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.