The Song of the Stork

by Stephan Collishaw

  She passed in and out of sleep. Sleeping she dreamed fevered, suffocating dreams she struggled to be free from, but when she woke, the pain in her head and her body and the cold so tortured her she longed once more for sleep.

  At one point, she was aware that a face appeared above her and wildly she murmured her brother’s name.

  “Josef?”

  The air barely stirred from her lips and the face disappeared. When she woke next she felt warmer. Her sleep had been less fitful and she felt a slight easing of the pain in her body. She turned and realised she had been covered with something. Rising, she found an old cover had been laid carefully across her. She pulled it tight and slipped once more into darkness, this time solid and deep, so when she woke finally it was with a gasp, as if she had risen from some deep hole, or from the depths of the sea, or in fact, from death itself.

  Yael sat up, picked the crust from her eyes and gazed about blearily. It was barely light, but she could not tell whether it was morning or evening. She gathered the corners of the blanket around her and leaned back against the wooden boards of the hencoop.

  He brought me a blanket, she thought.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, the words steaming pleasantly on the bare skin of her hands. Almost instantly her eyes fell on the paper lying on the floor of the hencoop close to the door. Without needing to read it, she recognised the ornate gothic script, the poor print. Juden. Vermin.

  Coming as it did, after the kindness of the blanket, Yael found herself not afraid, nor hurt, but rather angry. She felt a fury mounting within her. Fury at the author who had misspelled szkodniki, at the typesetter who had done his job incompetently, at the arrogance of the Germans, at the mute for bringing her the blanket and this warning. She shuffled forwards, holding the blanket tight around her and poked her feet through the door of the hencoop.

  It was evening. The sky was covered with a dark, thick smear of cloud. The air was damp with rain, but warmer than it had been. Candlelight illuminated the kitchen window faintly. Boldly, Yael trudged up the path, her feet soaking in the thick grass and stood at the closed door of the house. She paused and took a deep breath. Her heart was pumping and her hand trembled as she lifted it and rapped on the door so hard her knuckles hurt.

  6

  From the other side of the door Yael heard a sound. The scuffing of feet on bare boards. She stood back a pace, expecting the door to spring open, but it did not. After a few moments she stepped forward and knocked again, more gently this time, not because she was less determined, but because her thin, pale knuckles ached from the previous blow.

  He stood on the other side of the wood and she could hear his breathing, laboured, hard, frightened. He cleared his throat continuously. She rested her head against the central panel and listened to him.

  “Open it,” she whispered. Then louder, more stridently, “Open the door.”

  There was a short pause and the clearing of his throat ceased. I’ve scared him now, she thought, but a moment later she heard a movement and the door handle turned. She stood back and watched as it opened a fraction. His eye appeared in the gap. He stood as a small child might, left alone in his home, answering the door to a stranger. At once Yael felt the anger subsiding in her, replaced by a whisper of pity.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  He looked out at her, not moving. The door opened no wider, but also it did not close and for that Yael was thankful; it bore in her a splinter of hope, a morsel of comfort.

  “Please,” she whispered through the gap.

  He pressed the door closed carefully, quietly.

  She stood looking at its sudden blankness, unsure of what would follow. She heard his feet move away and realised no bolts had been shot, no key had been turned in the lock. She could, she thought, push open the door and walk in.

  When the mute opened the door again, he opened it wider. Yael’s eyes flicked over his shoulder and scanned the room. It was a simple kitchen, a table in its centre, solid and large. On the table stood a candle, by the side of it a book, upturned so the pages fanned out against the rough wood. The candle was not lit yet and the room was shrouded in the oncoming darkness of evening.

  Into her hands he pushed a small bundle, a paper bag. She grasped it and pulled it close against her body without looking at it. He turned away immediately and closed the door, quietly, gently, but firmly.

