Little Nothing (13 page)

“Yes! That's it!” Danilo says, rising from his seat excitedly. “Thank you.”

“Sit down,” the judge cautions.

“We have sent investigators to every town in the vicinity. Search parties have scoured the woods near the murder scene. Yet there is no one who has seen or heard reports of such a woman,” the prosecutor tells the judge.

“Wolves can travel forty-five kilometers in a day. My Pavla is very fast. You should see her run. Even after all she's been through.”

The crowd erupts again. “Young man, the court is not amused by your antics,” the judge calls over the disruption. “You would do yourself a favor to answer the questions frankly and truthfully.”

“And you would think,” Danilo continues, growing more animated, “that muscles once stretched out on a rack would be ruined, but she is like a dancer. If only you had seen her! I would say”—and here he stands again and begins to reenact the pantomime—“‘who is this mysterious young woman with the beautiful form? Yon maiden, show me your face!' And then she would say, ‘Alas, I am cursed to wander this earth without ever showing myself.' And then we would dance—” He takes the imaginary girl in his arms and performs the dance Smetanka taught them: “Two steps to the left, two steps to the right, break apart and spin. Come together again. And then I would beg to see her—”

A woman in the courtroom shrieks.

“No! Not yet!” Danilo cries. “The wolf girl has not shown her face!”

E
xplosions, as if rocks were being hurled from the sky.
The ground shakes. The blasts move from her paws up through her legs and vibrate through her belly. The bombs have ignited the dry brush, and she uses the fires to guide herself through the night. Not long after she felt the heat of the shot skim her leg, she caught sight of her pup, but she was hobbled and he was fast. And then he was gone. She has been on her own for a long time.

Another explosion. Closer. As she makes her way through the thick smoke, she can hardly see. She lifts her head and howls. The sound floats away. She waits. But nothing comes back to her. The smoke begins to thin, and in the widening aperture of light she sees dark shapes strewn on the ground. A hopeful sign. Food has been hard to come by. Animals who have survived have fled the fires and smoke. When she can, she's been feeding on dead horse and picking through the burned flesh of humans
for whatever the buzzards have not yet devoured. But she hasn't eaten for a long time and she's hungry.

One of the shapes moves, rises, and turns itself into the body of a man. He stumbles, rights himself. “Oh, God,” he says. “Oh, God.”

A sound comes from another of the bodies. A low moan. It starts and stops, then starts again. The standing man crouches and picks up an arm. A hand is attached to it, fingers curled. The man studies it, turning it this way and that. For a moment, he tries to find the body it belongs to, but then gives up and places it carefully on the ground. He picks up something else. She recognizes the weapon, knows what it can do. She is about to run, but he puts down the gun next to the arm. She relaxes. He is not a threat. Slowly, she pads closer, picking her way among the dead bodies, sniffing them and the ground around them. A rock hits her on the side of her head.

“Get this goddamn cur away from me.”

She jumps back, raises her tail, growls.

“Jiři? Is that you?”

“Me or my ghost. Take your pick. Shoo, you fucking mutt!”

The standing man lumbers toward her, waving his hands wildly, baring his teeth and roaring. She stands her ground, cocks her head.

“Holy God!” he says. “It's a wolf.”

“Well, shoot it before it eats me for dinner,” the man on the ground says.

The standing man seems more surprised than scared. He lowers his arms, studies her. “I don't think it has a taste for your stinking meat, my friend. Anyway, wolves don't eat people,” he says.

“Says Ivan, the genius.”

“Says me.” Ivan kneels over the wounded man. “Where did they get you, Jiři?”

“Everywhere. I don't know.”

“Where does it hurt?”

“It doesn't hurt at all. Ivan, am I dead? Are we all dead?”

“Your trousers are a bloody mess, man.” Ivan takes out a knife and slices open Jiři's pant leg. Slowly he moves the fabric to one side. There is nothing beneath it but pulverized flesh. He heaves and vomits.

“That's the effect I have on all the girls.”

Ivan recovers. “Are you sure it doesn't hurt?”

“Help me up. Maybe I can walk.”

“No, Jiři.”

“Just get me on my feet, Ivan.”

“I think it's better if you don't move.”

“Help me, you ass!”

Ivan crouches behind Jiři's back and lifts him into a sitting position. The effort exhausts both men. Jiři collapses against Ivan's chest. “I don't feel so good,” he says.

