Page 3 of Hansel and Gerhardt
Hansel, though he thought he might throw up, stepped forward to reveal the truth, but Gerhardt had already spat out, “Our share was the work we did! The woodwecut so you’d get paid. Now where is it?”
“I put a roof over your head, don’t I?” His voice was calm. He was enjoying it, watching Gerhardt close to the brink of tears through sheer hunger and frustration, wondering how far he could push him. Toying with him. How powerful he must have felt. Like a king.
“Barely,” said Gerhardt, eyes tracing over the broken mess of stone walls, rotting floorboards, crumbling ceiling with vines edging their fingers in. “And it’s not worth the work we put in.”
Their father dropped both feet to the floor and sat forward. “You can spend the night in the stables if you’d prefer?”
A night in the stables, Hansel knew from experience, meant many nights. Many nights chained to the wall, in the cold and open air, without a thing to eat.
Gerhardt wouldn’t survive it this time. He could tell by one glance at him.
But his father was too drunk to be able to think so cautiously, had he any empathy to see it in the first place.
Hansel spoke over whatever Gerhardt was about to say. “We tried.” His heart hammered in his chest, throwing a tremor to his very fingertips. “We did. Look.” He held up his blistered and cut hands. “I-I-wedug the whole vegetable garden up. We searched the forest.”
The formerly humoured eyes grew black. “Where is it?”
“That’s just it.” Hansel’s mind went into overdrive, trying to figure a way out, but there was none. “We haven’t—”
“Any idiot can see there’s no food left out there,” Gerhardt cut in coldly.
Their father was on his feet, hand tightening on his axe. “What did you call me?”
“He didn’t!” Hansel cried, dashing forward. He neither registered the way he stepped in front of Gerhardt, nor the surprised look Gerhardt gave him. But Gerhardt, even after ten long winters in that cottage, didn’t understand his father’s moods on the subconscious level Hansel did. Since he was an infant, he’d had to watch and plan carefully. He’d seen his mother beaten to death by the very hands that gripped that axe. He threw out desperately, “What little we have, Gerhardt found it.”
Gerhardt was smaller, more expendable than Hansel. Even if their father had no humanity, surely he could understand simple terms of labour. Hansel chopped more wood, and if he could save Gerhardt by compromising himself, maybe he could save them both.
But Gerhardt shouted, “That’s not true, Hansel! You scrimped and searched all day until your fingers bled. There is nothing there! We shall all die out here unless he either grants us our freedom or gives us our fair share.”
“I’ll give you your fair share, you little shit!” The huge mass of man bore down on the pair.
“Father, no!” Hansel yelled, but the axe swung at Gerhardt’s head with all the force of a madman’s fury.
Gerhardt froze.
Perhaps he didn’t think he’d actually do it. Or perhaps he was just too starved and sickly to think straight.
He froze, his back to the one wooden pillar supporting the roof, and his head would have been split cleanly in two had Hansel’s arm not shot out, his large hand bruising instantly with the effort to stop the blow.
Their father’s eyes flared in disbelief, then narrowed in blind rage. “You want some?” He flipped the axe and rammed thehandle into Hansel’s stomach. Hansel doubled over with a gasp of agony, falling to his knees.
Their father raised the weapon, gripping it near the head, intent on smashing Hansel’s skull in with the thick handle.
With Hansel on the floor, gasping for air, one second from death, Gerhardt’s fight response kicked in, and he flung himself at his father’s waist with all the strength left in him.
The man stumbled, tipped, fell onto his side, but he never dropped the axe. Even drunk, his heft and anger countered Gerhardt’s desperation. He rolled onto his back, swung the butt of the axe up, and connected it with Gerhardt’s cheek.
Gerhardt fell to the floor, dazed by the blow, and Hansel lunged for the axe, trying to wrestle it from his father. The man had no regard for his son or himself. He flung his head forward and smashed his skull into Hansel’s. Hansel crumpled into a heap next to Gerhardt, their father already clambering back up. Gerhardt reached out an arm and grabbed their father’s leg to fell him. Their father kicked out a boot and smashed it into his jaw.
Slamming onto his back, Gerhardt let out a long and body-racking cry. It was the sound of defeat. It was the sound of the last ounce of fight going out of a man who had been chipped away at by life from the moment he was born. It was a sound that went straight to Hansel’s heart.
Gerhardt was the only good thing in his existence, and the thought of seeing him ripped from that small life hit Hansel on a primal level. In a world so bereft of love, of companionship, the simple humanity his loss would have taken from his heart seemed an affront to God, or whatever unfeeling fate had brought them all to that isolated house in the woods.
Hansel leapt up, and as his father stretched the axe high, he grasped a chair and smashed it into his father’s gut. He didn’t see the axe drop and wedge in the floor, didn’t see his fathertrying desperately to suck air into his winded lungs. He saw only Gerhardt. He reached for his hand and yanked him to his feet, dragging him out the door and towards the forest.
Maybe he should have run for the road. It was the only known way to possible help, even if it was a two-day walk to the nearest habitation. But their father would find them on the road. Their only chance of survival was the cover of trees.
Gerhardt stumbled after him, so easily led if he could just find his footing. Their breath came painful in their chests, pulses screaming in their ears, and Hansel didn’t know how they could possibly keep silent enough to hide from him out there.
