In Carriage G- by Richard Short

The train left Holzweg a little after eight in the evening. Diana had been forced to run after the already moving train and so took a seat in the last carriage, which was, besides, the least populated carriage. While carriages A to F spilt over with heads and limbs and luggage, carriage G was almost bare (the short platform at Holzweg could not accommodate walk-on access to every carriage, especially on long trains, and most of the passengers lacked the sense to move there once the train was in motion). Diana sat in a compartment by herself and, stretching her legs to the seat opposite, she lit a cigarette. After a little while Diana was joined by another, a huge bearded fellow in work boots who sat down opposite her, staring at her intently and ironically. What a big prick, thought Diana. The next moment the door of the compartment opened again, and through the flood of noise from the other carriages a thin young gentleman entered, tipped his umbrella to his fellow travellers, faltered as he decided on which side to sit, then placed himself next to the huge bearded fellow and closed the compartment door. Diana lit another cigarette and opened the window. Unable to read in the wind, both men folded their newspapers and looked at Diana with amused resignation. The second man had an upward shock of hair (like he'd been sleeping upside down thought Diana) which was greying through the middle, though he could have been no older than twenty three. Diana watched the thin young man as he unlocked his case and began to chew into an insipid looking pork roll with an unbecoming hunger. What an odd man thought Diana, and she looked up to the huge bearded fellow who had re-opened up Die Kugel, and was now engrossed in an article about some or other blonde actress. Really, thought Diana, that big fellow is quite handsome, very handsome in fact, but he looks dangerously stupid, he could break me in two if he wasn't careful, and so if I'm going to choose one then I think I may have to go with the thin fellow, though he is a bit unnerving."Watch you don't bite off your hands there" chided Diana, and the thin man blushed and remained mute. The huge bearded man looked at the thin man and shook his head, his eyes then wandering to Diana's bare knees.The thin fellow was later known to be an Augustus von Weerden, a rich young gentleman recently graduated by the Military Centre for Mental Well-Being at Friedholm. Augustus' voracious appetite was the result of not having been allowed meat or solid foods for over eighteen months, an iron muzzle on his jaw having prevented such luxuries. So for Diana to think Augustus was merely gluttonous was quite unfair. "I'm Diana" said Diana, after watching Augustus finish his roll. "Ferdinand Lecomte, pleased to meet you" replied Augustus as he shook Diana's hand, and the conversation rolled on a little;("An amateur ornithologist Monsieur Lecomte? I respect amateurs much more than professionals, always for love, never for money, as they say") Before stagnating;("Yes, Diana, quite")A little way before the town of Chemnitz the bearded man tapped on the window and Diana and Augustus looked at him."That's my hotel" he said to Diana, pointing at a grand Byzantine palace rising out of the trees "The Grand Hotel Hungaria, it's magnificent isn't it?""Yes" said Augustus, and he blushed again. "I have a room for two, tonight…" the huge man glanced at Augustus, then stared at Diana until she dropped her head, rolling her eyes at her book. At Chemnitz the bearded man left the train without a further word and Diana and Augustus watched him climb into a car. Few people boarded at Chemnitz, as the journey was entering the wilds, and so Diana and Augustus were left alone in the carriage."I'm travelling to Stremnitza" said Augustus after a while "and you Diana?""To Stremnitza also" answered Diana, who, it seemed to Augustus, had a very audible Chemnitz accent. "Diana, can I kiss you?" "You can do anything you care to if you have the money"Augustus leant forward and whispered something to Diana, so quietly, despite the absence of fellow passengers, that Diana could barely hear the words. The request was quite strange but not unexpected, she'd heard much worse, from men much uglier than Augustus. "Yes, ok, but we must work out the money beforehand, and we must stay in a nice place, not a grotty little Arab hotel, ok? … Oh, and Ferdinand, don't bite too hard, I don't want to be left with a bruise."

Hedwiges by Richard Short

Hedwiges lived in a small house on some marshland in the shadow of the factory in which he worked. The house was the only one on the marshes as few of the employees were willing to live in the reflected gloom of the factory, under its green-black fog and red rusting chimneys. Hedwiges, though, had no choice in the matter as his bosses demanded that he be in the factory the second it closed each night Hedwiges ensured that the machine kept on working while everyone else slept; stalking around the metal halls turning dials and flicking switches in accordance with a strict handbook of pre-sets. Hedwiges was unreliable and sometimes he made near-catastrophic mistakes, but Hedwiges would never fall asleep on the job like others would, as he was an insomniac and always had been.One night at just gone three in the morning Hedwiges paid a call on his friend Renthaus. Renthaus' conversation varied from the sublime to the primitive but as the night watchman he was one of only six people awake at that hour and he was, as always, found sitting in his bed-chair reading and drinking slowly from a bottle of slivovitz, one eye on the wall of a hundred tiny lights which informed him of any danger. The only other people awake in the factory that night were the girls from accounts (for money never sleeps!) and Hedwiges would pay a visit to them in due course!"I've seen a girl, Renthaus, and she is not merely a girl but a real woman! She really is sublime!" said Hedwiges, sitting folded in his chair like a huge grasshopper. "Huh?" grunted Renthaus."But I can't tell you her name, all I can say is that she is deliciously Iberian and a true woman in the way you have never known."Not knowing what that meant, Renthaus became intrigued and even put his book down (keeping his thumb in it in case he lost interest). Renthaus questioned Hedwiges who gave away little, keeping an imaginary set of cards close to his chest (which he drew away from Renthaus when his friend pretended to see them – "Oh no!" warned Hedwiges, "You're drunk", thought Renthaus).So Hedwiges talked and talked until his head was in the stars and his soul was as elevated as that of Goethe. "Well go and get this girl then," said Renthaus, his thumb twitching."Oh, but I can't, I can't..." Hedwiges protested, before jumping from the bed chair and running out of the surveillance room. An hour or so later Renthaus heard a clatter of arms and legs and then Hedwiges appeared with two girls in the starched grey dresses of the accounts department. "Renthaus, let me introduce you to Peggy Filartiga," Hedwiges said, pushing forward a plump dark girl, "and Anna Santa Rocha," and Anna stepped forward and took a seat on the bed chair. She was a real beauty Anna, very graceful and polished, and Renthaus was transfixed. As the night deepened the bottle of Slivovtz was passed around and the party became drunken and raucous. "You girls are very intriguing, why have I not seen you before? Do you not like to venture from your box room upstairs?" enquired Renthaus, "Well, no," said Peggy, and Anna giggled. "We are slightly afraid of the factory," Anna added. At this point Renthaus gave a huge cry of mirth and scuttling up in his chair he invited the girls to join him under his blanket. With the girls on either side of him and Hedwiges withdrawing into his seat Renthaus began to tell a ghost story about a devilish scarecrow who lived on a bog. The girls giggled and Hedwiges seethed, for the story was not a scary one and it didn't seem to have a point, apart from that of making the girls rock about with laughter and occasionally glancing at Hedwiges, who they recognised as the scarecrow. Hedwiges was distraught; drunk, lonely and mocked (sometimes in verse!). Oh! Why had he fed Peggy Filartiga to this black-eyed demon! The regret was really eating away at his insides as he sat barely hearing the ringing laughter of the lovely girls and the cruel meandering story. Sick to his stomach, Hedwiges rose and left the room, which became instantly silent in his wake. He couldn't return now. Instead Hedwiges entered the WC adjoining the surveillance room and not minding to lift the seat he took a shit directly upon it. This was all he could think to do!Hedwiges stared at the shit for a minute, the bare lightbulb buzzing in his ears. He then turned on his heel and ran all the way back to his home on the marsh, slamming the door behind him.

