Nothing, not even the little bell.
Lissy did not show her face for three days.
Marlene paid no attention. She would get up at dawn, make Simon Keller’s breakfast, see him off at the door, wait for him to vanish beyond the horizon, then go back to the Stube, prepare the pig slop and go and pour it into the trough in the sty.
By now even the females had got used to her presence. The males, as Marlene knew, were less fastidious. And when they smelled the food, they did not stand on ceremony. What did they care if it was Marlene or Simon Keller? They would jump all over one another, biting and grunting, until they had lapped up the last drop of that disgusting stuff.
Marlene would call them by their names. The Doctor, with dark spots under his eyes, never came when she called. Franz was more courteous. He would look up and wag his tail. Kurt, on the other hand, would cock his head. He was funny, with his floppy ears. Gertrud the fugitive had got into the habit of walking up and down the pen as soon as she saw Marlene appear at the top of the stairs. It was a kind of welcome – or maybe just a sign of impatience.
Self-denial. And an obsession. For three days, all Marlene could think about was the cellar and the leather-covered monolith. She was curious, but she was also scared. And fear acted as a trigger to her curiosity.
For three days, the monolith was her first thought when she woke up and the last one before she went to sleep.
For three days, Marlene tried to stifle her curiosity. It was none of her business. There was nothing under the cloth. Some old piece of furniture. Junk.
Did she really want Simon Keller to catch her down there? In the only room under lock and key in the entire maso? How would he react to such an intrusion?
There was nothing under that cloth. Nothing.
And yet . . . And yet there was something in that cellar she could only guess at. Something (and this was what finally convinced her to steal Simon Keller’s key) she did not want to see.
And she had sworn to herself that it would never happen again. No more lies. No more fairy tales.
Right. Precisely.
Lies to avoid facing reality. Marlene was a champion at the sport. Like when she had realised she was pregnant. It had taken her a while to come to terms with the idea. She was about to become a mother. She would give birth to a child. Had she been happy? Radiant? Of course, but only later.
At first, she had spent days acting as if nothing was happening. She had hidden her head under the blankets.
It seemed crazy in retrospect, but that was what she had done. She had tried to erase her child. If you ignore it, then it doesn’t exist. But Klaus wanted to live.
He was there. With her.
And he had fought.
Marlene had dreamt about him. A beautiful newborn baby, waving his arms as though he wanted to be picked up. She had woken drenched in sweat, scared but happy, terrified but in seventh heaven. She had cried silently while Wegener slept. And, once she had calmed down, she had vowed: no more lies. Because her entire life was a lie. The Thieving Magpie. The mice in the walls. You’re pregnant, she had thought. You’re about to become a mother.
A mother doesn’t live in fairy-tale land. A mother faces reality. Like Gretel the Brave. Not like Hansel. That whining child Hansel.
A mother does what Gretel the Brave does. She accepts reality and acts on it. Look around, she had told herself. Look at the villa. The cars in the garage. The jewellery.
Look at the photographs of your husband. His arrogant eyes. That cruel streak that never leaves him. His bloodstained hands. Do you really want your child to grow up like that?
To become . . . Kobold?
And that was how Marlene had become Marlene the Brave and started plotting the escape that had brought her here. Klaus had taught her to face the world.
On the fourth day of her self-denial period, she stole the key.