A Meal in Winter (4 page)

It was not to make them feel sorry for me that I had, once and once only, told them about this weakness of mine. It was just to tell them, to lighten, momentarily, the weight and sadness I felt whenever I saw that kind of thing – like an embroidered snowflake – on a piece of clothing.

WE WENT BACK
across the field. Standing on the path, Bauer and I looked over at the forest again. It didn't jump out at you – the difference was subtle – but it was true that there was less frost on the trees above the hole.

While we were doing this, Emmerich retrieved the map from inside his coat. He spread it out on the snow. We tried to see where the sun was in the sky, although at this time of day it didn't really indicate west or east. We could just about make it out behind the clouds. We turned the map around so that the cardinal points were in the right positions and we were facing north.

It was difficult to work out where we were. Bauer looked for the frozen pond on the map. If we found that, he thought, we would be able to orient ourselves. ‘No way have they put that on the map,' I said. But he looked for it anyway. By chance, we recognised the crossroads where
we'd chosen to go south as a joke. We began to understand where we were, and that, if we continued on this path, we would make a loop. We would reach the crossroads more quickly that way than by returning the way we had come.

Emmerich folded up the map, put it back in his pocket, buttoned up his coat, and off we went.

The Jew walked in front, in the old tracks that had frozen. He had fur mittens, better than our gloves. I estimated the thickness of the fur and imagined how warm they must be inside. Then I realised he had his hands above his head again. I told him he could lower them. He understood that I was talking to him, but not what I was saying. He turned around and opened his eyes wide. Using my hands, I signalled to him that he could lower his, and this time he understood.

We were no longer allowed to kill them where we found them, unless an officer was present to vouch for the fact. These days, we had to bring them back. Because it had happened a few times in our company that certain soldiers had come back claiming to have killed them, but afterwards, under Lieutenant Graaf's questioning, it had emerged that either they had not really found any or, if they did find some, they had lost their nerve and let them escape into the forest. In the same way, that day –
Emmerich, Bauer and I – we might, without Emmerich's sharp eyes, have gone back to the company at nightfall and sworn on our lives anything we liked. That we'd shot two of them, for instance. How would they know if we were telling the truth? So that was why our commander had been obliged to tell us that we couldn't do it like that any more, and that we always had to bring them back.

OUR READING OF
the map was correct: the path took us to a road, which was where we made our loop, and where the journey back to the base really began. I knew this was the shortest way back, but it was still a long walk. I could feel the cold in my veins now, and I was hungry . . . oh God, yes, now I really was hungry. We were now paying the price for what we'd done this morning: leaving at daybreak, before the first shootings, in order to avoid being seen by Lieutenant Graaf. It was true he hadn't seen us, but neither had the cook. The kitchen had been unlit, the cook still asleep. And the little food we had on us – the slices of bread – we couldn't eat, because it was frozen. The same went for the Italians' cornmeal: we might as well have eaten sand.

Bauer and Emmerich walked in front of me. The Jew
was walking faster than we were. The distance between him and us was lengthening.

I strode quickly to catch up with Emmerich and Bauer, and asked them, ‘Who's going to shoot him if he starts running?'

‘No one,' Emmerich replied. ‘We'll run after him, so we can take him back.'

‘No,' I said. ‘He'd outrun us. I'm sure of it.'

‘Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it,' said Emmerich.

I don't know why – perhaps for no reason at all, perhaps because I was hungry and tired, and because those feelings made me insecure – but I didn't just accept this. And my voice, I could hear, was harsh and anxious. ‘I want to know now. Who is going to do it?'

So Bauer asked me, also in a harsh voice, ‘One more or less, what difference would it make?'

It wouldn't make any difference, and we all knew it. But that was not what I was asking them. So I demanded again, ‘Who's going to do it?'

Emmerich said nothing. Bauer glanced at me, and said in a voice that sounded false, ‘What difference does that make either? I'll do it.'

