His undignified scrabble had let him be seen. “There he went!” a man yelled from other side of the gate. The fellow pounded on it with his fist. “Here, you damned Jews, open up!”
Dieter raced away. Now he had time to find a hiding place without any of his pursuers liable to spot him diving for cover. He would not keep that chance for long. Several men were battering at the gate, one, by the sound of it, with an axe. “Open up!” they shouted at the top of their lungs. “You damned stupid Jews, there’s a werewolf loose among you!”
That would make the gates open if anything did, Dieter thought. He knew he never hurried to do anything for people who cursed him and called him names. He suspected the Jews were no different from him in that, no matter that they had their own strange faith. But he would run if someone screamed, ”Fire, you fool!” The Jews might swallow insults for the sake of hunting him down.
He rounded a corner and almost ran into an old man crossing the street. They both stopped, staring at each other. The old Jew did not run shrieking as many had.
Behind Dieter, clamor grew. Either someone would come open the gate or soon the men who hunted him would break it down.
The frozen tableau that gripped Dieter and the man could not last, not with shouts of “Werewolf!” flying thick and fast. Dieter was about to run when the old Jew spoke: “Come with me, and quickly!” He opened a door, gestured urgently.
Dieter hesitated. All the wild, wolfly instincts in him rebelled at trusting any man. The boy he still was had trouble believing anyone would want to help him in his present state. But the old man had not known he was coming. No trap could be waiting for him inside that house. And even if one somehow was, what could a frail graybeard do against any wolf, let alone a werebeast?
The sound of the gate creaking open decided him. His hunters were in the Jewish quarter, and the Jews likely would be after him, too. Everyone was against him save, this one old man. He grabbed at that like a drowning man grabbing for a log. He darted inside.
The old man shut the door behind them.”Get under the table there,” he said. When Dieter had, he draped a cloth over it that hung down to the floor on all sides. Then he lit a couple of candles at a little brazier and set them on the table. Dieter’s world, the little square of it he could see, went from black to gray. The old man rustled about for another couple of minutes, then sat down. His knees pushed at the tablecloth.
“Now we wait,” he said. Dieter whined softly to show he had heard.
They did not wait long. A knock came at the door. “Avram, are you there?” a man asked.
“Where else would I be, with the candles lit?” the old Jew said. “It’s late, David. Why do you come around asking foolish questions?”
“Avram, will you please open up?” the other man, David, asked. “Some of the good folk from outside the gate are with me. They are searching, they say, for a-a wolf.”
The stool creaked as Avram rose. Dieter heard him open the door. “A wolf? In Cologne?”
“So they say,” David told him. “They seemed most urgent. We thought it wiser to let them come in, no matter the hour.”
“Is that the commotion I heard?” Avram sounded grumpy and disapproving. “It was loud enough to disturb my studies.”
“Too bad, old Jew.” Dieter shivered at the sound of the new voice-it belonged to the man who had dared swing a club at him. “When a werewolf is loose in the city, we don’t care what we disturb to find it.” Others shouted agreement.
“Well, I have seen no wolves, were or otherwise, gentlemen. I’ve been at my books since sundown. May I go back to them?”
“Since sundown, you say? Why are your candles so long?”
Dieter had to clamp his jaws shut to keep from whimpering in terror. Not only was this hunter a brave man, he also was no one’s fool.
Avram just shrugged; Dieter heard his robe rustle. “Because the last pair guttered out not long ago, and I lit these from them. Why else?”
“Hrmmp. You’ve seen or heard nothing out of the ordinary, you say?”
“Not till you came,” Avram replied sharply.
“You watch your mouth, Jew, or you’ll watch the few teeth you have left go flying into the mud.” But after that the man turned back to his comrades. “If this old bugger’s been here all night, the cursed beast can’t have sneaked in. On to the next house.” Dieter heard them tramping away.
Avram shut the door and walked back over to the table. He did not lift the cloth. Very softly, he said, “I’ll stay down here reading until these candles fail. Don’t come out till then. I’ll leave a dish of water for you. You’d be wiser to stay the night here, I think. In the morning, in your proper shape, you’ll have an easier time getting back to your own affairs.”
Dieter wished he could answer in words. He thumped his tail against the floor. Avram grunted. The old Jew sat down, began turning pages and, every so often, muttering to himself.
When one candle went out, he got up. As he had promised, he poured water from a jug and set it by the table. He blew out the other candle. “Sleep well, wolf,” he said. He went up the stairs in the dark.
Even though no one could see him now, Dieter did not come out for a long time. When at last he did, he bent his head over the bowl and lapped it dry, then slurped drops of water from his chin and whiskers with his tongue. Fleeing was thirsty work.
He went back under the table to sleep. If it grew light before he changed back to himself, he wanted the concealment the cloth would bring.
He woke to find one of his feet poking a table leg. One of his feet… It was hairless, clawless, with five toes all in a row. It was dirty but pink under the dirt. He could see it was pink. “I’m Dieter,” he whispered. His mouth formed words. He was a boy again.
He crawled out from under the table, stood up. He realized he was naked, and saw he had a small scar on his belly that had not been there before: a souvenir, he supposed, of his scramble over the gate. He made a cloak of the tablecloth.
He had just wrapped it around himself when old Avram came downstairs. “So that’s what you look like, eh?” the old Jew said. He handed Dieter a bundle of clothes. “Here, put these on. You’re apt to look out of place, wearing table linen in the street.”
The clothes were not new, but were better than what Dieter was used to wearing. They fit well enough. As he dressed, Avram cut him cheese and bread for breakfast. He had not known how hungry he was until he saw he had finished before Avram was even half done with his smaller portion.
“Want more?” Avram asked.
“No, thank you.” Dieter paused. “Thank you,” he said again, in a different tone of voice.
The old Jew gave a gruff nod. “It should be safe now to go back to your part of the city, boy.”
“Yes.” Dieter started for the door, then stopped. He turned back to Avram. “May I ask you something?”
“Ask,” Avram said around a mouthful of bread and cheese.
“Why did you save me?” Dieter blurted. “I mean-everyone else who saw me wanted to kill me on sight. What made you so different from the rest of them?”
Avram sat silent so long on his stool that Dieter wondered if he had somehow offended him. At last the old Jew said slowly, “One thing you should remember always-you are not the only one ever hunted down Cologne’s streets.”
Dieter thought about that. He never really had before. Jews falling victim to mobs were just part of life in the city to him, like chamber pots being hurled into the street from second-floor windows or famine one year in four. The Jews, though, he realized, might not see it like that.
Indeed, Avram was going on, as much to himself as to Dieter, “No, lad, and not all wolves run on four legs, either. You ask me, the ones with two are worse. Keep clear of them, and you’ll do all right.” He opened the door.
Yesterday, Dieter thought as he stepped into the cool damp air of early morning, he would have had no idea what the old Jew was talking about. Now he knew. With a last nod to Avram, he started down the street. He would have to find some work to do if he expected to eat lunch.