Jarmila by Ernst Weiß Read Free Book Online Page A

it her own dear breath or merely the draught? I touched her cool lips. Nothing. I looked at her. She looked at me. Her eyes did. Not her. I rested her head in a more comfortable position, but when I let go, her neck snapped like the spring of a broken watch. People kept running past the house and I heard someone say: ‘… Jarmila … someone called Jarmila …’ I pulled myself together. I had to get help, a doctor. But there was no getting through the hole in the store’s ceiling, it was far toohigh. So I rattled the downstairs door which was padlocked as I had noticed on my way up. The fire was slowly burning out and I was alone with the dead, in the darkness of night.”

XIII
    “ I COULD HEAR a crowd approaching now with a cart or barrow, softly muttering. ‘Put them in here,’ a low croaky voice instructed. It belonged to the mayor who had only yesterday advised me to leave the village. ‘Not there,’ retorted Jarmila’s husband, ‘I don’t want them in my house. They belong in the municipal building, those two.’ ‘It’s me who gives the orders,’ the mayor said. ‘You’ll open your barn, and everything will remain here, untouched, until the police get here.’ Jarmila’s husband was still reluctant: he claimed he had mislaid the keys to the padlock and would not let them break his expensive lock. It was his. ‘Fine, then we’ll take them to your home: they mustn’t leave the premises for your house is closest to the scene of the crime. So, let’s get on with it: it’s the law.’ Grudgingly Jarmila’s husband opened the padlock. I was crouching by Jarmila’s body, as if to hide her. As if there was anything to hide. But I felt embarrassed for her … As long as I live, I’ll never forget the moment before the lock broke open and they entered one by one: first the mayor, then the chief of the fire brigade, still wearing his helmet, gleaming hatchet in his belt, and holding a powerful lantern,then Jarmila’s husband and finally two young firemen, each one wheeling a barrow bearing a large dark mass covered by horse blankets. On crossing the high threshold one of the blankets slipped and I could see a corpse, charred, scorched, hair and nails burnt away, in terrible disarray, sooty rags hanging off the body. It was one of the tramps I’d shared lunch with that very morning. I shouted in fear for I was not in control of myself—it’s only now that I am able to describe the incident without shuddering. When the farmer hauled me up from the floor and dragged me from his wife it did me more good than harm, and I had no strength to resist. ‘What are you doing here? Were you planning to steal my feathers again, you filthy thief?’ he asked me. ‘And what have you done to my wife? Jarmila, what are you doing here? Why are you here, with him? Don’t pretend to be asleep, Jarmila, get up!’ He pulled Jarmila by the hand, even grabbed her hips and tried to make her sit up. The way she slumped down proved to everyone that she was no longer alive. Tears were streaming from my eyes. With his face drained of all colour, he remained silent for a long time, only stroking her hand. He shook his head. ‘So he killed her. What are you waiting for? Tie him up! He’s the one who broke into the storage room from above. He’s the one who set fire to my barn.’ I stared at the floor, neither acquiescing nor denying. I had immediatelyrecognised the corpses on the barrows—there weren’t any stretchers in the village—and was convinced of my guilt. Three people dead. I held out my wrists to be bound. There was no chain or rope though and when they tried a belt it slipped off. ‘Thief, scoundrel, murderer! What, in Christ’s name, have you done to my Jarmila?’ This time he shouted much louder than before. By now he had gained control of himself and spotted the small pool of blood formed by the slight wound in my knee. Deliberately exaggerating his anger he shouted, ‘You’re not only an arsonist but