DAS RATTENFÄNGER VON HAMELN
The Ratcatcher of Hamelin

The last person who entered Hamelin never returned. The unbidden thought whispers at the back of your mind and you shudder. The wind is cold and harsh and it lashes unmercifully at the back of your currently uncovered neck. You flip the collar of the cloak up to stop the wind biting at your skin. Perhaps getting your hair cut was not such a good idea after all. With eyes squinted from the flying dust you can hardly see the village doors ahead – in fact, it goes unnoticed until you almost walk into it.

You raise your hand to clasp the giant door knocker but it swings open before you can. Slightly confused, you walk in, clutching at the prized pipe you always hold at your side.

Here, inside the sheltered village, you lift your head and put down the collar of the cloak. There’s no-one in sight, and the only sound you hear is the wailing of the wind outside the village. The silence feels like death weighing upon your shoulders. You shrug off the feeling of dread and continue, trying to locate your client’s residence.

You arrive at a place which you can only assume to be the council chambers, where the leader of Hamelin resides. You hand touches the doorknob –

“Grüße, Fraulein Rattenfänger.”

The voice is unexpected and you spin around in surprise, your cloak billowing around you. At eye-level there is no-one, but then again, you’ve always been rather tall. Your gaze drops and focuses on a young boy, who looks to be no older than twelve. You frown in bewilderment. Surely the residents would not have sent a child to greet you?

The boy continues, breaking your thoughts. “Welcome to the town of Hamelin. We have been expecting you. If you’ll enter here, Fraulein, you shall stand before our wise leader, Herr Steinitz.”

The boy turns away before you can answer and opens the door for you. You enter cautiously and the door closes. Looking behind, you notice that the young boy is no longer there, but he has let you into the council chambers. Your eyes travel up towards Herr Steinitz, who is sitting on a throne-like chair beside a very pretty young woman at the head of a long and very empty banquet table. Herr Steinitz stands up with the young woman once they realise that you are walking towards them. Strange, you ponder, he seems almost too short for an adult.

“Greetings, Ratcatcher,” Herr Steinitz says in a level voice. “I trust you found Hamelin all right?”

You nod your head once and refrain from saying that if you hadn’t found Hamelin all right then you wouldn’t be here. Once you are close enough to actually see him properly you nearly freeze in position from shock. Not only is Herr Steinitz too short for an adult, but his facial features are young and boyish. Herr Steinitz is only a teenager.

“Good,” he says. He gestures to the empty seat to his right for you to sit in. You comply, managing to keep a straight and neutral face despite your confusion. Perhaps this is a joke, you think. Perhaps this boy is pretending to be Herr Steinitz…

The teenage boy laughs unexpectedly and the young woman – who you now see to be a girl of about fifteen – looks at him quickly, not knowing what appears to be so amusing. “I promise you, Ratcatcher, I am Herr Steinitz and the leader of Hamelin. You will find no other.”

Was I that blatant? You think, feeling rather embarrassed that the teenager guessed what you were thinking.

“Oh, hush, Wilhelm,” the girl giggles stupidly. “Fraulein Ratcatcher is new to town.”

“Indeed,” Steinitz agrees, his eyes never leaving your face. “You are no doubt wondering why Hamelin requires your services.” He doesn’t wait for you to even mention that there would only be one reason for Hamelin requiring your services, and continues. “Well, you catch rats for a living. Hamelin needs to get rid of the rats. Our residents are becoming ill and uncomfortable. I don’t care how you do it or what you do with the rats, just get rid of them. You will be well compensated, of course.”

He draws a large pouch of money from his pocket and shows you. It is filled to the brim with hundreds of glittering gold coins, far more than what you normally charge. Today, though, you do not feel like informing Herr Steinitz of that. Money is money.

“I trust the amount of five hundred gold coins will be adequate?” Steinitz asks when you say nothing. You nod stiffly. “Wonderful,” he continues. “I expect the rats to be gone by tomorrow. Good day, Fraulein.”