She sits down on her haunches, gnaws at her side, licks the blood there.

“Jiři?”

“What.”

“Just wanted to make sure you weren't dead.”

“Who else is alive? Julius? Emil? The lieutenant?”

There is no answer.

“Jesus, Ivan.”

“Who knows, I might be dead, too.”

Jiři's laughter causes him pain and he groans.

“You shouldn't laugh.”

“I'd rather be killed by a bad joke than a blown-off leg.”

“You're not going to die.”

“I'm never going to dance again,” Jiři says.

“The world will rejoice.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you, too.”

“Where's the wolf?” Jiři says.

“Over there. Lying down. Licking its balls.”

“Taking its pleasure.”

“Who wouldn't at a time like this?”

“You would. You take it wherever you can get it. I'm surprised your cock hasn't fallen off.”

“Who's to say it hasn't? I haven't checked lately.”

They are quiet for a while.

“Do you think the whole world is destroyed? That all that's left is just you, me, and that damned ball-licking wolf?” Ivan says.

“What is he doing now?”

“He's watching us.”

“Smacking his lips, I suppose. Waiting for us to die so he doesn't have to do the dirty work.”

“Listen, Jiři, he could fill himself up ten times over without laying a hand on you and me if that's what he was after.”

“Everyone's dead, then?”

“Yes.”

“Slava, that big fat fuck? They even got him?”

“Even him.”

“He's bleeding.”

“Slava?”

“The wolf. Come here, boy. Come here.”

“What the fuck are you doing? Are you an idiot?”

Ivan pulls a rucksack off one of the corpses lying nearby and slides it beneath Jiři's head so that he can remain semi-upright. Then Ivan crawls toward the wolf, making kissing sounds.

“Oh my God,” Jiři says. “It's not your grandmother's ratter, that mangy excuse for a dog.”

She watches curiously as the man approaches her, making his strange noise. When he gets too close, she stands and backs away, waits.

“He's a cowardly fuck,” Jiři says.

“He's a she,” Ivan says.

“How do you know?”

“Now who's the fool?
C'mere, girl
,” the man says, his voice rising and thinning out. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

He removes something from one of his pockets. The odor of meat cuts through all the other smells. Her tail wags, her ears prick up. She does not take her eyes off his hand.

“C'mon,” the man says. “It's a bit of dried beef. Nasty but surprisingly tasty if you don't mind the mold.”

“Fool,” Jiři says. “You'd feed that cur and let us starve to death?”

“You hungry?” Ivan asks the wolf.

She cannot stand it any longer. She darts forward, snatches the meat from the man's hand, and retreats.

“Ho!” Ivan says, studying his fingers that are, remarkably, still connected to his hand. “That was incredible! Did you see that, Jiři? She didn't even touch me!”

She swallows the morsel and licks her muzzle. The meat does nothing to satisfy her hunger. She sniffs, paces back and forth.

“Do you think they're coming to get us?” Jiři says.

“Yes. Of course.”

“I don't think they're coming to get us.”

“They will.”

“I wouldn't. Why do they need to risk their lives for two lousy soldiers. One lousy soldier and one legless gimp.”

“Not legless. Less one leg.”

“Not enough legs to kick you in the ass and still be standing.”

Ivan rummages through the rucksacks of the fallen soldiers. “Ah!” he says, pleased. He holds up a package of biscuits. He returns to where she sits, unwraps the food, and holds it out to her. She waits for him to come closer but he stops just beyond her reach. With his free hand, he beckons her. He makes that smacking sound with his lips. Slowly, she gets up and walks toward him but when she is near enough to his outstretched arm to make a grab for the food, he steps back. She advances, he retreats, this time withdrawing the food and bringing it close to his body. He holds out his empty hand. What does he want? The smell is too much. She moves closer until his hand is on her head. He rests it there so lightly she can barely feel it. He brings his other hand close to her snout. She takes the food, but more gently this time.

“That's it,” he whispers. “That's a good girl.”

“You should have been a lion tamer,” Jiři says.

Ivan brings both hands to her face and smooths her fur. He does this again and again. Then he slowly works his way down the length of her back. When he is done, he brings his hands to his face and inhales. “Echh,” he says.

“You probably smell worse,” Jiři says.

The man touches her again. She sits, then lies down, dropping to one side. She lets him rub her belly, scratch her throat. Her eyes shutter.