And he started yelling at the Jew, who had stopped and
was watching us from afar. Bauer indicated the distance between him and us, and then beat at the air with his hand. The Jew waited a bit for us to catch him up and then started walking again. Bauer grumbled something to himself. Suddenly, everything changed and I didn't care who shot him. I no longer had that strange feeling, because I'd passed it on to Bauer. To pacify him, I said, ‘Or I could do it. I don't mind. I just wanted us to make a decision, once and for all.'

‘I'll do it,' Bauer said through gritted teeth. ‘It's all the same to me.'

Things were changing fast. Now I felt bad. Bauer was all sullen and miserable. I tried to make it up to him, but I was clumsy and too late. ‘Anyway, I'd be surprised if he got away,' I said.

Bauer shot me a look. I decided to keep my mouth shut now.

THE HOUSE APPEARED
from behind a row of trees. We didn't need to talk about it. The decision was made by our stomachs and the icy sky. We thought about asking for warm milk, coffee, bread or whatever, about sitting down for an hour in the warm, and chain-smoking cigarettes. But as we got closer, even from a hundred yards away, we knew that we weren't going to be asking for anything.

From the outside, it was a filthy little Polish hovel. If any of us had been here alone, in front of it, we would have been scared. If we'd been alone, we wouldn't have stopped. It would have made us uneasy. The roof, covered in ice and snow, looked as though it was pushing the house into the earth. The black wood shutters were closed. A gutter hung loose. The lime between the stones was crumbling. The door was crooked – it had a hinge missing – and it was locked. It took Emmerich several minutes to smash the
lock. He hit it with his rifle butt as hard as he could, and it made a sound like when you hit rotten wood. We would have helped him, but we could see he wanted to do it on his own.

The lock finally broke, and we went in, the Jew first. Some house! It was winter in there too, and totally dark, in spite of the door we'd left open. In fact, we almost felt better outside. Emmerich ran out again, as if fleeing for his life. He began smashing the shutters. We heard his rifle butt banging and banging, and something being torn away, and then the light poured in and chased some of the darkness away. When he came back, panting slightly from the effort, Emmerich said, ‘So?'

‘It's better,' we said.

But as soon as we shut the door, we lost whatever light we'd gained by smashing the shutters. And, as that was the only window, we weren't going to gain any more. But never mind. There was enough light to see what little there was to see.

There was a small whitewashed storeroom, with one door and no windows. I locked the Jew in there. I realised then that he stank like an animal. We'd only caught one, but he smelled bad enough for ten. When I say I locked him in, it's only a figure of speech, because the door didn't
close properly. He sat in the back corner and leaned against the wall. He crossed his arms and stared at the floor.

I took my rifle off my shoulder for the first time that day and put it next to Emmerich and Bauer's, which were leaning against the wall.

In the end, the room grew lighter all by itself. Our eyes adjusted to the darkness, so that we could see well enough. The ceiling was low. There was a trapdoor up to the next floor, but no ladder. The walls had been whitewashed, as in the storeroom, but here they were filthy, covered in soot and damp stains. The furniture was basic: a large table, a bench, two chairs and an empty shelf. Everything that could be carried had been taken away.

Against one wall, there was a stove, like no stove I had ever seen before: tall and wide, in blue enamel. Bauer lifted up the top, and we looked inside. The firebox was deep, like the belly of a great beast. How many logs could we fit in there? On the front was a large mica window. It was covered in soot, but with flames behind it, there was no doubt it would come to life again.

We had a discussion. How long would it take for it to warm up? Should we smoke before we started making a fire, or should we eat? What order should we do it all in?

We were still frozen, and our bread was too. It would
have taken courage and strong teeth to eat bread as hard as that. And then we also had the cornmeal the Italians had given us. There wasn't much left – just a bit at the bottom of the small bag – and it took a long time to cook, but each time it was like a miracle seeing how it swelled up, and feeling how nourishing it was.