The Effects of War by Richard Short

War was going to be great! It was going to cleanse the individual, the nation and the continent – if it turned into a World war then that would be cleansed too! Hurrah!That's what Pawel Hutz thought at the beginning, but after only six months (five months of that in the trenches, three months of that with his nerves burnt to cinders) he was beginning to think differently. Pawel had been excused from active service (Pawel's father Field Marshall Hutz was a big deal, he could swing anything) and he now resided in the seaside resort of Goldenhaus. Pawel was there to recuperate but he was by no means idle; a position as a clerk in a small legal firm kept him busy during the day, and at night he could spend his time thinking. From his clerk's wage Pawel paid his board to a Frau Gosslinger, who owned a large white house nested upon the cliffs overlooking the beach. Pawel Hutz occupied the attic room in Frau Gosslinger's house, the ground floor room being occupied by another Hero of the War, the cripple Wilhelm Weiss. The first and second floor belonged to Frau Gosslinger, who was still quite wealthy following her husband's untimely death (the house was spilling over with brave men!). Pawel's room contained everything one could wish for; a radio, a kettle, a bed and a bookshelf, a lamp, a pillow, a table and a window. The only problem was that Pawel Hutz could not stand up straight in this room, he was over six feet tall and the room was barely 5'10"; 5' 5" where the slope was. Wilhelm Weiss however stood less than four feet in his wheelchair – and his ceiling was ten feet tall! It didn't take a genius to work out that this was an odd set of circumstances. Pawel didn't begrudge Wilhelm Weiss his ceiling, a Hero has earned himself some luxury after all, but he did think it a waste and one day he decided to speak with Frau Gosslinger over lunch about a new arrangement. "Hutz! Can you help me here?" asked Wilhelm Weiss, who had bunched up the hall carpet with his wheels and now couldn't proceed to the dining room. "Yes, certainly" answered Pawel, but before he could give Wilhelm a push he saw Frau Gosslinger in the adjoining room and called out to her, moving towards the kitchen and leaving Wilhelm bumping up against the carpet edge with a red face.Pawel Hutz and Frau Gosslinger were deep in conversation by the time that Wilhelm Weiss rolled up to the table. "Can you pass the salt please Hutz?""What? .. oh, yes, here you are" and Pawel passed Wilhelm the pepper."The salt please Hutz""Hhm - what? .. Oh yes, here you are".The conversation continued between Pawel Hutz and Frau Gosslinger and Wilhelm Weiss continued to irritate them with his requests. By the end of the meal Frau Gosslinger had agreed that Wilhelm Weiss would be better off in the attic room. "I mean, I just think it makes sense really" said Pawel clearing his plate into the bin, "Absolutely, absolutely" agreed Frau Gosslinger.So Wilhelm Weiss was dragged to the third floor, which involved much effort by Frau Gosslinger and Pawel Hutz, so much so that it hardly seemed worth it, and there Wilhelm made his home for three months. After the third month Wilhelm was taken into a sanatorium, his mental state having become quite fragile - but that is what War does to people.

The Tumescent Golem of Prague by Aris Roussinos

(Like Stremnitza and The Secret Museum, The Tumescent Golem of Prague was originally written for a now-defunct literary porn magazine called Tea With Bernard)

