Within her poor chest, against which she cradles the shawl containing her beloved little cargo, within her panting, heaving breast, the woodcutter’s wife feels her heart pound and pound and pound, then suddenly skip a beat. A sharp pain cuts her legs from under her, takes her breath away. She knows, she senses, that the hunters of the heartless are already tracking her, to snatch away her cherished little cargo.
She longs to stop, to fall to earth, to melt, to merge with the ferns, dissolve into the high grasses as, tighter and tighter, she hugs the little one she so loves. But fox cubs stand guard at her feet. They run, they run, they run, they are inured to running, to pursuing and to being pursued. They run, they tear up the ground, they run without fear, without reproach. Where? Where are they running to? Have no fear, they know how to get there, they know the path, the path to salvation.
Then, suddenly, the poor woodcutter’s wife and her precious little cargo find themselves on the edge of a part of the wood so dense it is considered impenetrable by all. The fox cubs, for their part, do not slacken their pace, they plunge into the thicket, bounding from root to root, knocking against the low branches, tripping over the dead branches that litter the ground.
Then a voice, a voice at once feared and hoped for, rings out:
“Who goes there?”
“The poor woodcutter’s wife,” she cries as the fox cubs scamper on.
“What does she want, the poor woodcutter’s wife?”
“Sanctuary! Sanctuary for me and for my . . . gift from the gods.”
The voice comes again:
“I heard gunshots. Were they aimed at you?”
“They wanted . . . they wanted to . . . they wanted to take . . .”
“Step forward! Walk without fear!”
“They wanted to . . .” The poor woodcutter’s wife is out of breath. Her voice deserts her, her legs give way. Even the fox cubs come to a halt, thwarted by the roots, by the brambles, by exhaustion.
The poor woodcutter’s wife longs to tell all to the man with the rifle and the goat and the broken face, to tell of her fears, of the heartless, and of the ax. She tries again, with difficulty:
“They wanted to . . . they wanted to take . . . so my poor woodcutter husband . . . and his ax . . . and he . . .”
The man appears.
“You need say no more, I know the blackness of men’s hearts. Your husband and his ax did their valiant best. And if your tormentors warrant, I too will do my valiant best.”
He shifts his rifle from one shoulder to the other and reaches out his arms.
“Give me your precious cargo and follow.”
The poor woodcutter’s wife tenders the child, and the old man with his rifle, his goat, and his shattered face receives her with a gentle dignity befitting one carrying a sacred object.
All three advance in silence. A clearing opens in the dense forest to reveal a garden that the poor woodcutter’s wife has never seen. She received her daily ration of milk on the outskirts of the forest, and it was here too that she deposited her bundle of sticks.
In this late spring, in this early summer, the fruit on the trees seems to stretch out toward the child. The flowers stand tall, offering themselves up to be picked, as though to comfort the poor woodcutter’s wife and her daughter. The gods are just on this side of the forest, she thinks. Yes, the gods can do good when they reflect and choose to do so.
Still cradling the child, the man walks toward a cabin, a cabin fashioned from logs just like her own, which stands next to a rock. He does not go into the cabin, but heads straight for the rock and steals into a grotto in which a diminutive goat, with large swollen udders, gambols about in joy at this visit.
The man with the rifle and the shattered face then sets the child down facing the goat. They are the same height. The man introduces them in this fashion: “Daughter of the gods, this is your wet nurse, your third mother.”
The delighted child hugs the goat, which melts into her arms, gazing into that distance where goats are wont to gaze. Then they bring their heads together and stand motionless, goat and girl, staring into each other’s eyes, forehead pressed to forehead, as the poor woodcutter’s wife sobs and the man with his gun and his goat and his shattered face whispers: “Why do you cry, poor woodcutter’s wife? Now you shall have all the milk you need for her, and you will no longer have to gather kindling. Granted, I lose a bundle of firewood, but I gain a playmate for my lonesome goat, so all four of us are better off. In this mortal world, to gain something is to lose a little something in the process, be it the life of a loved one, or one’s own.”
17
Day followed day; train followed train. In the overcrowded wagons, humanity lay dying. And humanity pretended to ignore it. Trains came and went from every capital city on that vanquished continent, but the poor woodcutter’s wife was no longer there to see them.
They came and went, night and day, day and night, and no one showed the slightest interest. No one heard the cries of the transported, the sobs of mothers mingling with the death rattles of the old men, the prayers of the credulous, the whimpers and terrified screams of children separated from parents who had already surrendered to the gas.
18
And then, and then, the trains ceased to run. And having ceased to run, they ceased to deliver their wretched cargo of shaven heads. No more trains, no more shaven heads. Meanwhile, our hero, former father of twins, former husband to his beloved wife, now suddenly a former shaver of heads, collapsed, overcome by starvation, sickness, and despair. Around him, the scant survivors who were still conscious murmured: “We must hold on, hold on, hold on, and hold on some more, it is sure to end in the end. Already we can hear the distant roar of cannons.” A comrade even whispered into the canal of his ear: “The Reds are coming, the Death’s Heads will end up shitting in their boots.”
In the meantime, those same Death’s Heads forced them to dig trenches in the snow so they could burn the glut of corpses piled high around the crematoria, which they were forced to hastily destroy so that, along with these surviving witnesses, they might eliminate every trace of their monstrous crime. Hair that only yesterday had been so prized went unharvested. Worse still, the hair that was already packed, ready for use, went unshipped. It piled up, abandoned, next to the mountains of spectacles, wedged between the heaps of men’s, women’s, and children’s clothes. They too had to disappear.
Hold on, hold on, hold on, it is sure to end in the end. Now he too longed to disappear, to end, to end, to end. Night and day, he was delirious. As he tramped through the snow he was delirious, as he dug he was delirious, remembering, worse still, reliving the fatal moment when he had torn one of his twins from his wife’s arms, endlessly reliving that moment when he had tossed the child from the train into the snow. That snow through which he now plodded, plodded, as he dug the hole where he in turn would eventually be burned. Why, why, why that frantic, fatal gesture? Why not accompany his wife and their two children to the end, to the ends of this journey? To rise together, the four of them together, to rise into the heavens in plumes of smoke, dark, oily smoke? Suddenly, he collapsed. At the risk of their own lives, two comrades dragged him into a nearby shack so that he would not be hurled, still half-alive, into the flames.