So it was clear: everything would be better once it was warmer. Smoking and eating in front of the stove! What could be better? We would smoke while we waited for the bread to thaw and for the cornmeal to cook. But the problem was, if there was any wood left, it was outside under the snow, who knew where. It would be dark before we found any.

Emmerich did not hang around. He grabbed a chair, lifted it above his head, and smashed it in a single blow on the concrete slab. He picked up a piece of wood and started cutting it with his knife. He made shavings, taking care that they remained attached to the piece of wood. It would need shavings in order for the fire to take. So Bauer took out his knife and started cutting another bit of the chair.

I looked everywhere for a saucepan. If I didn't find one, we would at least still have our tin mugs. But for the cornmeal, a saucepan would be much better. While I was
looking, I caught a glimpse, through the crack in the door, of the Jew sitting on his heels in the storeroom. His legs were spread and he was looking straight ahead. In his layers of clothing, he looked like a huge round bag. His wool hat had been pulled up, revealing his forehead.

I finally found a saucepan behind the stove. It was dirty and blackened, and it had probably been used to empty the ashes. Whoever had been here had taken everything with them except for this saucepan. What would they have done with it? Looking at it now, I felt sure that it had always been used to empty the firebox. I showed it to Bauer and Emmerich, told them to hurry up, and went out to find some snow.

I WALKED AWAY
from the house. I was looking for good, unmarked snow, where no one had walked for a long time before us.

I could see as much snow in the grey and white sky as here on the ground. It was the cold that kept it from falling. That would have been the best snow to melt – no dirt in the water – but of course there was no way of getting it.

I walked past a fence. It was taller than me. Maybe there was a vegetable garden behind it, or maybe I was treading on one at the moment? The wind had blown the snow against it. There was so much, I could use it to wash the saucepan without even bending down. I looked over at the house while I did it. I was waiting for smoke to rise. I was hoping to see flames in the stove when I got back. I threw
out the dirty snow and started again. I kept doing it until what I was throwing out was more or less clean. Once again I looked over at the house. Still nothing was coming out of the chimney. What a lot of kindling they must be making! They wanted to be sure that the fire would take with the first match.

I reached the end of the fence. I wanted to go further to collect snow for making the soup. My glove was wet, from having been rubbed against the saucepan. It would freeze soon, and so would my hand.

I turned the corner of the fence, and that was where I saw him, rifle on his shoulder, coming towards me. The Pole halted, and so did I. I hesitated for a moment, but I wasn't scared. If it came down to it, my uniform was at least equal to his rifle. All I could see of him were his eyes; everything else was covered. Those eyes never left me. His dog had joined him, and now it was bounding towards me. It sank in the snow up to its chest and then, with a single thrust, jumped out again. It was incredible, as though something were pushing it up from below. The Pole whistled and the dog stopped moving. It lifted its face towards me. It looked like a nice dog. I noticed little balls of frozen snow hanging from its neck. They were so round, so perfect, that they looked like sleighbells that had been
made to decorate its collar. The man whistled again. The dog jumped up – again, it was incredible – and, when it got back to its master, the Pole turned away and retraced his footsteps.

I waited until they'd gone away, and then I collected snow for the soup. I put it in the saucepan, packed it down tightly, and put more in. Snow is bulky. You need a lot of it to make a little water. Experience had taught us that it takes at least five pans of snow to make one of water.

I did not rush. I wanted to give Emmerich and Bauer time to finish their kindling and put it all in the stove. I was still hoping to see smoke rising from the chimney before I went back in the house. But when I turned around, there was nothing to see. If they were waiting for me before lighting it, I had no idea why. I rushed back to the house, giving a yell so they'd know it was me.

Just as I was arriving, the door opened and Emmerich and Bauer came out, running as if pursued by the devil. In fact, they were being smoked out. The smoke poured through the open door and rose up the wall, thick as a wave.

‘It's the snow,' Emmerich said with tears in his eyes. ‘It's blocked the chimney.'

He walked backwards until he could see the top of the chimney, then said: ‘No, it's not the snow.'