The Blue Bed

From the street one could only see rusty iron gates, a ruinous fence with intertwining ornaments of black metal and pointed pillars, which once must have belonged to a grand garden. Behind it thick shrubs grew rank in between high trees that stood so close to each other that branches and twigs interweaved. Only in winter, when all leaves had fallen to the ground, the big gray house in the back of the garden was visible from the street.

The trunks of dead trees were lying on the ground and on parts of them ivy was growing. Some weather-worn and crumbled sculptures of Greek maidens and young men stood between them. Just as the garden with its gnarled branches and twigs, the house was marked by the signs of former wealth and present decay.

In many of the high windows, framed by artful ornaments, the glass was missing or broken. The plaster had fallen off large parts of the walls. But those were often covered with so much ivy and similar climbers that the brick stones underneath remained hidden. Bays and balconies seemed just barely to cling onto their place. The weight of careless human steps would make them collapse.

But no human being ever stepped on them. The few windows that had remained unbroken remained dark as well as the great iron gate that had not been opened in years. Only a small side door opened sometimes and an old hunchbacked man stepped out of it, usually in the early hours of the morning, when the surroundings were still void of people and he could attend to his matters without being disturbed.

The house surrounded a small patio in the middle of which stood a marble water fountain that had remained dry for years. The pathways of the small commons in the patio were overgrown by hedges which in spring carried little roses that diffused a sweet smell.

A small portal led back into the house, and through a dark hallway one could reach the entrance hall unto which led the great front gate and the small side entrance. The walls and floor in the hall were made from marble, and a grand stairway reached from here up to the second floor. This noteworthy floor only surrounded the hall, thus was high and reached up to the roof, through which often rain dropped down to the floor, and stained the marble and the torn Persian carpets.

Several doors lead from the hallway into a labyrinth of antechambers and rooms. In between them stood busts at the walls, which were missing noses or ears, and mediaeval armors, which rust had corroded, and the swords and helmets of which quite often had been stolen. Above the stairway there were hanging portraits of men and women on the walls, blanched by time and partly moldy due to the moistness in the house. They had acceded to be painted in splendid dresses adorned with expensive jewelry, so in an unknown future they could look down onto their descendants. In sad reality, however, none would ever climb the stairs.

In the rooms and hallways of both floors between spider webs were piled up three-legged tables of expensive woods; chairs, the velvet seats of which had fallen out and colorful artistically woven carpets that quite often were about to fall apart into a mess of threads; blankets, fabric that diffused a musty odor. In between them lay pictures of swans and antique scenarios, all covered in dust, old heavy books with precious leather bindings that appeared as if they would fall into tiny parts, if they were touched even slightly.

*

Only one room, in the back part of the house, did not display such destruction. Here, the carpets hanging on the walls and lying on the floor were still almost intact, bearing red designs. In between them in chandeliers, candles made of black or dark red wax were flickering; reflecting themselves in gold framed mirrors and distributing a soft, warm light. The smell of the candles mixed with the sweet scent of vanilla beans and flower petals, which were lying in small silver dishes on low tables and chests of dark red wood.

Some oddly shaped arm chairs, their cushions coated with velvet, stood in a corner around a table with a polished marble top. Upon which there was a large crystal bowl full of grapes, lychees, and other exotic fruits. Next to it there stood a golden plate with sweet sticky pastries and some glasses with filigree ornaments, in which there was still a rest of red wine. In narrow vases from dyed glass stood dried roses, once they had been red, but now they seemed almost black.

On the other end of the room stood a large four poster bed, surrounded completely by a bright blue silk curtain. The curtain was embroidered with golden thread, showing little ornaments, flowers and fishes, amid rubies had been sewn on the fabric. On the bed itself blankets and sheets of equally deep blue satin had been spread out. It appeared, as if the bed was submerged in water. The diffuse light of the candles in the room, which entered through a gap in the curtain, underlined this impression.

On this bed, seemingly located on the ocean ground, two young people were sitting. Some dresses, corsets and suits, pearl necklaces, tiaras and hats were distributed around them on the large bed linen, they tried all of them. For hours they could keep themselves entertained, gazing at each other in different disguise, admiring themselves in a small and richly decorated hand mirror, because it did not occur to them to leave the bed and walk to the high gold framed mirror.

The girl, a pale fragile thing, in age almost a woman but with the innocence of a child, discovered a veil and held it in front of her face. Her huge dark eyes thus were emphasized on even more, while her narrow little nose and her small round mouth were not visible for a moment. Hair flowed around her head in the color of dark liquid honey and her eyes were framed by long lashes. Her eye brows were delicate and in a soft bow. Apart from the veil she was dressed only in a short silk gown, the tender skin of her arms and legs shone slightly blue in the light of the ocean colored silk walls.

Her brother was of a somewhat darker complexion, while his hair was lighter, framing his face with long waves. The boy's eyes were as brightly blue as the curtains of the bed, and since he had painted his eye lashes while playing, one could see that neither in length nor in elegance they were any less than those of his sister.

