The Return

2

It was one of those outings.

There should have been four adults, of course. Or at least three. That had been the intention, but half an hour before they were due to leave Henriette had phoned to report yet another less than convincing indisposition. Shortly afterward it became clear that Hertl ought to stay behind and assist the nurse, who was due that afternoon to vaccinate the two-year-olds.

Which meant that only Elisabeth and Moira were left. It could be taken for granted that Moira would feel a migraine coming on sooner or later. So in practice Elisabeth would be in sole charge of the whole flock. But so what? It wouldn’t be the first time.

Fourteen of them. Varying in age between three and six. Eunice, six, set the ball rolling by throwing up in the bus after a mere five hundred yards. Paul, three, peed himself copiously at about the same time. Shortly afterward Ellen and Judith, four and five, attempted to scratch each other’s eyes out over a green scarf with pink rabbits. Emile, three and a half, started yelling for his mother so loudly that the whole bus shook, and Christophe, six, had a toothache.

They were well behaved as they got off the bus when it stopped at the edge of the woods. She counted them quickly. All present and correct. Fourteen, fifteen with Moira. She took a deep breath. Three hours of walking through the trees, grilling sausages, a treasure hunt and various botanical excursions lay in store. She could just about see the sky getting darker through the crowns of the trees, and she wondered how long it would be before it started pouring down.

It took barely twenty-five minutes, in fact, but they were quite a long way into the woods by then. Moira had started to feel a throbbing in her forehead and was keeping fifty yards ahead of the main group so as not to make it any worse. Erich and Wally had been teasing Eunice so much that the fat little girl refused to stay with the others: She was walking by herself in among the trees and undergrowth instead of sticking to the path, but Elisabeth kept shouting to her to maintain contact. One of the Jümpers twins had fallen and hit his head on a tree root, so she had to carry him. The other one was playing around behind her, clinging to her belt with grubby fingers.

“It’s started raining!” yelled Bartje, four.

“I want to go home!” squealed Heinrich, five.

“Stupid bastards,” declared Erich and Wally. “Clear off home and screw your mom.”

“Screw her,” squeaked an anonymous three-year-old.

“Shut up, Wally and Erich,” hissed Elisabeth. “If you don’t I’ll cut your ears off.”

Moira had stopped at one of the volunteer corps huts where they were going to have lunch.

“We’re in luck,” she whispered when the main group had caught up with her. As usual she felt obliged to whisper to prevent the migraine from bursting out into full bloom. “Hurry up now and come in out of the rain!”

Even before Wally had got as far as the door it had dawned on Elisabeth that it was locked, and the key was in Hertl’s purse in the staff room.

“It’s locked, for fuck’s sake!” yelled Erich. “Hand over the damn key!”

Moira looked uncomprehendingly at Elisabeth, who sighed. Closed her eyes and counted up to three. It was raining cats and dogs, and she could feel her heels slowly sinking into the soaking wet grass.

“I’m cold,” piped the Jümpers brat in her arms, shivering.

“I’m hungry,” said the other one.

“Don’t say you’ve forgotten the key, you stupid bitches!” yelled Erich, hurling a lump of mud at the wall.

Elisabeth thought for three more seconds. Then she thrust her injured patient into Moira’s arms, went around to the back of the hut and smashed a window.

It stopped raining after about an hour. All the packed lunches had been eaten, Elisabeth had read eighteen fairy tales that she’d read eighteen hundred times before, some of the five- and six-year-olds had gone off exploring on their own and were so caked in mud that she doubted whether the bus driver would allow them on board again. Moira had managed to snatch some sleep in an upstairs room and felt a little bit better, but not much. Gerard, three years old and allergic, had come out in an angry rash on his face and around the crook of his arms, thanks to a candy with nuts that some as-yet-unidentified friend had tricked him into eating. One of the four-year-olds and a three-year-old had peed themselves.

Apart from that, everything was under control. She decided to assemble the children on the steps outside and prepare for the walk back to the bus stop.

Thirteen. There were only thirteen of them. Fourteen with Moira.

“Who’s missing?” she asked.

It turned out to be Eunice.

Preliminary cross-questioning revealed that she had vanished about twenty or maybe even thirty-five minutes ago. Nobody was exactly championship class when it came to timing, and the reason for her disappearance was not all that clear either—Wally or Erich, or possibly both of them, might have hit her with a lump of wood, Marissa could perhaps have called her a fatty-face. Or maybe she had a stomachache.

Most likely a combination of all those things.

After a few minutes of vague shouting and screeching, Elisabeth decided that a search party was called for.

Moira would have to look after the three- and four-year-olds inside the hut, while she would take the older children with her into the woods.

Older? she thought. Five and six years old. Seven of them.

“We’ll walk in a line at ten-yard intervals,” she explained. “We’ll keep shouting all the time, and keep in sight of each other. Is that clear?”

“Yes, boss!” yelled Wally, giving her a salute.

It was Wally who eventually found her.

“She’s sitting in a goddamn ditch, hiccupping,” he said. “Over there. She says she’s found a dead body without a head.”

Elisabeth knew right away that this was the truth. The time was ripe for the day’s highlight.

In fact it wasn’t only the head that was missing. The body—what was left of it—had been wrapped up in a thick carpet, and there was no time to extract from Eunice an explanation of why on earth she had wanted to investigate it. Perhaps a bone had been sticking out. In any case, the well-built and strong little girl had managed to drag it far enough out of the ditch for her to be able to unroll it. The carpet was soaked through…and covered in mold and fungi and every imaginable kind of decay, it seemed to Elisabeth. It was falling to pieces in some parts, and the body in the middle of it was no doubt in just as bad a state.

No head, then. No hands, no feet.

“Back to the hut!” she bellowed, clutching the shivering Eunice tightly in her arms.

She suddenly felt violently sick, and it struck her that what she had just been staring at was one of those visions that would turn up faithfully in her mind’s eye every dark night for the rest of her life.