Ðóññêèé: http://www.proza.ru/2006/06/11-135
Deutsch: http://proza.ru/2021/07/24/1326
Englisch US: http://proza.ru/2021/08/08/1406
My little brother Willi was born in autumn.... I was already in the second grade and grew up carefree in a normal family with my dad, mum and me. Even before Willi was born, after Mum and Dad's visit to the doctor, I heard more and more conversations that degenerated into shouting and Mum's tantrums. Most of the time it was Dad who started it:
- Martha, we already have Sasñha and we will have more children.... Listen, what did the doctor say? It's not just a disabled baby, it's a monster! Think about it... why do we need it? Do you have any idea that our normal life is ending and a nightmare is beginning?!
The mother stuck out her already fat belly even more and covered it with both hands, looking hatefully into her father's eyes and answering him:
- 'How can you say that, even think that, it is your child too! Do you want to kill your child?!
Then the tears and tantrums would begin. And I would go to my room and sit in silence thinking: How can Papa suggest this, how can he hurt Mama like this? I had no idea how right Dad was.
When Willi was brought home and I saw him, I involuntarily recoiled, horror in my eyes, and the sentence came out:
- "It's a monster!"
My mother threw me out of my own room, but she and Dad stayed there, again the screaming and tantrums began.
- Even his brother gets scared of this freak, called the baby a monster, and then what? What now?! I told you, I asked you, didn't I?!
The mother sobbed and through her tears said something like before, "How can you do this, he's your son?!"
But the father was unbowed:
- Martha, darling, should we put him in a home for the handicapped because even at the hospital we were offered to refuse him? Martha, have pity on all of us..., he will never think anything, he will not develop a brain, his face, his body is mutilated, and his arms and legs cannot be called that, he is a piece of living flesh!"
Martha was not criminal, she silently fulfilled her duties as a mother to her newborn, withdrawing into herself and hardly speaking to us. Dad now slept on the sofa, mother in the bedroom and Willi was put in my room. When Willi started grunting, I immediately jumped up and ran into Mum's bedroom:
- "Willi is awake..."
She got up quietly, went into the kitchen to prepare baby food and my job was to change my brother's nappies more and more, to support him, to help him bathe, to sit with him.
My parents' friends stopped coming to visit, my mother gave birth to her son but didn't want to show him to anyone, and both my parents changed very quickly from happy and cheerful people to gloomy and quiet. My life also changed irrevocably into a nightmare. Dad came home drunk more and more often, my mother increasingly entrusted me with looking after Willi, I played football with the boys less and less often, and at the age of eight I tearfully recalled the recent carefree past.
Dad quietly packed up his things and went to live with another woman who lived in our town. Mum was still hanging on, but Willi was getting bigger and bigger, it was getting harder and harder to look after him, and she could hardly manage without my help. Sometimes she would start feeling sorry for me, saying nice things about me out loud, and then she would immediately switch to my father and say that he was a bastard and had betrayed us all! I, on the other hand, if I were a father, I too would have run away from such a son and such a terrible life as we have now. He warned, but Mama saw things differently then. She never showed the baby to anyone, she didn't take him for a walk in the pram at all, she put the pram on the balcony, but word got around that we had a baby who looked like a monster. The kids at school were bugging me: "Can I see your brother? And my enterprising friend Jan still persuaded me - we'll show Willi for money!!! Fifty cents per person for a tour.
I was the strongest in my class and the teacher told my parents that I would go to grammar school. The school year ended, summer began, and I and Jan showed Willy to the curious in exchange for money and bought sweets with it, but Jan went to the cinema alone or with other children, but not with me. I had Willi with me, I was involuntarily tied to him with an invisible chain, like a dog, because sometimes my mother didn't even stay home at night - she snapped, she started drinking. Willi didn't even learn, he let out a kind of "Sasñha" growl once, and that was all the freak could manage. He was very afraid of his mother and made funny sounds until she left the room. But he even 'smiled' at me, it was a strange grimace which I assumed indicated that Willi was pleased with me.
One day I woke up in the night and felt that there was someone else in the room besides my brother and me. My mother was standing in front of Willi's bed, holding a pillow in her hand and hesitating to put it on Willi's face. I whispered to her:
- Mum, do it..., you and I will feel better without him and everything will come back..., Dad will come back to us....
She dropped the pillow beside the cot and went back and sat on the edge of my bed:
- Sasñha... will you do it? Forensics will find out the cause of death and I will go to prison.... You will be all alone. You are a child, you will not be punished....
- Mum, but then everyone will think I am my brother's murderer and they will fear me as a murderer, won't they? I like a girl from our class and she will never want to be friends with me! Why don't we put Willi in a home? A lot of people even ask me why we don't put him there.
