Freida

Freida

David Don

 

The floor groaned as Erwin walked to the sink for water. It was still quite dark outside, but indications of life were starting to fill the town square below. Men in suits occasionally drifted the cobblestones like black ghosts.

He remembered a vague image from his dream. In some darkness, a girl with red hair smiled at him.

A strange name - Freida - had attached itself to her in his mind. Although he did not remember details, also attached was a peculiar, dark feeling; one of those sadnesses that can accompany anonymous dreams. His ears rang from the dream, a little high screech just for him.

Erwin put the glass down, sighed, and blinked a few times. He had been getting up early his whole life, but he would never be used to it. He washed quickly at the sink and walked back over to the bed to get ready for the day.

When he was dressed and had swallowed half a breakfast, it was time to open the shop. He rushed downstairs, quickly tidied the shelves, and turned around the sign on the door.

It was a cold day outside. The patrons who slowly dripped through the door were thickly wrapped in coats, hats and scarves.

It must be winter, he thought.

Of course it is, just like it has been for weeks, he thought. His brain had been strange, lately.

***

A few hours trudged past. Business was bleak, and only four or five came through the door all morning.

Herr Matzelsberger, one of his few loyal, regular customers, came in and asked for some shoe polish. There was none on display, so Erwin went through to the storeroom. As he rifled through the drawers, he heard a dull crack from the front of the store. Rushing back through, he came across Herr Matzelsberger whose body was now splayed on the ground.

"Aah- ah! It's my knee- my knee gave out."

Tears ran down the old man's face, and some blood ran down his forehead from a cut given to him by a shelf's corner as he fell. Erwin advanced immediately to help, pulling bandages and alcohol from the shop's display.

When Herr Matzelsberger could walk with support, Erwin closed the shop and took him home, which was minutes away. There was nobody shopping anyway.

He helped him in the door and onto a soft armchair.

"Thank you. You are a kind boy, Erwin."

"I am sure anybody else would have done the same," replied Erwin.

"No, I do not think so," replied the old man.

Then he said something Erwin did not understand. In the middle of the next sentence was a word that banged with dissonance. It bent his brain. 'Schleppen'. It hit him like a physical object and made his head spin on impact.

"I'm sorry, what was that word? Schleppen?"

Herr Matzelsberger stared from his chair. Then he chuckled. "What are you talking about? Yes, schleppen, as in you carried a large, heavy object, myself, a long distance. I did not realise you were such a pedant for word choice, Erwin."

Erwin shook his head, confused. He was not satisfied with this explanation. When the old man repeated the word, 'schleppen', it happened again. It made all the words around it seem less certain too, like it was the start of a deep crack growing through his mind. There was a familiarity too, a feeling that he had felt this before, recently. 

Freida. The dream girl's face. It was not the same feeling, exactly, but more of an occupation of a similar territory. None of it felt right, anyway.

He decided to leave and said a quick goodbye.

***

He still mulled over that word when he got back to the shop. Schleppen. Herr Matzelsberger had clearly thought it was a word Erwin should have easily known. Even Erwin felt like he knew it - that was half of what worried him. Old age was a figure in the distance, but right now he felt like it had turned its head back towards him.

He could not stop obsessing over the sound – it was alien, as if it was from another world. Schleppen. Schleppen, schleppen. Why did it not work for him?

Because, a thought suggested, it doesn't have a direct equivalent. It doesn't translate, so it sticks out at you. This is a messy process and things can get... lost.

He now became deeply worried. That thought was not his own. It was in a different register entirely, like a memory of somebody else's voice.

And then, in one moment, he did know the word 'schleppen'. He knew it and he knew that he had always known it

"Sir- sir? Please?" Another voice. A real one. Erwin opened his eyes to see a man with a grey moustache standing in front of him, across the counter.

"H-hello, sir." He answered by reflex.

"My son is over there. He's looking for oil paints. Do you have any in stock?"

"We... we do, actually." Erwin righted himself. "I'll bring them over so he can have a look." The man nodded.

Erwin went through to the storeroom and looked for the paints. As he did, he started to feel a bit better. He had been silly to get so worked up about a mild trip-up in his brain. He really was tired.

He walked out into the store front and towards the father and his boy. As his eyes passed over the scrawny, slick-haired figure, his stomach and mind erupted in convulsions, and he froze in place. The little boy gave him a feeling like a thousand 'schleppens' rang out at once, pervading every sense in his body. Even the scent of him- like a force of nature- every instinct in Erwin's body flared up at the appearance of this child.

The boy turned. Erwin recognised that face right away. He did not know how.

The boy simply inspected the paints. He came in closer as he did.

"What do you think, Adolf?" asked the father.

Erwin stood, staring at him. 

Strangle him.

Erwin did nothing.

Strangle him. Break his neck. Kick him to the ground and crush the life out of his body.

Erwin didn't move. Hitler took out a bottle of paint. His father had ambled outside to wait.

This was as close as you could get. This is your only chance to end the suffering. Before it starts.

Still, he did not shift. He began to remember things.

Do it.

Somehow, he couldn't.

DO IT.

I do not think I can take a child's life, he decided.

This isn't just a child; this is a monster. Try to think of what you can't remember about him. This is for a greater purpose.

It was murder, cold murder that he was here for.

I already have remembered, he thought. I know what he did. Or, does. It's despicable, truly evil. But he isn't a monster yet. Do you not see that I should give him a chance – I, I could kidnap him, and raise him myself, and he could be relatively normal. And then nobody has to die at my hands. I do not know who I was before, but these hands are of a man who cannot do that.

You know you are being ridiculous. There is no other way. This is the one chance we have to kill him and save millions of lives. We cannot risk an alternative.

Still staring down at the boy's head as he inspected a few paints, a thought came to Erwin of his own: I do now remember one detail about all this. I will still be here, in this vessel, when I complete this task. That knowledge has clung on. I would be hanged, or worse, for killing a child. Thinking of that alternative would spare me that fate, and do I not deserve some respite for executing this heinous task?

The other voice was silent for a moment.

Adolf Hitler asked: "Do you have any brushes?"

The voice spoke again. You are remembering the wrong things about why we sent you here, and why you agreed.

Erwin wondered what that meant. He knew that thinking about why he agreed made the same area of his brain vibrate as Freida and 'schleppen' did.

It just happened again, stronger this time. Freida. 

Freida.

And then he saw Freida again. All at once she spiralled down in cascading images, even more vivid than in his dream, her smile and her freckles each worth all of his memory any day. He felt shame at having forgotten her, and traversed the gallery he had re-opened, savouring each step, each glimpse of her, pictures of the two of them – Erwin was somebody else, but he knew it to be himself too – in a market square, in a carriage beside a burning fireplace. Always, she was laughing. He smiled.

Hitler spoke again: "Sir? Do you have brushes?"

Erwin moved towards the back of these memories and saw Freida now become thinner, sadder. She was emaciated. She was sick. Then, her silhouette was in smoke, and there were sounds of shouting in the streets.

Then he saw Freida again, face-on. He heard her screaming, and he realised he had been hearing it forever. Fire crackled. He saw her body burning and her bones and skin tumble to the ground as the screaming turned to sizzling – the sounds blended perfectly.

Hitler was looking up at Erwin, puzzled. Erwin snapped shut the box of paints and smashed the little boy across the face, making him fall backward onto the ground. Throwing the box aside, Erwin advanced on him.