7

Changes occurred, however. Alois’ depression lessened. Junior was no longer around. Klara had taken it upon herself to suggest that he should be sent to Spital, where he could work with her father, Johann Poelzl, who by now had certainly become old enough to need a family hand. It developed that Alois Junior was also in favor of the move. His father’s depression, with all its muted threat of more despotism, lived like a fist in the midst of the son’s thoughts.

So it was settled. Alois’ cart, driven by the hired man, would take the fourteen-year-old to Linz. Then he would travel by train to Weitra, where he could get on another cart that passed through Spital. The boy was gone, and a cloud of dark presentiment could lift.

In September, Adi and Angela began school in Fischlham, Angela in the fourth and most advanced grade for twelve-year-olds, Adi, at six, going to first grade.

His first school days proceeded through a bright and mellow September, a fine walk with his sister over hills and meadows. There was only one peril—a full-grown bull grazing in a fenced-in pasture. Depending on the bull’s mood, they could choose to go around, or dare to cross the field. On most days, they did not dare.

Soon enough, Adi learned that it was unwise to shame Angela when she was afraid. She knew how to pay him back. She could always inform him that he smelled awful. Sometimes it was his breath; as often, his body odor.

Probably she did not know to what depth down in his quick-beating chest these accusations entered, but deep they went, and for good cause. They were true. He did have an odor—a touch of sulphur and an unmistakable hint of something rotten—and of that I may soon choose to speak. Such off-odor is one of the constant problems besetting our clients. The Cudgels are quick to pick up such a clue.

From Angela’s point of view, it was simple. Whenever Adi was teasing her, she would tell him he smelled. She did not really mind. Bad smells did not bother her. She was accustomed to sour milk and horse manure. A passing wind reeking of pig wallow from a neighboring farm even brought real sorrow to her heart—poor dead Rosig!

“What are you crying about now?” asked Adi. “You tell me how I am bad-smelling and I am the one who should cry.”

“Oh, shut up. It’s not you I cry for.”

That meant she was thinking of Rosig, and he did feel sad for her. This was not because he had liked the sow so much (in fact, he had been jealous of Angela’s affection for the beast) but because he did like his older sister. She was good most of the time. Besides, she was the brightest girl inside the four walls of the one-room schoolhouse, just as he was the smartest boy.

Depending on weather and the immediate needs of the neighboring farms for additional labor, there were sometimes fewer than forty boys and girls, sometimes it was down to thirty, even twenty-five, but the schoolroom contained seating divisions for these four grades; and each child, first to fourth, six to twelve in age, was able to listen to all that took place in every other class. This was a routine matter since there was only one teacher, a middle-aged lady, Fräulein Werner, who had a large nose and wore spectacles.

Adi was soon able to follow the lessons for all four classes. His introduction to German history came by way of the senior grade, the fourth, where Angela and the others were studying the exceptional deeds of Charlemagne. An hour later, in first, Adi would be asked in company with the other beginners to decide which pictures of animals should be connected to printed words on a big card that Fräulein Werner would hold up. In the beginning, it was wondrous—all those wiggling letters that made a word. At first, the drawing vibrated in his eyes, but before long, it turned into no more than a puzzle. By the time he had reduced it to a solvable problem, he took care not to make the same mistake twice. Indeed, he soon grew bored waiting for others in his class to catch up. Then, he could barely wait for the lessons of the third, who were studying the geography of the Hapsburg domain, the Great Hapsburg Empire, as Fräulein Werner would always say. If permitted, he would have been ready to speak out to those students who were simpletons and could not find any of the places on the map that he had already noticed, Braunau and Linz being the first to catch his eye. Plus Passau, just across the Danube.

So, by the age of six, he was absorbing the lessons of the eight-and ten- and twelve-year-olds, and it pleased him that Angela was the brightest in her class. He could see the approval in Fräulein Werner’s eyes each time they entered the room, but then, they were also the neatest brother and sister. That was Klara’s doing, and that helped to put them up high in Fräulein Werner’s favor.

His neat clothing did oblige him, however, to keep away from the other boys during recess. Soon enough he had to deal with a bully who kept daring him to wrestle.

“Are you crazy?” he would answer. “I am in my good clothes. My mother will kill me if I get them dirty.” The daily wars of Passau had enriched his voice with just enough assurance to deter the other. But then that boy was nothing. If Adi could manage to live with Alois Junior, how much had he to fear from a fool like this, also named Klaus? It was big sister who bothered him with all this teasing.