- It's a small town, everyone knows everyone, and we can't leave, we don't have the money. Everyone here will judge us for betraying him.... They are all masters of counselling now, and then the same counsellors will stigmatise us.
- Let them...
- How can we live here, my son?
- It's no life, it's no life with Willi anyway, let's kill him, how could we miss him?
- Sasha..., you do it..., you are the man of the house now, and I am a mother..., an unhappy, desperate mother.
- Mum, can you stay a little longer?
- No..., it smells like shit in here, would you at least air it before you go to sleep?
- It's no use, Willi doesn't always let me know it's time to change the nappy, so I only change it when it stinks.
She got up and went to the door, and I asked a question that had been bothering me for a long time:
- You don't want to marry a Russian?
- No, he's just my friend, and Nikolai isn't Russian, he's a Kazakh German.
- Mum, don't go to him, he'll get you drunk..., you always come back drunk.
- I feel better with him... when you grow up you will understand me.
And she closed the door behind her and I stayed awake until morning thinking: "What about me, where can I hide from Willi?"
One day I went for a walk with Willi and rolled the pram in front of me, which felt like a weight on my legs and arms. The top was covered with tulle so no one could see my brother's face, and when Willi called me "Sasñha", passers-by looked around in amazement and fear, wondering where the growl was coming from. I tried to go for walks with him in the quieter parts of town. I met Hanni, the girl from our class whom I like. She spoke to me first, persuaded me to show her Willi, and she even walked beside me on the path and helped roll the pram.
- Sasha, I understand that you like me. I noticed it in first grade, but I will never marry you. We can only be friends.
- Why?
- Why what?
- Why won't you get married?
- You have Willi, and that's forever, he can even outlive you. Your mother drinks, and one day she'll leave you altogether. I heard your father drank, now your mother drinks, and your brother is a freak, don't you have too many hereditary disadvantages?
- Who told you that?
- My mum, when I told her you liked me. Okay, I'm going home, bye....
Hanni left and I was determined: "I'm going to kill Willi."
At night I even had an idea how I would do it and it would all look like an accident, well, I didn't see it coming.
In the afternoon I took Willy in the pram to the football field, which was right next to the river, and I put the pram in such a way that if Willy started to move, for example to pee in his nappy to call me, the pram would roll to the cliff and from there fall into the river. But at that distance, neither I nor the boys will hear it. So... it will roll and fall into the water, and I will pretend to play and not see it. Just don't let anyone get close enough to save him. Yeah, why didn't I think of that idea last summer? I was playing football and I kept looking at the pram and wishing it would roll down. But... it's time to go home and the pram is still there. Willi was asleep, and it was only when we arrived at the house and my neighbour let me in the door first, even helped me lift the pram up the three steps to the flat, that I suddenly heard a growl, "Sasñha." The woman flinched, her face changed from smile to horror, and without saying goodbye, she went towards the exit.
Willi, Willi... why do you hold on to life so tightly? You don't understand anything anyway, nothing at all... Why didn't you fall into the river, why? When it's cold, in autumn, I'll give you a cold, I'll open the window and tape your mouth shut so you won't call me, at night no one will see the window is open. I'll close my head under my blanket and yours, and you'll lie naked. Then when you get a fever, you can't eat or drink, and mum and I call an ambulance for you very, very late.... School started, I went to third grade, but it wasn't cold enough to give Willi a bad cold in one night, and it was a night I looked forward to as an escape from Willi and Mum's hard life with him.
One day I came home from school, my mother thought she was home alone and yelled at Willi:
- 'You ruined my whole life, you fucking bastard! I wish you were dead, I wish you were dead, I wish you were dead, you bastard!!!!
- Mother...
Mother neither heard nor saw me, she ran towards Willi and started hitting him wherever she could. I ran up to her and clung to her arm, trying to protect Willi, and he mooed and yelled out, "Sasñha."
- Sasñha, my son, I beg you, kill him!!!
My mother sobbed and fell crying into the pillow on my bed.
- Kill him, kill him, I can't take it anymore!!!
- Mother, I will kill Willi, I promise you, I already know how! But we'll have to be patient a little longer, it will look like a slip that wasn't intended.
She jumped to her feet, hatred in her eyes:
- What, what did you just say? You would kill your own brother?! Did you bring him into the world?! Did you carry Willi under your heart?! Who are you saying that to, your mother?! His mother?!
She threw herself at me and began to beat me with her fists as hard as she could. Only now did I understand and see that my mother was very drunk. She hadn't spent two nights at home, so she had been drinking all the time with a German from Kazakhstan whose wife had run away because she couldn't stand his drunkenness.
