.

  The Oberführer was smiling. “He’ll rush us soon. Neither of you fire. It’s my shot.”

  The Major drew his pistol. He’d disdained to carry a rifle, and now he was sorry. It was a bad thing, this hunting in the Bialowieza Forest. Göring had said it was to be the private preserve of the Nazi high command. They could be court-martialed for poaching.

  “Shot because of a pig,” he muttered.

  “Silence.” The SS man stood and waited, and the glossy stock of the gun wavered.

  “You have to stand like a rock to hit a boar when it comes at you,” the Sergeant whispered.

  The silence lay all around them, broken only by the noise of the boys coming closer through the forest. Their calls had a minor key, like a lament, as the sound came to the three men.

  Hansel, serving as a beater, was crying with exhaustion and frustration. The pig had slipped past him. It was going to be killed. He had tried to drive it back toward the creek, but the stupid beast kept moving toward the guns.

  “I smell him.” The Oberführer was smiling.

  They stood in the snow and waited, and the boar was silent.

  “There,” the Sergeant shouted, and he forgot the orders of the Oberführer and fired his pistol toward the darkness under the trees to their left.

  “He’s mine,” screamed the SS man, but he didn’t fire. The darkness was too solid where the bushes grew densely under a lime tree. “He’s mine.”

  The shadow moved and then shaped itself and came straight at the men. It was a boar, huge, and looked as large as a bull to the Major. The animal ran with his head up, the glitter of eye fastened on the men, watching them as he charged.

  Suddenly a child ran at the boar screaming. A curly-haired boy waving his arms.

  “Get out of the way,” the Major shouted, but the boy ran at the boar and the animal hesitated.

  The Oberführer fired, with the Major screaming at him to stop. The boar’s tusks flashed yellow-white in the dusk, and he slashed at the Sergeant who leaped backward.

  “He’s mine! He’s mine!” The Oberführer was swinging the gun wildly.

  “Then shoot!” the Major screamed, but the boar was already past them and galloping off into deeper forest, away from the beaters and the guns.

  The Oberführer fired again. “I’ve wounded him!”

  The boy lay in the mud sobbing. It was obvious to the Major that the boy had tried to save the boar from the guns.

  The Oberführer pointed his gun at the boy. “I would have killed the beast except for him.”

  “He’s just a clumsy little bastard of a Pole. Your quarry is getting away, Oberführer.”

  The Major held his pistol and stared at the SS man. To kill the boy was indecent, but typical of a man who hadn’t fought in a single battle. The Major wanted to taunt the SS who stood pointing the gun at the child’s head, but he knew that would probably ensure the boy’s death, and the whole village might riot if they brought back the body of a child.

  Seeing the Major’s face and his hand holding the pistol, the Oberführer raised the gun and fired through the trees in frustration. “I’m sure it’s wounded. We can get torches and track him.”

  Hansel began to crawl slowly into the shadows. Seeing him move, the Oberführer turned and fired near the boy’s head. Hansel crawled like a roach and his chest heaved.

  “Look at what years of breeding mud children gets you.” The Oberführer spit angrily.

  The Major grinned at the Sergeant and knew they had the same thought. That was one mud child who had probably saved a boar’s life.

  The Major shook his head. “I’m not going in the forest at twilight after a wounded boar.”

  “You’ll go if I order you.” The Oberführer was shaking, and the boy had disappeared into the forest, running back toward the village.

  “Blood,” the Major said.

  “What?” The Oberführer turned his pale face toward the other man.

  The Major stared back. “If it was wounded, there’ll be blood.”

  “I told you both not to fire.”

  Sergeant Rahn shook his head. The beast had nearly torn their bellies open, and this man was worried that someone else would take credit for a kill. It was a terrible end to a long day. All he’d wanted when he accepted the Major’s invitation was dinner and some brandy. A quiet evening to celebrate Christmas Eve so far from home.

  “We look for blood.” The Oberführer moved forward.

  “I see it!” Gretel pointed toward the east. “Hello, first star.”

  “Now Christmas begins.” Nelka led them toward the hut.

  Inside, they had to stand near the wall because the table was in the middle of the room. Magda held the oplatek, the baked wafer, that tangible symbol of love. It was only made of the same rough flour with sawdust that everything was baked of, but Nelka had made a cross of dough surrounded by a circular indentation in the bread to decorate the top.

  “We should wait for the boy,” Magda muttered.

  “He’ll be back. We’ll save his share.” Nelka kissed Magda firmly. “He’ll be all right.”

  Magda broke a piece off the flat wafer and put it in her mouth. Then she broke off more pieces and gave one to Telek, one to Nelka, and one to Gretel. One piece she put aside for Hansel. They chewed the hard bread solemnly, ceremoniously.

  “Now the candle. Help me, Gretel.”

