Page 13 of Hansel and Gerhardt (The GriMM Tales #3)

“There are places you can go. In the city. Places a man can go to spend time with a woman. Or… Or with a man. And that man or woman has to do what he says in exchange for money.” He swept over Hansel’s next attempted question, talking on.

“My father took my mother to a place where women do that, and he took me too. It was an old house, enormous and rambling. It was dank, mould on every wall. And I was never allowed upstairs. I had to wait in a very cold, very large room downstairs. And men came and went. And the people who worked there would come and sit with me while they waited for customers to come in.”

He gave Hansel a wan smile. “Some of those people thought I worked there. And they told me things. But my mother would never tell me what she did upstairs, or what it all meant. She told me only to scream as loud as possible if someone tried to make me go into another room.”

Hansel, even if he still didn’t fully understand, shifted forward, all concern. “Why didn’t she leave if she was worried for you?”

Some incredulous note in Gerhardt forced a nervous smile to his face. “She couldn’t. My father sat at the door. Him and some other men. They took turns. For there were others who did not want to be there, and those men did not let them leave either.”

Gerhardt threw another hunk of meat onto the fire.

“But the people who worked there, upstairs, they treated me very kindly. Far more kindly than I was treated at home. I suppose they thought I’d end up working there soon enough.

So they told me what would be expected of me.

They told me how to keep out of trouble.

They told me how to make it less painful. ”

He blinked fast and looked away, saying quickly, “Came the day, one of them did come for me. He tried to take me upstairs. I called for my mother. One of the women who worked there, she saw me, and she bolted upstairs to my mother. He got me in a room, he closed the door, and I was so scared. And then the door flew open, and he got a knife in his throat.” Gerhardt wiped at the tears that came into his eyes.

“She slit it wide, right in front of me. She dropped to her knees and said, run downstairs, and don’t you dare speak a word of this.

So I did. I ran back to the couch, and I sat there, crying, but that was nothing unusual.

And she went back to work, and the body sat on the floor of that room for three days. They never knew who did it.”

Hansel's leg pressed hard into Gerhardt’s. Gerhardt wanted him to touch him, to take his hand, to hold him. But Hansel only stayed by him, listening closely. Like a brother might.

Gerhardt swallowed down his tears with a mouthful of meat.

“Then my mother got sick. Or sicker. She and my father, they had huge fights about it. About how she couldn’t do what he wanted.

I used to hide behind my bed, and she would cry and scream in pain half the night. Do you remember how she used to cry?”

A little shocked at being brought into the story, Hansel said, “I do. I remember. But I thought she got sick shortly after she arrived.”

“Not after. She was already sick. She was sicker than even I knew. That’s why my father sold her.”

“Wait… Sold her?”

“Yes. At an auction. Like a sow. Or some magic beans. He sold her for two talers. And he threw me in for free.”

“You’re saying my father bought her? Bought you both?”

“And what a bargain. Someone to tend the house, and a boy to chop wood all day.” He gave a short, sharp laugh. “We kept him in money, didn’t we? Between the two of us?”

“Yes. We did. Twice the wood.”

“But never twice the food.” He tore a hunk off the flesh to spite the hunger of the past. “She said I was never to tell you how sick she was. She said she was going to get me a nice home by being the prettiest, busiest little wife she could be. That she would pretend for just as long as she had to.” Again a tear escaped, again he swiped it away.

“And I would watch her, how she would turn white with the pain. How she’d dig her fingernails into her palms, and the tears that came into her eyes.

The way she’d smile at him through it all.

And him such a monster. And she’d say, we couldn’t speak a word of it, because then he’d send me back, and try to get his money back.

And no matter how cruel he was to her, or to me, she said it wasn’t half as bad as what I’d face in the city.

If I ever had to go up those stairs like she did. ”

Hansel was quiet for a time. The story revealed such a different perspective on the boy he’d thought he knew.

Such a fresh and harrowing shade to his anger, his resentment, his distrustfulness of Hansel from day one.

They’d been set against one another before they ever had a chance.

“I’m sorry. If I’d known… I would have done things differently. ”

“You weren’t able to deal with it any better than I was, Hansel. You were just a boy. And I came into your house. And I was awful to you.”

“You were scared.”

“ You were scared. And now it’s done, and she’s dead, and we can’t change anything.”

Hansel dropped his head, toying with the meat. It was true. And it was sad. Their long and unchangeable past. The horror of Gerhardt’s life before he even met him. Quietly, he asked, “What was up those stairs?”

Even more quietly, “Beds, Hansel. Just beds.”

