A Meal in Winter (2 page)

I didn't tell Emmerich and Bauer about my dream. I
worried that they would start telling me about theirs. Here, good dream or bad dream, the same rule applied: better to keep it to yourself. In fact, why keep it at all, even for yourself?

WE WENT SO
far without stopping that we couldn't hear anything – not even the echo of the first shots. As cold as it was, we could bear it for the moment. At one point, we thought we could see the sun, but it turned out to be car headlights.

We did not leave the road. We didn't see the point in doing what we'd been sent out to do just yet. A little earlier, we'd gone through a Polish village, drab as a filthy iron plate. At that time, all was still asleep, though we could hear hens clucking somewhere. A chicken would have done us the world of good, that was for sure, but we didn't want to waste time looking for it.

Finally, we saw the pale sun rise. It gave off a little light, but the sky's colour barely changed. It would be noon before it might begin to warm us. And how much warmth it would provide, it was impossible to say.

We could see the horizon now, and dark shapes outlined against it, but that was all. From afar, we could make out forests and hills. The dawning of the new day was like a portent. It was like leaving a place we hated. We stopped to smoke. Around us was nothing but vast fields. The wind had made waves in the snow, sculpting long, regular shapes that had long since been frozen by the cold. We looked around, and it was as if we were surrounded by a white sea. It was the same up in the sky, except for the eastern horizon where the mist was tinged by the sun.

In the time it took us to light our cigarettes, our hands began to feel burned by the cold. We put our gloves back on. It was a pain in the neck, smoking with gloves on. The gloves were thick. Of course, that was not something to moan about, most of the time. But when we smoked, we moaned about it.

All we could hear was the faint crackle of our cigarettes, our breathing, and occasionally the sound of one of us sniffing back little ice crystals. Smoking on an empty stomach is less pleasant than smoking on a full stomach, but we enjoyed that particular cigarette, all the same. Because the gymnasium and Graaf and the day that was dawning over there were all behind us. We were in the middle of a frozen sea. Around us, everything was ugly
and covered in ice, and we were smoking on an empty stomach, but at least we felt safe.

Suddenly Emmerich said: ‘I'm afraid he'll start smoking. And what good would it do if I asked him not to do it? Sure, I could write to him that he mustn't smoke, but I don't think it would make a difference. He'd just shove the letter in his pocket and forget about it.'

Emmerich often talked to us like this. He would be thinking to himself, sometimes for quite a while, and then suddenly he would speak his thoughts out loud. It was up to us to quickly grasp the sense of his words, to clamber aboard the moving train of thought. Sometimes we couldn't do it. But this morning, it was fine. We had understood, even before he'd finished speaking, that he was thinking about his son. The boy was one of Emmerich's constant preoccupations. He was plagued by worries about him. We helped him as much as we could. We listened to him for as long as he needed. If he asked us for our opinions, we gave them. We felt sorry for him too: it was tough to see him torment himself like that.

Bauer replied to Emmerich, about the letter: ‘You can't know for sure that he'd just shove it in his pocket.'

‘Come off it,' said Emmerich, with a faint smile. ‘You know perfectly well he would.'

Bauer said, ‘Tell him you're coming home, and that he won't be able to hide the smell if he's been smoking, because you'll arrive without warning.'

Emmerich thought about this, making small movements with his head. We couldn't tell if he was agreeing or disagreeing. Our cigarettes were nearly finished: to make them last as long as possible, we had to remove a glove. Our fingertips burned, from both heat and cold.

I said to Emmerich: ‘Tell him we've been given leave, and that it could happen any day now. Don't go into details – just say you might turn up at any moment, and that if he's been smoking, you'll know it as soon as you open the door.'

‘But that won't happen,' Emmerich replied quietly. ‘So he'd be waiting for me. That would be pretty sad. Each evening, he'd be disappointed.'

Bauer and I glanced at each other. Then I replied to Emmerich, for both of us: ‘You're right. Don't tell him that.'

Emmerich managed a brief smile, and wiped his mouth with his hand. Then he stared at his boots. We helped him as much as we could, you see, but we couldn't think of everything.

