The Most Precious of Cargoes

by Jean-Claude Grumberg

  “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.

  At such times, the woodcutter would pound his fist on the table, muttering into his beard in a voice made hateful by the moonshine he drank with his workmates: “I don’t want to see or hear that limb of Satan. That accursed offspring of the heartless! Shut her up, or I swear I will throw her to the swine.”

  Fortunately, thought the poor woodcutter’s wife, there were no longer any wild pigs in these woods, the hunters of the heartless having long since requisitioned and eaten them. Fortunately, too, the exhausted woodcutter would soon begin to nod off and slump, with his head on the table, there to sleep the sleep of the unjust.

  9

  And yet there came a night when, crying more than usual, the little cargo woke the woodcutter from his doze. In his great wrath, he went so far as to raise his hand to the child. The poor woodcutter’s wife caught the calloused paw of her poor husband in midair, held it suspended for a moment, and then gently laid it on the chest racked with the sobs of her beloved little cargo. Feeling his palm brush against this skin, so soft, so pale, the woodcutter tried to pull his hand from the grip of his wife, but she held it firmly in both hands against the little girl’s rib cage, all the while whispering in the ear of her husband as he roared that he wanted nothing to do with this demon spawn, this cursed heartless creature . . . the poor woodcutter’s wife, still gripping her husband’s hand, gently whispered:

  “Can you feel? Can you feel? Can you feel the tiny beating heart? Can you feel it? Can you feel it? It’s beating. It’s beating.”

  “No! No!” cried the woodcutter’s cap, fluttering wildly. “No! No!” howled his bushy beard. “No! No!”

  Still whispering, the poor woodcutter’s wife said: “The heartless have a heart. The heartless have a heart like you and me.”

  “No! No!”

  “Man or child, the heartless have a heart that beats inside their chest.”

  With a jerk of his shoulder, the woodcutter suddenly wrenched away his hand. He was still shaking his head, still hissing between clenched teeth, repeating the sad slogans of these dark days: The heartless have no heart! The heartless have no heart! They are stray dogs to be driven out with an ax! The heartless toss their children from the windows of passing trains and it is left to us, poor fools, to feed them!

  As he spat his blackest bile, he felt a troubling confusion, a warmth, an unfamiliar gentleness that this fleeting contact of his palm with the warm skin and pulsing heart of the little cargo had kindled in his own heart, which he now felt beating inside his chest. Yes, his heart was beating as though in time with the little heart of the little cargo, now finally calm in his wife’s arms and reaching out her tiny hands toward the woodcutter.

  The man recoiled in fear. When the woodcutter’s wife held out the child to him, he recoiled again, as though struck full in the chest, all the while unthinkingly repeating that he did not want to have to look at the child, did not want to have to feed it, even as he struggled to consign to the depths of his being the urge to respond to those outstretched arms, to take the child and press her against his face, against his beard.

  At length he regained his footing and, with it, his composure, and he relaunched his attack, warning his poor wife that tomorrow she would have to choose between him, an honest man and her husband, and the misbegotten abortion of a Christ-killer she was holding in her arms. And before the poor woodcutter’s wife could answer, he collapsed onto his bed and this time slept the sleep of the almost just.

  10

  The following day, no matter where he laid his hand, the woodcutter felt the heart of the little cargo beating against his palm. Now, in the silence of his heart now brimmed with an unfamiliar tenderness, he too called the little heartless thing his own little cargo. And when, on the rare occasion, he found himself alone with her, he would hold out a hesitant finger, which she would immediately clutch and refuse to let go of. In such moments, he felt a joyful and life-giving gentleness.

  Indeed, one day, as the little girl was crawling on all fours on the floor of the hut, she grabbed the cuff of his trousers and, using both hands, pulled herself to her feet, clutching one of the patched knees. The woodcutter could not stifle a cry: “Oh, Mother! Come! Come see! Come see!” The child, now holding on with only one hand, tottered, struggling to get her balance. The woodcutter was exultant: “Look at her! Look at her!” The poor woodcutter’s wife was also delighted and clapped her hands. The little girl tried to clap too, letting go of the patched trousers, and ended up on the ground, on her backside, in peals of laughter. The woodcutter, head over heels, scooped the child from the ground and brandished her like a trophy, squealing with joy and shouting “Hallelujah!”

  In the days that followed, the woodcutter and the poor woodcutter’s wife felt neither the yoke of time nor the cold, the hunger, the penury, or the wretchedness of their circumstances. The world seemed lighter and more secure despite the war, or perhaps because of it, because this war had given them the most precious of cargoes. All three shared a full bundle of happiness, decorated with a few wildflowers that the burgeoning spring offered them to brighten their home.

  11

  Bolstered by this joy, this happiness, the woodcutter now worked with greater zeal, with greater strength. His comrades warmed to him more, and despite his taciturn nature, they invited him more often to join their post-work libations. One of them, more enterprising than the rest, had set up a home still that produced wood alcohol. He provided the drink. I do not know the recipe for this homemade wood alcohol, and even if I did, I would not give it to you. Suffice it to say that drinking wood alcohol is not advisable and that, in large quantities, causes blindness. “What matter, we’ll just have to make the best of things, and besides it’s not as though there’s much worth seeing,” announced the amateur distiller. The comrades were brave and boozy. After the day’s labors, they raised their glasses, since at home they did not have a little car
go bequeathed them by the train and by the heavens that might lead them to cherish life, if only their own.

  On certain evenings, after their labors—glug, glug, glug—the woodcutter agreed to bend the elbow with his co-workers, reluctantly deferring the pleasure of returning to his beloved little cargo. In doing so, he shared his newfound happiness with his companions in misfortune—glug, glug, glug—and they would raise a glass, and then another. To what? To whom? One suggested they drink to the imminent end of this accursed war—glug, glug, glug—and then they drank to the extermination of the heartless—glug, glug, glug. One comrade announced that the crowded train they had seen returning empty was transporting heartless creatures from the seven corners of the world. Another went further: “Here we are, slogging our guts out for starvation wages, while the heartless are being ferried around for free on special trains!”

  At length, a third man clarified: The heartless killed God, they brought about this war! They did not deserve to live, and their accursed war would end only when the world was finally rid of them forever!—glug, glug, glug—To their demise!—glug, glug, glug—To the death of the heartless!—glug, glug, glug—they cheered in concert.

  Not quite in concert . . .

  Our poor woodcutter, husband to our poor woodcutter’s wife—since all were woodcutters and all were poor—our woodcutter drank but stayed silent. At once, the others turned to him, waiting to hear him speak. They did not have to wait long (glug, glug, glug). The woodcutter wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and then, in the silence, to his surprise, he heard himself speak:

  “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.

  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.