The two of them generally looked very much alike: both had filigree long hands, slim bodies, the maiden seemed almost boyish, the lad almost maidenly. The boy was somewhat taller than his sister, but not much so. Both had thin and straight shoulders and long legs. Their skin was smooth and soft, as the skin of small children to which the sun has not done any damage yet.

The two had lived in this room as long as they could think. Once, maybe eighteen years ago, they had been born in this room, and already during their earliest childhood they had rested here after long walks with their parents, or on rainy days they had played on the large carpeted floor.

Since their parents death they had hardly left the room at all. Only on some particularly sunny days or warm nights under a full moon, they climbed through the window out into the small patio and played there between wild grown briar-roses and the marble fountain. Until they finally tired and with red cheeks climbed back into their room and into their bed, in which they fell asleep snuggled closely to each other.

They did not know the rest of the house, did not suspect the moldering decay of its rooms and hallways, of the torn carpets and broken chairs that were piled up everywhere, of the walls and balconies that were close to collapsing, of the faded colors of the portraits and busts of their ancestors. The time in which they made their first foot steps in the large entrance hall and their parents with whom they once shared this house were merely a faraway memory of olden times.

The hunchbacked old servant of their deceased parents had stayed in the house, but he never spoke to the children, so that these developed their own language and slowly forgot our way of speaking. They addressed each other in foreign sounding sentences rich of vowels in which every now and then there was a trace of those words they had once learned from their parents.

Most of the time however they did not speak at all: The sphere in which they lived was limited and thus they did not need to explain. They knew each other so well; each of them could tell without words what the other one was thinking. And they seemed to often feel like they were one and the same person. Thus they grew up without knowing other people.

The servant brought them candied fruits, sometimes also fresh fruits and sweet pastry. The two did not know where it came from or how he paid for it, and they did not ask either. For them it was so self-evident that they would have something to eat, that even the possibility of a question as to where those treats came from, would have struck them absurd.

They sat on the bed and fed each other with sticky fruits, drank red wine, which they poured into crystal glasses from an oriental golden colored decanter. This left them in a state of sweet fatigue that they did not want to destroy by sleeping. Thus they sat on the bed, leaning closely on each other, their mouths and hands sticky, and begin to lick honey off each other's fingers and then also off their mouths, giving each other sweet kisses of honey.

The older they were, the closer they felt to each other – the more intimate their caresses grew. They needed only each other, no other person, only each other and the little patio in which they picked briar roses and gave them as presents of love to each other, and their room in which whenever they woke up, they magically found sticky candy and juicy fruits on plates and in crystal bowls.

*

But one day, or rather, one evening, because the siblings had gotten accustomed to sleeping at daytime and getting up in the evening, when there was already a cool breeze and the sun had disappeared, when outside the moon and inside the candles emitted a light much more friendly and less painful than that of the sun – one evening they found the bowls on the marble table empty. On a small plate by their bed there were still rests of the previous day which they ate without thinking much about it, there was also still sufficient wine in the decanter. As their hunger was satisfied the two climbed out of the window, a soft breeze made their thin night gowns wave, the air was fresh but still warm, the leaves of the hedges shone almost like silver in the moonlight and seeing them made the two forget the surprising lack of food.

They ran barefooted on the pathways and the grass. Chased each other playfully, climbed into the basin of the dry fountain and out of it again. Finally they sat down on its brink. The young man jumped up and picked a briar rose for his sister, which she affixed in her hair. Then she run to the bushes as well, to choose a flower for him, she breaded it into his soft hair.

Holding each other's hand they returned to the window. Several hours had passed while they played and they were hungry. They climbed back into their room, and only here, when they found it just as they had left it with empty plates; they remembered the scare of when they had gotten up. On the table there were only a few dry petals the roses had lost.

After some thinking they recalled the old hunchbacked man whom they had seen leaving the room sometimes when they woke up or when they returned from the patio, while in the bowls fresh fruit and still warm pastry had exhaled its sweet fragrance. They said a few words in their foreign sounding, sonorous language that only the two of them understood, and soon they had agreed that they had too search for him.

Holding each other's hands and trembling slightly they tiptoed out of their room.

As soon as they had opened the door, an odor of must and putrescence greeted them, which was unbearable for the two, who only knew the scent of candles and exquisite perfumes which they found in the large trunk and that they sprinkled on the bed, the carpets, and of the briar roses. The wooden floor creaked under their feet, even under the small weight of their slim young weight it seemed to almost break.

Amazed the two of them wandered through different rooms, coughed because of the dust their feet and their breath and their pure presence created, even strode up the stairs, saw their ancestor's portraits not knowing who they were. Finally, when they were convinced that they were the only human beings inside the large house, they sat down on the stairs, exhausted and with spider webs in their hair and clothes, and did not know what to do next.

*

But fate has its own ways of directing events, and of giving people the ideas that will decide their future.

Right in front of the entrance gate there stood a great dead tree. It had been rotting for months already, but a mysterious power had held it in one piece until this day, as if it wanted to save what was going to happen now, for precisely the right moment. For at this moment while the siblings were sitting on the stairway and could thus see everything, a branch, which had fought the force of gravity for a long time, finally broke and fell against the portal. The portal, despite not having been opened in years, had never been locked. Through the soft pressure of the falling branch, it finally opened a tiny portion, without any sound, and a long strip of blue light fell from the moonlit night into the entrance vestibule.