  Yael turned and walked back to the hencoop. Inside, in the twilight, she opened the bag and pulled out some dark rye bread and a lump of cheese. Something cold touched her fingertips and reaching to the bottom of the bag she found a short, sharp knife.

  She did not use the knife to slice the bread and cheese into neat sandwiches, as perhaps he imagined she might, but bit hungrily into the crust of bread and quickly devoured all of it, along with the cheese. The hunger was too consuming for her to be patient. Her stomach hurt when she had finished. She retched and thought she was going to be sick. She put her hands across her mouth as if to keep the little sustenance within her, as if she might force it back down should it come up.

  Later she curled up, pulling the blanket tight around her. From the inside of the jacket she wore, she took out a photograph she had taken from her bedroom and placed it on the dirty floor of the hencoop before her. Josef stood tall and handsome in the photographer’s studio at the end of Warsaw Street. His hand rested on the back of an empty chair, the other shoved nonchalantly into the pocket of his trousers. His suit was sharply cut, she noticed, his hair neatly combed back, just the faintest hint of the wisp of an unruly curl attempting to break free and fall across his high forehead. The corner of his lips was turned up in a grin.

  “Josef,” she murmured, kissing the torn and creased photograph gently. “Don’t forget me Josef. Come back for me.” She did not doubt he would. That faith burned irrepressibly in her bosom. He would not forget her, she knew, she believed with her whole heart. He would come on the back of a horse, smart in his Red Army uniform. He would save her.

  The next morning Yael woke to find the mute had left a cup of milk and crust of bread just inside the door of the coop. Though the night had been cold, the blanket had kept the sharpness of it off and she had managed to sleep fairly well.

  She ate the crust of bread and drank the milk less hastily, taking pleasure in their taste, and when she had finished she did not feel sick. The strength, she could feel, was beginning to return to her limbs. She had recently been suffering sharp shooting pains whenever she flexed a limb or moved her head too quickly. But movement was a little easier too.

  Later she pulled a bucket of water from the well and took it into the forest. She stripped away some of the layers of clothes and bathed herself as best she could. Using her fingers, she tidied her hair and plaited it loosely but as neatly as she could. It had grown longer over the summer and autumn months. As she washed herself, she could see just how much her body had changed. She could see the bones, angular and ugly, jutting out almost piercing her pale, transparent skin. She traced a finger along her ribs.

  The mute left her some more food at the end of the day. She was aware he watched her nervously. He seemed content so long as she did not approach the house or show herself too visibly. That was perhaps why he brought her the food, she thought, to keep her from knocking on his door again. To keep her from coming out looking for it.

  For some days they lived like that. Yael hid for the most part in the hencoop, venturing out only to draw water, or occasionally to walk in the deep stretch of woods behind the house where there was little chance of her being seen. Aleksei would leave her food, morning and evening; bread, occasionally cheese, once the end of a sausage, pork which she agonised over for a day before the scent of it overcame her reluctance and she ate it, finding the meat difficult to swallow, not just because of her anxiety and repugnance, but because it was chewy and hard and did not dissolve in her mouth as the bread did, or disintegrate like the cheese.

  She began to think they could last like
that, though the weather was growing colder by the day, and there had even been a hint of snow. She found a store of hay in a side shed, whilst out exploring one evening. She had taken to moving around after darkness. Cautiously she would approach the house window and watch him sat there with a book, reading by the light of a candle stub. Once she was sure he was occupied, she felt safe to move around. The shed door had been difficult to open, the bolt having rusted. Inside it was dark and dry. The room was well sealed and warmer than the hencoop and she considered staying there, but worried it might prompt the mute to attempt to get rid of her again.

  Pressing the door open as wide as it would go, she felt around, seeing more with the tips of her fingers than with her eyes. On a shelf she discovered a stack of what she took to be books, thick with dust. In the corner she found hay, brittle, dry and old. She took an embrace full and stuffed it through the small door of the hencoop, returning for more. When she had pressed three arms full into the coop, she quietly closed the door of the shed and attempted to slide back the bolt. It was too difficult though and all she could manage was to edge the tip into the metal ring on the doorframe, enough to stop it from swinging open in the breeze.

