She runs, lifting the fox cub boots from the snow. She runs, she runs, and when, finally, she arrives, breathless, at the clearing next to the railway track, she hears her train puffing, just as she is, panting, groaning, slowing, just as she is, hindered by the thick layer of snow that is slowing them both.
She waves her arms, shouting: Wait for me! Wait for me!
The train pants and inches forward.
But this time, as it passes, it answers her. The cargo train—Convoy 49—answers.
And not with a sign, but with a gesture. And not one of those gestures that accompany the miserable scraps of crumpled paper hastily scrawled on by some clumsy hand, no, a gesture, a real gesture. First, a flag appears at the narrow window, brandished by a hand, whether human or divine, that suddenly lets it fall, and the flag drops its cargo onto the snow, some twenty paces from our poor woodcutter’s wife, who falls to her knees, hands clasped to her breast, not knowing how to thank heaven. At last, at last, after all her unanswered prayers! But the hand at the window now reaches out toward her and with an imperious, peremptory finger, signals for her to pick up the package. This package is for her. For her alone. It is meant for her.
The poor woodcutter’s wife shrugs off her meager bundle of winter twigs, rushes over, and lifts the small package from the snow. Then eagerly, feverishly, she unties the knots as one might unwrap a mysterious gift.
And there appears, oh miracle, the thing, the very thing for which she has longed and prayed for countless days, the thing she has dreamed of. But no sooner has it been unwrapped than the baby, rather than smile and reach out its arms as babies do in sacred images, struggles, screams, balls its fists, and, racked with hunger, thrashes and flails in its desperate desire to live. The package protests and goes on protesting.
Our poor woodcutter’s wife hugs the little one to her, tucking it into her multilayered scarves, and then she runs, and she runs, holding her treasure against her chest. Suddenly, she stops, she feels a hungry mouth attempt to suckle at her scrawny breast, then stop and start to howl again, wriggling, struggling, crying, wailing. The child is hungry, my child is hungry. She feels herself become a mother, at once blissfully happy and terribly anxious. Fulfilled, yet overwhelmed. Here she is, a mother, and a mother with no milk. My child is hungry, what can I do, what can I do? Why did the god of the cargo train not bless her with the milk to feed the child it has given her? Why? What were the gods thinking? How do they expect me to feed this child?
Back in her cabin, the small package laid on the bed writhes and squirms, driven by a strength born of despair, by the hunger of a wolf caught in a trap. The poor woodcutter’s wife lights the fire, pours water into her kettle, and searches, searches, searches.
While the water is boiling, she finds some kasha that she can mix with the hot water, but first, to calm her little package, she presses a finger to the hungry mouth. The little package latches on, suckles, suckles with stubborn fury. Then suddenly, realizing that it has been duped, it stops sucking and once more begins to howl. The poor woodcutter’s wife, echoing its sobs, takes it in her arms as she mashes the kasha to make a buckwheat porridge that she tries to slip into the bawling mouth with a spoon. When this does not work, she dips her finger in the kasha and offers it to the baby, who now sucks eagerly, then releases the finger and spits out the bitter kasha.
The poor woodcutter’s wife feeds it a little of the cooking water, then once again holds out her finger and the child sucks again. Little by little, as the cooking water quenches its thirst and the kasha staves off its hunger, the child in the arms of the new mother grows calm and she whispers a song in its ear, a lullaby that resurfaces from the shadowy past, surprising even her:
“Sleep, sleep, my little cargo, sleep, sleep, my own little package, sleep, sleep, my own little child, sleep.”
Then she gently sets her precious treasure in the hollow of the bed. Her eyes alight on the unfurled shawl, which she hung on the end of the bed to dry. It is a magnificent shawl woven from slender threads, twined and knotted, fringed at both ends, and embroidered with gold and silver threads. Never has she seen or touched such a precious shawl. Truly, she thinks, the gods did well to wrap their gift in such rich material. Soon, she too dozes off with her little package, her precious little cargo clasped in her arms, wrapped in that magical shawl.
She sleeps, the poor woodcutter’s wife, sleeps with her baby cradled in her arms, sleeps the sleep of the just, she sleeps on high, high above the heaven granted to poor woodcutters and their wives, high above the Eden bestowed upon the fortunate, far above, far above, she in the garden reserved for gods and for mothers.
4
Night draws in while the poor woodcutter’s wife and her gift from heaven sleep, and the poor woodcutter, worn out from his public works, returns to the cabin. At the noise he makes, the little cargo wakes, and finding its hunger unsated, immediately begins to cry.
“What on earth is that?” roars the woodcutter.
“A child,” says the poor woodcutter’s wife, sitting up with her little package in her arms.
“What the devil do you mean, a child?”
“The joy of my life,” says the poor woodcutter’s wife, without blinking or trembling.
“The what?”
“The gods of the train gave it to me.”
“The gods of the train?!”
“So that he might be the beloved child I never had.”
The woodcutter immediately grabs the little cargo, ripping it from the arms of the poor woodcutter’s wife, which has the paradoxical effect of calming the wailing and the sobs of the baby. Its frantic hands clutch at the husband’s beard, which it tries to suck on.
“Don’t you know what it is, this child? Don’t you know?”
And suddenly, in disgust, he drops the child onto the bed as one might toss a piece of rotting meat into the trash.
“He stinks! Don’t you know what race this brat belongs to?”
“I know that he is my own little angel,” the poor woodcutter’s wife says, once more scooping the child into her arms. “And he can be yours too, if you choose.”
“That thing can never be an angel, yours, mine, or anyone’s. He is the offspring of the accursed race. His parents threw him from the train because they are heartless.”
“No, no, no. The gods of the train delivered him to me.”
“You’re raving, woman. When he’s grown, he will be as they are—heartless.”
“Not if it’s us that raise him.”
“And how will you feed him?”
“He is so small, an hour ago I gave him my finger to suck and that was enough to calm his hunger.”
“Don’t you know that to shelter the heartless is forbidden on pain of death? They are the ones who killed God.”
“Not him, not him! He’s so small.”
“They killed God, and they are thieves.”
“Thank the Lord in this world we have never had anything to steal. And soon, if you are willing, he can help me fetch wood from the forest.”
“If they find him in our house, they will nail us to the wall.”
“Who will know?”
“The other woodcutters will betray us to the hunters of the heartless.”
“No, no, I will say that the baby is mine, that I finally grew big with child from your ministrations.”