Page 2 of Hansel and Gerhardt
The man raised his axe beneath Gerhardt’s nose. Two black and small eyes, empty but for an animal hatred of all things, seared into him. “Go help your brother, you lazy prick.”
The way the stink of alcohol clung to his breath. And he smelled of onions—some phantom memory from a time in Gerhardt’s childhood when he too was well fed. When he could walk through town in the evening and hear the clinking of plates and wonder what each household was putting on the table. Something. Anything. Before he’d been brought here to starve and rot. Before the Great Famine had seized this part of the kingdom.
Gerhardt’s hands scrunched into fists. He was half his father’s size, unarmed, but how he yearned to knock him to the ground, take up that axe, and finish him.
Hansel. Think of Hansel.
Veins bulging with anger, Gerhardt lowered his head. “Yes, sir.”
He took a step towards Hansel, but the man stepped in his way, a shoulder in front of his.
A violent challenge.
It took everything inside Gerhardt to not shove him. And his father knew it. Such a petty victory, the one large and armed, the other starved and isolated. What Gerhardt would do to him if he had just one good meal in his stomach…
But he did not. He was beaten before he began, so he sidestepped him and made his way across the dirt to the cart. He felt his father’s eyes on him all the while, and neither he nor Hansel said a word as they worked. Neither even acknowledged the other until they heard the door of the cottage close, when Hansel chanced a look up.
Was it reproach, that look in his eye? For being meek, or for not helping to find the food? But there was no food, and it was idiocy to imagine Gerhardt’s efforts would have made any difference.
But perhaps they would have. Something. Anything.
Guilt twisted in his empty and acid stomach, but that only made him flare in defiance, retreating into the safety of his anger. “You know, maybe if you stood up to him on occasion—”
Hansel shut him down with the harshly muttered, “For once in your life, don’t be so fucking stupid, Gerhardt.”
An Axe to Grind
Hansel’s father had come back foul-tempered and drunk. It was a full day’s ride to the village, and Hansel hated to think what he must have spent on ale to be able to continue drinking all that way.
It was ever so.
Weeks of Hansel and Gerhardt chopping wood, then off he’d ride, for maybe a week, their small stock of food depleting daily, not sure when or if he was coming back.
Once, he’d left them a full fortnight. It was a wonder they’d survived at all.
Hansel remembered the hole scooped out of Gerhardt’s midline. The way his entire body shook. He remembered holding him back from the food when it finally came, so he wouldn’t eat too much at once and make himself even sicker.
The way Gerhardt had looked at him… As though Hansel was trying to take his fair share away.
Hansel had, numerous times, secretly given Gerhardt portions of his own food. Having seen him so close to death, the thoughtof losing him, of the madness that might take hold, alone and starving in that isolated cabin for weeks at a time…
He wished his sole companion in that brutal existence didn’t hate him so. But how could he not? The red beard of Hansel’s father was a mirror to his own. The eyes of that man were reddened and watery, but just as blue as his. The bone structure, the very double of him, only that Hansel’s pale skin stretched tight over wiry muscles, grown large through the sheer effort of woodcutting, while his father’s sat invisible beneath flesh grown plump with food and drink.
Hansel wondered sometimes that Gerhardt could bear to look at him at all. And he didn’t just then, as they made their way back towards the cottage.
Perhaps Hansel had been too harsh with him, but he could feel his father’s mood a mile off, and today wasn’t the day to cause trouble. The man was seething lava just beneath the surface. Hansel knew not to test him. His cheek still stung from the backhander he’d received for taking too long to get to the cart. And he hadn’t even told his father about the food yet.
Some instinct wanted to send Gerhardt away while he told him, for Gerhardt had awoken in a foul mood too. Though who could blame him? But he was even more combative than usual that day, and one slip of the tongue…
Yet Gerhardt stomped ahead of him and smashed the cottage door open before Hansel could bring himself to start that fight.
“Watch the door!” their father immediately snarled.
Hansel entered the dark shack behind Gerhardt. His father sat by the fire, pipe in hand, smoking tobacco. Hansel could see Gerhardt’s fingers twitching, clenching and unclenching like they did when he was furious. Their father had clearly spent their money on drink and tobacco while the brothers starved.
“Where’s the food?” Gerhardt asked, voice pulled tight like a set mousetrap.
Amusement danced in the twinkle of evil eyes, glowing in the firelight. “How about you give me your share first?”
