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The first memory Klaus had was of his nanny sitting at the foot of his bed. He didn’t remember her very clearly. There was the smell of lavender. The cool touch of her hand on his forehead. The echoes of a lullaby.
But he remembers this.
He is small. He can’t be more than five, and he thinks he might be younger. It’s before Mom, back when they each had a caretaker, a wet nurse, someone to deal with them so Dad didn’t have to.
He remembers this.
He remembers it is cold. He is shivering, his breath turning to steam, even though he was under blankets. She is sitting there, wearing that uniform that features in a lot of his early memories. Seven children, seven nurses, all the children dressed the same, all the nannies dressed alike.
“Four,” she whispers. It’s night time. Everyone was asleep. He was supposed to be asleep. But he knows her. He trusts her.
He sits up.
“It’s not safe here, lamb. We need to go.” She reaches out, as though to stroke his hair. She does that a lot, strokes his hair. But she stops short, her hand hovering. “We’re all leaving. We’re getting your brothers and sisters and we’re leaving. All of us.”
She smiles. There is something wrong. He knows there is something wrong. But she loves him. And he trusts her.
He picks up Teddy and stands up on the bed, rubbing his eyes.
“There’s my brave boy, come on.” She beckons him. He reaches out, she always holds his hand.
He goes right through her.
He falls onto the floor and he bangs his knees, and it hurts. He starts crying and rolls over, reaching up, looking for comfort.
Her face is wrong.
Looking back, he thinks her jaw was broken. Maybe her skull crushed.
Back then, all he knew was that her face was WRONG.
He shrieks. He cries. He bawls.
No one comes.
He doesn’t remember what happens next. The memory is disjointed, out of sequence. It’s a still frame cut from the film.
Someone must have found him. Did they pick him up and hold him close? Did his father find him, tell him to stop crying, damn it? Could Baby Him even explain what had happened?
He never reads Dad’s journals. He never reviews the old footage.
He doesn’t want to know.
His next memory is of Mom, smiling and crouching down so she was on his level.
“And you must be Four,” she held out her hand and he shook it. “Nice to meet you.”