  Nelka set a candle on a rude shelf under the window. Telek took a twig and lit it from the stove. He gave it to Gretel, and the girl, with a waving pass of her hand, lit the candle.

  “A sign of welcome for those lost in the woods, those crippled by war, all the prodigal children.” Nelka held her hand to the candle and felt its warmth.

  Magda took Nelka in her arms and kissed her on both cheeks. Nelka kissed Telek, and then everyone began to kiss everyone.

  “I love you, Magda. Good health in the coming year!”

  “I love you too, Nelka. Good health!”

  “I love you.”

  “Good health.”

  “I love you, my sweetheart.”

  “I’m
hungry,” Gretel said.

  The table was covered with an old piece of cloth and on it was the usual bowl of soup, another bowl of potatoes and turnips, wooden cups for herb tea, and a flask of vodka that was Telek’s contribution.

  Gretel lifted up the corner of the cloth and began to pull out the pieces of hay which made the cloth lie unevenly. “There’s hay under the cloth, Nelka,” Gretel whispered.

  “There is hay because the Christ child lay on hay in his manger.”

  “Who’s this for?” Gretel pointed at the bowl next to her, set carefully for a sixth person.

  “What if a poor traveler knocks at the door?” Nelka smiled. “What if he was in rags, all cold and dirty and sad? And what if he cast off his rags and was Christ the babe in shining splendor? Or an angel wandering on the earth, with strong white wings stippled with gold?”

  Gretel’s eyes were wide. “Do angels eat, Nelka?”

  “They do in my house.” Magda took a large bite of potato. “Eat now.”

  “I saw an angel once,” Gretel said, and she smiled at the gathered family.

  No one spoke for a moment, and then Nelka asked, “Is Father Piotr coming, Magda?”

  “No. He refused.”

  “Next Christmas, children, we will have—” Nelka rolled her eyes and thought. “Herring in sour cream, dark bread and vodka, smoked salmon, red-beet soup with mushrooms, dumplings with mushrooms, trout in brown gravy, parsley potatoes, three kinds of pierogi: one with dried mushrooms, one with cheese, and one full of sauerkraut.”

  “I want chicken,” Gretel said.

  “No meat. Christmas Eve is a fast day, you know that, darling.” Magda had taught the children. They had to remember if the Germans asked them.

  “Then we will have fruits and dumplings full of walnuts and triangle-shaped cookies and ginger cookies and Magda will make kutia with bulgur and honey and nuts and poppy seeds, the most perfect kutia in the world.”

  “Then we will all have krupnik,” Magda said.

  “What’s that?” Hansel slammed the door behind him.

  “Oh God, he’s hurt!” Magda swept the child up and wiped his face.

  “It was the pig. It bled but it got away. I saved it, Magda. It ran at me but I helped it so it won’t die and the SS shot at me too.”

  “Dear God!” Magda sat the boy down at the table and gave him potatoes and bread. “He’s right. He isn’t hurt. Sweet Virgin! He shot at you?”

  “He missed. He isn’t a good shot.” Hansel filled his mouth. “What’s krupnik?”

  “A liqueur made of sweet honey and heated until it lies on your tongue like a kiss.” Telek spoke before he thought, and then he blushed.

  Magda saw the blush and looked at Nelka. Magda had seen it coming, and it was good. Some would say that the girl’s husband might come back from Siberia, or that he had been gone and possibly dead for too short a time, but a day during a war was like a month of real time. A month of war was a year, and Nelka needed someone to help her.

  Magda stared into the red light from the oven’s fuel box and shivered. She had gotten up from the table. Tradition said this would bring bad luck to the family.

  “Magda?” Nelka watched her and touched the old woman’s hand. “Are you tired?”

  “I want music. What is Christmas Eve without music?”

  “No Midnight Mass this year.” Telek looked at Magda.

  “You’d think we could just ring the church bell.” Nelka bit her lip and they all sat silently.

  “I always liked it when the music started.” Magda thought of the sound as the church would fill with light and the tiny organ burst forth. “The Russians burned the organ.”

  “Enough of this.” Nelka went to the stove where her surprise was keeping warm.

  “We all can have a piece. It isn’t like yours, Magda, but it has honey and nuts and pieces of dried fruit. And you can thank Telek, who got the ingredients for me, God knows where.”

  She carried the plate to the table and drew back the cloth. The smell of honey and spice filled Hansel’s nose and he sneezed.

  Nelka cut the flat pastry and climbed up onto the sleeping platform.

  “Now listen to me, children, while your mouths are full of sweetness. Listen.

  “Mary and Joseph were given the gift of a child. They were so poor that the babe was laid in a manger, and angels and shepherds and wise men came to see the beauty of the baby. An evil king wanted to kill the child, but angels warned Joseph in a dream, and he put Mary and the baby on a donkey and fled into Egypt so the evil king couldn’t kill his son.”

  “Like the motorcycle,” Hansel whispered.