I began to dream of growing up as quickly as possible, of leaving here forever, where no one would know my past, where I would grow a beard and no one would recognise me from our town if they met me. Every day I woke up frustrated: I didn't wake up as an adult, and my nightmare continues, called 'Willi'. Every day I went to bed with one wish: "Tomorrow I will wake up as an adult, not here, and there won't be this monster called 'Willi' around." And I don't have a beard, I still have to live in this town, I still have to kill Willi my own brother to free myself from this freak and free my mother. More and more it began to dawn on me that the life we had before Willi was born would never return to our family, that Dad would never come back, that Mum would never stop drinking, and that a lot had happened inside me: I was an adult child..., a murderer..., I would kill Willi....
I hate this freak who turns into an even more horrible monster every day. He calls me again with a growl, his mouth, saliva flowing copiously, shaking convulsively, twitching convulsively with his skinny legs and arms that don't even look close to what they should. Now he barks until I get out of bed, walk over to him and have to touch with disgust his hideous crippled "hands", which should be his palms. Through the choking I will say to him, "I am here, Willi." And the monster will begin to calm down and slip back into his own world, known only to him. Sometimes I think, "Does it have a brain? Of course it has grey matter, but an insect probably has a bigger brain.... How, how can you let something like that live? It's not human, is it? Tell the mother he died at birth and we live happily ever after. Bury Willi as soon as he was born and that would be that. My thoughts were always more about Willi, about how to get rid of him, and my mother was hardly ever at home. I don't have much use for him, I'm all alone, I'm so tired, I'm still a child myself!
Mum hit Willi again and I protected him away from her again and promised to get us away from him again. Why me and not her? She is afraid to go on living with it, and how will I live with it? How will I live after I get rid of Willi? Wouldn't I see him in my dreams, wouldn't I go crazy myself, being only nine years old? Willi was barely aware of sensations, smells, understanding sounds, who he was and who was around him. How could they give us such living flesh in a hospital? And yet he kept demanding that I be with him when he left, growling "Sasñha" and convulsing until I came and, almost retching, touched his stump, his arm. Here we go to get my little brother, here we bring my little brother into the house - "Rejoice Sasha!" And now, "Kill him, Sasñha!" They then explained to me when I asked:
- "Why is he so scary?"
My father explained it this way:
- "It is difficult to choose a good brother, you cannot make a mistake, you cannot change it later."
And so we looked... And Jan told me straight away that it was all nonsense, babies come out of their tummies when they get bored.
Money became scarce, neither for food, nor for nappies, nor for anything.... My mother was rarely home anymore, I left Willi alone and went to school, hoping that I would come back and he would be dead. I tried not to feed him and not to water him, but with his "Sascha" growl he forced me to feed and water him. Then I taped his mouth shut, but the nappy started to stink, I had to change it, and I felt sorry for him when I looked at Willi, so I let him drink and eat. It wasn't Willi's fault that he was left alive and given to us, it was his fault that he was my brother, that he broke up our whole family, that he stole my childhood and all I wish for him is for Willi to die. Willi is evil itself....
The cold days came and I undressed him, taped his mouth shut and left him like that on the bed while I went to sleep in my mother's bedroom. When I opened the door in the morning, it was very cold, but Willi was alive. He was turning blue and shivering all over, but he was alive, and "Sascha" came out of his crooked mouth again, and again I had to touch that stump that was his arm and say, "I'm here, Willi." In my brain there was now also the certainty that Willi was not from the planet Earth, that he had been implanted in us by one of the civilisations of the universe, Willi was not gone. He was the same, he had no fever and I even howled in despair as I snuggled into my mother's pillow in her bedroom:
"Beast, die already!!! I wish you were dead, Willi, I can't do it anymore, no..., I'll die soon myself, I can't see you anymore, Willi. You won't even kill yourself!!!"
At school, my teacher came up to me and let me go home, saying:
- Sasha, your father has died, go home.
- Dad... but I don't even know where he lives? And what did he die of, was he killed?
- No, he died of cirrhosis of the liver, in hospital. Do you know where he lived?
- No, I don't.
- He was my neighbour. - and gave me his former address, go to the cemetery, the funeral is today at noon.
I came home but I didn't go to the cemetery, I felt resentment - my father had left me, betrayed me, just like my mother, he never came and asked me: how am I and what's wrong with you? He was nothing to me anymore...
I used to walk with Willi on the side of the house where Hanni lived, and I liked her more and more, but I was thin and unkempt myself. Hanni felt sorry for me, I could see that, and at the same time she was ashamed of me. We used to go for walks in the nearby park where almost no one was. That she would never marry me was as clear as day, but at least it was good to be friends. Jan only talked to me at school, and at home it was so uncomfortable that my mother was almost never there. I was even glad that Jan didn't ask to visit. Everyone had seen Willy for the money, so I lost interest and our business went down the drain. And money is so tight. Maybe I should go to the Red Cross with Willi and ask for help so I can live with other parents and Willi can go to an orphanage. That's my decision, I'll go tomorrow....
