A Meal in Winter (5 page)

‘So what is it?' Bauer asked.

‘No idea,' Emmerich replied irritably. ‘We'll have to look.'

‘Go and look,' said Bauer.

Emmerich spat the smoke he'd swallowed on the ground and said, ‘And then what?'

The idea suddenly came to me that the people who used to live in this house had blocked the chimney when they left. Permanently, I mean, with cement. It wouldn't be the first time. So what choice would that leave us? We could make a hole in the roof, or we could go away. We would go, there was no doubt about it. We didn't have the strength to set about doing anything like that.

‘What about the Jew?' I asked. ‘What shall we do with him?'

‘Let's wait till the smoke's cleared a bit,' Bauer replied.

But there was still plenty coming out. Amazing how much smoke a single chair can make!

‘Better not wait too long,' I said. ‘It'll get in there.'

‘Go and fetch him,' Bauer told me.

Emmerich told me the same thing, with his hand. They reckoned they had already swallowed their share of smoke,
and now it was my turn. So I went in, and while I was emptying my saucepan of snow into the stove, I called out to the Jew. But I didn't know if he'd heard me, or what he was doing. I couldn't see the storeroom door through all the smoke. When I went out again, my eyes were watering.

After a while, the snow melting in the stove put out the fire. Now it was steam coming out of the house. I went back in. The storeroom door was closed. The Jew had managed to pull it shut. It took all of my strength to open it again. He was crouched in the back corner. There was some smoke here in the storeroom, but not much. It was bearable. He'd taken off one of his mittens and was breathing through it. He looked up at me. I gestured to him, and he stood up and walked out of the storeroom.

Emmerich and Bauer had just come back in and were standing close to the stove. It was still a bit difficult to breathe, but it was better inside than outside. The enamel of the stove had warmed up from the bit of wood it had burned, and the temperature had risen. Not much – one or two degrees – but it made a difference.

Behind us, the Jew started coughing. He couldn't stop. Bauer took him outside while Emmerich and I got to work on emptying the firebox. We took the bits of chair
that were still burning and threw them outside, then we examined inside. We were hoping that the chimney was blocked at the bottom, within reach. But everything seemed fine here. I was able to put my arm through the hole, so the smoke could go through it as well.

We had to look higher up. Emmerich helped me to climb on top of the stove.

‘You'd better pray that the blockage is here,' I told him.

He closed his eyes. He looked as though he was really praying. I kicked the base of the pipe with my heel a few times. Years of heat and soot had soldered it to the stove. Or maybe it was here that they'd poured the cement. I kicked harder, and the base began to move. I crouched down, grabbed hold of it, twisted it, and lifted it in a single motion. Then, frightened, I let go of it and took a step back, almost falling off the stove. Emmerich caught me, and we looked at one another. He was like me: glad to have found out what the problem was, but disgusted too, and amazed. Of all the things we might have found, I don't think we would ever have guessed at this. A dead cat, head down: that was what had caused the blockage. For a moment, we were mystified, and then we understood. It must have slid in headfirst from the top of the chimney.

I jumped off the stove, and said to Emmerich: ‘Take this and toss it outside.'

He grimaced behind his scarf. We were frozen and we were starving, but we were scared of a cat that had been dead for ages.

‘Oh, Emmerich!' I said, as if to myself.

He looked at me, but said nothing. Then suddenly he smiled behind his scarf and said, ‘You go. I said the prayer.'

His eyes smiled too. The rings beneath them looked smaller and less grey. That was what we'd been missing – a few jokes. Out of gratitude, I picked up the cat in one hand. It was hard and dry as wood, although its fur was still silky. It was a strange, unpleasant feeling, even through the glove. I went outside and threw it a long way to the side of the house, without waiting to show it to Bauer.

The Jew was sitting in the snow just then, wiping his eyes. His mittens were placed on his legs. Next to him, turned away, Bauer was looking at the sky.

‘We found it, Bauer,' I said.

‘What was it?'

‘A cat.'

‘A cat!'

‘Yeah. We'll have a warm meal tonight, just you wait and see.'