  “The baby was saved and lived to grow up. And he teaches us to be brave always and never lose hope. Never. Even when all the world wants to kill your innocent babe.”

  There was silence when her voice stopped, and Nelka sat thinking of her baby alone in the village, his father dead or in slave labor in Russia. She knew she would cry if she thought of him, so she shook her head hard and spoke more loudly than she intended.

  “In the darkness of deep winter, when everything is cold and dead, the babe is born and God begins to walk in the world. He walks for the next four months among us, and then he will be killed, and rise from the dead because there is no death. Death will die in four months.”

  Nelka paused and looked at the little family at the table, oddly assorted and brought together by history. “God cannot see the darkness that man has created and not throw out light to combat it. He is walking in the world.”

  “Are you sure, Nelka?”

  “Yes, Hansel.”

  Hansel looked at Nelka and he began to feel warm from the hot soup. Nelka said it would be so. He knew that she would never lie to him.

  “Nelka, I have something for you for Christmas.” Gretel rose from the table and went to Nelka. The child frowned and then wrung her hands, a gesture so adult that it upset Magda, and she wrung her own hands.

  “I don’t know where it is,” Gretel said. “I had something, and now it’s gone, Nelka.” Gretel made the motions of peeling an orange. Her hands trembled in anxiety of remembering.

  “Come sit by me, little girl,” Nelka held out her hand toward the child, and Gretel climbed onto the platform and lay with her head in Nelka’s lap.

  “I will sing,” she said, stroking Gretel’s hair. And she sung all the beautiful old carols. One after another the songs came from the young woman who sat stroking the mad child.

  “I think the angel has come,” Magda muttered.

  Nelka sang. Telek watched her and grieved that he couldn’t kill all the Germans. Hansel imagined that he had her baby in his arms, and was handing it to Nelka, and she was kissing him, and saying that he was wonderful. Gretel lay and tried to remember another holiday when she had gotten presents, when the room had been bigger and the people had been other people.

  Magda watched them all and made herself concentrate on the music of the carols filling the hut. She forced the darkness of the future time, which she saw coming, out of her mind, and for the rest of this one night, the witch allowed only the sweetness of love to fill her heart.

  Hidden by the night, the boar dug into a pile of leaves and pine needles under a log which had fallen twenty years before and still lay slightly off the forest floor, supported by its roots. The spongy peat under the leaves gave off a dense odor that mixed with the musky smell of the animal. It lay silent, its dark eyes open and watchful. Across its back was a single line of red where the Sergeant’s bullet had taken off a layer of skin and bristle. It was a slight wound and only oozed a little blood.

  The animal grunted once and rolled to dig itself more deeply into the floor of the forest that stood all around. It lay on the matted, decaying matter, warm and alive, only the glitter of eye betraying its presence and watched the dark forest until the light began to change toward the waiting dawn of Christmas day. As the stars faded and dimmed, the boar finally lay its head down and slept, hidden by the darkne
ss of shadow as the morning brightened.

  Father Piotr

  January began with more snow and storms so fierce that everyone stayed inside as much as they could. “Winter is howling because his back is broken,” Magda muttered.

  “I’m bored.” Hansel frowned.

  “Be patient, boy. Life is sometimes a great waiting.”

  The knock on the door made her jump. The door opened and Father Piotr came in.

  “I hear you’ve become a drunk,” she said.

  He took off his coat and it dropped to the floor.

  “My God, sit down.” Magda took the kettle from the stove and poured the water over herbs. “It’s the last of the peppermint. We might as well drink it.”

  Magda made a cup for Gretel and a cup for Hansel. The children took their tea and climbed onto the sleeping platform. They watched the priest slantwise, never letting him see them staring.

  Father Piotr sat in a chair and did not touch the cup that Magda put on the table in front of him. He rubbed his hand repeatedly over his face.

  “What’s wrong with you? Getting drunk every Sunday just when the Germans give permission for Masses?”

  “I am an evil man, Magda.”

  “You’ve always been cursed with ordinariness. You’re just a human for all of it.”

  “I had women and they threw me out of Rome. Then the birth of the girl in this village. I never had a church better than a peasant’s hut.”

  “Still grieving over lost glory?”

  “I don’t care anymore. But now I’m ending this way.”

  “Brother, your weakness was never drink, but now you are drunk at every Mass.” Magda suddenly understood. “They’ve ordered you to get drunk every Sunday. It makes you a buffoon and a weakling. The people will hate you. It could break their belief, but if you tell the people that the Nazis ordered it, the Nazis will kill you.”

  Pushing the cup aside, he put his head on the table and sighed deeply. “It is the idea of the new one, the SS, and yesterday was the worst of all. I can’t stand it anymore.”

  “What happened?”

  “They came to our houses before light with a truck. Feliks and Patryk and I. We had to dig the truck out of the snow when the road was too deep. I was nearly dead with it.”