‘Yeah, yeah, go ahead and cry, little man,’ Bauer said.
The Pole continued to whine. Bauer nodded sympathetically and smiled sadly at him. Then suddenly the Pole moved away from the stove and crouched down in front of the remains of the storeroom door. He started searching through the bits of wood, his litany unabated. But when he found what he was looking for, he stopped talking, showed it to us, then returned to the side of the stove. He took a hideous little knife from his pocket and began feverishly sculpting his bit of wood, glancing up at us fiercely from time to time. His lips peeled back from his gums occasionally too, and his vile mouth was more terrifying to us than any evil stare.
~ ~ ~
WE LIT A cigarette, our last before the soup. We smoked it while watching the Pole carve his piece of wood. He had forgotten us. Concentrated, careful, he carved away, and as the daylight had continued to fade and the flames in the stove did not directly illuminate him, he moved his eyes very close to the wood. Some shavings fell on his dog. Others fell on the cast-iron stovetop and burned up instantly.
Although it was still afternoon, it looked dark enough outside to be evening. The layer of clouds between us and the sun must have grown even thicker.
The shape of the spoon appeared fairly quickly. Within a few minutes, the handle and the oval end could both be easily made out.
But what we were waiting to see was how he would make the hollow. Because without a hollow, there was no spoon. He finished the shape, looked at it for a moment, then wedged it against the stove and began to scratch at it with the point of his knife. But the wood was hard, and he seemed unable to hollow it out just by scratching. He grumbled, and looked up at us blankly, as if by staring through us he were searching for a solution. He did not look frightened by the thought of not eating if he couldn’t do it, nor angry with us, just focused on his search for inspiration. And then he began working again, in a different way. We leaned forward. In the dying light, it took us a while to understand.
Still using the point of the knife, he was now tracing and retracing grooves in the wood, several times over. When two grooves became deep enough, he broke off the wood between them. And so on.
‘He’s going to do it,’ I said.
‘In that case, he’s going to pay for his soup,’ said Bauer, turning round to take the flask from the table.
But before taking a drink, he hesitated. He turned the flask in his hands, looked down at his boots, lifted his head, and said, ‘Or we could just chuck him outside. Spoon or no spoon, he still makes me want to puke.’
‘Make him pay,’ I said, to calm Bauer down.
‘Yeah, that’s better,’ Emmerich agreed.
Emmerich and I were not afraid of the Pole. But being here felt like returning to a childhood home, and we didn’t want to spoil the innocent mood. We were smoking cigarettes, warm and cosy in front of the flames that lit up our faces with a familiar light, our senses floating gently in the smell of the soup. If we threw the Pole outside, that would mean fighting, getting riled up, opening the door and letting in the cold, and almost certainly fighting again once we were outside. We feared that, after all of that, we would end up eating the soup in full awareness of the discomfort of this filthy little Polish hovel, our emotions still riled up, and that the soup would stick in our throats.
Bauer took a good swig and handed me the flask. I took a good swig too. Emmerich didn’t want any more. Bauer stood up and put more wood in the stove. And while he was stirring the soup with his spoon, the Pole, without looking up, still carving his wood, muttered something, and Bauer replied: ‘Keep working, little man, instead of talking. Hurry up — it’s nearly cooked.’
‘Is that true?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, the cornmeal’s getting thicker. It’s sticking to the bottom.’
‘So unstick it,’ I said. ‘It’ll burn.’
He did that, then asked me to hand him the flask. And the amount of alcohol he poured into the soup! It was partly to make the Pole pay, and partly because we would be eating it so soon, the taste of the alcohol would not have time to evaporate.
Bauer handed me the almost empty flask, and the Pole finished working with his knife. He put it away in his pocket and began sanding the spoon’s hollow on a corner of the stove. He showed no fear: he pressed down with all his strength, as though he were sanding a tree stump.
‘If he breaks it now,’ said Bauer, closing his eyes to imagine this happening, ‘I will die laughing.’
‘Let me see,’ I said to the Pole, gesturing with my hand.
He stopped sanding and stared at me. I made the same gesture, more insistently, and he handed me the spoon with a threatening look on his face. I turned it in my hands, examining the hollow, weighing it up, and said (because it was the truth): ‘It’s pretty well done.’
I passed it to Emmerich. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘He’s done it.’
‘Give it to me,’ said Bauer, holding out his hand.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Throw it in the fire.’
The Pole stared at Emmerich. Bauer was still holding out his hand, grinning now, his eyes fierce. Emmerich figured out the best way to do it. He moved the spoon close to Bauer — but careful not to get too close — and turned it around so that he could see it from every angle. Then he handed it back to the Pole. Still grinning, Bauer said, ‘It’s ready.’
He grabbed the saucepan’s handle with two hands and placed it carefully on the table, then he went back to the stove and picked up the slices of bread. Emmerich and I turned around so we were facing the table, and took out our spoons and tin mugs. Bauer stepped over the bench and sat between us.
~ ~ ~
AND SUDDENLY THE hunger, which had left us for a while — that hunger sent to sleep by the cigarettes and the potato alcohol and the fire in the stove — awoke and rose from the saucepan and fell upon us as if it were a living creature. The soup looked good and smelled good. The slices of salami floated on the surface, carried there by the cornmeal, now cooked. The melted lard was still boiling.
We turned away from the stove, and the heat caressed our backs. We watched steam rise from the soup. My head was spinning. We looked at the slices of bread. The soup was continuing to simmer. The edges of the bread were toasted, reminding us of things past. As if imparting a secret, but loud enough for Emmerich to hear too, Bauer said to me: ‘We’ll tell our nephew about this.’
Relaxed and fully in agreement, I nodded. Emmerich whispered, ‘We mustn’t forget.’
I leaned across so he could see me, and pointed to my forehead. ‘It’s in here,’ I told him. ‘We won’t forget anything.’
Emmerich scratched his head and gave me a smile like nothing I’ve ever seen: happy, sad, grateful. . a smile to make you weep. On the table, our shadows danced.
The Pole appeared next to Emmerich, spoon in hand. If we had moved up, he could have sat down at the end of the bench, next to Emmerich or to me. But we didn’t think about that, and neither did he. The question never arose. I noticed that his hands were less ravaged by the cold than ours were. He blew on his spoon.
‘And the plate,’ Bauer said, drawing a circle with his hands. ‘You forgot to make one. Tough luck.’
The Pole understood and looked afraid. I was afraid too — afraid that we’d have to beat him up and get angry if it turned nasty, just at the moment when we were sitting at the table, starving once more. Only, Bauer was right. What was he going to eat from? We hadn’t thought of that. We hadn’t imagined him eating out of the saucepan.