“Well, go on, tell us,” someone says. Tyll recognizes the voice, he remembers, it is Matthias. “Say something about arses, say something about tits. If we’re going to die, at least give us some tits.”
“We’re not going to die,” says Korff.
“But tell us,” says Matthias.
Tell us, the Winter King says too. What was there in the forest, remember, what was it?
But the boy doesn’t tell. Not him and not anyone else and especially not himself, for if you don’t think about it, it’s as if you have forgotten it, and if you have forgotten it, it did not happen.
Tell us, says the Winter King.
“You dwarf,” says Tyll, because he is beginning to get angry. “You king without a country, you nothing, and besides, you’re dead. Leave me alone, crawl away.”
“You crawl,” says Matthias. “I’m not dead, Kurt is dead. Tell us!”
But the boy cannot tell, for he has forgotten. He has forgotten the path in the forest, and he has forgotten Nele and himself there on the path, he has forgotten the voices in the leaves, go no farther, but it was not actually true, they didn’t whisper that, the voices, if they had, Nele and he certainly would have listened, and all at once standing in front of them are the three men, whom he no longer remembers, he no longer sees them, he has forgotten them, standing there in front of them.
Marauders. Disheveled, angry, without knowing at what. Well, well, says one of them, children!
And Nele thinks of it, fortunately. Of what the boy told her: We are safe as long as we are faster. When you run faster than the others, nothing can happen to you. And so she darts sideways and runs. Later the boy doesn’t remember—and how should he remember, for he has forgotten everything—why he didn’t run too. But that’s just the way it is, one mistake is enough: don’t understand something one time, goggle for too long one time, and already he is putting his hand on your shoulder. He bends over him. He smells of brandy and mushrooms. The boy wants to run, but it’s too late, the hand remains where it is and the other man is standing next to him, and the third has run after Nele, but now he is coming back, panting—of course he didn’t catch her.
The boy tries to make the three of them laugh. He learned that from Pirmin, who is lying an hour from here and is perhaps still alive and would have guided them better, for with him they never encountered wolves or evil people, not once in all this time. So he tries to make them laugh, but it doesn’t work, they won’t laugh, they are too angry, they’re in pain, one of them is injured, he asks: Do you have any money? And he actually does have a little bit of money and gives it to him. He tells them that he could dance for them or walk on his hands or juggle, and they almost become curious, yet then they realize that they would have to let go of him, and the one who is holding him says, We’re not that stupid.
And now the boy grasps that there’s nothing he can do, except to forget what happens, forget it even before it has finished happening: forget their hands, their faces, everything. Not be here where he is now but rather next to Nele as she runs and finally stops and leans against a tree and catches her breath. Then she creeps back, holding her breath and taking care that no branch cracks under her feet, and she ducks into the bushes, for the three are coming. They stagger past her and don’t notice her and soon they’re gone. But still she waits awhile before she ventures out and walks along the path that she was just taking with the boy. And she finds him and kneels beside him, and both of them grasp that they must forget it and that the bleeding will stop, for someone like him does not die. I’m made of air, he says. Nothing will happen to me. There’s no reason to moan. All this is still fortunate. It could have been worse.
To be stuck here in the shaft, for example, this is probably worse, for here not even forgetting helps. If you forget the shaft in which you’re stuck, you’re still in the shaft.
“I’m going into the monastery,” says Tyll. “If I get out of here. I mean it.”
“Melk?” asks Matthias. “I was there once. It’s grand.”
“Andechs. They have strong walls. If it’s safe anywhere, then in Andechs.”
“Will you take me with you?”
Gladly, is what Tyll thinks, if you get us out of here, we’ll go together. But what he says is: “No way they’ll let you in, you gallows bird.”
He realizes it’s come out the wrong way around, because of the darkness. I was only joking, he thinks, of course they’ll let you in, but says: “I’m a good liar!”
Tyll stands up. It’s probably better if he shuts his mouth. His back hurts, he can’t stand on his left leg. You have to protect your feet, you only have two of them, after all, and if you injure one, you can’t get back up on the rope.
“We kept two cows,” says Korff. “The older one had good milk.” He must have been caught up in a memory too. Tyll can see it before his eyes: the house, the meadow, smoke over the chimney, a father and a mother, everything poor and dirty, but Korff didn’t have any other childhood.
Tyll feels his way along the wall. Here is the wooden frame that they mounted earlier. A piece has broken off on top, or is that the bottom? He hears Korff weeping softly.
“It’s gone,” Korff moans. “Gone, gone! All the good milk!”
Tyll jiggles a piece of rock on the ceiling. It’s loose and comes off. Stones trickle.
“Stop,” cries Matthias.
“It wasn’t me,” says Tyll. “I swear it.”
“Outside Magdeburg I lost my brother,” says Korff. “A shot in the head.”
“I lost my wife,” says Matthias. “At Braunschweig, she was with the supply train, the plague took her, our two children too.”
“What was her name?”
“Johanna,” says Matthias. “My wife. I can’t remember the names of the children.”
“I lost my sister,” says Tyll.
Korff stumbles around. Tyll hears him next to him and draws back. Better not to bump into him. Someone like Korff won’t put up with that, he won’t hesitate to attack. Another explosion. Again stones trickle. The ceiling won’t hold much longer.
You’ll see, says Pirmin, being dead isn’t so bad. You get used to it.
“But I’m not dying,” says Tyll.
“That’s the spirit,” says Korff, “that’s right, bag of bones!”
Tyll steps on something soft, it must be Kurt, then he bumps into a wall of coarse debris, this is where the shaft caved in. He wants to dig with his hands, for now it doesn’t matter, now there’s no need to conserve air, but immediately he has to cough, and the rock won’t move, Korff was right, it’s impossible without a pickax.
Don’t worry, you will hardly notice it, says Pirmin. You’ve already lost half your mind, soon the rest will abandon you too. Then you will pass out, and when you wake up, you’ll be dead.
I will think of you, says Origenes. I will make something of myself, I’ll learn to write next, and if you like, I’ll write a book about you, for children and old people. What do you think of that?