The Tumescent Golem of Prague

In all the annals of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, there is nothing stranger- nor, it must be said, less well-documented- than the tale of the tumescent golem of Prague. The story begins, so it is said, when what remained of the Imperial armies limped their way through the great southern gate of Prague, leaving the best part of their comrades and equipment behind them on the plains of Hungary, to be slaughtered and looted by the victorious Turk. The militia were called up, for the first time in living memory, to defend the city- watchkeepers were posted on every pinnacle and spire- and as the bakers and clerks and shoemakers were drilled with the only rusty pikes and halberds left in the Castle's armoury, fear transmuted itself in mutters along the ranks into anger and suspicion... It was the Jews, of course. The Turks had no Jews, had they? Had they? Probably not: but we do, that's for sure, clustered like rats in their stinking ghetto. We've called God's curse upon ourselves, letting them live among us like decent folk. Something should be done.
An angry shout rose up amongst the ranks in the Castle courtyard, and wafted into Rudolf's council chamber.
"What are they whining about now?" asked the emperor, who was busy cataloguing his library as his generals shifted impatiently from foot to foot, waiting for his attention. "Do they want more pay? There's no more gold to be had, tell them. Go down and whip the ringleaders, someone."
"It's not gold, Excellency, it's the Jews," said an officer, stepping forward with a bow, "That is, the men blame the Jews for this calamity. They want to burn down the ghetto."
"Really? How typical of them." Rudolf wandered over to the great mullioned window and peered down at his ramshackle troops. "I suppose I shall have to let them. It'll be good for morale, won't it? And less mouths to feed in a siege. Just make sure they leave all the arquebusses and pistols at the Castle gate; I won't have them wasting powder, not with the Turks coming."
Though the impressive speed with which the ghetto gates were shut and bolted from inside spoke of years of practice, the mood within was not one of equanimity. Women wailed and tore at their hair and clothes, and mothers strove to conceal the attics and cellars in which their children were to be hidden, when the gate was breached. The elders held a council, fingering their long beards with agitation when silent, and with a self-conscious display of wisdom when speaking. The problem was that the Mahalah, the great rabbi Loew, was absent, combing the synagogues of Moravia for dusty and neglected books for his collection. Only he knew how to raise the golem, and scatter the furious goyim.
"All we can do is gather in the great synagogue and pray for our salvation," intoned one aged rabbi, raising his tremulous liver-spotted hands above his head like Ezekiel. "The God of Israel has come to our aid before, and he will again." The crowd looked at the floor awkwardly; the God of Israel seemed often otherwise engaged.
"You are wrong, Moshe, God helps those who help themselves," said a voice, and the crowd gasped as the speaker strode into the centre of the room. Gasped- and then tittered. The speaker was Simon Kürsch, a diminutive youth about whom the community was divided. He was either a genius or a simpleton, it was said- though it was only Rabbi Loew who thought he was a genius. Certainly, his taste in shockingly tight black hose and pointed, high-heeled boots did little to win him respect. Simon tilted his head upwards to meet the mocking gaze of the elders, looking at them each in turn before speaking.
"As you all know, I have been Rabbi Loew's apprentice these five years. I do not claim that he has taught me all the secrets of the Cabbala, but I tell you this: I know enough to raise the golem. Only the golem can save you, save your wives and daughters from the goys. And as only I amongst us can raise the golem, it to me you must entrust yourselves."
The crowd murmured anxiously. Though the ways of God were strange, they were surely not this strange.
"Though I ask a price," added Simon, his voice quavering slightly.
"A price? A price? What good is gold to a corpse in the gutter?"
"Not gold, but flesh. Tender, blushing… that is, I ask for the wife of my choosing from within our community."
Outraged laughter, at first. Schwartzmann the fishmonger offered his, along with all the carp in his shop.
"Thank you, but I do not intend Frau Schwartzmann for my bride. I wish to marry Rebecca, beautiful Rebecca, Moshe's daughter. She has given me tender glances in the street before, and I danced with her twice at Lussmann's wedding, and I believe my suit will not offend her."
"You offend me, idiot boy," droned the rabbi Moshe, pointing his withered trembling finger at Simon, "You offend me and bring shame upon your poor dead father and mother. Rebecca! I would rather a pig-faced Czech ravished her than give her to you"- though his certainty seemed to peter out rather as he spoke.
"Do it, Moshe!" shouted a voice, to urgent agreement. The great wooden gates of the ghetto were creaking beneath the weight of the mob, and rocks, tossed over the dividing wall, were clattering on the cobbles of the narrow streets. "Better an idiot son-in-law than be crucified,
and your sons and ours with you."
White-faced, the rabbi nodded his agreement.
The rabbis and men followed Simon to the attic of the Altenschule, and crowded round a huge and ancient chest as Simon turned to speak. "I have followed old Loew up here before," he said, "I know where he keeps the key- look!- and I have heard everything he said over the golem. I know the incantation."
"You are sure?"
Simon nodded, though he looked away slightly, at the ceiling, as he did so.
"You must not witness the rite," he added. "Two of you, go to the graveyard and gather fresh clay. You understand? From the freshest mound- the golem will be dry after all these years. The rest of you, go to your homes and bolt the doors. Let nobody in until daylight."
"What on earth is going on now?" asked Rudolf over his midnight snack of jellied goose, as shrieks rose up from the town below, and soldiers and their wives clamoured, hammering on the gates, to be let back in the Castle. "These people are insufferable. Is it the Turks? Are they finally here? I was almost tired of waiting for them. Schauffnitz, tell me."
"Excellency, it appears- that is, it is said…"
"Spit it out, man, or I'll defenestrate you!"
"There is a monster in the streets, Excellency- a Jewish monster. It is said that the Jews opened the ghetto gates and it came rushing out- grey and horrible- and it scattered the militia back to their homes, killing everyone it saw, until…"
"Until, Schauffnitz?"
The old soldier blushed. "Until… Excellency, it violated a drummer boy, most horribly, killing the poor lad. And then it was observed to saunter back towards the ghetto."
"Good God! Find this thing, and have it hanged."
"Excellency, with all my respect, this thing cannot be hanged. It is said that it is the golem, come back again. In your grandfather's time, Excellency, it is said that the same thing happened. The Jews were suspected of killing some children for their Passover, and a mob went to deal them justice. But this golem of theirs did the same thing- except for the violation. That is… a new development."
"And what did Grandpapa do?"
"He did all that he could, Excellency. He sent a delegation to the Jews offering them his protection if they would put the golem back to sleep."
"And did that work?"
"It did, Excellency."
"Bugger. Well, Schauffnitz, that's what you shall have to do."
Simon's stock had risen within the ghetto, to an immeasurable degree. Even old Moshe accepted the chaffing that followed the formalities of Rebecca's betrothal with a sort of fondness for the lad. The goys were no longer at the gate, and the streets of Prague were- outside the ghetto- empty all that day, as the Czechs and Germans nailed their doors shut and drank their beer fearfully in their most defendable rooms. The Imperial decree of protection had been affixed to every house in the ghetto, and women flocked to Simon's garret- with chaperones, of course- to kiss his feet and bless him for saving their children. And the golem?
"He is asleep," said Simon.
"You mean deanimated?"
"Yes, of course. I think so. That is… it's hard to explain, you see. There is one incantation to raise the golem, and one to send him back to nothingness. But you see, you must whisper the second incantation in the golem's ear."
"You know it, of course?"
"Well… it was hard to hear what Loew whispered that time. I think I know. There are a few possibilities, um, and I've tried them all. It's probably absolutely fine, honestly, but we just need to wait and, er, check."
A great groan went up in the ghetto.
"Idiot boy! Fool I was to believe you could do such a thing!" thundered Moshe. "Fool! Fool! Fool!"
Simon shushed him urgently, and pointed at the crooked attic window of the Altenschule.
"Um, try not to shout," he said in a small voice, "you might wake him up."
That night, the Jews of Prague lay awake behind barricaded doors and windows as the golem's wet and muddy footsteps schlopped and schlapped their way along the cobbled streets of the ghetto. Round and round the ghetto he went- the Jews had forgotten to leave the gate open- moaning horribly, with a sound like the fart of a boot lifted from wet and sticky clay, and with increasing urgency, it seemed…
Simon lay awake all night, a bolt of thick cloth at the window concealing the candlelight as he pored over Loew's ancient books, desperately copying Hebrew and numerical symbols and all manner of unreadable patterns in search of the right one…
A long, wet bellow came from the street below, and then the crash of splintering wood and a woman's scream.
After dawn, a hammering at Simon's garret door woke him, as he lay sprawled across his books in a puddle of hardened wax. "Idiot boy! Get up, damn you!"
It was an angry Moshe, with an angrier crowd behind him.
"You know what that golem of yours has done? No? Then you must come and see, damn you!"
There was a thick trail of mud outside the widow Bronstein's house, and a thicker splattern of mud and clay across her shattered window shutters.
"No," groaned Simon, "She is a cousin of mine"- though in the Prague ghetto, that went without saying.
"Look at your cousin, then," said Moshe with a thin little smirk.
Inside the small house, clay was smeared everywhere- blood too, but mainly clay. The widow- she was about forty, a blowsy red-haired woman- lay spread-eagled on the floor, with mud around her mouth like chocolate round a fat child's mouth. The white skin of her legs- open, like a criminal's on a dissecting table- was visible only at the bottom. The higher up her thighs one looked, the more mud and clay was smeared about.
The men muttered prayers and fingered their beards nervously.
"Is this better than the goys?" one shouted, "Kürsch, you fool, is it better than a goy, I ask you?
Even if they take a woman, they do not usually kill her- better to have a bastard than this!"
"I'll think of something," said Simon, staring at the wall, "this will not happen again, I swear to you."

