Chapter 2

        "My dear boy, it looks like you have had a terrible fall," the nurse said, dipping the sponge into the pearly bath water.

        It had been her words that had steeled me back to the present, not the stick of the sponge, violent like porcupine’s bristles. I opened my eyes and saw that the room was cavernous. It was august, for the Pampasdeitch; it had wood wainscoting, a chandelier, dormer windows that had been boarded up with concrete blocks. There was nothing humble about it. All around were other men who sat in porcelain basins like me, bathed by their nurses. They were wan and attenuated, like sailors that had eaten the last pig aboard long ago. We were far from the sea; none of them would ever have seen one. I know I hadn’t. Perhaps we had made the whole thing up. Most of the men were silent, some told shy jokes and some slept. The only sounds were the deep, masculine ring of a man’s occasional laugh at a joke a nurse told, and the splash of the bathwater.

        “They got me before I could get to my biweekly donation,” said one of the men.

        “Oh,” said his girl disinterestedly. “Where do you go?”

        “To the Eric Trump Blood Center. In Sankt Ludwig.”

        "Such a good boy," said my nurse, seeming to spend a significant period bathing my chest with a sponge. I was timid about that region, as I had only a narrow trail of hair between my pectoral cleft, less than the other men that I had seen. But she smiled, her eyes seeming to beam with a joy I could ill understand. "Such a good boy."

        "I wonder why I am here."

        "He wonders why he is here," laughed the nurse, her double chins making a sort of song. "Why, you broke your arm! See! It is in a sling."

        And to my astonishment, I looked down to one side of the pool and saw that, indeed, my right arm was contracted in a gauzy blue sling. "Right. I had a fall."

        "Yes, you tumbled right down into the arms of Nurse Teufel."

        "Is that who you are, Madam?" I asked this with a heady politeness.

        But the nurse merely laughed again, until she grew serious. When she had, she asked: "What is this mark you have?"

        I remembered that Wulf had left his mark upon my chest. "It is just a mark."

        "From?"

        "From where Wulf touched me."

        The nurse, who had ignored the mark before, began to inspect it. She took a candle from a table and brought it near. Though the mark did not pain me, the heat from the candle, its nearness alone, caused me to feel a burn like kisses from a whip. I watched as the nurse followed the discrete red line that clearly made out the shape of a man’s muscular hand. The area within the border was all red; like I had been touched by a star. It was merely a surface feature of the skin, like a tattoo.

        The nurse’s face showed a momentary alarm, but then she recollected where she was. "Yes, Wulf touched you there, didn’t he? Wulf the Hunding." She hummed a little ditty to herself.

        “You have heard of him?”

        “Everyone has heard of Wulf the Hunding. His cruelty is a wonder.” Nurse Teufel continued to hum between sentences. “I suspect you were running as Wulf was stalking you. That is what the Hundings do, they stalk. Why, they’ll follow you to the ends of the earth if they are of a mind to feed. That is how you had your fall."

        "Yes," I said, sitting up giddily in the bath. I knew that I had found in the woman an ally. "Wulf was hunting me. He still is. They are playing a game, him and Eadburh. They are ever so wicked. I suppose Wulf permitted me to get away only so that he might catch me again. I suppose that is what is referred to as a game of ‘cat and mouse.’ Is that what it is, Miss?”

“I believe so. Yes.”

“I think I broke my arm climbing over that wall of Eadburh’s castle. Didn’t feel a thing. You see, Eadburh told me she was bored. That was why we were to play Candy Land, understand?”

“Yes.”

“But then I fell asleep. Eadburh is a Hunding, too, though you would not be familiar with her unless you have read your saga, which I am sure you have not. Have you? It does not matter. You see, she hides her hairiness under those things that nuns wear. Wimples. That is how she conceals it, her hairiness, I mean. Otherwise, she is very beautiful. They all are, I am told. Have you ever met one? A Hunding? You do not have to answer that, Miss. You see, the thing is, I have to get out. I am being stalked, as you have already mentioned. By both Wulf and Eadburh. We played Candy Land. I am not safe, you understand."

        "Course you are," said Nurse Teufel. "We have plenty of staff here to cater to your needs." She let the sponge fall into the water and began to clean my legs. "We have doctors, guards, therapists, apothecaries. Whatever the beautiful boy needs."

        "Therapists? No, I must go. I must go at once.”

I began to fret over my clothes, imagining that a black bundle by a neighboring tub was mine. “Look at how exposed this place is,” I remarked. “Where are we? I have to go. It is essential that I go, this very moment.  I cannot believe that I remained here so long. How long have I been here? I must--"

        "Oh no, no, no," said Nurse Teufel. "I’ll have none of that talk of leaving. Here," and she reached into a bag that she had settled behind the tub. I heard the familiar rattle of medicine bottles and syringes. Mrs. Zwinger was a diabetic. "We shall just give you a little of this elixir and you will be as windless and composed as the good boy I know you to be."

