He was walking on his own behind a mule and when he saw us approaching he was frightened. It was Pavel who asked him if he’d like to help us build a hut and live in it with us. He said yes in a shy voice. I handed out cigarettes to everyone.
The company marched for three days in the falling snow, the bitter cold and the fierce wind. Then we cut down some trees to form a clearing.
We all began building huts. About thirty of them went up in the snow, forming a circle around the edge of the clearing.
We built ours following Pavel’s plans. Kyabine showed how strong he was. He got through more work than Pavel, Sifra and me combined. While the three of us paused to catch our breath, Kyabine valiantly kept going.
When we’d finished building our hut, we proudly contemplated it in the light of the fire that burned at the centre of the clearing. We walked all around it, congratulating one another, and then all four of us went inside and I thought to myself: That’s it, I’m not alone in the world any more. And I was right.
2
WE WERE OUT of the forest now. Winter was over and it is difficult to imagine how long and cold it had been. We had eaten our mules and our horses, and many of our men had died in the forest. Some of them died when their huts caught fire. Or they got lost when they were out hunting. Soldiers who went hunting later found their bodies. Of course some of the ones we didn’t find must have deserted. But I think in most cases they just got lost and froze to death.
The four of us were still alive and kicking, thanks to Pavel. He was the cleverest of us all. His plans for the hut were perfect, and he was even able to build a real stove using a metal barrel filled with engine oil. A real stove that worked well and didn’t smoke us out. But most importantly he’d found a way to pass the pipe through the roof without setting fire to it. Because that was how most of the other huts caught fire. Pavel had made tin tiles by cutting up our mess tins and then he’d nailed them to the roof around the pipe. So we’d had to sacrifice half of our mess tins and steal a few from the company in order to make those tiles. But we were still alive. And not once did we wake in the night, terrified and covered in sweat, dreaming that our hut was going up in smoke.
As for the tarpaulin that Kyabine had carried from Galicia to the forest, we used it to keep out draughts.
There was no peat in the forest. We had to shift large quantities of snow every day to uncover dead trees for fuel. The men who’d chosen to cut down the trees that grew nearby ended up with green wood, and they were a lot less warm than we were.
All winter long, we shifted snow and collected wood for our stove, and in the evenings we were able to play dice because we had a lamp and oil. Thanks to that lamp, we suffered far less from boredom than others in the company.
When the spring arrived, the company set fire to all the huts. Pavel, Kyabine, Sifra and I were sad as we watched ours burn. Not because we were leaving, but because that hut had kept us warm and alive through all those months.
As we walked away from the fire, I spoke in my head to my parents: Look at me, you don’t have to be afraid for me any more because I survived the winter and I have comrades now.
And we left the forest.
3
WE WERE OUT in the plain, sitting on a pile of old railway sleepers. The tracks were just in front of us. An armoured train had just passed. Some of the soldiers, standing on the running board, waved to us, their shirts flapping under their arms.
The camp was not far away. We’d built it at the edge of a pine wood. Our company’s commander was a shy man who left us to our own devices. We didn’t know what he used to do, before the war. I’m sure he always wished that the soldiers who’d got lost in the forest, and who we imagined frozen to death, had in reality deserted.
We were on that pile of sleepers, doing nothing. We were just happy that the winter was over and that we’d found this place to sit, and we were peacefully smoking our cigarettes. From time to time a flock of birds flew across the sky. We looked up and watched them disappear northwards. Soon they would be flying over the forest where we’d spent the winter. We probably all thought this, but none of us said anything.
As usual, Kyabine asked us for tobacco because he almost always lost his at dice, and had done ever since the first games in Galicia. It was Sifra who gave him the most. Pavel and I gave him some too, but not so often, and we liked to wait until he begged us for it. Kyabine was like a child when he asked us for tobacco. He was like a child in lots of other ways too, but when it came to tobacco he really was one.
‘Pavel!’ said Kyabine.
‘What do you want?’ Pavel asked him.
‘Roll me a cigarette.’
Pavel continued to stare straight ahead.
Kyabine insisted: ‘Pavel? Oh, Pavel!’
‘What, Kyabine?’
‘Didn’t you hear me? Please give me some tobacco.’
As I said, Pavel and I liked it when Kyabine started begging.
4
WE CLIMBED DOWN from the sleepers, picked up our rifles and set off across the fields. Kyabine was walking in front of me. He’d finally got a bit of tobacco from Pavel, and even from behind I could tell he was very happy that he could smoke.
We went to the pond.
Soon after that we heard Yassov, calling from behind. He too found it hard to make his way through the tall grass. He caught up and walked alongside us. We didn’t pay any attention to him because we already knew what he wanted. He reached into his pocket and took out a hand sculpted in wood, then showed it to us. We laughed because it was very big.
‘Why are you laughing?’ Yassov asked.
Pavel said: ‘It’s not your big fat hand we want, Yassov, it’s a fiancée’s hand.’
‘I can make it a bit smaller if you want.’
‘Bugger off, Yassov!’ said Pavel. ‘And take your hand with you.’
‘Yeah, bugger off,’ echoed Kyabine.
Yassov continued to walk alongside us. He wasn’t giving up. He stared seriously at the sculpted hand, turning it over, then said: ‘Listen, I think I can make it quite a bit smaller. You’re right.’
Kyabine started grunting in Yassov’s face, making strange sounds like a steam engine. Pavel, Sifra and I imitated him, and suddenly it was as if we were in a steam-engine factory.
So Yassov gave up trying to sell us the hand for tobacco. He stopped walking, and behind us we heard him shout: ‘Bloody idiots!’
His voice echoed in the air above the field and we continued advancing through the tall grass. Again, but more quietly, we heard him shout: ‘Bloody idiots!’
Yassov had started sculpting these women’s hands when we were in the forest. He’d sold several in return for food rations. With those hands, the men who didn’t have a fiancée were perhaps able to imagine that they did. As for the men who did have fiancées, well, perhaps it helped them to remember them.
Now we weren’t so short of food, it was tobacco that he asked for in return.
To start with, the hands he sculpted were quite pretty. But they were so delicate that, when the men slept with them, they broke, and then the men yelled at Yassov. That was why Yassov was sculpting more solid hands now. But the problem was they looked like men’s hands. Even Kyabine’s hands weren’t as big as those wooden hands. No one could possibly have wanted a fiancée with hands like that.