When we'd finished smoking and tossed the tiny cigarette
butts on the ground, we put our gloves back on and pulled our scarves up to our eyes. That was the beginning of a long silence. We stared down at the frozen road and each of us retreated into his own thoughts. I knew what Emmerich was thinking about. With Bauer, it depended on the day.

My own thoughts didn't stray far. I returned to the memory of the previous night's dream, to my tram. But, already, it seemed far away. That's just how it is with dreams. Within a week, it would have vanished into a black hole, where it would remain forever. If only we could put whatever we wanted into that black hole . . .

MY BACK HAD
gone into spasm in the cold, and now it was painful. We started up again, Emmerich in front. Just before we set off, he had let us know, with a shrug of his shoulders and a kind of sigh through his scarf, that he hadn't finished with his problem. So Bauer and I, walking behind him, continued to try to find ways to help him persuade his son not to smoke. Deep down, though, I thought that if he'd decided to smoke, none of us here would be able to stop him. I didn't say that to Emmerich, of course: it would have been like smashing the butt of my rifle into his back.

Bauer and I did not have children. Everyone in the company had them except for me and Bauer. Emmerich had often told us that it was both a boon and a curse; that, before the war, it had been simply a boon, but that now it was a curse as well. We half-understood him.

‘Tell him it will bring you bad luck if he does it,' Bauer suddenly shouted.

Emmerich and I jumped. Even through the scarf, the sound was like a rifle shot or the cry of a wild animal.

Our work here had changed Bauer's voice. It exploded without warning. And it had nothing to do with the meaning of his words. He would sometimes start yelling even if what he had to say was perfectly ordinary. Emmerich and I no longer complained about this, not to Bauer and not even to each other. But it still made us jump whenever it happened.

Turning towards us and trembling, Emmerich replied to Bauer: ‘If he smoked, and something bad happened to me, his life would be ruined.'

‘He's right,' I said to Bauer.

Bauer caught up with Emmerich and touched him on the shoulder. In his true voice, low and thoughtful, he said: ‘First something bad would have to happen to you. What could happen to you here?'

‘Here? Nothing, I guess,' Emmerich replied. ‘We're safe for now. But there's a chance we might be sent somewhere else.'

‘Sure,' said Bauer, ‘but not tomorrow. And why would anything bad happen to you here?'

Emmerich had slowed down so he could walk alongside us, and he said to Bauer: ‘Who knows? Listen, say he smokes, and something bad happens to me – just like that, through chance. What would he do then? I don't want his life to be ruined by chance.'

‘That's true,' I said to Bauer. ‘He's right.'

Bauer mumbled something behind his scarf. Emmerich said, ‘I can't threaten him with that. I'd rather he smoked.'

Bauer lifted up his scarf and said, ‘Send him your ration.'

He was talking about his ration of cigarettes. I heard Emmerich give a short laugh. It wasn't very cheerful, but it was better than nothing. And once again, we walked in silence, each lost in our own thoughts. But Emmerich's son walked with us now. Bauer and I didn't know what he looked like. Emmerich didn't have photographs with him. We had never dared ask why. There was maybe some superstition behind it.

While we'd been talking, the sun had continued to rise, and the grey light that it cast on us now was probably as bright as it would get all day. Same for the temperature: you could tell it wouldn't rise any further, even around midday. Thankfully there was no wind. When you thought about it, whenever there was no wind, you could consider yourself happy. For now, the only thing was to be
careful where we put our feet. The frozen potholes were dangerous.

I watched the road, lowering my eyes to look out for potholes. Chance, bad luck, Emmerich's concern and love for his son . . . I was thinking of all this at the same time. But if I had lifted my eyes, if I'd looked away from the road, I mean if it had been possible to see so far, I would have seen where chance lies, the precise location of Emmerich's bad luck . . . I would have seen the bridge in Galicia. I would have seen Emmerich leaning against a pillar, eyes wide open in the warm Galician springtime. I would have heard him pant and spit, trying desperately to speak to us, to Bauer and me, both of us kneeling in front of him. But the blood was choking him, and Bauer and I didn't know what to do with all that blood. And we didn't know how to speak to Emmerich. We didn't know how to do anything at all any more, as if the bullet had gone through us too, without making us bleed like Emmerich, but leaving us crippled, kneeling helplessly before him, useless and silent until the end.

