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.
We came to a crossroads and wondered if it wasn’t time to consult the map. But it was inside Emmerich’s coat, and opening his coat would be like taking an ice bath. In the end, we settled on a path that went south, joking that it would be less cold down there. A pale sun hung in the sky, as distant and useless, it seemed to us, as a coin trapped under thick ice.
Solitary trees stood in the fields. Haystacks too, round and covered with snow, under the aluminium sky. We’d found some of them inside the haystacks during the spring. Not us in particular — Emmerich, Bauer and me — but we knew that some had been found. But there was no point digging in the snow today, in order to search for them. Who would hide in a haystack on a day as cold as this? And the cold had not begun yesterday.
Suddenly Bauer said, ‘What if we don’t find any?’
‘What if we don’t?’ Emmerich asked.
Bauer imitated the gait of an old man, struggling even more than we were on the road, and said, ‘How far do we go before heading back? How long will we stay out here?’
‘Let’s wait until dark, at least,’ Emmerich replied. ‘So it looks like we tried.’