“I don’t need a billet.” He lifted his arm to show his swollen wrist.
She disappeared inside and returned with a man of such shoulders and such a big, black beard that Lucius wondered if he had not stumbled upon Vulcan himself. Lucius showed him his arm, and the man whistled through his teeth. But he seemed completely unsurprised that an unknown soldier had appeared at his door in the middle of the night with a broken wrist. One of their boarders was a medic, he said, should he get him? Lucius shook his head—the medic would tell him to go to the hospital, he knew. He just needed a strong pair of hands.
The blacksmith led him to his worktable and lit the lamp. A pair of soldiers were sleeping on the floor. Speaking in a whisper, Lucius instructed him to grab the hand and forearm and draw them apart.
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” said Lucius, though really he had no idea. His old textbook had an illustration that made it seem as if the bone simply popped back into place.
The man left, returning with a greasy cup of spirits. Lucius thanked him and downed it in a gulp. His eyes teared up; he presented his arm. The blacksmith was tentative at first, and because the muscles in the forearm were in spasm, Lucius had to instruct him to pull harder, then harder still. He could feel the edges of the bone scraping. He bore the pain until he couldn’t any longer, pushing away with a cry.
His head spun; he was afraid he would pass out. Mumbling gratitude to the blacksmith, he stumbled outside and into the cold air. He needed some kind of narcotic, not only to relieve him now, but also to endure the coming journey by horse.
The hospital was across the street from the barracks. The hall was dark, the soldiers sleeping. He passed a pair of nurses at the nursing station, but he acted as if he knew where he was going. Somewhere there would be a supply closet. He passed through another ward. At the far end, he found it, slipped inside, and rummaged until he found ampoules of cocaine and morphine, a syringe. He slipped them into the pocket of his coat.
The train was scheduled to depart at dawn. Back in his room, he broke the cover from a histology textbook, lined it with a shirt, and fashioned a rough splint. With his good hand, he set about packing his bags. He didn’t sleep—he was too worried that the swelling might cause compression of the nerve. Then he would have no choice but to report the injury, for they would have to open his wrist. He told himself that if he could still feel his fingers by morning, he’d press on. In any case, his destination was a hospital, where he’d get care if needed. There he could claim that the fracture had happened en route. And there, he decided, they wouldn’t send him back. He’d learn while it healed. When it was ready, he would work.
In the morning, he removed the splint and let his hand hang free. Only once did he have to lift it, to salute the officer who took his papers at the station. When the train began to move, he splinted it again.
He reached Nagybocskó in the late afternoon, where the hussar escort was waiting.
From the little station house, they followed the road through snowy fields, before it entered a valley thick with pine. Milky layers of ice glinted on the branches, which clattered as the wind came through. Teardrops froze in the corners of Lucius’s eyes and on his lashes, and the shawl that wrapped his face grew thick with rime. Binding his reins about his good hand, he tried to brace his broken wrist, but the narrow road was hard as metal, and the horses slipped from time to time. When at last the pain grew unbearable, he called out for the hussar to stop.
He fumbled with his rucksack until he found the ampoules of cocaine and morphine. They had frozen, so he slipped them into his mouth to warm them. He injected the cocaine directly into his fracture, then paused, ready to inject the morphine, but stopped. No. Best to be sparing; he didn’t know how far they had to go.
The land rose, the valley steep but broad. Soon they reached a wooded pass. The road descended, crossed into another valley, and began to descend again. They passed the entrance to a village, marked by a painted sign with a primitive death’s-head and the words FLECKFIEBER!!!—typhus—and BEWARE SOLDIER! DO NOT ENTER HERE! DEATH AWAITS!!! in German, Polish, and what he assumed to be the same in Romanian, Ruthenian, and Hungarian.
The hussar crossed himself, and though they were far from the village entrance, he gave it a wide berth. As if something fanged and taloned might burst out and chase them down.
Lucius’s arm began to throb again. Again he called to the hussar to stop, uncapped the old needle, broke the morphine ampoule, and injected it into his arm.
The forest thinned. They passed empty fields, now scarred by war. Bomb craters, abandoned bulwarks, trenches. From a tree, something was hanging: a body, now encased almost entirely in ice. At the far end of the field lay a dark pile of what seemed like boulders, but as he drew closer, Lucius saw that they were frozen horses. There were perhaps fifty, half-covered in snow. Garish, dark-red flowers bloomed from their heads. In the shadows of the forest, he thought he saw others. The hussar slowed.
A scrap of livery fluttered lightly from one of the exposed saddles, the letters k.u.k. still visible.
Kaiserlich und königlich. Imperial and Royal. His army. Suddenly Lucius was afraid.
“Cossacks?”
Shadows danced deep in the woods. He saw the horsemen, creatures of so many childhood dreams. Then nothing but the trees.
“Cossacks don’t execute horses,” said the hussar, disdainfully, from behind his mask. “This is Austria in retreat.”
At first Lucius didn’t understand. But he was embarrassed to show his ignorance, and it was only as they rode on that he recalled the stories of surrender, the animals shot to keep them out of enemy hands.
It was close to dusk when they passed their first set of travelers, a refugee family leading a goat cart down the snowy road. There were four children, two on the cart, two walking, their faces swaddled like mummies, jackets stuffed with straw until they were nearly bursting at their seams.
In Hungarian, the hussar commanded them to stop. He pointed to the cart and spoke. The woman protested. Lucius couldn’t understand the words, but it was clear what she was saying: nothing here, some old rags—that’s all. The hussar dismounted from his horse and walked, somewhat stiffly, over to the cart, where he began to search. The woman followed him. “Nincs semmink!” she cried, both hands in prayer. “Nincs semmink! Nincs semmink!” But by then the hussar had found what she was hiding. One by one, he drew them out: rabbits, twitching, eyes wide, breath steaming, kicking their long back legs against the air.
Cries rose from the swaddled faces of the children. The hussar offered Lucius a rabbit, holding out the steaming creature in his extended hand, like a priest before a sacrifice. Lucius shook his head, but the hussar threw it to him anyway, and he caught it with his good arm, against his chest. Then he hesitated. He wanted to return it to the family, but he could feel the hussar watching him through the thin slits in his leather mask.
The rabbit kicked as he slipped it inside his greatcoat. It wriggled out. He caught it by its leg and this time tucked it inside his shirt, against his skin, where, out of terror or from some physiological change provoked by the change in temperature, it released a stream that trickled down his belly and his legs. Lucius could feel its heart thrumming against his skin. He did not understand why the hussar hadn’t killed the rabbits there, but this choice, before the children, seemed almost kind.
He kept his eyes from the family as they rode on.