no reason. All of a sudden I felt proud of them, as if they, too, might feel proud of me. Proud because my ear had had children, because out of all the 68 beds in the barrack these mice were born in mine, and out of all people they wanted me as their father. They lay there by themselves, I never saw a mother. They made me ashamed, because they trusted me so fully. I immediately felt that I loved them and I knew that I had to get rid of them right away, before they ate up the bread and before anyone else woke up and noticed.
I lifted the tangle of mice onto the bread cloth, cupping my fingers like a nest in order not to hurt them. I crept out of the barrack and carried the nest across the yard. My legs shook as I hurried to keep from being spotted by a guard or smelled by a dog. But my eyes never left the cloth, so that I wouldn’t drop a single mouse. Then I stood in the latrine and shook the cloth out over the hole. The mice splashed into the pit. Not a peep. I took a deep breath. Done.
When I was nine I found a newborn gray-green kitten on an old carpet in the farthest corner of our washroom. Its eyes were stuck together. I picked it up and stroked its belly. It hissed and bit my little finger and wouldn’t let go. I saw blood. I squeezed back with my thumb and index finger—I think I squeezed as hard as I could, around its neck. My heart was pounding, like after a fight. Because it died, the kitten caught me in the act of killing. The fact that it wasn’t intentional only made it worse. Monstrous tenderness gets tangled in guilt differently from intentional cruelty. More deeply. And for longer.
What that kitten has in common with the mice: not a peep.
And what sets the kitten apart from the mice: with the mice it was all about intent and compassion. With the kitten it was resentment: wanting to pet and winding up bitten. That’s one thing. The other is compulsion. Once you start to squeeze, there’s no going back.
On the heart-shovel
There are many shovels, but the heart-shovel is my favorite. It’s the only one I named. The heart-shovel can’t do anything except load or unload coal, and only loose coal at that.
The heart-shovel has a blade as big as two heads side by side. It’s shaped like a heart, with a large scoop deep enough for five kilos of coal or the hunger angel’s entire backside. The blade has a long, welded neck where it joins the handle. For such a big blade, the heart-shovel’s handle is short. It has a wooden crossbar at the top.
With one hand you hold the neck and with the other you clasp the crossbar at the top. Actually I should say at the bottom, because I think of the blade as being the top, the handle isn’t so important, it can be held closer to the ground or off to the side. So, I grip the heart-blade high on its neck, and the crossbar low on the handle. I keep the two ends in balance, the heart-shovel teeters in my hand like a seesaw, the way my breath teeters inside my chest.
The heart-shovel has to be broken in, until the blade is completely shiny, until the weld on its neck feels like a scar on your hand and the shovel becomes an extension of your arm, its weight in balance with your body.
Unloading coal with the heart-shovel is completely different from loading bricks. With the bricks all you have are your hands, it’s a matter of logistics. But when it comes to coal, the tool you use—the heart-shovel—turns logistics into artistry. Unloading coal is an elegant sport, more so than riding, high diving, or even the noble game of tennis. It’s like figure skating. Or perhaps pair skating, with the shovel as your partner. A single encounter with a heart-shovel is enough for anyone to get swept away.
Unloading coal begins like this: when the dump gate comes crashing open, you stand off to the left and jab your shovel in at a slant, with one foot on the heart-blade as though it were a spade. You clear a good two feet of room and then climb onto the wooden bed. Now you can start shoveling. All your muscles