Now Bauer nodded towards the sky. The Jew kept wiping his eyes. I squatted down and picked up the bits of half-burnt chair that we'd thrown out.

BAUER WAS SITTING
on the bench, the Jew had returned to the storeroom, and Emmerich and I were taking care of the fire. But the wood from the chair had hardened when it burned, and now it was impossible to cut shavings from it. I went outside and brought back the shutter that Emmerich had broken off in order to let some light into the house. I broke the shutter into smaller bits. It was easier to cut shavings from that wood.

As soon as the wood had begun to take, and the flames were dancing behind the mica window, I went back outside with the saucepan, to the same place I'd been before. I packed the snow tightly into it, then added more and packed that down too. I noticed the tracks made by the Pole and his dog. They went off a long way – who knew where? I kept staring off into the distance. The earth
was white. Not long ago, it had been yellow. It had been covered in sunflowers.

When I turned around, there was smoke floating from the chimney. The sight lifted my heart. Added to the fact that we had avoided the shootings and that there had been no wind since the morning, it was no exaggeration to say that this had been a good day.

And of course Emmerich's sharp eyes had made it an even better day, for tomorrow we would undoubtedly avoid the shootings again, if there were any. Bringing one back meant we would have the right to go out searching again. Nobody would be giving us evil looks. Even Graaf would not be able to find anything to reproach. Tomorrow morning, we would be able to walk past him without lowering our gaze. Unlike today, we would even be able to wait for the kitchen to open so we could get our rations. We would be entitled to all of that tomorrow.

The hunger made me dizzy, and the cold hurt my bones, but I was now thinking that today would end up being even better than my tram dream. I went back to the house with my spirits raised by these thoughts, and when I entered they rose even higher, because the temperature was now above zero. It was already quite warm. Emmerich and Bauer had put their helmets on the table. They unwound
their scarves and removed their balaclavas. I placed the saucepan on the stove and did the same. Finally, my face could breathe. I rubbed my cheeks and ears and the back of my neck. Blood flowed back into the veins. We hung our scarves and balaclavas on the metal bar that ran around the stove.

Then we put the frozen slices of bread on the edge, so that they would thaw without burning, and we moved the bench in front of the stove. Emmerich and I sat down. Bauer remained standing, and watched us. He looked as if he was guarding us. ‘What's up, Bauer?' I asked.

He smiled thinly. His balaclava had left blue lines on his cheeks. He pretended to look away. I decided to let it drop. If there was something on his mind, we would find out soon enough.

In accordance with the plan for the day we'd worked out earlier, it was now time to smoke. We had been right to wait. It was the best cigarette of the day. We weren't wearing gloves any more and we didn't need to rush. The cold was outside. And because of the smell of the burning wood, it tasted good, despite our empty stomachs.

I got up to see what was happening with the snow in the saucepan. It was beginning to shrink and turn clear. I was worried, though: the shutter was burning quickly.
How cheerful the flames looked behind the mica window! There would be enough wood to thaw the bread, but not to cook the cornmeal soup. No doubt the bench where Emmerich and I were sitting would end up being burned too, but I decided to wait, and not to mention it yet. I wanted to finish my cigarette in peace, down to the very end.

Bauer kept watching us, smoking with a strange expression on his face. Without looking at him, I said, ‘What do you want, Bauer?'

Suddenly, his voice mysterious, he whispered, ‘Who's the best of us three?'

To begin with, we waited and said nothing. Then Emmerich asked: ‘In what sense, and why?'

‘Yeah,' I added. ‘In what sense, Bauer?'

Bauer did not reply.

‘If you're talking about the best character,' I said, ‘then you've lost.'

Bauer remained impassive, letting his mysterious question hang in the air. He was pretending to wait for an answer that was impossible to give. But Emmerich and I were waiting too. It would come, we knew. During this moment of silence, the Jew coughed in the storeroom. He had been coughing before, but now, strangely, in the
warmth of the house, it felt as if we were hearing him for the first time.

Our cigarettes were burning down to the end. One or two more drags. We would remember this smoke.

‘Bauer, if you want to know who's the best,' Emmerich said suddenly, ‘it's because you think it's you.'

