“The heartless have a heart.”
“What, what, what? What did he say? What does he mean?”
And the woodcutter once again surprised himself, this time in a thunderous voice that he had never before felt in his throat, the woodcutter, having slammed his tin cup down on the rickety table, causing it to collapse, said: “The heartless have a heart.”
Then he set off at speed, though weaving a little, toward his hut, toward his home, his ax slung over his shoulder, suddenly terrified that he had bellowed his truth, the truth: the heartless have a heart. He was terrified and at the same time relieved and proud, proud to have roared it into the faces of the others, to have freed himself, to have suddenly ended a whole life of submission and silence. He was heading home to his beloved wife, to the apple of his eye that the wood alcohol would not blind that evening. He was heading home to the precious cargo that the gods—for it could have been no one else—had bestowed on him. And as he walked, he felt his heart pound and pound. Then he was surprised to hear himself singing, singing as he walked, a song he had never sung, though neither had he ever sung another. He was walking and singing, intoxicated, drunk on freedom and on love.
His consternated comrades exclaimed: “He can’t hold his liquor like he used to! He’s drunk! He’s off his head!”—glug, glug, glug—“He’ll be fine tomorrow when he’s sober.” And they too began to sing, songs taught to them by their masters, by the hunters of the heartless, by the invaders, songs that said:
“We will plunge our knives into the hollow chests of the heartless until not one remains, until they have returned to us all the things they stole—death to the heartless”—glug, glug, glug—
And as he drank, the man who made the wood alcohol remembered that, before the war, the local authorities had offered a reward for the head of every verminous animal that hunters brought to the town hall. Glug, glug, glug.
12
The days passed; the months passed. The phony barber, the father of the former twins, shaved, shaved, and shaved. Then he gathered the hair, the blond, the dark, the red, and made it into bales. Bales that joined other bales, thousands of other bales. The blond, the most prized, the brunette, and even the red. What did they do with the gray hair? All this hair was shipped off to the land of the conquering generals to be fashioned into wigs, finery, upholstery, or simple floor cloths.
The father of the former twins longed to die, but deep inside him, a strange seed began to bud, a seed oblivious to the horrors he had seen, had suffered, a tiny seed that grew and grew, commanding him to live, or at least to survive. Survive. He ridiculed this tiny seed of hope, scorned it, drowned it in floods of bitterness, yet still it continued to grow, in spite of the present, in spite of the past, in spite of the memory of the senseless act that had meant that his beloved had not spoken another word to him until they alighted from the train of horror and were separated on that station platform with no station. He had not even been able to press his remaining twin to his chest, not even for a moment, before they were separated forever and always. He would be weeping for them still, had his eyes been capable of tears.
13
The days passed, the months passed, and on a day happier than others, the little cargo suddenly stood up straight and took her first steps. Since then, she had been trotting ahead or trailing behind the poor woodcutter’s wife all day, and at night she would run to greet the woodcutter. And when he lifted her up to his face, to his beard, she would try to take off his cap, or tug at his hair, or—joy of joys—grab his fat nose in both of her hands. The woodcutter would feel his heartstrings jangle. Then he would hand the little cargo to the poor woodcutter’s wife and loudly blow his nose before dabbing at his damp eyes. On one such day, more beautiful than the others, the little one ran to the woodcutter crying, “Papa! Papa!” in the peculiar language spoken in that far-flung country where “papa” was papouch and “mama” was mamouch.
“Papouch! Mamouch!”
The three would throw their arms around each other, caught up in a single embrace that ended with laughter, or with a song that told of father and mother, of a child lost and found.
14
One day, as the poor woodcutter’s wife and her little cargo, having gathered their firewood, were trudging home through the undergrowth, they came face to face with the man who distilled the wood alcohol, the incidental colleague and comrade of the woodcutter. Seeing the little one, the distiller politely inquired: “Where did she come from, this little one?” The poor woodcutter’s wife said that the child was hers. For a long moment, the distiller studied the little cargo, as though weighing her up. Then he stared at the poor woodcutter’s wife before smiling and taking his leave, though not without raising his moleskin cap and cheerfully announcing: “Good day to you both!”
15
On that particular morning, shortly before dawn, the comrade in the moleskin cap, flanked by two militiamen weighed down with rifles from some earlier World War, or more plausibly from the time when the Chinese first invented gunpowder, all three, then, came to take delivery of the little cargo. The woodcutter greeted them at the threshold. At first, he denied the charges. He claimed she was his daughter. One of the militiamen asked why he had not registered the birth at the town hall. He answered that he did not like filling in documents and so the child had grown, undocumented. At length, on pain of death, he confessed—the law is the law, comrade—he confessed, as I say, but as a special favor, he asked that he might hand the child over to his comrade, so that what had to be done might be done gently, so that the rifles would not alarm the little one or, above all, his wife. He ushered his comrade inside, calling loudly to his wife:
“It’s a comrade from the building site! Get the little one ready! And fetch our friends here a drink!”
The woodcutter’s wife appeared, holding the child, who instantly reached out to the woodcutter, who snatched up his ax and swung it at the distiller, while screaming to his wife:
“Flee! Take the child and flee!”
Again and again he brought the ax down on the moleskin that adorned his workmate’s skull. Then he stepped out of the cabin, his head held high, and lashed out at one of the militiamen. He felled the man like a rotten trunk. The other backed away, stumbled, fired a shot into the air, then aimed for the advancing woodcutter with his raised ax. His wife raced out even as the poor woodcutter crumpled, roaring:
“Run, my darling! Run! Save yourself! Save yourself! May God strike down all soulless, faithless men! And may—” his voice dropped to a whisper, “—may our little cargo live.”
16
Run run run, poor woodcutter’s wife! Run and clutch your fragile cargo to your heart! Run and do not turn back. No, no, do not look back at your poor husband as he lies in his own blood, or the three maggots split by his ax like rotten wood. No, no, do not glance back at the cabin that your woodcutter husband built with his bare hands from logs. Forget this cabin in which the three of you shared that all-too-fleeting happiness.
Run! But where? Where to run? Where to hide?
Run without thinking! Go, go, go! Run straight ahead, do not cry, do not cry, there is no time now for tears.