Food banished terror from the Hutsuls’ souls. The army was not so bad, since it even fed you with meat, and soup, and beans. At least you knew you were not serving for nothing.
After issuing the rations, head chef Lance Corporal Mayer noticed that he still had thirty-six portions on the wooden counter, not counting those put aside for the detainees. What did that mean? Had the administration made a mistake? That was impossible, the administration never made mistakes. What then? Perhaps not all the new arrivals had reported to the mess?
That was actually the case. Not everyone had reported. Thirty-six men could not stomach that dinner. They found the mere sight of the meat repulsive. And even though they knew it was not pork or hare or venison, or meat of the weasel, eagle, griffin, ostrich or owl, or of any other animal that does not chew the cud or have a cloven hoof and is therefore unclean—it was from the ox, which chews the cud and has a cloven hoof—yet they did not want to touch it. For how could they be sure that the muscles and all the veins of the ox had been removed before it was cooked? How could they be sure? No, there was no such certainty. The meat had probably been cooked in its own blood along with the veins. But did not the Lord say unto Moses, “Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off”?
Thirty-six reserve militia recruits declined to eat the soul of an ox, so as not to die and lose their own souls. And when was death more likely than in these times of war? And who was going to suffer it if not the soldiers of His Imperial and Royal Highness, who on enlistment had been assigned to category “A”? And although the Sons of Israel (including those who failed to observe the rituals of cooking) would not be the only ones to perish in the war, they might be more likely to die. Of course, this whole war was not kosher and it reeked of sins a hundred times worse than eating unclean food. Flesh, veins and all, was wallowing in rivers of its own blood and the slaughter of human cattle was by no means according to ritual, no! But as long as the Jewish bodies wore kaftans rather than uniforms, as long as Discipline did not force them to eat, they could and must abstain from everything unclean. As the ancestors of these thirty-six righteous men did, so would they. Tomorrow their beards would be shaved, tomorrow their side-locks would be cut off, and the Emperor would dress their submissive bodies in uniform, like shrouds. Tomorrow, but not today. Tomorrow they would be delivered to higher powers and they would therefore be free of the obligation to be kosher. And they would go to the regimental kitchen with their mess kits, like goyim, for their unclean meal.
And they would eat. One day the Emperor himself would answer to the Almighty for their tainted souls.
Although food is something we are accustomed to consider subordinate to so-called higher needs, a serving of beef may also provide comfort for the soul. Every meal prolongs our existence on this earth, offering our bodies the promise of their continuation. Otherwise the idea of last requests for the condemned would make no sense. How often they abandon the consolation of religion, the last rites rendering their souls immortal, to request immediately before the execution just one thing—pork roast, veal stew or fish. Perhaps they are subconsciously clinging to the false hope that it will enable them to live a little longer, that death would not so easily claim a healthy body containing freshly introduced life-giving substances. Perhaps, for those who do not believe in the immortality of the soul, food is the only drug capable of anaesthetizing the terrified soul?
Piotr Niewiadomski was not a condemned man in the true sense of the word. And he did believe in the immortality of the soul. But the hot beef consumed before the soup gave him courage to fight the terror that permeated the atmosphere of the whole garrison. It was not the fear of death. The chemical composition of the terror in the garrison could not be precisely defined. It was some invisible, odourless gas. It exuded from the flaking walls of the Farkas and Gjörmeky brewery, it wafted powerfully from the ten barracks buildings which stood in rows, one next to another, new, wooden, oblong, like giant coffins. In the shadow of these coffins, emitting an odour of resin, now sat uniformed men next to men in civilian attire, resting, eating and smoking. For the duration of mealtimes and while the food was being digested, an armistice with fear prevailed.
The men in uniform were very pleased by the arrival of their compatriots. The latter, for their part, were glad to find in Hungary so many of their own kind. A good number of them came from the Śniatyn district, from Iliniec, Biełełuja and Chlebiczyn. Hutsuls made friends with Hutsuls, Poles with Poles, Jews with Jews, German settlers from Mariahilf in Kołomyja and Baginsberg with Germans. People of the same nation recognize one another by their sense of smell. Hutsuls can sense Hutsuls, Jews can sense Jews at ten paces, even if they are wearing Turkish rather than Imperial uniform. It was heartening for all concerned when they mingled. For a moment both parties even accepted the illusion that the distance separating Hungary from Pokuttya had lessened and that the homes left in the care of their women were on the move and were to be found somewhere just around the corner…
The civilians brought a great deal of interesting news from their home, about their cattle, their wives, children and lovers, about the harvest and also about the war. It turned out that the battalion soldiers were actually less well informed about the war than the civilians. They were far away from the fighting, but any day now they would have to go to join it. The war had not started for them yet. It was just being born in the safety of the barracks courtyard, the surrounding stubble fields, the calm, sweet meadows and the shooting range. They had come here to refresh the strict ABC of war, which they had forgotten during the years that had passed since they had been on active service. Since that time a few new letters had been added to the ABC, but it had also been simplified. They already knew how to march, they were able to drop to the ground on command and get up again, to kneel and crawl on their stomachs; they were familiar with the Mannlicher and Werndl rifles, they could use small spades to dig trenches to protect themselves from gunfire. But above all they knew how to listen and keep quiet. On the other hand, the civilians had heard with their own ears the roar of real guns, and seen with their own eyes trains full of real wounded. For they had come from the war zone, from a land burning underfoot. This was the advantage they had over the battalion soldiers and they were proud of it.
The men in uniform talked about the great victory at Kraśnik that the commanding officer had solemnly announced in an order of the day. They were not very enthusiastic about it, somehow. The great victory at Kraśnik was all very well, but a matter of much greater importance was the weapons inspection scheduled for the next day. Only someone unacquainted with Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk could consider the victory at Kraśnik of greater importance than a weapons inspection. Only someone who had never seen Bachmatiuk squinting his left eye, applying his right eye to the muzzle to check the rifling, and checking for pollen, soot or rust, could take this ceremony lightly! The civilians did not yet know Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk, but they were also indifferent to the victory at Kraśnik. For them, everything taking place at the front line at the time was merely a prelude. The real war, unless it ended in the near future, would begin in earnest only when they took part in it. It could hardly be said that they had a burning desire to get involved. They could easily get over the fact that the greatest victories were occurring without them. Victory or defeat—they were as bad as each other. Not even Piotr Niewiadomski was so naive as to suppose that lives were not lost in times of victory too. He remembered from the Russo-Japanese War that victors die as well as the vanquished, sometimes even more of them. As they said in 1905, the Japanese fell “like flies” at Mukden. Piotr had never seen any Japanese, but he had seen flies expiring on long yellow strips of honey-covered flypaper. He had himself hung up such flypapers in the stationmaster’s office at Topory-Czernielica. He had thrown them in the rubbish himself too. The Japanese died like this, and yet it was they who won the war, not the Russians. So what did the Japanese corpses gain from such a great victory? Probably about as much as the dead flies.