The Hangman's Daughter

Sophie looked over at Clara, who was sleeping. Her breathing was getting weaker and weaker. She looked like a sick animal that had crawled into a cave to await its end. She was pale, her face was drawn, and she had rings under her eyes. Her bones stood out at the shoulders and rib cage. Sophie knew that her little friend needed help. The concoction she had succeeded in making her drink almost four days ago did put her to sleep, but the fever still had not broken. Besides, Clara’s right ankle had swollen up to three times its normal size. Sophie could actually see the pumping and struggling that was going on beneath the skin. Her whole leg had become blue all the way up to the knee. The improvised compresses had not helped much.

Three times already, Sophie had crawled into the shaft to see if the coast was clear, but each time she checked, she heard men’s voices. Laughter, murmurs, cries, footsteps…something was going on up there. The men no longer left her in peace, neither by day nor at night. But thank God, they had not yet discovered the hiding place. Sophie looked into the darkness. Half a tallow candle was still left. To save light she had not lit the stump since yesterday at noon. When she could no longer stand the blackness she crawled to the shaft and looked up into the sky. But soon the sunlight blinded her and she had to crawl back.

Clara did not mind the darkness. She was only half awake, and when she woke up for a moment and asked for water, Sophie squeezed her hand and stroked it until she sank back into sleep. At times Sophie sang songs for her that she had learned on the streets. Sometimes she still remembered verses that her parents had sung for her before they died. But they were only scraps, fragments from the past, linked to the hazy memory of a friendly face or laughter.

Eia beia Wiegele, auf dem Dach sind Ziegele, auf dem Dach sind Schindelein, behuet mir Gott mein Kindelein…Lullaby, my bonny love, our roof is safe above, our roof is finely tiled, God protect my little child.

Sophie felt her cheeks becoming wet. After all, Clara was better off. She had found a loving family. On the other hand, what good did it do her now? Here she was, breathing her last in a hole in the ground with her loved ones at home so near and yet so far away.

In time Sophie’s eyes had become accustomed to the dark. Not that she could actually see anything, but she was able to distinguish lighter darkness from darker darkness. She no longer bumped her head when she stumbled through the tunnels, and she could see whether a tunnel branched off to the left or the right. Once, three days ago, she had made a wrong turn without a candle and after only a few steps had run into a wall. For an instant she was seized by an unspeakable fear that she would not be able to find her way back. Her heart beat wildly as she turned around in a circle with her hands reaching into emptiness. But then she heard Clara’s whimpers. She followed the sounds and found her way back.

After that experience she had opened the seam of her dress and laid out the woolen thread all the way from her niche to the well. She was now always able to feel the rough thread beneath her bare feet when she groped her way to the shaft.

Thus days and nights passed. Sophie fed Clara, sang her to sleep, stared into the darkness, and became absorbed in thought. From time to time she crawled to the light also to catch a breath of air. She had briefly considered dragging Clara all the way to the shaft so that she, too, could get some fresh air and light. But first of all, the girl was still too heavy to carry, in spite of her frightening weight loss, and secondly Clara’s constant whimpering could have revealed their hiding place to the men above. The loud scream yesterday had almost given them away. And so she had to stay in the niche, deep underground.

The children had found these tunnels when they were playing together in the woods, and Sophie had often wondered what they had once been used for. Hiding places? Meeting places? Or had they perhaps been built not by human beings, but by dwarves and gnomes? Sometimes she heard whispering, as if tiny, evil beings were mocking her. But then it always turned out to be the wind whistling through some distant crevice in the rock.

Now, again, there was a sound. It wasn’t whispering this time, but stones falling down the shaft from the rim of the well and hitting the bottom…

Sophie stopped breathing. She could hear soft voices. Someone cursed. The voices did not come from above, as usual; they were very close, as if coming from the bottom of the well.