“Thank you,” she says to the geese as she passes, placing their offerings in the bucket that she used to carry the grain. She has not eaten any eggs for weeks. When there are chicken eggs at the market, they are overpriced to compensate for the Russian military that expects them for free. With these precious deliveries, Rosalind is imagining making an omelet for Georg with the remainder of the bacon and the peas she has stored and used sparingly.
The sudden crunching of gravel alerts her to visitors, and a motor vehicle makes its way toward her, stopping in front of the house and several yards from the pen. The roofless vehicle idles as two Russian soldiers discuss something between themselves, one of them watching her carefully. She waits, her heart beating fiercely against the walls of her chest. There is no point walking to the door of the house, nor does she trust her legs to walk close to the car. This is the third time soldiers have come here since she returned from Berlin. The first was to search for German soldiers, the second time to inspect the property and the vegetables she grows behind the house.
She bites down hard so that they do not see her lips tremble, and she steps forward. One of them, the passenger, alights from the vehicle. The driver stays in, engine idling, revving occasionally. It is a good sign at least. They do not intend to stay long.
The soldier stops just short of the pen and waves her forward. Rosalind opens the gate and moves close enough to see that his fingernails are clean. He is young and handsome, possibly even younger than her, with dark hair and lashes, and light-brown eyes. His uniform is a light-tan color, with baggy trousers tucked into boots. He wears a small cap that has a small red badge.
“Geese,” he says slowly, in German, pointing behind her to the pen.
“I only have two.”
“We take.”
“But they are laying eggs.”
He looks at her briefly, then turns to the other soldier in the car. He says something in Russian. The other one barks back.
“When finish, you give,” says the young interpreter.
She nods, thinking it is now the end of the conversation, but the driver barks more Russian to the younger soldier.
“Who else here?” the younger one repeats in German.
The question confuses her briefly because she knows that both telling the truth and lying have consequences.
“We must have number,” he says more firmly.
“My husband and I. There are two.”
He calls back to the driver.
Rosalind’s breathing is shallow and fast, and her throat feels tight and dry. She nurses the bucket that holds the two eggs. She is already calculating the time it will take her to get to the front door if she needs to. Though she wonders what good it will do.
He nods again and notices the eggs in the bucket.
“Please have!”
Rosalind looks in the bucket and back at him, her blue eyes smaller with the weight of her frown. He sees this or seems to. His tone is suddenly softer and no longer a command.
“Just . . .” He holds up one finger. His brown eyes are crinkling slightly, his hand well away from his gun. She reaches inside the bucket and hands the soldier an egg. He nods and turns back toward the car.
She breathes out deeply, remembering another question posed to her in Berlin. She remembers the tone that was not soft at all. She remembers the sounds of another girl begging, and wanting to cover her ears. The Russian soldiers were not thinking when they came through the first time. Primal revenge drove their will as they stepped roughly over bodies of male children, bearing arms, kicking them to check if they were dead. She shivers slightly as the soldier climbs back into the vehicle with his oversized boots.
The click of the front door alerts her to Georg. He doesn’t move but stares at the men in the vehicle. Her husband is fully dressed in a shirt and trousers. He looks alert, undamaged, she thinks in the instant before she understands the danger here. His green eyes look greener, angrier in sunlight. He holds a rifle, not aimed at them directly, but raised partway upward from his leg.
The Russians stand up quickly from within the car, rifles braced and aiming.
“Wait! Stop! He is ill,” she says, tapping her own head. “He does not know who you are.”
“Tell him to put gun down!” says the soldier.
“It doesn’t matter. There are no bullets . . .”
The driver is shouting over her. He is not listening or doesn’t appear to understand her, and the younger one has again stepped out of the vehicle.
“I will get it from him. Please wait!” she says, putting up her hand toward the soldiers.
She drops the bucket that has the other egg and walks to the front door. Georg does not look at her, his eyes fixed on the men.
“Where is she?” Georg calls to them.
“Ignore him, please,” she says, frantically taking the gun from his hand and pulling back the bolt to show them there are no bullets.
The Russian outside the vehicle lowers his gun and brusquely waves her forward.
“Is he . . . from battle?” he asks while he reaches for the weapon from Rosalind.
“No,” she lies, understanding the missing word as “injured.” “He was not a soldier. I have already explained to others who have been here. He was attacked by thieves. I can get his card if you wish.”
The spokesman explains this to the driver who smiles scornfully.
“Kar-bang,” says the other Russian, holding two fingers in the shape of a gun toward his head. He laughs at his own joke, colder and desensitized by damage, but the younger remains serious, not yet over the fear of being shot.
“Good day,” says the young soldier before jumping over the car door and onto the passenger seat, taking Georg’s rifle with him. The older driver says something in Russian as he revs the engine to turn the car around.
“Inside!” says Rosalind to Georg. “There is nothing to see.”
He turns and heads back inside, and she watches and waits for the car to disappear.
As she bends to retrieve the dropped bucket, she sees the remaining egg is now broken, and pieces of shell float in a pool of yellow on the ground.
CHAPTER 4
STEFANO
In the late afternoon Stefano enters a track between the thick band of conifers that line the roadside. The trail opens up to a clearing at the edge of the river, and to the right it bends sharply before continuing briefly to finish near two houses nestled in woodland. Stefano considers the houses for a moment before he leaves the track to cross the clearing toward the water.
He peels the sleeping child off his back and lays him down, then steps down the embankment to perch at the edge of the water. He splashes water on his face and hair, and the boy, sleepy but awake, steps down to mimic him. Behind them, from this position, and through this sparse section of wood beside the river, he can glimpse the houses at the end of the path.
The house closer to them looks more neglected, possibly abandoned. Only weeds and the dying remains of a plant fill the small garden bed by the door. A pane of glass is broken on a set of windows on the top floor.
He waits and watches. The boy sits beside him patiently, watching Stefano’s movements and waiting for his next cue. He has a small narrow face, dark hair and hazel eyes, and thin limbs, and the skin on his nose is burned and blistering. His legs are infested with insect bites that have scabbed from scratching, and his knees are cut and bruised.
At dusk, a short while later, a light appears inside the farthest house at the end of the track, followed by puffs of smoke above a chimney. Stefano watches for lights to appear at the other house also.
Drab clouds smother the sunset behind the willow trees that hang dispiritedly above the river on the other side. Grayness looms, and Stefano estimates the time he has left before nightfall and the rain that will shortly follow.
He waits a few minutes more to make certain the second house is empty before turning to the boy who sits silently on the embankment, studying the darkening water below him.