Prisoner of the Molepeople

Chapter 19 - A Tragic Tale

“Let me tell you a story,” said Brunhilda, very much enjoying her self-appointed role of counselor. “When I was a little girl in Germany, I was like you. I had dreams. I had ideals. I thought one day I would find my true love. But I never did. Do you know why?”

Was she beginning to reveal their mysterious past, the dark memories they’d resolved to keep hidden from me? Not wanting to bring this to her attention, I took a seat at a bench, shaking my head.

“Because of her.” She pointed at Gunhilda, who had resumed staring at nothing.

“I don’t follow you,” I said.

“That sorry creature over there is my Duthbert. Wherever I go, I'm stuck with her.”

“Why?”

“Because Papa said so.”

“Papa?”

“We were poor. He barely had enough money for his exercise equipment and protein shakes. So Gunhilda and I had to share clothes. We had to share baths. We had to share …” Brunhilda fell silent.

Finally Gunhilda spoke, finishing her sister’s sentence. “Dates.”

“The kind you eat?” I asked.

“No, the kind you go to prom with.”

This wasn’t adding up. “You took the same date to prom?”

Gunhilda nodded, her face heavy with shame.

“At the same time?”

They both nodded, looking like traumatized soldiers. Then Brunhilda resumed her narrative. “Imagine my horror when Papa demanded that I share Klaus with my little sister, because no one would ask her.”

“So Brunhilda's the older sister,” I said, gratified at finally piecing this fact together.

“Well,” said Brunhilda, “no offense, Gunhilda, but there’s more ways than one in which one person can be bigger than another.”

Gunhilda was still staring into space.

This was too depressing. I no longer cared to hear their dark secrets. “Thanks for the story. You can stop now.”

“Shut up,” said Brunhilda. “Anyway, we were so poor, we had to share a graduation present: a BMW Z3 that was four years old and had a crack in the windshield. We drove it to college, where we had to share an apartment, where I studied hard, because I didn’t want my future children to have to go through what I did.”

“What did you study?”

“What do you think? Physical Fitness.”

I turned to Gunhilda. “And you?”

Gunhilda didn't even blink. “I do what she does.”

“When we were done with college,” Brunhilda continued, “we barely had enough investment capital to open our own gym.”

At this point, Brunhilda fell silent, so I turned to Gunhilda.

“No one came,” she said, “because there was a better, cheaper gym across the street.”

For a while the only sound was Grandma’s terrible techno.

“There was another reason,” said Brunhilda. “Gunhilda was supposed to help the customers, but she never did.”

Finally Gunhilda snapped out of her trance. “That’s not true. I tried to help the customers. All you did was work out.”

“I was in charge of the equipment.”