Before setting out, she tried to feed her beloved little cargo a little kasha porridge. To no avail. The kasha was spit up. And now the icy little head of the little cargo is nodding weakly. The child needs milk, she thinks, milk, milk, if not . . . no, no! Surely the gods cannot have bestowed this child on her only for her to watch it die in her arms?
She ventures into the darkness, dipping under the low branches, calling on the gods of the train, the gods of nature, of forests, of goats. She entreats the faeries—one never knows—and even the mischievous sprites who, surely, would not stoop so low as to harm an innocent child. “Come to my aid, come to my aid all of you,” she whispers in the tangle of branches that crack beneath her feet. No one ever comes to gather wood here. The very snow dares not lie upon the ground. It melts in the treetops and settles on the boughs.
“Who goes there?”
The poor woodcutter’s wife stops, petrified.
“A poor woodcutter’s wife,” she says in a quavering voice.
The voice continues:
“Let the poor woodcutter’s wife take another step.”
She freezes. The voice continues:
“What does she want, this poor woodcutter’s wife?”
“Milk for her babe.”
“Milk for her babe?”
There comes a sound like a sinister laugh.
Then, with a creak of boots on rotten wood, a man appears, on his head a czapka, in his hand a rifle.
“Why do you not give her yours?”
“Alas, I have no milk. And if the child that you see,” she takes the babe from under her shawl, “does not get milk this day, she will die.”
“Your daughter will die? What of it? You shall make another.”
“I am no longer of an age. And besides, this child was entrusted to me by the god of the cargo train that moves to and fro along the railway track.”
“Who gave you no milk to feed it with!”
Once more, he lets out a laugh bitter enough to chill the bones.
Fearful but determined, the poor woodcutter’s wife says:
“He forgot. The gods cannot think of everything, they have so much to do here below.”
“And they do it badly!” the man concludes.
Then, after a moment, he questions her again.
“Tell me, poor woodcutter’s wife, where do you expect me to get milk?”
“From the teats of your nanny goat.”
“My nanny goat? How do you know I have such a thing?”
“I heard it bleating while I was gathering wood on the borders of your kingdom.”
He laughs again. Then, gravely, he composes himself and asks:
“What will you give me in exchange for my milk?”
“Everything I have.”
“And what do you have?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s hardly an exchange.”
“All the days the gods give, I will come here, winter and summer, and bring a bundle of firewood in exchange for two mouthfuls of milk.”
“You want to pay me for my milk with my wood?”
“The wood is not yours.”
“Neither is it yours. Just as your milk is not your milk.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is milk from your goat.”
“But the goat is mine. Nothing in life is given without recompense.”
“Without milk, my daughter will die, without recompense.”
“So many people die!”
“It was the gods who entrusted her to me. If you help me to feed her, she will live, they will be grateful, and they will protect you.”
“They have protected me more than enough already.”
He rips off his czapka to reveal a battered forehead, a crushed temple, and a missing ear.
“These days, I shun their protection and take care of myself.”
“But they have kept you alive, and your goat too.”
“Small thanks.”
“I will bring you two bundles of firewood every day for a small cupful of warm milk.”
“I can see you’re well versed in business!” He laughs again. “Did the gods not give you some object of value when they gave you the little girl?”
Our desolate poor woodcutter’s wife is about to say, “No, alas . . . ,” when suddenly her face lights up. She frees her little cargo from the prayer shawl and proffers it to the man with the goat, who eyes it scornfully.
“It is a divine shawl, see how intricate it is.”
The man wraps it around his neck.
“Look how beautiful it is! It must surely have been woven by faery hands that embroidered it with silver and with gold.”
The little cargo whimpers softly. The loud wails are past, she no longer has the strength to wail.
The man with the goat and the battered face surveys the child and concludes:
“This divine creature is hungry, like a common human child. I will give you a little milk from my goat. What you really need is milk from a jenny, but I have none now, so the milk I give you for the next three months must be diluted with boiled water, two measures of water to one of milk, and you should supplement her food with porridge and, come spring, with fruits and vegetables.”
He hands back the child. She takes her daughter lovingly, then falls to her knees and tries to kiss the man’s hand. The man recoils.
“Get up!”
Still on her knees, the poor woodcutter’s wife lets her tears flow.
“You are a good man, a good man,” she murmurs.
“No, no, no, no. We have simply struck a deal. I will be expecting my firewood tomorrow morning.”
“Who broke your head, good man?”
“The war.”
“This one?”
“This or another. It hardly matters. Never kneel before me or anyone else again, never let me hear you say I am a good man, and never let it be known that I have a goat and I give away milk. Come, I will give you what you are owed.”
And so it came to pass.
Every morning the poor woodcutter’s wife brought a bundle of firewood and received in exchange a warm cupful of milk.
And this is how, thanks to the man in the woods and his goat, the poor little cargo, so miserable and so precious, endured and survived. And yet, she was never sated, hunger constantly gnawed at her. She would suck anything she could put in her mouth, and once restored to health, she howled without restraint.
7
Having no scissors, and armed only with a pair of shears, the father of the twins, the husband of Dinah, our hero, having vomited up his heart and choked down his tears, set about shaving and shaving the thousands of heads that arrived on cargo trains from the farthest reaches of the countries occupied by the murderous devourers of yellow stars.
These heads, these shears, the secret thought that perhaps, perhaps . . . for a short while, these things rendered him a survivor in spite of himself.
8
At nightfall, when the woodcutter would come home, dragging aching limbs and a body broken by a day spent laboring in the public interest, he did not want to see, still less hear, the small solitary twin. And so the poor woodcutter’s wife tried to get her to sleep before he returned. But sometimes it happened that the little one would moan or stir in her sleep. Sometimes she would wake, sobbing from the nagging hunger, or howling in fear as though every wolf on earth had joined a monstrous pack that pursued her into the deepest depths of sleep.