        "I am a good boy. No, I do not want it."

        "Beautiful boy, your head is all in a muddle. Let Nurse Teufel fix that for you. You do not have to be awake while I bathe you. You can be sedated."

        "Sedated? Why would I-- You think I am making it all up. I am not. I encountered Wulf on the Pampas, at least the Pampas-border, not far from the coaching inn. He was going to eat me until he thought different. He was stalking the Pampas. Him and Eadburh."

        "The Pampas is thousands of miles away."

        "No, it isn’t.”

“Why, you do not understand where you are, do you? We are by the sea.”

“The sea? Where?”

I leaned over one side of the tub and looked toward the sole window that hadn’t been boarded. I saw the tops of the trees jutting above their boughs like the black hats of Anabaptists; I saw the paltry dark land between them, but I didn’t spy any sea. “There is no sea there. What do you mean? Who are you?"

        "I am Nurse Teufel. Silly boy. See what I mean? All in a muddle."

        "I am not in a muddle. There is a war. Don’t you understand? Wulf has been stalking the Pampas-border, but now he is here. He must have been hungry, but he changed his mind. No, no, no! I don’t need--"

        I entered the hall like a foreigner.  It was long and had many doors like choices.  It was all got up in rich woods like the inside of a Hunding’s house on the Hunding Comedy Hour. You know the sketch; where the Hundings laugh about how cynical they have all become?  "It shan’t be long before we are eating each other," one Hunding says, and everyone laughs, even the human viewer who does not really get the joke.

        I picked one of the choices and entered a room, which had a strange picture of a man arrayed all in a black cape; his face was obscured by a black mask and above his head rose two black bat ears. Above his head was an appellation in comical yellow writing. “Batman.”

        "Had a fall, did you?" asked an entrant. He must have followed me into the room.

        "I did."

        "We must all must take a fall once or twice in our lives. That was something a man told me a long time of go. Must have been my father. Do you play snooker? No? Come, I’ll show you."

        I followed the man to a wide room. Here I found a dozen or so men playing something called snooker, standing around the "snooker table", smoking cigarettes, looking out of the window, conversing. "How did you manage to get cigarettes?" I wondered.

"We are men that do not have long to live,” said my guide. “That is why we are here at the sanatorium.”

I was more than a little offended at the implications of his statement, as I saw myself included in his purview, and I regarded most of what he would say afterward with a measure of both suspicion and wonder.

“The medical staff allows us to smoke. They turn a blind eye to it, rather. Of course, we are responsible for procuring our own contraband," and the man took a huff from his cigarette. This huff was long and deliberate, like the last huff he ever meant to take.

        The room he’d lead me to was filled with television sets, but they were all switched off. The Hundings only broadcast on the television for one hour a day, if they broadcast at all.  The programming was what they called a “News Alert,” usually in the form of warnings that foreign Hundings were prowling the area. This information would be presented with a moving image of a saber-toothed Hunding with razor sharp shoulder hairs and sort of a hair halo stalking a wood as he drooled elatedly. Sometimes the Hunding wept, as he was so giddy at the eating he was about to get. There was occasionally a dramatic program after this news, which was so ghastly that most of us Anabaptists were afraid to watch.

I approached the snooker table and stood behind a man who was about to make a shot.

        "There is a whole market for contraband here," said the guide. "You can get whatever you want: drugs, wine, comic books, old movie tapes. Even women. They turn a blind eye, you see, because our time is short."

        “Comic books?”

        “Oh, you’ll discover what they are soon enough.”

        “What sort of drugs do you mean? Insulin and the like?”

        “No! Things to make you forget!”

         "Why is your time short?"

        "That’s a good joke," said a man standing about three feet away from me. He was a chubby man with a pencil-thin moustache whose ends curled up. He gave me the impression of someone that had been in the icebox too long.

        "What was?" I asked.

        "Look," said a third man, placing his cue down and waving a wrist at me. I say "a wrist" because all of the fingers and the stump of a hand were gone. "Look at this! A Hunding ate it completely off."

        “He ate it?”

        "We do not have long to live because we have all survived Hunding attacks,” said the host. “This man lost a leg, these other men an arm or a hand. That guy, his testicles. One fellow here only has half an ear on his left; he can’t hear anything on that side. Only a matter of time before they eat the other one and finish the rest of us off while they’re at it."

        "Why bring you here then?" I asked. I sat in a plush chair against the wall. "Why not just leave you in a field and let another Hunding get you? Why bring you here, to these digs? Why not just finish you?"

        “Because they are cruel,” said the man with a wrist for a hand.