"Any news from the town?" asked Rudolf that night, tinkering with a gold screwdriver through the bars of a golden cage at a golden mechanical songbird that refused to sing. "Schauffnitz?"
"Excellency, I am Rosenberg. Schauffnitz was sent to fight the Turks."
"Oh yes, I remember. Rosenberg, then, what's the latest news? No gossip, no disturbances? It all seems quiet again now, thank God."
"Excellency, the people are all abed, save for the watch. The taverns are locked and even the whores are praying at their bedsides."
"They're not turning Protestant again are they? Don't tell me I have to burn more of them in the square?"
"Excellency, it is fear of the golem rather than love of heresy."
"Oh, for Christ's sake! The only thing people ever talk about in this fucking town is golems. It's gone, isn't it? What more do these people want?"
"Excellency, the Jews are in hiding. They are barricaded into their nests, and haven't answered to the watch. But the ghetto gates are open- in fact, they have been removed, and hidden somewhere. The golem may yet walk tonight."
"What about the Castle gate?"
"Firmly shut and locked and bolted, and a strong guard placed on it. Cannon too."
"Well, then there's no problem, is there? Could you pass me that screwdriver- no, the smaller one."
That night, no-one, Jew nor Gentile, dared to even peer from their shuttered windows or through the gaps in the roof tiles as the golem's wet footsteps spattered their way around the town. All was silent in the darkness cast by the overhanging gables and narrow streets, save the golem- even the Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square had been muffled, in case it woke the creature. But the creature woke, alone. Families kneeled together in darkened rooms, silently telling their rosaries, stilling their heartbeats, repressing their whimpers as the golem stamped its wet feet along the cobbled streets outside, moaning horribly in that way that no one who heard it would ever forget. Moaning, and searching for a mate. If one dared to sneak a glance at the golem as it made its way to Charles Bridge- and who can say if anyone did dare, after all these years?- perhaps one would have seen in the white moonlight, as it made its way along towards the Castle, trailing a smear of clay behind him like shit in an old pair of hose, across the shadows of the statues on the bridge, the shadow of the golem itself. Yes, the shadow of the golem: the shadow of its awful hands raised before him as he slid and stomped his way toward the Castle, and the shadow of its cock outsized- but perhaps that was a trick of the light?- no, a huge cock, and cold and wet and dripping graveyard clay as the golem dragged itself to the citadel of Prague.
The crackle of musketry made the Emperor Rudolf take his wine glass from his lips; the splintering of the Castle's outer gates made him drop it on the floor.
"Rosenberg! What is happening outside?"
"Excellency, the golem has come!"
"Then stop it, damn you! Why aren't the cannon firing?"
"Excellency, it has breached the outer gate already, and is in the courtyard as we speak."
"Holy Mother of God," said the Emperor, crossing himself as he ran to the window. "Where is- Oh- I see it. My God! What does he want, damn you? Why is he circling around like that? What is that thing he is waving at us?"
"Excellency, it is his member. And that accounts for what he wants, Excellency. I have an astrologer in my retinue, he can explain better than I. Dee!"
Dee, if that was his name, came in, looking like a thoroughly senile old wizard. He bowed his bald head towards the Emperor and fingered his white beard as he mumbled some salutation.
"Yes, yes, enough of that! What is this thing in my courtyard, with that thing in his hand, here for? Answer me quickly, for your own sake."
The old wizard mumbled his answer, in good Latin spoilt by a heavy English accent.
"Well, your Highness, you must know that I have studied the philosophy of Hermes Trismegistus, and learnt the language of the angels- using original research, I might add- I have studied the Cabbala-"
The golem moaned horribly, a long wet bellow- Rudolf could see him in the courtyard, rubbing his huge and muddy prick and staring at the window.
"Tell me what he wants or I'll throw you down to him."
"Highness, only the great Mahalah Loew can raise the golem of Prague. He is a friend of mine, and I know he is in Pressburg as we speak, searching for manuscripts. But I know how the golem is raised, for the most part, and how he is put to sleep. But you see that the golem is – Highness, he is engorged, and seeking satisfaction. He has been inexpertly summoned- Loew was clear on this possibility, Highness. The golem, if he has been stored away for long years, must be refreshed with graveyard clay- but the character of those interred affects the character of the golem. Highness, this golem must have been refreshed with the clay from a sexual deviant- a violent sexual criminal, no doubt- and he has taken on this deviant's urges."
"Excellency," Rosenberg added, "I have had the roster of the assizes studied, and the last burial in the ghetto that we know of was Kransky, the sex murderer."
"What does this mean? What does he want then? He wants sex? Give him someone!"
"Highness," muttered the Englishman into his beard, "The golem needs a virgin. Only then will he be sated."
"A virgin? In Prague? That's unlikely!" said the Emperor, "especially in the Castle."
Someone in his retinue tittered obsequiously, and was silenced with a glare.
"What about the nuns?"
Everyone looked at the floor.
Two guards ran to fetch him, and dragged him into the chamber, where he collapsed on his knees in front of the Emperor like a silken flower.
"Bishop, you must sacrifice yourself for Prague. You will become a saint and a martyr, and I will build a fine cathedral for your relics."
"Excellency- once, at the seminary, there was a beautiful altar boy…"
"For fuck's sake. Take him out of my sight."
Someone screamed horribly in the courtyard- no-one dared to look- but still the thing could be heard pacing around, squelching and moaning.
"Excellency," said Rosenberg blushing, "There is the Princess Elizabeta."
The princess Elizabeta sat in front of her huge carved gilt mirror, as ladies-in-waiting combed her golden curls and cooed. She was sixteen, the Emperor's only daughter, and the most beautiful girl in Christendom, it was said. And if her brains did not quite match her beauty, well, the struggle was unequal from the start. Her golden hair reached all the way to her little silk-slippered feet, and her little mouth and rosy cheeks swam as distinctly on her ivory face as three strawberries in a bowl of cream. Her slender neck, and wrists… but I digress. All that need be known is that she was very, very beautiful, and deeply, deeply dim. Her simplicity was as much a work of nurture as nature, though; the Emperor had kept her almost encloistered in her apartments in the North Tower, fearing that her virginal purity would be sullied by thoughts of oafish grafs and herzogs clustering in their armour and vying for her attention. She knew nothing of men, save her father and her brothers, and nothing at all of sex.
There is no need to ask, then, what thoughts went through her mind when the Emperor forced his way into her boudoir, scattering the ladies-in-waiting into kneeling heaps; the answer is, none at all.
"Why Papa! How late it is! Have you come to tell me to go to sleep, Papa, for you look so cross!
My ladies were just combing my hair for bed, I swear it, and look, I am already in my nightdress!"
"I know, Poppet, and I am not cross with you. There is no time to explain, and I am sorry for what I must do. This is for your own good, Elizabeta, and I want you to understand that."
"My own good, Papa? Am I to be scolded? I am not a child any more, Papa.""Indeed you are not, Elizabeta, as I can see."
And indeed, as she rose to greet her father, the candlelight behind penetrated her thin gown, revealing her slender white limbs and soft jutting fistfuls of breasts to the Emperor's gaze- What a terrible burden for a father to bear, he told himself. But if it must be done, it must!
"You must hurry, Excellency," shouted Rosenberg, "he is hammering through the gate!"
"What, Papa? Is there a man here?""Only I, Poppet, and the Bishop your confessor."
The bishop walked in, blushing.
"Am I to be wed, Papa?" "Wed, my dear? Why… Yes, you are to be wed. I have sheltered you from the ways of the world for too long, my sweet. Do not be afraid, and close your eyes. The ceremony is to begin, and though it may seem unusual, it is all as it should be, as the bishop will confirm."
"Close my eyes, Papa? How exciting this is! But where are you now? Papa!"- this last said as the Emperor, shutting his eyes as well, lifted his daughter onto her dressing table and deposited her with a bump, and a squeal of excitement on her part.
"He is through the gate, Excellency!" came Rosenberg's voice.
The Emperor parted Elizabeta's legs, placing one of her feet on each of his shoulders; he lifted the thin muslin of her gown, unveiling her virgin parts, pink, and haloed with a soft and golden fuzz.
"But Papa…?"
"Hush, dear, there is no time"- though even in his urgency, he found time enough to gaze at her. He rubbed her a little, embarrassedly, and when she moaned he told her not to speak. The Emperor inserted a finger as far as it would go- which was not far. Though she bit her lips shut according to his order, she could not prevent herself breathing harder- nor could she stop her hips swaying on the dressing table, wider and wider as the Emperor pushed another finger in, while rubbing her with his thumb. Pistol shots rang out on the spiral stairs outside, and screams and the clattering of armoured men falling on stone. But now the Emperor was hard.
"Pray, Elizabeta," he whispered as he pulled out his stiff cock, thick in his hand, and rubbed her soft and wettening pinkness with it until he glistened with her excitement.
"Our Father… Father…Ohh. Ohh, Papa…"
"Is it in, Excellency?" pleaded the bishop.
"It is," he grunted, swaying his hips as he pushed deeper and deeper inside.
"OH PAPA!"
"Hush, Elizabeta, it will be over soon."
"Will it, Papa, oh don't let it, please!"
"Excellency, the golem has stopped! It has turned round and is going down the staircase again!"
"Papa, squeeze my titties hard, oh please! Yes, and suck my nippets too!"
"Elizabeta! I order you to be quiet!"
"Excellency, you can stop! The golem is crossing the bridge again, towards the ghetto and the town. Excellency, you need not continue!"
"Thank you, Bishop, but I think it's probably best if I…"
"Fuck me, Papa, like that!"
"Bishop, go downstairs and give the last rites to any of the… of the… shut the door behind you, Bishop."
"Harder, Papa, harder, harder!"
The bishop did as the Emperor commanded. The Emperor did as the Princess commanded.
Back in the ghetto, Simon had hit upon what seemed to be the magic formula. It was all a question of working out what vowels should go between the Hebrew letters, he muttered as he rushed across to Moshe's house, but now he had the answer.
"Moshe! Father-in-Law! Open up, I tell you, it is Simon here!"
"Stop clattering at my door, idiot boy," hissed the rabbi through a crack, "Or do you want that the golem does to all of us what it did to your cousin?"
"I have the answer! Chemavech!"
"What nonsense is this? Chemavech? That is not a word, boy, now go away from here, I tell you!"
"But Moshe! Oh, shit, Moshe, open the door! Moshe! Open the door, open the fucking door!"
Instead of opening the door, the rabbi Moshe was observed by his daughter to spring back from it shaking. A sound like a swallowed yelp came through the thick shutters, and a smell of earth and damp clay sidled through the cracks. A squelching noise, like something being swallowed, and a low moan of semi-human contentment, rising in pitch. The rabbi trembled. Rebecca, who was as brave as she was beautiful, peered out through a crack, froze for a long few seconds, then sat back shaking. It is probably not irrelevant to tell you that she never married, nor spoke of what she saw.
When morning dawned, the Emperor Rudolf resolved not to speak of what had passed, either. It is assumed, that is. For neither the Emperor nor the Princess Elizabeta were seen until the afternoon, and neither were inclined to confess to the Bishop the odious sin they were forced into against their will; though for the Bishop, who had, along with Rosenberg, the ladies-in-waiting, and the Spanish ambassador spent the night and all of the morning outside Elizabeta's door straining his ears for each creak of her bed and abominable cry of encouragement to her father, a spoken confession was perhaps superfluous.
And in the ghetto, when the sun dawned and cleared the river's mist from the crooked dirty streets, doors creaked open slightly, and then all the way. In the street lay Simon, dead- and killed in an unspeakable way- and the remnants of the fearsome golem piled about him- and inside him- as if he had been sandwiched in a pile of horse dung. Simon had saved himself for his Rebecca, and in so doing had perhaps saved her from the golem. And now this thing, sated and defunct, was thrown with Simon's mangled, bloody body into the Vltava, never to be seen again. Yes, in his purity, poor Simon had saved his beloved Rebecca from the golem, as in his sin Rudolf had saved Elizabeta. But the effect on both girls was ultimately the same: Rebecca shunned the marriage bed; and poor Elizabeta, after a few months of fevered consultation with her now white-haired and exhausted father, was packed off to a nunnery high up in the Alps. Of course, that may not be quite how it all happened. But after all these years, who can really say?

