The True Story of Hansel and Gretel

The setting of this chapter rapidly switches back and forth between Magda’s hut, where Nelka prepares to give birth, and the distant woods, where Telek has gone to meet the partisans.

In Nelka’s story, the narrator reveals that Basha and Andrzej, who continued to collect rations for their baby after its death, have been executed for that crime. Nelka avoids the sight of their hanged bodies as she walks through the village. On her way to Magda’s hut, her water breaks. Gretel is still weary from her illness, but Hansel and Magda do their best to care for Nelka through her pain. Vulnerable, Nelka confesses that she is in love with Telek. Hansel feels anger at the baby for hurting Nelka, but he cuts the cord after the infant boy emerges. Nelka cries with love and fear for her son. Gretel comforts Hansel, who remains shaken by seeing Nelka’s pain.

The partisans welcome Telek, and he again notes the Mechanik and Stepmother’s presence. He leads the group to a set of train tracks. The Mechanik builds a bomb and places it near the rail. When a German train comes, the bomb explodes, and the train derails. The partisans shoot the confused soldiers who leave the train. They gather many supplies from two of the train cars, including food, clothing, and an enormous artillery gun. Telek takes a rifle. The Stepmother asks Telek about Hansel and Gretel, and he tells her that they have shelter and ration cards. She confesses that they belong to the Mechanik but asks him to keep the secret. They both acknowledge that the children are safer with Magda. 

Two days after the baby’s birth, Gretel ventures outside to get water and firewood. Enthralled by the icy forest, she goes looking for the wild ponies. Two men see Gretel and chase her through the woods. They throw her on a fallen log and take turns raping her at gunpoint. To cope with the trauma, Gretel’s “mind became an empty hole.” “There was nothing in her head,” the narrator says, “but space and sunlight and the glitter of ice” (133). Gretel hears gunfire and no longer sees the men. She lays in the snow and thinks of her grandfather and the oranges he used to bring her, confusing her memories with her current reality.

Out of Gretel’s sight, the Stepmother lays dying in the snow. She shot both of Gretel’s attackers but was also wounded in the gunfire. The Stepmother is pleased that Gretel will survive. She imagines her own deceased child and confuses him with Gretel as her condition worsens. She dies worrying about the Mechanik, whom she never told that Hansel and Gretel were alive. Telek finds Gretel sitting on the log and sees that she is hurt. He also finds the Stepmother, takes her weapon, and plans to return to bury her. Telek carries Gretel back to Magda’s hut. Along the way, she sings songs and happily offers him pieces of an orange that does not really exist. Telek realizes that “her mind was gone” (137).

Telek carries Gretel to Magda’s hut, where he meets Nelka’s baby for the first time. Gretel’s bloody and disoriented appearance upsets Hansel, so Magda forces him outside while the adults discuss Gretel’s condition. Hansel feels left out and impulsively runs to the village. He encounters five other children who tease him and dare him to kiss a pig. After a brief fight, Hansel and the children warm to one another and play a game of soldiers. The Major watches them and is impressed with Hansel’s knowledge of military rank. He gives Hansel peppermints to distribute. One boy, Jerzy, refuses a mint. He is disgusted that Hansel saluted the Major and calls him a “Dirty Nazi” (142). The boys leave, but Halina, of whom Hansel is especially fond, asks Hansel to stay and play.

Hansel and Halina go to Halina’s home, where she has lived with an aunt and uncle since the Nazis hanged her parents. The aunt realizes that Hansel stays with Magda and orders Halina never to play with him. Halina disobeys and leads Hansel to a field where they can roast potatoes. Before her aunt calls her home, Halina suggests that she and Hansel meet again and kisses him on the mouth. When Hansel returns to Magda’s hut, she scolds him for venturing to the village alone. He tries to tell Gretel about his day, but she responds with nonsensical comments about oranges, flowers, and their grandfather. She reveals that she no longer knows her real name. Hansel cries because, without Gretel’s memories, he will lose access to their past. Magda reassures him that Gretel will return to him someday.

As they walk to the village, Telek explains to Nelka that the Oberführer and Sister Rosa are planning to take children from the village to Germany. He tells her that if they try to take her baby, he will hide Nelka and the baby in the woods. Telek thinks about how it is his job to give the village children, including Nelka’s son, imperfections. He doubts that Nelka could love him after he does it. Despite Telek’s worries, he kisses her. Nelka goes to her home to nurse the baby while Telek draws water for her from the well. He sees Feliks, who tells him that the Oberführer and Sister Rosa will return soon to select the children. Telek knows that he must begin to disfigure the children.

That evening, Telek instructs Pawel, a villager, to leave his children home alone. Telek enters Pawel’s house and knocks his children unconscious. He burns the boy’s arm, the girl’s scalp, and the baby’s neck. Next, he sets the house on fire, delivering the burned children to their father outside. The Major observes the fire and tells Wiktor how foolish the Polish are. Though Wiktor suspects that the fire is not what it seems, he does not say anything to rouse the Major’s suspicion.

Another villager, Patryk, decides to maim his own son in a staged wagon accident instead of asking Telek to harm him, but Telek struggles with the knowledge that he must hurt more children. He burns one’s hand, chops off another’s index finger, and breaks the arm of a third. Tormented, Telek visits Nelka and confesses his role in the injuries. She grows angry at the other villagers for treating Telek as an outcast and then asking him to bear such a difficult task. Telek informs Nelka that he is meant to scar her son, too. She reminds him that he promised to hide them in the woods instead. Telek renews his promise. He and Nelka make love in the hut. When Nelka’s baby awakens, Telek says that the baby is now his son.