Erlkonig or Turbid Isidor

Erlkonig or Turbid Isidor

What I loved best was my first day at Louisenlund.

„Watch out, baby!”

„No problem!” He picked up the book and gave a shy smile. „Wait! Can you show me the way to the teachers’room?”

„Are you new here? Where have you been all this time? If I didn’t have a boo...”

„Stop it!”

„Alright, I stop, I do everything you ask!”

„I’m the new literature teacher”. He cast his eyes down.

„I’m really sorry, miss! Don’t mind my words! I’m Steffen and I’ll take you to the teachers’room. I’d be grateful to you if you didn’t tell them... my behaviour grade is already low”, he said as we went out of the library. And shortly after: „You must see our art teacher, he’s so cool! I bet you’ll fall in love! Oh, I’m sorry...” And he introduced us to each other in a most natural way.

I grew fond of them both. I would spy on them in the library, watch them turn over the pages together, they seemed absorbed with each other.

„Miss, miss, have you noticed teacher Isidor?” cried the girls.

„Yes, of course I have. It’s been quite a while since I came to Louisenlund”.

„Do you like him as much as we?”

„Yes, I like him a lot”. I feared that and yet couldn’t avoid it.

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„Yes, come in!” I rushed to blow the candles out and the room grew darker. Isidor stumbled over my things.

„What were you doing?”

„Trying to fling a thread on you”. He came up to me.

„No thread will ever catch me”.

The next day we were both sitting in the library during the break. Steffen opened the door and left his guitar in a corner. He came to us with a notebook.

„Look what I wrote! Is this fit for a rock song?” I drew closer to them as if someone had hypnotized me. I only saw the title „Erlkonig...” and smiled.

„We studied Goethe”, I said. Isidor smiled as well.

„Yes, Steffen, that would be fit”.

There was something I couldn’t grasp but through a veil and it pressed on my breast. They were getting along so well, with or without me.

„I wish it were like this forever: me and both of you in the same place”. They looked back at me and said nothing.

„Can I show it to Miss Ottilia?” Steffen asked. Isidor took the notebook from my hands.

„I’m afraid the class has already begun. Miss Ottilia must go now and so do I. We’ll talk later, Steffen”, he said. Then he just turned to me and left.

Steffen came with the poem at my desk when the class was over. I saw the entire title: „Erlkonig or turbid”- oh my... – „Erlkonig or turbid Isidor”. And I read on.

„When I was little I was told

a woman waits for me with

turbid eyes like the water

in my mother’s womb

and I will eat her food

she holds me in her spells and

I’ve known her face since I was a child

woman I hear your musty blood through the veins

I am the Erlking don’t you know

who sends your sibling after the milk of wolves

you won’t see him again

so make a doll and feed it and give it

his name. All of you, you stay out of my way

I didn’t ask to be born

I will rise with my faery men against you

but not you, woman, not against you”.

„Who is he?” I asked. „Is he our Isidor?” I felt as if Steffen had seized my chest and pulled my arms back. And he wouldn’t let go. Isidor had eaten from my apple crumble. I went back to the library to rest a while before dinner. I felt strange but then I thought that meeting everybody downstairs would cheer me up again, as it did most of the time. And then the lights went out. I tried to reach the window without stumbling over the shelves. When I opened it I saw that outside it was pouring. It was pouring for the first time since my arrival at Louisenlund. Then I turned and there he was, tall and beautiful like the lightening itself. He stretched his arm to me and I saw the thread around it.

„What is this?”

„It’s the thread you tied me with. You look a bit scared”.

„It’s just the rain. Let’s go downstairs”.

„Don’t worry, tomorrow evening the sky will be clear. It’s the midsummer evening”.

So I remembered that the folllowing day. Evening came but I waited still. Much later I took the road that led to the woods with only a shawl over my shoulders. My feet were so blue from the cold I could barely feel the straps round the ankles. And then I heard my name: „Ottilia!” close and half-whispered. I knew that voice. It was Steffen’s voice. Yet I turned and saw nobody. I changed my steps towards it... and when I was there, it was just as in the old tales of my country people. There was a round dance, so unearthly it was and like caught in a frame... oh! I was looking into a mirror and their faces moved rapidly in circle. I remember Steffen’s face... and then Isidor’s in the middle... his face didn’t move. But the mirror wasn’t enough.

„No, don’t turn round, don’t turn round!” I did turn round and they all lamented and moved their heads in both hands from one side to the other in distress.

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Then I lay in bed many days in a row, with no reason to stand up at all. To think they were together and without me there, it tore me to pieces. Isidor came once.

„Were you there with Steffen, that night? I saw him, I heard him call me”.

„On midsummer?”

„Yes”.

„He is with me all the time”.

„And me? How about me?”

„This time you were with us”.

„Does this make me your friend? Your friend and Steffen’s?”

„You can be Steffen’s friend but I’d like you to be my wife”.

„You mean it?”

„I mean it. Say you will”.