You take this as a poorly concealed hint for you to leave so you willingly do. Once outside, you gaze around. You raise your eyebrow in dismay. You can’t see a single rat anywhere, let alone any townspeople. Nevertheless, you grip the pipe tightly and bring it to your lips, blowing gently.

The first note pierces the weighty silence like a knife slicing through the thick air. The tempo picks up gradually, starting off slowly and sorrowful then speeding up to a dance-like and merry tune, one so joyful that your foot seems to beg to tap along to. Soon enough, rats come scampering from all directions, slowly forming a circle around you. The vermin almost seem to sway in time with the beat of the song. It does not take long for the rats to become completely entranced by the tune. You move away slowly, forcing them to follow the source of the alluring melody. They obediently move after you as you turn from them completely, heading back to the large entrance doors of Hamelin. On your way out you wonder where you should ‘deposit’ the rats. Normally you get them to kill themselves by jumping off a cliff but there are no cliffs around here…only a river. The Weser River flows past Hamelin. Perhaps they could be drowned, though that would contaminate the water badly. Then again, Steinitz did say that he didn’t care how you did it…

You stop at the river’s edge, still piping away, your fingers fluttering over the holes to produce the sounds. The rats jump into the cold water, one by one. Rats can swim but not when they’re hypnotised by the sound of the pipe. The vile creatures squirm and struggle in the flowing river once you stop playing, except it is too late for them. They go under water, one by one. And, one by one, the bubbles stop floating to the surface.

Feeling sick to the stomach, you turn away. You hadn’t realised that drowning the rats would be quite such a vile experience. It had to be done, though. The vermin carry illnesses and plagues; they had to die, even if it meant contaminating the Weser River.

The whole process had taken about ten minutes. Perhaps now Herr Steinitz will give you more money for your swift service.

“It has been done? So soon?”

You nod once.

Herr Steinitz sits back in his chair and holds up his cup, gesturing for the girl beside him to fill it with wine. The boy takes a sip and thoughtfully licks his lips. His hand reaches for the bag. Thinking that he’s about to hand the money he promised over, you take a step forwards. But instead of him handing it to you, he laughs, takes the money bag and puts it in his pocket.

“I don’t think so, Fraulein,” he says. “Women like you should not have access to such money.”

The girl beside him doesn’t seem to notice this crude remark and continues to play absently with a strand of her hair. You frown and are about to argue back when he cuts across you smoothly.

“You didn’t honestly think that for just getting rid of some vermin that I would actually pay you so much?” he taunts. The girl giggles annoyingly. “You did what I wanted. You made the mistake of not taking the money when you could have. Sie sind ein narr, Rattenfänger. But then again, what else can we expect from a woman, let alone an adult?”

A lot, that’s what, boy! You think fiercely. Who ridded the town of rats?

“Well? Are you just going to stand there, Ratcatcher?” Steinitz says impatiently. “I’ll not be giving you anything. Get out while you can before I make you a permanent resident like the previous entrant. Of course, he didn’t last very long…”

The girl beside him giggles some more and you resist the urge to slap her.

“Leave,” Steinitz orders. Two teenage ‘bodyguards’ come up behind Steinitz, gripping daggers threateningly. Not feeling up to receiving a few cuts today, you retreat slowly, glaring at Steinitz angrily. This is not fast enough for Steinitz, as he snaps, “Now! Get out! I don’t want to see you again!”

I’ll be glad not to, you nearly snarl, but the teenage boys are still holding daggers. With a final glare, you flip the hood of your cloak up over your head and walk out, the cloak billowing behind you. What a fool you have been, you think angrily, your nails tearing into the flesh of your palm from your clenched fist. You consider bringing back another plague of rats. Maybe then he’d pay you. Yes, another plague of rats would be good. That will show him what happens when people don’t pay the Ratcatcher…

The temperature has cooled considerably since entering Hamelin. It was cold before but now it feels as though someone has poured a bucket of ice-cold water over your body. Shivering, you pull your cloak around your slim body tightly. The village clock strikes four. Where are the adults, anyway?

