Pilgermann by Russell Hoban Page A

the autumn as well. We run out of grain and beans, we run out of everything. Bodwild here, I had to keep her hid or she’d have been ate sure. There been a little girl went missing from the next village and folk were saying one thing and another, most of them thought that girl been ate. Such things been heard of before and it were always Jews done it. Sacrifices, you see. They drunk them children’s blood for their rituals. A dog in our village dug up some bones, they was from a human child.’
    ‘There were folk in our village looking at my little Konrad and muttering this and that,’ said Bodwild. ‘He’d always livedalone and kept to himself. They knew we were in love and they begrudged us our happiness.’
    ‘Like I said,’ said Konrad, ‘I had to keep Bodwild hid or she’d have been turning on someone’s spit. I found a hole in amongst some big rocks it were in the wood by the common. I put some straw in there for her, I done my best to keep her comfortable. Mind you, I weren’t too comfortable myself what with people pointing the finger at me like they was because of them bones and some said they seen me burning that little girl’s clothes. There’s always people will try to take away your good name but they couldn’t prove nothing.’
    ‘How well I remember that time!’ said Bodwild. ‘How well I remember a particular November evening: it was dusk, it was raining; I remember the smell of the rain on the dead leaves, I remember the smell of the damp straw. Suddenly there came a fresh smell: it was strong, it was sharp, it excited me, it made me want to nip and cuddle, it made me quiver with lust. There crept into the hole with me a man, such white skin he had, such black hair, such red cheeks!’
    ‘He were a clipcock,’ said Konrad. ‘He were some kind of Jew magician, he had papers on him with that kind of secret writing they do. He weren’t from our part of the country; some of them in our village they seen him sneaking through the wood and they begun to chase him.’
    ‘It was his fear I smelt,’ said Bodwild. ‘So strong and sharp it was, almost like doppelkorn, almost like schnapps. It made me wild with desire. I kissed him and called him sweet names, I pressed close to him and offered myself, my pinkness and the sugar of me, I was like marzipan; who could refuse me?’
    ‘They won’t get near pork,’ said Konrad, ‘them children of darkness, them Jewish devils. They call up Asmodeus, they drink the blood of Christian children, they say the Lord’s Prayer backwards, them Christ-killers. He pushed her away.’
    ‘Me!’ said Bodwild. ‘He pushed
me
away. Men have paid good money to sleep with me, but he pushed me away.’
    ‘They haven’t paid money but they’d give me a sausage or maybe a chicken or some doppelkorn,’ said Konrad.
    ‘I was outraged,’ said Bodwild. ‘I had never been insulted like that, I wept bitterly.’
    ‘She were squealing her head off,’ said Konrad. ‘I heard her half a mile away and I come running. We burnt the Jew that night, there were human child bones found in his pouch.’
    ‘Clever little Konrad!’ said Bodwild. ‘It all worked out so well, everyone was satisfied. How he writhed and crackled in the flames, his bones cracked and the marrow boiled out. I remembered the smell of his fear as I saw him twisting in the flames, it was almost better than making love. Watching him burn I came again and again.’
    ‘I had you under my cloak and I was playing with you,’ said Konrad. ‘I could feel how you loved it, how hot you were.’
    ‘Did you smell the Jew’s fear when he was burning?’ I asked Bodwild.
    ‘No,’ she said, ‘I had to remember it from before to call up my excitement. He was singing but that did nothing for me.’
    ‘He were trying to save his self with his Jew magic what they call up devils with,’ said Konrad. ‘There’s a spell they sing, it’s called “Schemmah Yisrowail”; I’ve heard it often when I’ve