Stremnitza by Aris Roussinos

(Like The Tumescent Golem of Prague and The Secret Museum, Stremnitza was originally written for a now-defunct literary porn magazine called Tea With Bernard. Please do not read it as an insight into my psyche...)

STREMNITZA

In the village of Stremnitza, somewhere between the Danube and the Sea of Crete, and some time between Carlowitz and San Stefano, the headscarved women in their black shawls trudged like crows through the sleety mud to the coffee house, where the men were huddled on divans around the stove, smoking and panicking. The pasha was coming. The outriders of his caravan had been seen the day before, in the valley below, winding their way along the pebbled bed of the Stremna, back to the citadel after his year-long stay in The City. The road passed through Stremnitza; the village agha had already called in his serfs' wives to clean his house, to sweep the goose shit from the courtyard and break the ice on the fountain. Sheep were slaughtered in the square, their legs flailing in the mud, and sweet cakes baked in the dim stone houses. As everyone knew, the pasha had a voracious appetite.

The pasha was older, and fatter, than anyone in Stremnitza. When he was a young man, it was said, he had been a great spahi, sitting upright and slender on his war horse with his jewelled sabre gripped firm in his hand. He had fought the Russians in the Danubian provinces, taken bandits' heads in the high passes and put down countless uprisings nearer to home. He had watched villages burn and seen the women taken off in chains to the market, still wailing for their husbands and their children spread like crumpled blankets in the snow. But his fighting days were long past, and none were alive to remember them. Bald, grotesquely fat, the pasha was carried to his citadel and back on a palanquin, reclining on cushions and wrapped in fur and silk. He always kept his blind eye open, cloudy like a white opal, while he dozed with his good eye shut. But when the caravan passed through the Christian villages, his good eye would open with a wet click, bulging like an egg from a hen, as he scanned the muddy streets for a souvenir.
In Marko's coffee house, warm and hazy with wood and tobacco smoke, the men huddled, drinking and making empty threats against the pasha. Whenever he passed through Stremnitza, the villagers were made to line up in their finery and prostrate themselves in the summer dust or winter snow as his gilded palanquin slowly wobbled past. The villagers would stare at their feet as he scanned their ranks- an insolent look would have them whipped- and the comeliest of the village maidens would be beckoned forth and examined by the pasha's firm hand as would an uncut diamond by a city Jew. One would be chosen- and as the other girls were dismissed back to their parents, their small feet scuttling fearfully beneath their skirts, by his offhand languid wave, she would be instructed to wash herself carefully; to wear her finest dress; and to appear at his quarters in the agha's house that night.
The small room smelt sour with raki and slivovitz and fear, and the reek of damp wool drying. Men whose daughters were all married observed the scene smugly, glad that their time to fear was past. Petro the cobbler, though troubled at other times by his daughter's unweddable ugliness, stood another round and grinned. "Brothers," he said, "you needn't all panic, surely? The pasha, devil that he is, is a man of taste and refinement. He will not take all our daughters to his bed, will he? Think: he is not a mere glutton. When the agha prepares the pasha's feast, does he slaughter all his sheep? No- he selects the finest ewe, with the fattest haunches. And it is the same with our daughters, we know this. Every time it is the same. Now, my Anna, though fit enough a wife for any man in Stremnitza, will not tempt him. I just give thanks that God did not curse me with a beauty for a daughter, to suffer his Turkish hands to crawl all over her."
"Shame on you, Petro," said old Teodor the priest- after he had downed the proffered raki- "Just because your woman rears an ugly litter, it does not give you the right to mock poor Alexei like this."
Everyone glanced at Alexei. He looked up defiantly.
"Yes, it is true, it will be my daughter. My Eleni- you need not pretend it will be otherwise. It is a curse, a curse indeed, to have such a beauty for a daughter. I swat away the village oafs like horseflies, and then this Turk comes to ruin her. I should have converted years ago- yes, priest, yes- and found her a fine young agha's son for a husband. Better than this, the shame and the horror of it."
"You should not have scorned my Pavlo when he came asking for her," added Petro, swivelling his head slowly and grinning at the crowd, "It is your pride that has led to this. Remember that, when you send her to the pasha's bed."
Though Alexei stank of raki when he returned home, he was not drunk. A plan had come to him as he stumbled along the frozen muddy track, the image of his eldest daughter's face shining before him. Eleni was seventeen, and tall for a village girl. She had taken her height from his side- it was said that the family were of noble stock, before the Turks came- and her beauty from her mother. Her skin was white, an almost unhealthy waxy pallor rare in a peasant girl; her eyebrows dark and thick, though well-shaped. Though she was slimmer, and flatter-chested, than the village ideal, still every boy and youth lusted after her at the saints' festivals. No, not lusted exactly- they pined after her melancholy beauty, making even soft-cheeked lads feel that their lives were over, wasted, as they would never have a chance to lie with her. She had the wide, black, sorrowful eyes of a figure in an ikon; her dark hair seemed aglow with red sparks in the firelight. How could the pasha not want her, when he saw her? But Alexei had a plan; a plan and a sharp knife.
The next morning, when the pasha's procession arrived, and the villagers assembled in the square, marshalled by a hussar, all eyes gawked at Alexei's family. They had lost a daughter, it seemed, and gained a son. A tall, handsome soft-cheeked lad with sad dark eyes beneath his fez, that sat squarely on a head shaved to the bone. Some gasped, others tittered. Petro opened his ugly frog's mouth to make a remark, and was silenced by Alexei's cold glare.
"Silence, dogs, the Pasha comes!" barked the hussar, trotting back and forth along the square and flexing his whip at the muttering rayahs. "Eyes on the floor, damn you!"
The pasha's palanquin swayed forward, its gilded poles and drapes rocking back and forth like a silken spider crawling along its web. An escort of horsemen, with long mustachios and tall turbans atop their heads, trotted slowly alongside with sabres bared.
The pasha was bored and cold, and his one good eye kept drooping shut as he examined the grovelling ranks of Christians. After a year in The City, and the pleasures of its bathhouses, these peasant girls looked like dogs and pigs to him, unwashed and ragged in their faded ugly dresses. He hated this country, and its savage people, and hated the Sultan for sending him back into frozen exile. He was an old man now, he knew it, and wanted nothing but to pass his last years with his harem in his fine house in the capital, with its fountains and the soft song of nightingales amongst his cherry trees. His bulging eye flickered critically over every girl he passed- she was pretty, but with a moustache; she needed feeding to fatten up her tits- and he dreaded the thought of spending the night alone in a vast cold bed as the wolves howled outside. He blinked slowly, and wiped away a tear- how cold it was!- and when his eye slid back into focus he saw a lad that made his chest ache with the pain of lost youth. A tall lad, and pale, skinny in his baggy breeches, moping bashfully at the floor. The pasha smiled sadly, and beckoned the boy forward.