When I came home after school, I saw my mother at home scolding loudly about her invisible boyfriend, a German from Kazakhstan, and putting things from her suitcase into the drawers of the cupboards.
- Sasha, can you imagine that this drunk threw me out! He has another girlfriend now, a Russian, what a bastard he is! He lived off my money, ate and drank, and now he doesn't need it anymore! He took advantage of me! Yes, your father passed away, you know?
I watched them silently and thought, "Why did you come back? Why not tomorrow? I would have left you with Willi today." From the other room came Willi's "Sascha" growl. I went in silence. Mother followed me:
- Sascha, would you get rid of him somehow? I am his mother...
Yes, I will, mum.... just don't drink anymore, ok? Without Willi, we'll be like before, except that Dad won't come back either.
And a month later, the mother returned to her German from Kazakhstan, they had a fight, it turns out...
- Willi, you're about to take a bath... I'll just wipe you with a cloth, now you'll swim like a fish. Children love to swim in the water. I love it too, you go swimming, then me.
I said these words to my brother, which he didn't understand at all, and suddenly my eyes lingered on his. I looked at myself with meaningful eyes, the eyes of a grown man.
- My God!!! Willi, you are a monster!!! I am afraid of you, I hate you, why exactly did you fall on my head? You are not from here, you are not from planet earth, you bring nothing but sorrow through your existence, here.
I carried the naked Willi and put him in the bathtub, turned on the lukewarm water and tried not to look him in the eye so as not to make him think. I sat down on the floor in the living room and sat like that until I heard the water running over the edge. In the bathroom, something banged against the walls of the bathtub a few times and fell silent. That was it...
I walked backwards into the bathroom, turned off the tap and quickly closed the door behind me, Willi drowned in the water.
I sat on the carpet in the living room, in the cluttered flat, among the scattered things, and it seemed as if I should be happy - that was it.... There was no joy, no despair, nothing.... Emptiness. Emptiness in front, behind, in the soul, and the world only narrowed in my small tortured body. I thought of nothing, my eyes stared ahead, but I saw nothing, remembered nothing, thought of nothing. It was as if I had died with my eyes open. Only once did I suddenly think, "I should change Willi's nappy." But then I remembered that there was no more Willi, and then I went back to nothing. Woke up on the floor in the morning, put the rucksack on my shoulders and went to school. On the way there I met Jan, he told me something, and the only person who noticed the emptiness around me was my teacher:
Sascha, you look pale, you don't feel well, so go home.
As I approached the house, I saw my mother lying on a stretcher while a nurse gave her an injection in the arm. Willi, who was lying on another stretcher, completely covered with a sheet, was put into another car, also an ambulance, and immediately taken away. I walked up to my mother, she sat down and said in an indifferent voice, looking me in the eye, "I hate you, you fratricide, I wish you were dead!" My mother immediately closed her eyes and then I realised she was playing to an audience. There was a police car parked outside and a woman standing next to the policeman who called herself Monika, my mother's sister, gave her particulars and promised to take me to the police if they asked for me, but in the meantime I would stay with her.
When we were driving on the motorway, I kept trying to see her in the mirror and I couldn't find any resemblance to my mother. Why didn't my mother tell me she had a sister? This person answered herself as if she had read my mind: "We have a big difference from Martha, we have the same mother and different fathers. My stepfather didn't like me, so I was brought up by my grandmother. Martha and I had very little contact. But a neighbour had my phone, so she called me..., we'll be right there....".
- Do you have children?
- Bettina... she is eleven years old...
The car pulled into an open garage, the aunt took me into the house, then we went into the room, it was the girl's room. The walls were covered with posters from the film Titanic, and photos of different sizes from different films with the American actor Leonardo Di Caprio were hanging everywhere. On the bed was a little girl, the woman's daughter, who looked very much like her mother. I understood everything... I looked into the aunt's eyes, in them was a question: - "Will you do it?"
She could tell from my eyes that I guessed why I was here? She spoke quickly:
- Well, you two get acquainted and I'll get something to eat.
And she quickly went into the kitchen.
I moved closer to Bettina on the chair and looked her in the eye and asked:
- What happened to you Bettina, why are you in bed during the day?
- I was born with a spot on my vertebra, a red spot, and it started to grow quickly. The doctors advised me to have it removed and after the operation I quickly developed muscular dystrophy. I can now sit for ten minutes an hour at most, mostly lying down. But soon I will only be lying down. Like a doll...
I brought my face close to hers and looked into her eyes and asked:
- Betty, do you like your life?
- No...
- Do you want me to kill you?
Yes...
2009