        "Because they feel sorry," said my host. "Who knows? They are said to be filled with vivid emotions, the Hundings. Vendettas. Jealousies. Lusts. This idea that they do not feel anything is all bosh."

        "Who ever said that the Hundings do not feel anything?" I wondered, but I felt that my world was opening up.

        "Oh, you seem interested."

        "I am not supposed to gossip," I said. "It is the devil’s handiwork but, you know, I have never heard these things about the Hundings and it is all very curious. Especially this bit about the vendettas, whatever they are. I never heard anything like it. Not even from Mrs. Zwinger."

        "Who is that?"

        "She is the old woman that I have English lessons from."

        "Ah. And why would anyone need English lessons?"

        "Well, you see, to survive in the world one must be able to converse and to write well.  It is their world, after all, and they certainly wouldn’t be able to converse in Pampasdeitsch. I imagine they speak English with their humans, before they eat them, of course.  Naturally, the Hundings would not serve themselves, drink and the like, so they would need a human to do that. I suppose speaking English must help in that regard, as the preferred language of communication since most of us do not speak Hundings. Mrs. Zwinger was the director of a school of communication, for humans, before she became assistant butter-churner.”

        "Is that so?" asked one curious old man.

        "All that just to be eaten," said another.

        “I never understood why the Hundings favored butter so much.”

        The man that had brought me glanced at me for a moment and then he said: "You do know the story about Sibilla, don’t you?" The man did not ask this of me, as he had already made me out for an idiot, but of the other men in the room. “You know me. I don’t like to gossip.”

        "Bits and pieces," said the men.

        "Well," said the speaker, breaking into a hppy whistle afterward. "Sibilla is an archqueen, which, of course, makes her a very highly-placed Hunding. You see, an archqueen is either the wife or the daughter of a bretwalda."

        "There are no such things as bretwaldas," a man proclaimed. "It is all made up to confound us. To inspire us to rebel so the Hundings have a reason to eat us all, once and for all."

        "Oh, you are very wrong," said the speaker, who had managed to entrance his audience. Even the snooker players had ceased in their snooker-playing. "Very wrong. There are bretwaldas and there have been for a long while. They are rarely seen, even by other Hundings, residing in castles far from any people. There they ponder two questions: what is the meaning of it all and when is the moment to just end everything. You know what I mean. Anyhoo, this Sibilla was an archqueen. All daughters of a bretwalda are called archqueens, but not all wives. Some wives have a lesser title. So, this Archqueen Sibilla was either the wife or the daughter of a bretwalda who, naturally, would be her supporter. When this bretwalda died, Sibilla, who expected to retain her rank and position at the Bretwalda’s castle, found herself on her ass, as the saying goes. To her astonishment, the new bretwalda demoted her in style from "Royal Highness" to "Serene Highness", without even the courtesy of a passing remark. This Hunding merely sent Sibilla a note informing her that she had been demoted. Sibilla was allowed to retain her title of archqueen, little consolation to her. This demotion in rank, of course, inspired in Sibilla a rage that has never subsided. It is said that, eleven hundred years later, she is still so furious that she plots to destroy all the Hundings, just so that she may have her revenge."

        "That’s an archqueen for you."

        "She is upset because she is a—what did you call her?”

        “Serene Highness.”

        “Yes, she is upset that she is that and not the other thing?” I asked. "I am not sure I understand."

        "Perhaps it is not for you to understand. Sibilla left the court of the bretwaldas forever, residing in a castle that is said to be the grandest of any that belong to the Hundings. It is somewhere out in the Pampas, guarded by worms twenty-foot tall."

        "All of that sounds like bosh to me," said the fat man with a moustache. He eyed me up and down, as my comparative thinness must have been pitiful to him, and he said: "How do we know that there is even such a person called Sibilla?"

        "Not a person," said my host. "A Hunding."

        "Right. A Hunding. The Hunding Archqueen Sibilla." He shrugged. "Well, that Sibilla story pales in comparison to what I know," said the fat man.

        "Well, we know you know the way to the sandwich table."

        "No, not that," said the man, nonplussed. "About the Hundings. You see, there is this particular Hunding called Wulf--"

        I had been reclining in the exceedingly pleasant chair when I heard mention of Wulf’s name. I suddenly sat up.

        "He is the greatest of the Hundings, but he is not their leader. Never has been. I guess we’d call him a rogue. The other Hundings fear him, not because he is wicked, as they all are, but because he is a creature overflowing with lust, a den of desires so great, so craven that they blur his judgment. He is also said to appear suddenly and unexpectedly, with all of the hairs on his body standing straight up."

        "They all seem to be filled with lust," said the man with a stump of an arm. "Lust and hunger pangs."

        "Yes, but this Wulf is different. He is eleven-foot tall, feet the size of mastiffs. When he walks, he splits the earth beneath him. For this reason, he generally hovers as he does not want to always be causing earthquakes. He is clean-shaven, with white eyelashes and eyebrows.”