Eleni walked forward with her eyes on the floor, as the crowd gasped. When she reached the palanquin, the pasha tenderly stroked her cheek, then raised her chin with his fat hand until her eyes met his.
"You blush, lad, like a maiden," he said. "What is your name?"
"Dmitri, Lord, son of Alexei," she said in as deep a voice as she could manage.
"You are a fine lad. I looked like you once, you know, long ago. You are wasted in this sty. Come to the agha's house tomorrow morning, washed and dressed well. Are these your finest clothes, boy?"
"Yes, Lord."
"No matter. I will spoil you."
Then he let her chin go and motioned to his bearers to move on, as he swaddled himself back in his furs. When his caravan had passed, the villagers fell upon Alexei's family like crows on a battlefield.
While the pasha picked at his goose pilaf with disdain, Alexei's family ate nothing; they could not eat, for fear; and with tears, and shouts, and judicious use of his strong hand, Alexei ordered his wife and youngest children off to the monastery on the mountainside behind, trudging lampless through the snow to the relative safety of the mountains. I need not tell you how Eleni's mother kissed her hair, and forehead, and cheeks with a face wet with tears; how frightened the younger children, uncomprehending, were of this raw emotion, and the sombre farewell given by their father. No, all this you know, or can guess. What you will not guess is the entrance of old Anna, the village wise-woman, whose feeble rapping at the hovel door made Alexei's heart flap in his breast like a landed fish.
"What want you, hag?" he growled, to mask his pallid, fearstruck face.
"I come to help you, ingrate, hobbling to your door on a night of snow and wind like this. Have you no wine to heat for an old woman, nor raki? I come to save your daughter from the Turk."
"I have no need of your witchcraft," he said, though he poured her a cup of raki and beckoned her to the stool nevertheless.
"And your daughter is so proud as well, Alexei? That she would rather a Turk took her, and her father's head, than use the wisdom of her mothers?"
"Speak fast, crone, before I throw you out. The priest has placed an anathema on your ways, and we are good Christians in this house."
Old Anna spat on the floor. "For all the good that has done you and yours, Alexei, eh? But I will speak fast, as this must be done soon. Here is an ointment, made for such a use. My own mother used such on my sister when the Pasha came, long before you were born. Yes, it's true, do not look at me so- but none in this village of fools remember such wise ways. I need you to cut the pizzle from your strongest pig, and bring it to me still warm. I shall rub your daughter's parts with this ointment and speak the charm in the old language while you wait outside. You understand? The pizzle will grow on your daughter's parts, and for three days you will have a son. But three days only, you understand? If the pizzle stays attached for longer, then it will take root, and she will be your son until she dies."
"Nonsense, hag," said Alexei aghast. But he stared at Eleni's horrified face for a while, then grabbed his knife and went into the yard.
The next morning, the pasha sat propped on his divan of soft cushions and furs, sipping his thick coffee and wearily picking his way through a tray of baklava and kadaif. The agha's son sang to him, out of tune, until the pasha could bear no more and sent him away in disgust. The tobacco in his chibouk was stale, and the wine in his cup not fit to dress a salad with.
"What entertainment have you for me next, agha?" he rasped, "have I displeased the Sultan so, that you must torture me with such barbarities? Come, agha, show me the hospitality fitting to my rank or I must take it from your harem, and have my outrider carry your head on his lance as a warning to the next village."
"Great lord," said the agha kneeling and bowing his head to the pasha's slippered feet, "we are a poor village high in these mountains amongst the rayah, and what little we have we place before you with joy. But your boy is come- your village lad, washed and dressed in my son's finery- and I pray that he will please you."
"Pray, agha, pray well. And send him in."
Eleni walked in slowly, her eyes bashfully averted to the ground before her feet. When she neared the divan, she prostrated herself, waiting until the pasha commanded her to stand.
"Rise, lad. Dmitri, was it? You are too fine a lad for this village of swine and curs. Come close- a handsome face, is it not, agha?- your skin as white as a Circassian prince, your eyes as dark as a houri. Have you held a sword, lad? Can you shoot straight?"
"My Lord," said the agha hurriedly, "we do not let the rayah bear arms in our village, according to the Prophet's law."
"I did not ask you, agha. But you are right. I forgot that a lad as fine as this could be a mere Christian. If I am to have him in my household, we must make a Muslim of him. Pull out your member, boy. Agha, bring the imam, and a knife."
Eleni fumbled in her silken breeches, pulling out the pizzle. It was not quite erect, nor flaccid, but poked out stiffly like red gristle.
"Wait, agha," said the pasha, his eye bulging. "It has been done? Speak, lad."
"My father cut me last night, Lord," said Eleni softly, "that I might be worthy of you."
"Is it tender, lad? Come close. It looks sore to me."
The pasha rubbed the pizzle from base to tip, though more towards the tip.
"How does that feel, lad?"
"As my Lord wishes," said Eleni, though her face flushed and her breath came in short gusts.
"You are a brave boy, Dmitri. Put your piece away. Tonight you may rest, so come sit beside me on the divan. We will watch the agha's idiot son dance. Can you dance, lad? No, don't tell me what village savagery you have been a part of. I bet you have made many a maiden quiver here, eh lad? You blush, ha ha! Wait until I take you to the citadel, and give you a fine harem of your own! You like that, my boy?"
"I have not words to thank you, pasha."
And so the day, and night passed.
The next day, Eleni was allowed to sleep late, worn out with wine and singing, and more and finer food than she had ever had before. She dreamt of the village girls in their wedding finery, and the lads in their breeches with daggers stuck behind their red sashes, and of pigs and sows rutting vigorously in the muddy yard. When she woke, she found her member poking hardly against the silken sheet, red and furious looking.
This second day, the pasha was drunk, and incapable of love. He dozed happily in his bed of furs as Eleni sang to him, and gazed out of the glazed window at the snow-covered roof of her hovel, where her father knelt in prayer. One of the pasha's hussars leered at her, and rubbed his cock with his hairy hand, indicating the room next door with a tip of his head. Eleni looked away in disgust.
On the morning of the third day, the Pasha was depressed. He dandled Eleni on his knee while smoking his chibouk, and bade her sing mournful local songs. She did, in a high, fearful voice.
"Ah, Dmitri, my boy. Can you even begin to understand how lonely I feel, exiled to this cold, mountainous wilderness? How far I am from the City, from my wives and daughters? How it feels to be an old man, soon for the cold and silent grave? Come closer, lad, put your arm around my neck. Yes."
The pasha put his hand down Eleni's breeches, and stroked her thighs as if absent-mindedly. He continued,
"Ah, Dmitri, when I was your age I had already killed my first man in battle, and ridden back to the pasha with his head wrapped in the rayah's altar silk. The whole Empire was ready to kneel before me, so brave and beautiful was I, with my strong arms and my young beard soft as spider-silk."