WE WALKED, FOR
a long time. I ended up forgetting Emmerich's son. I ended up thinking only about myself, and time passed differently. We went through another village, asleep like the other one except for one lit window and the smell of smoke.

Sometimes I slipped, and bumped into Emmerich and Bauer. Their contact reassured me. Several minutes after having touched an arm or a shoulder, I still remembered it. I even still seemed to feel it physically.

We came upon a frozen pond. It was the reeds that gave it away, because the ice was white, like the fields around it. It was quite big. On one bank, the wind had blown the snow into a high mound, sharp like the crest of a wave. In the middle of the pond, the frozen reeds indicated the direction the wind had been blowing on the day when
everything froze. That day, someone had shoved a stick in the pond.

Bauer told us to wait and went out on the pond. He'd taken his rifle off his shoulder and was using it like a walking stick, to keep his balance.

Emmerich and I walked on the spot to keep warm. We watched Bauer move forward carefully on the ice.

I sensed that we were slowly losing the feeling of happiness we'd had earlier at having escaped work. It wasn't the same now. The day had barely begun, but already it stretched out long and difficult before us. By midday, we would be only halfway through it, whereas back with the company, work might be finished by then. But we couldn't go back so soon, all the same. We would have to wait until nightfall. Because otherwise Lieutenant Graaf would say to us: ‘That's too easy, you bastards. This is the last time we let you leave.' From his point of view, he would be right. And the guys in the company would also be right, if they insulted us even more than Graaf did.

If we wanted people to accept our returning early, after work was over, we would have to find some and bring them back. But as yet, we hadn't even started looking. We'd hardly even thought about it.

The only consolation I had left was that there was no
wind. If it started up before evening, it would blow away all the relief I'd felt at having avoided work.

Bauer had reached the middle of the pond. He took his rifle in both hands and started smashing the butt against the ice. Shards flew. Bauer kept on. He stopped for a moment and told us, ‘It's frozen all the way to the bottom.'

‘What did you expect?' Emmerich shouted.

Bauer began again. I yelled to him: ‘So, give up. What's the point?'

He looked at me. I felt sure he was smiling behind his scarf. He looked happy. He didn't care what we said. He kept hitting the ice, sending shards flying again. It made a snapping noise. Even from here, you could tell it was frozen all the way to the bottom. There was no need for further verification, if that was why he kept hitting the ice. Nevertheless, he continued. And he put his back into it.

Just as I was about to tell him that he would break his rifle if he didn't stop, Emmerich spoke to me quietly about his son, as if he hadn't wanted Bauer to hear. ‘Bad things can happen to us anytime. And then his life would be ruined.'

‘That's true,' I murmured. ‘You're right. We'll find another solution.'

‘Yeah,' said Emmerich, relieved. ‘I'd prefer that.'

‘We'll find something in the end.'

‘I worry I won't manage it on my own.'

‘The three of us will give it some thought.'

Emmerich looked at the sky. Not for long. Just long enough, it seemed, to acknowledge that there were three of us. Perhaps that was Emmerich's consolation, at this particular moment. The helping hand we would give him. Mine was that there was no wind. As for Bauer, perhaps his was to stand in the middle of the pond and examine the thickness of the ice, for reasons that only he knew.

I called him. Then I did it again, louder. It was time we were going. Because, even walking on the spot, Emmerich and I were having trouble staying warm. He came back, walking between the frozen reeds. He took care not to break a single one. He seemed happy about that too. Bauer was more than forty years old, yet he still wanted to make his way between reeds, and doing so made him smile behind his scarf.

He leaped onto the path, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I regretted not having stopped at the lit window earlier to ask for warm milk.

WE WENT ON,
and soon afterwards I asked why we hadn't thought to demand warm milk in the Polish village. Neither Bauer nor Emmerich could think of an answer. A strange silence followed, and in that silence I saw that they were dreaming about warm milk now, just like I was. They walked with that dream, and it weighed them down. I could almost hear Bauer talking to himself, even though Emmerich was walking between us. As for Emmerich, he tripped and had to hold on to my arm. Their warm milk dreams made mine less painful.