Almost as if on cue, the house doors open, and slowly the village is crowded with men and women, ranging from thirty to even seventy years of age. None of the adults look at you and simply move past. Although there are so many the amount of life and feeling the individuals put into their work is simply not there. It looks like a daily ritual gone horribly wrong. You thought the village was dead before; now you know why.

You watch the adults, taking in their moves. Some go to the wood-chopping blocks and start to chop firewood. Others start cleaning windows and houses, and the rest sweep. It at this horrid, chilling moment that you realise –

The adults are the slaves.

Not one looks at you. It is almost as if they are afraid to. Some have scars on their arms and backs – whip marks. The drowning of the rats had made you feel queasy – now you feel absolutely sick. Abruptly you start moving, rushing through the working adults, occasionally bumping into some. They don’t spare you a glance, intent on their work. You can only take a guess as to why they’re like this – their minds have been broken. They must have resisted at first but the children, young and impatient, overpowered them and broke them to their will.

None of the children are around. They must still be inside, relaxing and acting like kings and queens while the adults work to death.

A hand grips your arm and you gasp, turning. Your eyes meet the sunken, sullen eyes of an old man. His gnarled hands shake and his breath comes in short gasps of air.

“Help…us…” he rasps. “Save us…please…please…free…set us free…free…”

Murmurs start to build up around you. The crowd of beaten men and women close in on you, hands pawing at your arms and body. The murmured chant is hypnotic; “free us…free us…”

You want to cringe in fear and draw back, to run away from the unpleasant village of Hamelin but you are paralysed to the spot. Hands continue to grope at you.

“Free us…free us…save us…please…”

Your hand brushes against the pipe. The feeling of the cool, wooden texture brings you out of your reverie. Blinking and shaking your head, you try to push your way past the severely ill citizens. Still they chant. The fear has turned to pity by now. They are past any form of help. Even freedom.

But death is a form of release…

“Free us…free us…”

You can’t do it. You can’t kill hundreds of helpless people.

“Free us…free us…”

Where would you take them? No village elsewhere would want to take insane adults. There is no place for them. Your previous thought whispers in your mind temptingly. But death is a form of release. You’ve never killed anyone before, and now is not an appealing time to start. Yet you pull out the pipe and raise it to your lips, blowing softly. Once again, the sweet note sounds, only this time it stops the murmuring and pleas of death. The melody calms them, soothes them, until the adults are entranced by the song. They sway in time with the slow beat. The hands on your arms and shoulders have relaxed their vice-like grips. You walk through the crowd slowly, still playing. They follow obediently, just like the rats.

The Weser River is now before you and the adults are close behind. You still play the hypnotising melody.

One by one, they gracefully enter the freezing cold water. Maybe they’ll freeze before they can drown, you think. One by one, they go under.

And, one by one, the bubbles stop floating to the surface.

You lower the pipe.

You stare at the water.

And you fall to your knees before the flowing river. You watch the water rush quickly before you. You don’t know how long you sit there on your knees. They say that when one drowns it is painful, a slow, prolonged death, but the adults looked to be at peace. You freed them. It’s what they really wanted when they asked for freedom. You gave them their wish to be free…didn’t you?

You set them free, you reassure yourself. They’re free, where Steinitz can’t hurt them. This thought draws your attention. Not only have you released the adults from their torture and servitude but you have also robbed Steinitz and his children minions of their slaves.

You stand up and turn away from the river. You don’t really feel any different to what you felt before you drowned the men and women. Not really. In fact, you feel almost happy, as though you had received your money, except better. No, you feel like laughing. Something about this just amuses you. A giggle escapes your lips. Then laughter. Then cackling. Wild, uncontrollable cackling that racks your body until you can barely stand straight.

The sound slowly dies in your throat as you catch your breath, you face becoming neutral again. You tap your fingers on the cool wooden pipe, enjoying the hollow sound it makes.

Suddenly, killing the adults just isn’t enough for you. Steinitz didn’t pay you. There must be more you can do, surely…

A grin creeps onto your face, an idea forming in your mind.

You raise the pipe to your lips once more and blow.

Revenge is, after all, very sweet.

Das Ende