The pasha's limp fingers drifted in hungry circles towards the pizzle.
"And now, lad- how hairy you have become!- your bristles scratch my hand. You must be shaved again before you come to my bed tonight, and scratch my face. You understand?"
"Yes, my Lord."
The pasha's fingers trailed along the length of the pig's pizzle, their tips stroking its growing length and brushing against its red tip. Eleni gasped- it was like a vast emptiness gnawing at her- and her hips shook as he grasped her. The hussars stared fixedly at nothing.
"I am old, lad," whispered the pasha into Eleni's ear. Her cheek felt wet, and she realised he was weeping. "I can no longer take you as you deserve. Go now, I can't bear to feel you like this, to excite you for no purpose. But you will come to my quarters tonight."
Eleni snorted her agreement as he let go. The pasha smelt, then licked, his fingers, closing his pale eye in ecstasy at the forbidden taste.
Outside, the wind howled like the wolves in the high passes as the snow piled up in white heaps like distant mountains against the small window panes. In the afternoon dusk, black plumes of hearth smoke rose against the darkening sky as peasants huddled round their cooking pots, exchanging speculation as to events in the agha's house. In the agha's courtyard, the hussars on sentry duty smoked sullenly, and stamped their feet against the cold. Geese squawked as they were chased along the frozen mud by headscarved housewomen, and were caught, and had their necks snapped with passionless peasant hands. In her bedroom- formerly the agha's son's- Eleni tossed in and out of her sheets as if caught in fever. She groaned to herself as if in pain, and grunted. Dreams shook her- she dreamed of catching young Mikhali, her cousin, and mounting him- and images of flesh and hair and tusk flashed before as she groaned, and twisted herself in the soft woollen sheets.
A hussar came to the room with a basin of cold water, and shook Eleni roughly till she woke with a grunt. His breath was sour with raki. "Wake up, young arsehole. The pasha calls for you, his bed is cold. Wash your cock and come."
"Get out, and I will wash. But get out first."
The hussar leered at her, grinning with yellow teeth. He shrugged and left, slamming the carved door behind him.
Eleni held the pizzle with growing fear, tugging it and the bristly ballsack below it till they hurt. Before, when she touched it, it had felt a thing apart from her. Now, when she stroked the tip or tickled its red shaft, she could not help shuddering, nor help the grunting, shuffling, rutting images flashing red behind her eyes as her hips shook. Her nose twitched with self-disgust as her hands smoothed down the new bristles on her legs, arms, belly. As she rose to leave the room, she fell over. Her toes had bunched themselves together beneath her feet like trotters. Eleni let out a squeal of fear.
It was dark outside now, and the pasha was drunk. Copper bowls of rose water glimmered in the candlelight, and incense fumed on the coals of the brass brazier in the centre of the room. The pasha lay sprawled and naked behind the pink and red drapes and curtains of the bed like a fat worm inside a rose.
"Come lad," he said softly, "Do not be frightened of me."
Eleni sat on the edge of the bed. The skeletal hands of the plum tree outside rapped against the window glass, agitated by the snowy wind.
"I can no longer hurt you, lad, I am old and my body is tired. But I can give you pleasure greater than any village girl could. Take off your robe, lad, and stand before me."
Eleni did as she was told, staring at the painted ceiling as the pasha appraised her. She prayed that he would not notice the tiny bumps of her breasts, or her woman's nipples, erect in the cold room. The pasha's flabby fingers traced a serpent's trail down her flat belly, softly, and then grasped her hips. He turned her round, sharply, then began kneading her firm, trembling buttocks. He lifted a hand away, and Eleni could hear him sucking his finger slowly.
"You Christians are afraid of pleasure, Dmitri. I will show you things that this shitty village will never teach you."
So saying, his wet finger traced a circle around her arsehole.
"Lord," she stammered.
"Silence. Close your eyes."
The pasha pulled her closer, and began kissing her buttocks, gnawing now and then at the soft flesh. Grabbing her hips again, he turned her round, though she kept her eyes closed. He leant forward, and took the flaccid pizzle in his mouth, his long beard tickling her thighs. Eleni squirmed. As he sucked it, the pizzle grew, and red images, of mud and tusks and farmyard couplings, flashed behind Eleni's eyelids. The pasha sucked, his tongue flickering around the pizzle like a wet feather, and Eleni's body shook.
The pasha withdrew with a slurp, and his good eye glimmered at her as he looked up.
"You taste well, lad. It has been long since I have tasted a lad, and…"
He looked confused. "There is something different about you, something…"
Eleni trembled. She felt different, indeed. The room seemed blurry to her and her thoughts fragmentary and confused. She began to squeal, and the pasha backed away, fear blanching his fat face. Eleni's hands bunched together, and she locked her arms about the pasha's neck. Grunting, she shoved the pizzle back into the pasha's open mouth, and began thrusting rapidly, deeply. The pasha struggled, choking, shaking to get free, and his wide eye stared up at her with fear. Eleni rutted faster and deeper as the pasha shook in his death throes, and she grunted and squealed desperately like a sow in the slaughter yard as the pasha finally slumped forward, his eye glazing over like a lamp dimming.
When the hussars found Eleni, she was curled up in the corner of the room, snoring and whistling in her sleep, and covered, as were the walls, in her own shit. The pasha lay dead on the bed like a white queen bee smoked in the hive. The cadi was summoned, with the agha and the imam, and the abbot of the Christian monastery. The case was discussed. The cadi was a fair man, and a learned one, and there was no evidence that the lad had murdered the pasha. In the interest of order, the case would be closed; if the sultan learned, they might all be killed, and the pasha had brought this on himself, in any case. Eleni was led away on a leash and returned to her family. Crowds of villagers now flocked to Alexei's yard, where Eleni now lived in a stone outhouse, nuzzling round the sows and fighting for the scraps from the villagers' kitchens. The pizzle could not be removed. Old Anna was nowhere to be found.
When spring came, Eleni was no longer recognisable as a girl. Thick bristles disfigured her once-white skin, and tusks her face. Her fingers and toes had bunched themselves into trotters, upon which she rushed across the yard, fighting off the other boars for food and sows. Eventually, Alexei's family left for The City, leaving their house, their daughter, and the other livestock behind. One day, when the beech and plane trees were green in leaf and musical with birds, and the bees hummed on the wildflowers, Eleni was led up the mountain to the monastery, where she served as a visible warning from God to the young novices- and the older monks- to refrain from the Turkish sin. She sired a number of litters, and outlived the abbot. One hard winter, when the snows came early to Stremnitza, and even the water in the wells had turned to ice, and wolves prowled the hem of the village at night howling and whining in their hunger, Eleni went missing. Perhaps a wolf had taken her from the monastery, though the walls and gates were thick and high. Perhaps- as some said- the monks had roasted and eaten her in their hunger. But time passed, and everyone in Stremnitza forgot the story of the pasha and the girl who was a pig.