        "Bearded, with red eyelashes and red eyebrows," I corrected.

        "What?" the fat man asked in irritation.

        "Wulf is bearded like an Anabaptist, not clean-shaven. Well, not precisely like an Anabaptist, but you get the idea. And his eyelashes and eyebrows are red, or sort of burgundy."

        "He is red-haired?"

        "Sort of red. I don’t know. A burgundy.”

        "How would you know anything at all?"

        "I have met him," I said, ready to leave the many comforts of my chair. I stood up. “It was because of him that I broke my arm.”

        “He broke it?”

        “No, but I was running away when it happened. I think he’ll come looking for me soon. To eat me.”

        “You will require a protector. A hunter,” said the host.

        “I shall have to do something. He gave me this mark, Wulf did." I wanted to show the men the impression of Wulf’s hand, but the wool sweater the nurse had dressed me in, though two sizes too big in order to accommodate the sling, was still tight. "Can someone help me with this thing? Oh, forget it. Wulf touched me on the chest and left a mark. It’s enormous."

        "Let us see," said the men.

        "Sure, I’ll show you," I said.

        "You won’t be showing them anything," Nurse Teufel said, entering the snooker room. "It is time for your bath."

        "But you just gave me a bath."

        "That was your morning bath, beautiful boy. It is now evening. Don’t you have any sense of the time? Come now; follow me back to the bathing room."

        "You think I am mad," I asked Nurse Teufel petulantly. She was in the last stages of undressing me. "You think we are all mad, all of us men here."

        We had returned to the bathing room, that vast space of fragrant wood and chandelier, but this time there was one lone basin: set up in the center of the room.  I thought, perhaps, there were little people under the floorboards, that they had lifted up the boards as one raises one’s wide-brimmed hat and had all, together, pulled the basins down to their respective lairs. All except for one. There were no other men, no nurses, merely the pair of us.

        "Oh, no, sweet boy," said the nurse. "No one thinks you are mad. And even if you were mad, the elixir will remedy it. Go on."

        "Well, the other men have all been attacked by Hundings. They have the scars to prove it. I have heard their stories. One man has only a sad stump. Another man is too frightened to speak, he only waves. He said the Hundings will come and finish us off. At least, I imagine that is what he meant.”

        “You know, you shouldn’t listen to other’s gossip.”

        “I know. I only meant to leave you with the impression that I am not mad. Perhaps some of the men are, but I know that I am not."

        "No."

        "And, well, I was curious if you simply don’t believe that we were attacked by Hundings - that you choose not to - or that the Hundings have convinced you that we are all liars, that this sanatorium is for men who are crazed and lie about things--"

        "The Hundings convinced me, did you say? You are not going to be difficult again are you, beautiful boy?"

        "No," I replied, though I still had my senses. They had not been dulled by the medicine. "I was only wondering what your thoughts were and if they followed the same pattern as mine.”

        “Doesn’t matter what I think. Now raise your arms so Nurse Teufel can dig the sponge into those hairy pits of yours. We’ll do your arms first, before you get into the bath."

        I complied, avoiding meeting the nurse’s eyes with my own. "You see, nurse, I have something called Icelingas, so it is likely that the Hundings will attempt to find me here."

        "Of course, you do, boy. Of course, they will."

        "Apparently, this Icelingas is a thing exceedingly rare. It isn’t a disease; it is just a feature of the body. Of the blood. It renders me sort of a prize to them. That is why I was frightened before. I suppose I was a little paranoid. Forgive me. It is a funny thing, isn’t it?"

        "What is?"

        And that was the first time the nurse seemed to speak as herself.

        "The way that we are hunted and learn to become used."

        Nurse Teufel did not answer this time, tossing me instead a predatory look. Her eyes seemed to yell: “Die! Die! Die!”

        "The only things that are true are those that are true. Who cares about anything else? Who knows why we hunt, or rather, why they hunt? Remove your underpants and step into the bathwater please."

        Nurse Teufel bathed me until the room grew cold. I imagined that an hour must have elapsed, at least. The nurse had been vigorous in her motions, splashing me with water, splashing even herself. Her white blouse became like a window that one might see through, rather than a window covered in frost. I remembered our last snowfall; the snow had finally melted just as the leaves on the trees had turned their underbellies up. There had been a storm, causing all of the poorly-built farmsteading houses to rattle, even Mrs. Zwinger’s grand clapboard mansion with its many windows, chimneys, and hallways. There had been house-building and barn-building after that. The snow had barely melted when we started building again, under the shadows of our wide-brimmed hats and bonnets. Our Pampasdietch was like the whelp of a lamb just born, as the snow had caused us to remember that we lived always in winter.

Next Chapter: Chapter 12 (Excerpt)