‘Maybe,' said Bauer.

He clicked his tongue. We looked up at him. And then, from one of his coat pockets, he produced an onion, and from the other a lump of lard. Now we were watching him wide-eyed. The show was not over. From the inside pocket of his coat, he took out half a salami, and moving in slow motion, he placed it on the table, between Emmerich and me. It wasn't some soft, disgusting liver sausage either, but real salami.

‘Keep going,' I said.

‘That's your lot,' Bauer replied.

‘And the potatoes?' I joked.

In the same spirit, Bauer replied, ‘Didn't find any.' But then, more seriously, he added: ‘This will be some soup, though. You'll see.'

We had no trouble believing him. Already, we could smell the salami, tickling us between the tops of our jaws and our ears, making us drool.

But as happy and drooling as we were, Emmerich and I, we were not entirely surprised. The salami was not exactly an unexpected gift that had fallen from the sky.

Because Bauer, despite being over forty years old, often stole things. He was prone to strange compulsions, and did strange things. He still had certain characteristics that Emmerich and I had lost, probably because Emmerich was a father, and as for me . . . well, that's life. Emmerich and I would never have tried to see if the pond was frozen all the way to the bottom by smashing at it with a rifle butt. Sometimes we were bothered by what went through Bauer's head. Sometimes it frightened us. We feared he would get us into trouble.

And because we feared it, it came to pass.

One day, when Kropp the cook was bawling him out for stealing, he yelled back, ‘Go fuck yourself – you're the thief!' and Emmerich and I got in as much trouble as Bauer did, as if we were his accomplices. And Bauer knew you had to be careful with Kropp.

Kropp was touchy. Not a bad guy, but a bit of a loner and very sensitive. After the first killings, he had said, ‘I'm not doing that.' He'd left the clearing where it was taking place, he'd gone back towards the trucks, and he'd said, ‘Give me something else to do. I'll bring food, I'll bring
drink, I'll clean the trucks, whatever you want. I don't care. But I'm not doing that.'

Everyone got their hands dirty that day. Nearly all of us suffered. But not him. So everyone cursed him. He took the brunt of the company's hatred and contempt. Some wanted to beat the shit out of him. It nearly happened. Graaf wanted to kill him. And he would have done. But the commander intervened. ‘Who will pay for this?' Kropp asked him. The commander didn't answer, but he was an understanding, accommodating man, and he arranged for Kropp to be sent to the kitchen to replace the real cook, who had jaundice. That saved Kropp's bacon, and he remained the cook. And after that, people had to stop cursing him, of course, because he was the one filling our mugs and our plates. Because it was up to him how much broth and salami and bread we got.

So that's why, sometimes, we weren't too mad about Bauer's ideas. But today, with the salami . . . well, we weren't about to spit on that.

The only problem was that, with all of the food we had now – the onions, the lard, the salami, and the cornflour that takes so long to cook – I was getting even more worried about the wood.

I got up and glanced at the snow in the saucepan. It
had almost melted. Soon it would be water, though barely even lukewarm. I shoved what remained of the shutter into the firebox and told the others: ‘There won't be enough wood.'

‘We need coal. They wouldn't have been able to take that with them.'

If there were any, it would be in the storeroom. Was it possible I hadn't seen it? I didn't think so, but I went back anyway. I pulled the door open and was instantly hit by the icy air and the stink. The Jew, sitting on his heels, lifted his head and looked at me. His wool hat had been pushed further back, uncovering his ears. I felt hatred rising up in me for the snowflake embroidered on it. All the more so as I'd forgotten about it until then. I turned away from it and examined every inch of the storeroom, lifting up bags and old newspapers with my foot. Beneath lay frozen earth, and not a single piece of coal. Not even the hint of one. ‘There's nothing in here,' I shouted.

‘What about outside, behind the house?' Emmerich asked.

‘No, that's impossible,' I replied.

I came back out, and while I was pushing the door shut so I wouldn't have to see the wool hat any more, Emmerich said, ‘Leave it a bit open.'

‘What for?' I asked, although I knew.