The Game of Chess by Richard Short

Hector Stein spent every minute of every day playing chess against his good friend Heinz Spector. Sometimes he took a break from the game to fill their glasses with vodka and once a day he would take a bath while his friend snoozed, but it was not very often that either man looked up from the board. It could be expected of Heinz Spector; he was a terminal bachelor and would otherwise cause trouble in town. Hector Stein though had a wife, and all that chess drove her round the bend!"Hector, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me - Hector!""One second dear""Hector look at me""Just one minute, I've got my eye on something""Hector, you never look at me, always at your game!""I know I know, but I love you""Hector!""Please dear, one second""Gah!"Twenty years like this and Helda Stein had barely had a marriage to speak of. Twenty years of playing second fiddle to a board game, it was almost enough to make Helda throw herself in the canal. But then one morning Heinz Spector called on the house and Hector wasn't to be found. Heinz and Helda scratched their heads until Hector turned up in the afternoon, at a loss with himself; "I have a disease that will soon make me lose the feeling in my limbs" he told Helda and Heinz. So it did, almost at once Hector Stein lost all sensitivity in his fingers and within a week his arms stopped moving; swinging at his sides like hung meat. After a fortnight Hector began falling about in the house and not long after he lost the use of his feet and legs completely. Hector Stein was now in effect just a head and moving the pieces on the chess board was no longer possible. Instead Hector sat in the corner of the room with a face as black as coal barking orders at Helda who moved the pieces for him. This is much better thought Helda (who had begun to enjoy the game)."Now I know how you feel my dear Hector, chess really is a wonderful pastime!""Huh!" grunted Hector.This surliness in Hector didn't last long, before the end of the month he had lost all capacity for speech. For a while he held a pencil in his mouth and scribbled moves on a sheet of paper. This ability was soon lost, but not before Helda had begun to ignore her husband's instructions, which caused Hector to seethe silently. Heinz Spector felt pity for his friend and tried to interpret his wishes. But he didn't try too hard because Hector was a very good player whereas Helda was very bad; Hector Stein lived on for ten years in his vegetative state but he didn't see his wife win a single match against his friend.One day Heinz Spector turned up at the house drunk and challenged Helda to a game. Hector was wheeled up to the board and soon saw that the drunken Heinz was deliberately letting Helda win. What is he up to? Thought Hector. Then Hector saw Heinz looking down his wife's top. Hector thrashed around inside but there was not a ripple on the surface. Heinz and Helda played on but despite Heinz's worst efforts he eventually won. "Not to mind, let's get a drink Helda""Oo, yes, I'll just get Hector"But Hector had stopped himself breathing because of his shame and had died.

Chemnitz by Aris Roussinos

Chemnitz


The connecting train to Chemnitz was not scheduled to leave Holzweg till eight, which left Istvan with precisely forty-four minutes to buy a drink and a filled roll. Steam curled upwards from the hissing trains, and slid along the low metal roof like a dubious rain cloud. After looking around the platform with nervous slyness, Istvan stubbed his cigarette against a faded poster of the Emperor, smearing his fat foolish face with black ash, and he felt ashamed at his heart beating from the fear of it. More foolishness, he told himself, the Emperor is as unloved up here on the frontier as at home… but still. He felt light-headed. Really, he'd have to force that roll down despite himself. The station cafeteria was dingily lit, as everything was dingily lit in Holzweg, by an inferior gaslight that cast a sickly greenish tinge on every living thing. A couple of farmers slumped aggressively at each other in the corner, reeking of slivovitz. The Emperor simpered fruitily in dragoon uniform from a wonky framed print on the wall.Istvan looked around. "Service?" he asked."What do you want?"sneered the older and sadder-looking of the two farmers. "Are you the waiter?""I might be.""Well if you are, I want a roll. If you're not, I want the waiter.""Rolls are on the counter, under the glass. Pork, or pickled herring.""I don't eat pork." "Jew, I suppose.""No, I just happen not to eat pork. I was at the front, old man. I've seen what pigs eat.""Eat the herring then, it's all the same to me."Istvan peered through the glass. "It doesn't look very fresh.""It's the light- you don't look so good yourself. Look friend, go and eat somewhere else if you don't want it. It's nearly eight, and I'm tired. Walk into the square if you're hungry, and go and bother Bogdan instead. But you'll hear the same thing- times are hard here, since the war.""Yes. The war. I was forgetting. But you're far from it here, aren't you? Not like the towns actually on the border, or the divisional areas. I'm off to Chemnitz myself, in half an hour. You should see that, before you start moaning. All the houses taken over for billets, shell holes in the streets and in the roofs. It's only soldiers and stray dogs left up there now. Even the whores have left.""The herring then, or what? I was talking over here.""Yes, the herring. And a coffee.""No coffee, not for months. No tea, either.""Christ. A brandy, then.""Slivovitz.""I suppose so. I was almost missing it, you know, I've been so long in the capital. Your picture's wonky," he added, nodding at the Emperor."I know." The waiter's eyes blinked slyly."You know?" Istvan looked around the room. The government newspapers were neatly folded on the counter, their reports of gallant cavalry charges and brave frontier forts holding out against unequal odds clearly unread. But the foreign papers, the sort that always accumulate in railway towns, were scattered on the table and grimy with prolonged attention and bad news."Your drink. I'll dust off your roll. Here.""Thanks. Your health. Christ, that's rough.""Tomasz over there makes it, and look at him. The plums were bad this year, what with the gas clouds and everything. And even down here, you can feel the shells hitting the ground, up at the front. I think it frightens the trees.""Does it frighten you, old man?""Old men are frightened of different things to boys. You'll learn that. If you're lucky."Istvan raised his eyebrow ironically, then inspected the herring. He pushed the little plate away, scattered a few kopeks on the counter, and lit another cigarette instead. He checked his watch. "Another slivovitz."The landlord refilled the little glass, then filled another for himself. He held it up, breast height."The Emperor!""The Emperor."They wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands, inhaling cool air as they did it. Istvan retched slightly. The waiter smiled, his ugly bald head like an old liver sausage in the greenish light. "Ten to eight," he said, "You'll miss your train. Don't you want to go to Chemnitz?"Istvan nibbled on the butt of his cigarette. The cafeteria clock was surely fast."It's not about what I want. It's about duty.""Duty. That's a fine word. I did my bit for the Emperor when I was young, for all the good it's done me. You'll learn what duty means soon enough.""Yes.""Cheer up son, you look like you're going to cry. Forget it, it might not be so bad. Here, have another drink, on the house. You've got time. Here, look, nice big one, see? I'll have one too. You'll get out of it alright, lots of them always do. They're always good to officers. They'll see your fine boots, and your fur-lined coat, and they'll treat you like a gentleman. Who knows? Maybe we'll hold them, anyway. It's a big river to cross, what with guns firing at you.""Yes. Look, I'll take the roll after all. I'll have it on the train, it'll be too late to eat at Chemnitz when I get there. But I have to go."Istvan put his gloves on slowly, looking at the picture on the wall. He spoke in a shy, shameful voice."And can I buy the slivovitz? The bottle, I mean. It'll do for a present, for the lads in the mess. They'll like the joke.""Course you can, son, you can have it for a couple of crowns. There's plenty more out the back.""Thanks. Well. I have to go.""Yes. Good luck, son."Istvan smiled a little, looking at the wall. "Thank you." He buttoned up his greatcoat and rearranged his sword belt before walking to the door. There, he wheeled round smartly, clicking his heels and saluting the Emperor's portrait, before pushing through the clattering doors with his bottle under his arm. When the jangle of his spurs died away, and the train wheezed its way towards the front, the waiter went back over to his table. He lit a cigarette and studied the print thoughtfully. "Tomasz. You know who that was? I didn't realise at first, but it was the Crown Prince. The Emperor's son."But Tomasz was asleep.