The whole night the siblings sat there hugging each other, shivering, trying to warm each other with their arms tightly wrapped around the other one. Quietly they watched the strip of light that was growing lighter and lighter as the morning approached. At the same time the high and dusty windows of the hall, which were full of cracks that reminded one of huge spider webs, filled with light, as did the holes in the broken roof.

Then, when the sun had risen and it was day outside, the young man got up without saying a word, and walked to the door, opened it, and stepped into the garden. His sister still sat on the stairs. Astonished the boy looked up at the huge trees, which now, during the summer, were full of leaves, and among which a few dead trees stood like skeletons. The old driveway up to the house was hardly recognizable. Again and again the boy had to climb over fallen tree trunks. Shrubs scratched the soft light skin of his legs, and his naked feet were wet from the morning dew on the grass.

For some time he stopped in front of a sculpture that was overgrown with moss. He tried to recall a faraway memory of having seen it once before. Finally he continued his way and reached the rusty gate, opened it with some effort, and stepped out into the street.

He squinted in the sunlight, which now shone directly into his eyes: Their room had been dark even at daytime, and in the patio the surrounding walls of the house had protected him of the bright daylight, while in the garden there were high trees. Also, the boy did not know anything but evening and night anymore, as the siblings had mostly slept during the day.

When he had gotten used to the light, he saw not far away from himself a girl. At first he believed her to be his sister, since apart from the hunchbacked old man, she was the only human being he knew. But when the girl spoke with words he did not understand and a voice that sounded rough, when he saw that her hair was too messy and the features of her face hardened, her skin too unclean, he realized that she could not be his sister. The strange girl continued to speak to him, she seemed to ask him something in an unmelodious language, and took a few steps towards him, stretching out a broad hand to the boy the skin of which looked torn and dry to him. He uttered a short, frightful scream, a sound that had never before escaped him, and fled back through the gate, jumped over tree trunks and shrubs, back towards the house.

When he entered the entrance corridor again, panting, he found to his relief that his sister was sitting on the stairway slim and soft as always. She did not ask for an explanation. One look at his face told her, that the world her brother had found out there must be horrible, and together the siblings fled back into their room, where they hid under the blue sheets, trembling and hugging each other closely until they finally fell asleep.

*

They were awakened by strange voices and rough hands. Like in a nightmare they were dragged from the dark, cool house into the heat of the midday sun. Hardly they realized who or how many of the strangers there were, that took them and kept talking to them the entire time in voices that were supposed to seem friendly, but to the two were like barks of angry dogs.

The two were stunned, numb, hardly realized that they were pushed into a car, (they had never seen one before). Full of fear they just searched the eyes of the other, because they could not touch each other. For one of those huge, constantly talking men was sitting between them. They hardly noticed how they moved forward, or where they went. When finally they came back to their senses, they had been separated and were surrounded by strangers in small rooms.

The boy sat in a room together with other young men of his age, or younger, some were still children. They stared at him and laughed at his girlish appearance. He did not understand them but felt a frightening hostility. The girl felt just as strange, surrounded by young women who continuously giggled and spoke to her in unknown words, then giggled even more when she would not answer.

They were given food, which they gulped down hungrily, even though its taste insulted their spoiled taste buds. Their stomachs knew only fruits and pastries. Overly salted potatoes, stringy meat, and mushy vegetables weren't something they were used to, and thus both of them suffered stomach aches during their first night away from home. The pain seemed even worse to them, as they had not known pain or illness in their life so far.

* At first the two young people found themselves being watched closely. After only a few days however, the attention of the people around them decreased. It was believed that they must be happy about their current situation, and one got used to their presence.

But as soon as the young man realized this, he used the next possibility to climb, at night, out of the window. In the room he slept in there were a few other boys lying in their beds. They slept soundly despite the hardness of their mattresses, while he wished for his soft blue bed at home. As soon as his feet touched the ground outside, in the cool night air, he started to run seemingly aimlessly, across a courtyard, climbed a fence and run down a pathway.

When a few meters away he saw someone standing on the pathway, he was not frightened or startled. He had known that he would find his sister here. It was almost as if the two had learned in all those years they had spent only in each others company, to communicate by pure thought and had overcome distances.

Now they fell into each other's arms. Glad to be together again they kissed each other deeply and started to walk hand in hand. During the long car ride, they had been too scared to watch the way they were going, but instinctively they knew the right direction. Thus, just when the sun was rising and painting little golden spots of light onto the leaves of the trees, they stood in front of their house.

In front of the fence some other thick metal fences had been put up, and on them there were big yellow signs. None of the two could read, but even if they could have read them they would not have cared. It took some work to climb over the fences in a way that no one would notice they had entered the garden. The huge gateway was locked as well and wood had been nailed in over it. But the two did not take long to find the small side entrance, and thus they stood in the entrance hall before the sun had fully come up.