“Beds?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Gerhardt gave a hard sigh, then turned to Hansel, his face earnest. “Listen, what I’m trying to say is, just stick with me. Stick with me, and I’ll keep you safe from all those things. No one’s ever going to take advantage of us again. Not while we have each other.”

How Hansel’s face lit. “Do you mean it?”

Sweet, innocent man.

“I do,” said Gerhardt, unable to repress a small smile at Hansel’s trust in him.

“We’ll get all set up in a nice apartment.

Maybe over in Hallin. They have enormous buildings there, some of them are so pretty.

I’ve never been inside, but they look beautiful.

I always used to dream I’d live in one like that, some day.

Where we’ll have all we can eat, every day.

Huge mounds of food.” He looked away again, taking up his stick to flick more meat from the fire.

“And then one day, you’ll catch the eye of some beautiful girl. Then I suppose you’ll kick me out.”

Gerhardt laughed lightly, but Hansel never did. “I would never do that.”

“You might feel differently when it happens.”

“It won’t.”

The sincerity in Hansel’s eyes caught Gerhardt. The depth of meaning in them.

Yes. He thought he meant it.

But why wouldn’t he? He had no notion of romance or of love.

Of the fiery passion that Gerhardt had just discovered first hand.

A passion that raged in a lonely forest on the edge of death, that felt like it might consume him when he stared into those eyes, and when, for the flicker of a second, he believed Hansel. The way his heart beat out the words…

What if?

What if?

What if?

He snapped to, plucking the now-burning fillet of boar out of the fire. “We have a few days’ worth of food. Well, before it spoils. So eat more now.”

Dutifully shovelling food in, Hansel reflected, “If only we could smoke it.”

“Or salt it.”

“Did you see any sign of a town when you were up in the tree?”

“Not a thing. But this forest has to end. Somewhere. If we just keep going in the same direction, we can make it through. And we’ve been much safer by the river. No more magical vines. No gnomes. And I’m yet to see one of these traps.”

“The wolf dwelt by the river,” Hansel suggested.

“But also the hare. And if I see another, I shan’t give it the chance to speak before I kill it.”

Hansel gave a small chuckle, considering how differently things might have turned out had they not had the hare to distract that wolf. That strange, enormous, talking predator. Tentatively, “That wolf… It was kind of…”

“It was terrifying.”

“It was.” Blushing, “But it was also slightly… kind of…”

Gerhardt looked at him so long and hard he retreated into silence, but then Gerhardt vomited out, “It was a handsome wolf.”

“Yes!” Hansel gasped out. “Yes, ‘handsome’ is the word I was looking for. Scary, very scary.”

“Terribly big teeth.”

“Yes. Rugged too. But oddly charismatic.”

“I thought the same thing,” Gerhardt said with a half-shy, half-knowing grin.

Such strange words that neither knew what to make of them, even if they were in fierce agreement, but they were out there now.

Embarrassed by his admission, Gerhardt sang a mocking, “Hansel wants to kiss a wolf…”

“I do not!” Hansel cried, shoving Gerhardt hard in the arm.

“Hansel’s going to marry a wolf,” he continued singing, louder now.

“Am not!” And he shoved Gerhardt all the way over, watching him dissolve into giggles like a schoolboy. “Idiot,” Hansel muttered.

“Sorry,” said Gerhardt, but his shoulders were still shaking. “You’re right. It was a very handsome wolf. If anyone’s going to marry him, it’s me.”

Hansel regarded him a moment, somewhat playfully, then surprised him with, “It wasn’t your thighs he was after.” This he delivered with a suggestive eye and a challenging cock of his head.

Gerhardt had no word for flirting, but the tone and the sex in Hansel’s voice flipped his stomach.

It was the first time it had ever occurred to Gerhardt that perhaps Hansel knew a thing or two he wasn’t letting on—that perhaps there were desires, unspoken and untried, hiding somewhere in that big, broad chest. And he searched that chest now, a tuft of auburn hair poking through the drawstring of his shirt.

Why didn’t he have it done up tight? One pull of that string…

Then Hansel said, “Didn’t you say you’d like a taste?”

Gerhardt swallowed his meat down hard, eyes locked with Hansel. “Yes.” Night air stretched so tight one false move might have brought the heavens down on them. “If-if I was a wolf.”

“If you were a wolf?”

“That’s right.”

“Hmm.” Such a short sound that provoked him so. Something strangely self-assured, like Hansel knew something Gerhardt didn’t.

Had he given something away?

Did Hansel know?

And did he… not mind?