Each night Lisette's mother would come and sit by her bed. She would hold her lifeless hand and quietly hum. These moments were always painful. Lisette could tell that her mother was close to tears, fighting them off for her sake. They would never talk, just hum and ignore the oncoming tears.
In general, life in the hospital sucked. The grotty windows and ugly limewash everywhere was a burden so heavy that rising happiness was always squashed down. Sure, there were times when Lisette had a bit of fun, but those times were few and far between. Lisette hadn't smiled since the accident. The last fish had been caught and she had let out a hearty cheer. But since then she had forgotten what a smile felt like. She had forgotten the crinkling of her skin. The split in her dry lips. The squeezing of her eyes. The air on her teeth. The warmth in her chest. But, soon she would find out again.
Lisette's smile would be returned to her.
It was Czechoslovakia's turn to have their smiles stolen.
This time, a rickety shelf wasn't the culprit.
It was Hitler.
Open the doors
26th March 1939
*
There it was.
The first smile.
She let it swallow her.
It flooded her with warmth.
*
In those previous few weeks, Florence had been noticing some changes in Ben. He was growing up. He was leaving his childish ways behind him.
If this had been in times before the accident, Lisette would have noticed the changes too.
She would have seen how Benjamin Seelenfreund had come into her life a stranger, now a brother.
She would have thanked him for his unquestioned love and for showing her the meaning of fun.
She would have hugged him and buried her little face into his chest.
She would have played with him and Florence in the slowly warming sun.
She would have stood. She would have run. She would have danced.
But this wasn't in a time before the accident.
*
She was paralysed.
She was miserable.
*
Instead, Lisette's days consisted of longing glances out the window.
She missed the exhilarating sensation of running down the mountainside, unable to stop.
She missed the cool air and getting goose bumps.
She missed the sun burning her skin.
She missed the rain leaving her hair in matted strands.
Lisette Mele was missing so much, it was a wonder that anyone could find her at all.
Her yearning stares out the window weren't unnoticed, Florence saw the hunger in her eyes reflected in the glass.
Florence knew what to do.
Three days later, Ben and Florence returned. As usual, they lifted her into the wheelchair and walked down the hospital corridors. Not far from the doors, Florence slipped a blindfold over Lisette's eyes.
"Hey! What are you doing?!"
"Can you see?"
"No! Of course not!"
"Good."
The double doors stood tall and firm in front of the wheelchair. Ben gave Florence a knowing look, placing his hands on the wooden handles. His muscles tensed and he gave a push. A whoosh of fresh air met them, sweeping away Lisette's gasp. Her blindfold was removed.
It was a warm day in spring and the air was sweet. Lisette tasted it again, it sent shivers down her skinny body. Ben and Florence watched her face, they saw the light flood back into her eyes, the life into her cheeks, the smile.
There it was.
The first smile.
She let it swallow her.
It flooded her with warmth.
Her face was dirty.
Her back ached.
Her legs felt nothing.
But who cared? Lisette Mele was smiling.
The finest creation
8th April 1939
*
I was always so proud of Florence.
She was one of my finest,
one of my favourites.
I shouldn't pick my little golden children out,
but who's going to stop me?
She had the ability to satisfy.
She satisfied Lisette with a smile and company.
She satisfied Ben with attention and love.
She satisfied Rafael with gifts and protection.
And she could satisfy herself by satisfying others.
*
After Lisette's first smile, one of many to come, life was as normal as it could get. The happiness dribbled back into Florence's day. The solemness and misery had slowly faded from Florence’s mind. Everything stopped being a chore again. Each visit to the frescreets felt less and less like a necessity and more like arriving at a long awaited birthday party. There were even gifts.
With each of Florence's visits came another item. Some days she brought household items like nails and a hairpin. Other times she brought things from the hospital or school. An alcohol wipe or a broken measuring tape.
Each of the presents were taken to Rafael's home and would sit in his room, waiting to be analysed carefully. His obsession with humans hadn't gone unnoticed by Florence.
With each visit, there was something else too, not just the gifts. The mysterious onlooker came closer. It seemed that silently observing Florence just wasn't enough. Her curiosity was too great.
The change was subtle, nearly unnoticeable. Nearly.
Florence barely noticed the girl moving a metre or so every visit. Barely noticed until Florence could make out every strand of her strawberry hair.
Her eyes flicked between Florence and Rafael. There was something else, too. There was almost desperation in them, anxiety.
*
I know who this strawberry haired and blue eyed frescreet is.
Do you?
*
There was something about her. Something familiar. Florence's memory flickered, who was this girl? She looked like someone she had known a long time ago.
But, surely not.
No of course not!
Impossible!
