~ ~ ~
OUR READING OF the map was correct: the path took us to a road, which was where we made our loop, and where the journey back to the base really began. I knew this was the shortest way back, but it was still a long walk. I could feel the cold in my veins now, and I was hungry. . oh God, yes, now I really was hungry. We were now paying the price for what we’d done this morning: leaving at daybreak, before the first shootings, in order to avoid being seen by Lieutenant Graaf. It was true he hadn’t seen us, but neither had the cook. The kitchen had been unlit, the cook still asleep. And the little food we had on us — the slices of bread — we couldn’t eat, because it was frozen. The same went for the Italians’ cornmeaclass="underline" we might as well have eaten sand.
Bauer and Emmerich walked in front of me. The Jew was walking faster than we were. The distance between him and us was lengthening.
I strode quickly to catch up with Emmerich and Bauer, and asked them, ‘Who’s going to shoot him if he starts running?’
‘No one,’ Emmerich replied. ‘We’ll run after him, so we can take him back.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘He’d outrun us. I’m sure of it.’
‘Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ said Emmerich.
I don’t know why — perhaps for no reason at all, perhaps because I was hungry and tired, and because those feelings made me insecure — but I didn’t just accept this. And my voice, I could hear, was harsh and anxious. ‘I want to know now. Who is going to do it?’
So Bauer asked me, also in a harsh voice, ‘One more or less, what difference would it make?’
It wouldn’t make any difference, and we all knew it. But that was not what I was asking them. So I demanded again, ‘Who’s going to do it?’
Emmerich said nothing. Bauer glanced at me, and said in a voice that sounded false, ‘What difference does that make either? I’ll do it.’
And he started yelling at the Jew, who had stopped and was watching us from afar. Bauer indicated the distance between him and us, and then beat at the air with his hand. The Jew waited a bit for us to catch him up and then started walking again. Bauer grumbled something to himself. Suddenly, everything changed and I didn’t care who shot him. I no longer had that strange feeling, because I’d passed it on to Bauer. To pacify him, I said, ‘Or I could do it. I don’t mind. I just wanted us to make a decision, once and for all.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Bauer said through gritted teeth. ‘It’s all the same to me.’
Things were changing fast. Now I felt bad. Bauer was all sullen and miserable. I tried to make it up to him, but I was clumsy and too late. ‘Anyway, I’d be surprised if he got away,’ I said.
Bauer shot me a look. I decided to keep my mouth shut now.
~ ~ ~
THE HOUSE APPEARED from behind a row of trees. We didn’t need to talk about it. The decision was made by our stomachs and the icy sky. We thought about asking for warm milk, coffee, bread or whatever, about sitting down for an hour in the warm, and chain-smoking cigarettes. But as we got closer, even from a hundred yards away, we knew that we weren’t going to be asking for anything.
From the outside, it was a filthy little Polish hovel. If any of us had been here alone, in front of it, we would have been scared. If we’d been alone, we wouldn’t have stopped. It would have made us uneasy. The roof, covered in ice and snow, looked as though it was pushing the house into the earth. The black wood shutters were closed. A gutter hung loose. The lime between the stones was crumbling. The door was crooked — it had a hinge missing — and it was locked. It took Emmerich several minutes to smash the lock. He hit it with his rifle butt as hard as he could, and it made a sound like when you hit rotten wood. We would have helped him, but we could see he wanted to do it on his own.
The lock finally broke, and we went in, the Jew first. Some house! It was winter in there too, and totally dark, in spite of the door we’d left open. In fact, we almost felt better outside. Emmerich ran out again, as if fleeing for his life. He began smashing the shutters. We heard his rifle butt banging and banging, and something being torn away, and then the light poured in and chased some of the darkness away. When he came back, panting slightly from the effort, Emmerich said, ‘So?’
‘It’s better,’ we said.
But as soon as we shut the door, we lost whatever light we’d gained by smashing the shutters. And, as that was the only window, we weren’t going to gain any more. But never mind. There was enough light to see what little there was to see.
There was a small whitewashed storeroom, with one door and no windows. I locked the Jew in there. I realised then that he stank like an animal. We’d only caught one, but he smelled bad enough for ten. When I say I locked him in, it’s only a figure of speech, because the door didn’t close properly. He sat in the back corner and leaned against the wall. He crossed his arms and stared at the floor.
I took my rifle off my shoulder for the first time that day and put it next to Emmerich and Bauer’s, which were leaning against the wall.
In the end, the room grew lighter all by itself. Our eyes adjusted to the darkness, so that we could see well enough. The ceiling was low. There was a trapdoor up to the next floor, but no ladder. The walls had been whitewashed, as in the storeroom, but here they were filthy, covered in soot and damp stains. The furniture was basic: a large table, a bench, two chairs and an empty shelf. Everything that could be carried had been taken away.
Against one wall, there was a stove, like no stove I had ever seen before: tall and wide, in blue enamel. Bauer lifted up the top, and we looked inside. The firebox was deep, like the belly of a great beast. How many logs could we fit in there? On the front was a large mica window. It was covered in soot, but with flames behind it, there was no doubt it would come to life again.
We had a discussion. How long would it take for it to warm up? Should we smoke before we started making a fire, or should we eat? What order should we do it all in?
We were still frozen, and our bread was too. It would have taken courage and strong teeth to eat bread as hard as that. And then we also had the cornmeal the Italians had given us. There wasn’t much left — just a bit at the bottom of the small bag — and it took a long time to cook, but each time it was like a miracle seeing how it swelled up, and feeling how nourishing it was.
So it was clear: everything would be better once it was warmer. Smoking and eating in front of the stove! What could be better? We would smoke while we waited for the bread to thaw and for the cornmeal to cook. But the problem was, if there was any wood left, it was outside under the snow, who knew where. It would be dark before we found any.
Emmerich did not hang around. He grabbed a chair, lifted it above his head, and smashed it in a single blow on the concrete slab. He picked up a piece of wood and started cutting it with his knife. He made shavings, taking care that they remained attached to the piece of wood. It would need shavings in order for the fire to take. So Bauer took out his knife and started cutting another bit of the chair.
I looked everywhere for a saucepan. If I didn’t find one, we would at least still have our tin mugs. But for the cornmeal, a saucepan would be much better. While I was looking, I caught a glimpse, through the crack in the door, of the Jew sitting on his heels in the storeroom. His legs were spread and he was looking straight ahead. In his layers of clothing, he looked like a huge round bag. His wool hat had been pulled up, revealing his forehead.