  That night she worried the mute would discover the drawn bolt the next morning. She slept fitfully, despite being warmer in the bed of hay. When she woke, it was later than usual and fully light. A noise had pulled her from a dream of Rivka. She lay still for some moments, the image of the woman’s face drifting across the closed lids of her eyes. A voice startled her. It was close, not more than a few feet from the hencoop.

  She sat up sharply, her heart thumping. Before she even pressed her face to the crack between the boards she knew it was German soldiers.

  7

  The mute stood by the door of his house. His dark hair stood out wildly from the sides of his head, as though he had been dragged from his bed, his chin was rough with stubble and his eyes wide. He wore dark trousers, but the belt, Yael noticed, hung loose and his shirt was unbuttoned. She saw at once he had not betrayed her to the Nazis.

  There were six or seven smartly dressed German soldiers. They milled around the farm, opening doors, calling crisp commands. A large, fair-haired soldier had slid back the bolt of the outhouse from which Yael had fetched hay the previous evening. Looking out now, through the narrow gaps between the boards, Yael noticed the thin trace of hay she had trailed across the field.

  The morning was dry, but the sky overcast. Large clouds moved south, stained and heavy. Snow was imminent. At the top of the path Yael noticed a civilian, a poorly dressed man in his mid-thirties. She vaguely recognised him from the town. The German soldiers called up to him. Reluctantly he made his way down to the house. One of the Germans barked at him in Polish.

  “Well?”

  The man took his cap off and held it tightly in his hands, screwing it around, as if it were a wet dishcloth. He glanced at the mute in the doorway and then away, settling his gaze on the soldier’s polished boots.

  “There were some of them in the woods,” the Pole stammered. He nodded in the direction of the woods on the other side of the road at the top of the farm. “Last night, the night before. They’ve been around local houses demanding food.”

  The soldier turned to the mute.

  “What have you seen?” His tone was impatient. He scarcely glanced at Aleksei’s dishevelled face, his eyes casting around instead, flicking from window to doorway, to the woods, the well. The other soldiers stood around, following the conversation. Two had moved down to the well. One kicked at a stalk of hay absent-mindedly.

  “Answer!” the German shouted.

  The mute stood back a pace. His shoulders rose and his eyes darted about frantically. She saw them sweep across to the hencoop, linger a moment and then move away.

  The German stepped forward and punched the mute hard in the stomach. He doubled up and fell with a grunt to the ground.

  “Do you know I could have you shot for refusing to answer?” the German barked. “Do you know what the price is for sheltering vermin?”

  The Pole tried to speak, he held up his hand lamely, but the German turned on him viciously, snapping the clip from the leather holster at his waist, from which he half drew a pistol.

  “The Poles are no better,” one of the soldiers at the well muttered. “It’s like rats sheltering fleas.”

  The other soldier laughed softly. In the hencoop Yael’s pulse raced. The German was more or less understandable, similar to her native Yiddish.

  The German interrogator turned to the two by the well. “Search the house,” he yelled. “See what you find.”

  “He’s a crazy one,” the Pole finally stuttered, nodding at the mute. “He don’t speak, never has.”

  The German cocked his head to one side and gazed at the figure on the floor. The mute’s long hair hung over his eyes. He was muttering, coughing, choking, the sounds arising like the bubbling of a brook.

  “Mentally retarded?” the German said.

  “He’s not dangerous, or nothing,” the Pole interjected quickly, his voice shaking with nerves. “It’s just that he don’t never seem to have learned to speak.”

  “Speech,” the German said, taking a clean handkerchief from his pocket and blowing his nose with it. “Speech is what makes us human. It is what defines us. It is what civilises us. Without speech we are what? We are no better than beasts, no more significant than dogs, than pigs.”