Always, the mysterious girl would follow Florence, like a shadow. She was never further than five metres away. She would watch quietly as Florence played with the young frescreets, her hands held at least five tiny ones. She would watch when Florence helped out the elderly, laughing heartily at their weak and toothless jokes. She would be watching when Florence followed Rafael around the village, her eyes following his hand as he pointed at different spots are around the place.
Florence's little shadow would always be there, watching and waiting.
Watching for opportunity. Waiting for the right moment.
Beasts
8th April 1939
A gush of wind flew through the open door. It punched an empty jar and it fell to the floor and smashed. It tripped up an unsuspecting pot of ink and it shoved a pile of cloth over. The collection of gifts were strewn around the little room, bits and pieces all over the floor. The old and wrinkled frescreet hobbled around the room, picking up all of his possessions. The window was shut and the items rearranged. His frail body creaked and groaned, landing heavily in the chair. The veins in his pale hands quivered, his fingers searching over the objects. They closed over a partly shattered magnifying glass, the metallic handle held between four of his bony fingers.
Rafael quietly shut the door, Jael need not ever discover his secret.
*
These people seem to have a lot of secrets.
Of course,
they could never keep their secrets from me.
They never will either.
I know everything.
I'm not boasting.
It's just a fact.
*
The dirt and leaves were swept away, the wooden plank left naked. Rafael's fingers clawed at the edges, prising the wood away. The trapdoor was opened, a gaping hole left in the floor. The darkness engulfed his lean frame and the ladder wobbled with his desce
nt.
Trapdoor. Cliché, but effective.
Rafael's second hand oil lamp glowed faintly, softly glowing in a puddle around his feet.
He lifted his lamp to the edges of the room, peering into the darkness. Hundreds of glass jars lined the long shelves. One thousand Rafael’s reflected back at him, staring him in the face, blinking in unison. His beady eyes were magnified even larger. The shelves of endless jars were enough to make one giddy, but that wasn't all.
Within the walls of each jar, there was a dark object. Each a different shape and size. Some had pointy bits protruding from it, others had a thin fuzz. But if you were to get closer, you would notice something horrific.
Preserved in a strange jelly, were hundreds of different animals. Some hundreds of years old, others only days. Their shapes were distorted, magnified under Rafael's cracked glass. If you tried, you could make out small birds and lizards, fish and mice. Their corpses floated eerily, all colours faded and dull.
All experiments gone wrong.
Nearly five hundred years of failed genetic testing had taken place in this secret chamber. All that was left was the victim's remains, gnarled and deformed. Sometimes the transformation had only made it half way, leaving an unidentifiable beast. Each and every creature had been taken from the forest, stolen. They never saw the daylight again, their last thought had been of the frescreet looming above them, wearing a grim expression.
*
Inhuman?
Gruesome?
Disgusting?
Illegal?
Yes.
But who was there to tell Rafael that?
Exactly.
No one.
*
This was Rafael at his worst. His most cruel. His most wicked.
Do you judge a person by what they do behind closed doors?
Amazingly, there had been a survivor of his experiments. One out of thousands. Ironically, it had been by far the most ambitious.
Rafael should never have done it. If it had gone wrong, well, that was just unthinkable.
But on the other hand, what choice did he have.
The unfortunate girl had walked into their midst.
She had discovered their secret.
She was not a purine.
Unlike her sister.
But she was a human.
Rafael had revelled in the opportunity.
So he transformed Grace Mele.
The best medicine
19th April 1939
With every visit, Florence would walk outside with Lisette. Ever since the outdoor trips had begun, the colour had slowly come back to her cheeks.
No amount of medicine can fix a person like fresh air can.
At first it was just the open door. They would just stand beside the doorway. The sun found patches of her skin through the trees and the wind hid behind the wall of the hospital. But it wasn't enough. Lisette needed more.
She began begging her parents, the nurses, Florence and Ben, to take her further. She wanted to go out into the town, to the hills, to her home, to the forest, every day.
"No, it will make you sick."
Why no? Why was the answer always no?
But, unfortunately for them, Lisette was too stubborn. There was no way she was going to listen to their silly rules.
Unable to move herself around, she would target the most persuadable of the nurses. The thin bleached bun perched on top of her head wobbled constantly from nodding her head all day without protest or opinions.
Over time, Lisette developed quite a skill for creating pity for herself. She turned out to be quite the actor.
With forced tears running down her face, she would wail about the unfairness of her life and how the poor nurse didn't know how lucky she was.
From his bed across the room, Markus was quite impressed.
The clueless nurse would fall for it every time. With sweet and praising words she would steer Lisette out the double doors and around the courtyard.
Those few moments were like heaven to Lisette. She would listen to the birds sing again. The people walking down the street were so content. The sun on her face warmed her inside.
For those short few minutes, all was well.