“Is it going to snow?” Jiři says.

“It's springtime, fool,” Ivan says gently, concentrating on carefully moving his hands over the wolf's body so that he doesn't startle her.

“But it's so cold.”

“It's probably thirty degrees out. I'm pouring with—what?” He stands up. He runs over to Jiři. “No,” he says. “No, no, no, no.” He rushes to gather clothes off the dead. He works frantically, shaking bodies out of jackets, ripping through packs to find blankets. He piles all the clothes on top of his shivering friend. Then he runs a little ways, stops. He circles around himself, as if he dropped his plan in the dirt and has to find it. “Hey!” he calls out. “Help us! We're here! Help!” He hurries back to Jiři, touches his skin. “You're like ice.”

“I told you it would snow.”

“I've got to get you out of here.”

“No,” Jiři says. “Let's wait. Someone will come.”

“There's no one to wait for. No one knows we're here.”

She gets up and walks over to the man on the ground. She leans over his face and sniffs him. She licks his cheeks.

“Go ahead,” Jiři says. “Eat me up. You have my permission.”

She lies down next to him and presses her body against his.

Meanwhile, Ivan has found his plan and with it, the company cannon, the one that has been his and Jiři's duty, these past months, to haul from one battlefield to another, the few horses reserved for the lazy officers who want to keep their boots clean. Ivan and Jiři, friends since childhood, named the cannon Olga to remind them of their fat neighbor who they caught one day bathing by the river, the sheer expanse of her buttocks so mesmerizing that they developed a reverence for her and rose to her defense when others called her names. Truth be told, Ivan was a bit in love with her. They have spent their days alternately cursing the heavy iron wheels that made the cannon so unwieldy and caring for those same wheels with loving attention, greasing the axel, tightening the bolts, polishing the bore as if it were the girl herself in need of their tender affection.

It takes enormous effort to push the cannon over to where Jiři lies covered in piles of cloth and, Ivan realizes as he comes up next to his friend, warmed by the wolf.

“Good girl,” he says, patting the animal's side. He touches his friend's face. Jiři's skin is gray. Despite his woozy protests and then his howls of pain, Ivan drapes Jiři's body over the cannon and secures him there, using the dead soldiers' belts and rifle straps. He goes to the other side, lifts the cart handles, and pulls. He barely manages a few centimeters before he stops, winded, his shoulders already throbbing from the effort. Behind him Jiři whimpers. Ivan gets to his feet and tries again. This time the wheels don't even turn. The impossibility of the
situation feels like a physical blow and he falls to his knees. He allows himself to weep until a peaceful resignation overtakes him. There is no reason to move. He can stop trying so hard. He will keep his old friend company until he dies and then, eventually, he will die, too. It will be a matter of days, his death. It will come with thirst and starvation but it will not be a terrible thing. It might even be sweet, like when he was a boy in the moments before sleep. How he loved the delicious smell of his mother's skin as she moved her face toward his, the kiss of her eyelashes on his cheek—

Foul-smelling breath works on him like smelling salts and he is suddenly and fully alert, panicked that he slept through the wake-up call and missed his orders. But why is a wolf's face staring down into his? Why is its cold, wet nose nudging his cheek? He is on his feet, ready to form up, salute, and march.
Yes, Lieutenant! Present, Lieutenant!

At this outburst, the wolf makes a small yelping noise and jumps back. When the situation finally arranges itself properly in Ivan's mind, he checks on his friend. Jiři's eyes are closed and his body, still draped over the cannon, is motionless.

“No, Jiři,” Ivan says, shaking his friend. “Not yet. Please.” He puts his ear to Jiři's lips. Nothing, and then the barest trace of an exhalation. “He's not dead,” Ivan says to no one. Or maybe he's speaking to the wolf, who watches him expectantly. “Okay, it was a stupid idea,” he says to her. “If you've got a better one, speak up. No?” he says when she offers nothing in the way of advice. “Well, you're no help at all.”

Ivan unties the straps, pulls Jiři off the cannon, and despite the awful moans and garbled protests, hoists him onto his back.
“God Almighty!” Ivan cries, gathering his energy and his will. “They should have blown off your fat ass, too.”

He hasn't gone far before he realizes that the wolf is following him. “Go! Scat!” he says, but he doesn't mean it. He's grateful for the company.