  “Well I don’t know about that,” the Pole said. He was shaking his head and realised the German was humouring him. Despite the cold, a line of sweat glistened on his forehead.

  The mute had got to his feet. He was taller, and much broader than the German. He brushed his hair back from his face and attempted to tidy his clothes. From behind him the two soldiers pushed out of the house.

  “There’s nothing in there,” they said, “just a whole pile of books.”

  “Books?” the interrogator laughed. “What would this dog want with books?” He fingered the pistol in its holster and seemed to be considering. “We should take him in,” he said. “It’s not right to leave him here, he’s no more than an animal.”

  “Leave him be,” another of the soldiers remonstrated, “we’ve got enough on looking for these partisans.”

  The interrogator shook his head, as though it was against his better judgement. “You wouldn’t leave a stray dog, would you, to starve to death? It’s better to kill it. Put it out of its misery.” A thought seemed to strike him. “And what if he breeds? What then? We would end up with a whole race of them! Mute!”

  The other soldiers laughed. “I could see the benefit of it,” the joker said, nodding his head in the direction of the Pole. “Anyway, don’t worry, the only thing he’s going to be having sex with out here is one of the pigs.”

  As they turned to leave the mute reached out and touched the arm of the interrogator. The German jumped back and wiped his sleeve as if disgusted. The mute pointed towards the hencoop, a strangulated noise tearing his throat. Yael froze. The mute moved quickly down the path towards the small wooden building. Yael shuffled to the far corner, pushing her back tight against the boards. Her heart was thumping, and yet the blood seemed to have drained from her face. By the house the group of German soldiers looked on bemused. The mute paused a moment by the small door of the hencoop. He glanced back over his shoulder. Opening the door his arm snaked inside. Yael whimpered. The hand reached up, feeling along the shelf, between the sitting hens and quickly, expertly, extracted a number of fresh eggs.

  Yael did not see the mute as he made his way back up to the farmyard, his arms full of the eggs. She heard though the sound of the laughter, of their receding feet. The cough of an engine and then silence.

  The air hissed from Yael’s lungs as she exhaled. She pressed her forehead against the boards. For some moments she struggled to take control of her breathing. Her vision blurred and she thought she was going to faint. Slowly her pulse settled and she leaned back against th
e side of the coop, her eyes closed.

  Later when she looked out, it had started to snow. Thick flakes that fell heavily and rested on the grass like down, not melting, so that a few minutes later they had begun to join up, forming small white islands, spreading, colonising the back field. A thin column of smoke rose from the chimneystack of the farmhouse. The mute appeared in the window, his face black against the darkness. He disappeared but a few moments later the door opened.

  The footprints he left in the snow were large. He stopped at the hencoop and opened the flap. His face appeared in the opening. He beckoned her gently. Without saying a word she followed him up to the house, lingering for a moment on the threshold. He took her arm and gently pulled her in, closing the door behind her.

  8

  A breeze picked up, blowing the snowflakes against the window of the kitchen. The temperature had dropped so the flakes were crisp and heavy and tapped against the glass. Yael sat on the stool the mute offered her, by the large wooden table. She watched him as he stalked about the kitchen. His movements were slow and deliberate. Often he went to the window and gazed out, or opened the door and stood watching, listening.

  He did not seem to know how to behave with Yael. On the one hand he clearly did not want her there and seemed more comfortable in ignoring her presence. On the other hand he seemed bound by some innate sense of good manners that forced him to share with her the basic dinner he prepared for himself and a cup of strong Russian tea.

  The mute, it seemed, did not own two cups. For some few minutes he was confounded by this and stood between the tiled stove on which the water was slowly boiling in an open pan and the table on which he had placed the cup and a paper bag filled with loose tea. Yael, seeing his discomfort, shook her head and indicated he should not think about her. Finally however he found a small soup bowl, which he reserved for himself.