*
They were all wrong.
The fresh air wouldn't make Lisette sick.
Far from it actually.
One or two months later,
she would be ready to return home.
*
Return to Dreiheimne
23rd April 1939
"Dummkopf!" Florence laughed, helping Ben up off the dusty ground.
"Stupid rock." he said, kicking it away. It rolled into the murky water with a satisfying plop.
They stood, hands hanging by their sides, watching the ripples die down. "I'm glad she caught the last, fish. Yeh know? Kinda like the last laugh, I guess." Ben said. Florence nodded her agreement.
"I didn't think I'd be able to come back here. But, it's kind of, I don't know, comforting." Florence shrugged her shoulders.
"Ja, I know what you mean. It's like the old Lisette is still here." a sad smile formed on Ben's lips.
"I wish she could be here, I bet she would be telling us to stop moping about."
"I guess we'd better listen to her then, hadn't we?" he smiled at Florence, a tired and sad smile.
He picked up his stick with some string and bait attached and cast it out into the water.
*
Yes,
I did it on purpose.
I meant for Ben to stand exactly where Lisette caught her last fish.
It amused me.
It was symbolic:
Where the loved once stood,
the ones who love them will be found.
*
Ben's fish box was still empty and the sun was running away. Florence and Ben sat back to back on the soggy grass, their legs were damp and covered in goose bumps.
"What do you think she'd be doing now, Lisette I mean?"
"I don't know Flory, she's probably wishing to sit here with us and catch another fish."
"I wish she could be sitting here with us and catching another fish."
"Me too."
The sun held its breath as it plunged below the surface, behind the trees. The moon breathed again. Little bugs danced upon the water, their faint buzz droning out the night.
Ben and Flory held hands, their knuckles turning white. There were no tears, only memories. They poured out of their eyes, and mouth. Out their ears and nose. They danced around their heads, thick and fast. Florence could almost hear Lisette calling. Pictures swum around their heads, squeezing the air from their chests.
A cool breeze swept over the water, blowing the memories away, planting them in the soil. Memories of Lisette would be fostered there, nurtured and kept safe. The echo of their last carefree laughs can still be found there, growing like a tree from the forever damp soil.
That night as Florence and Ben lay in bed, they each slept peacefully. Their heads were full with the knowledge that they had done all they could. They had been the best they could to Lisette and, finally, they could accept that there was no going back. She had been physically free, now a quadriplegic.
She was paralysed and handicapped.
But not hopeless.
Never hopeless.
A handful of fists
24th April 1939
*
There is something I would like you to see.
Even though I probably shouldn't show you,
I will anyway.
The words had poured out of her heart and into her diary.
Florence didn't like those words.
They told the truth and she didn't like the truth.
So here it is.
The truth,
by Florence.
*
The earth is moving. The earth is moving and I am moving with it.
We all have a hand.
One for Switzerland.
; One for France.
One for Italy.
Germany has one too.
But Germany's hand is a fist.
Beneath the blanket of earth, each of our hands lie.
The hands once held one another, holding the peace.
But the peace never lasts.
The German hand pulled away and we let go.
We let go of the hand.
We all let go, but a few.
Germany was strong. Too strong.
Italy and Japan followed, their hands left the circle.
That was when Germany struck.
Fist on earth blanket.
German knuckles turned yellow, blood of David's stars upon it.
The Jewish flew.
Their stars shone in the sun, the fist beneath their feet.
The earth blanket pulled, the fist grew into a mountain in the middle of earth.
The German fist mountain rose so high, it punched the sky.
The sky bled,
red and black.
Red of blood.
Black of swastika.
They all ran down the mountain.
Jews. Jew lovers. Jew savers.
They ran into my heart,
where the trembling earth dropped a rickety shelf on their backs and made me cry.
The frescreets fell out of their forests, the fist destroyed their home.
The moon and sun fell down, not welcome in the pure black and red sky.
Beneath the earth blanket the hands separated.
Some joined the German fist.
Others made their own.
The children cried and their parents wept.
The books burned and the Jewish fled.
But all through the bedlam, one man stood.
With swastika eyes and a burning heart,
the Führer stood upon his fist mountain.
Rafael's rotten heart
24th April 1939
If the baker was to look up, he would have seen one glassy eye pressed against the crack in the wall. But he didn't look up. He just kept on kneading the dough with his porcelain like hands.
The glassy eye left the hole and turned around.
"I say that one of us sneaks in and everyone else keeps watch, what do yeh think?" the boy whispered.
His friends nodded their agreement.
*
Even frescreets steal.
*
It was decided, little Vanya would be stealing the bread.
The bakery door creaked open.
The little boy sneaked in and straight away knocked over a huge bag of flour.
Silly boy.