They Went Left - Monica Hesse Page 0,38
nose and inhale the scent of cider. “Mrs. Yost said you would take me tomorrow when you go to pick up supplies,” I say. “That’s why I’m here. To tell you.”
I expect him to ask why I need to go, but after a small hesitation, he shrugs. “If that’s what she told you. I’ll leave early, though.” He’s turned back to Feather’s hoof, so the only sounds are a soft scraping and the occasional slaps of the horse’s tail against her flanks as she swats flies.
My father, swatting flies off Abek as my family waited to be separated in the stadium.
My bunkmates, swatting flies off me in the textile factory, when I was injured and too weak to work one day and I knew I’d be killed if I couldn’t get better.
“Josef. Your fight yesterday. What was it about?”
“Why is it important for you to know?”
Because I keep thinking about you, and I don’t know why.
“Because I’m going to get in a wagon with you tomorrow, alone, and I would like to know whether I’m going on a trip with someone dangerous.”
He opens, then closes, his mouth. “That’s… I suppose that’s reasonable.”
“I think so.”
“I’m not dangerous,” he says.
“Then what was your fight about?
Feather stamps one of her feet in the pan of water. A gentle stomp, with a gentle splash. Josef stops his work to make sure she’s okay. “It was about you.”
The flush that spreads across my collarbone stems from confusion, but it’s also pleasure. “Me? The fight was about me?”
“Yes. Something Rudolf said.”
“What was it?”
“I want to make sure you understand—it was the third time I’ve heard him say something like that,” he says. “The time before, the girl was only fourteen.”
This, I think, is a way of saying, I didn’t do it for you. Of saying, don’t be either flattered or alarmed, you were more of an excuse than a reason. “What did he say, exactly?”
Josef’s mouth twists. I think for a minute he’ll refuse to tell me.
“Rudolf said, ‘Put her in the right dress and she’s still fuckable.’ He said, ‘In the war, all Jewesses would fuck for a scrap of bread.’”
“In the war, all dirty men were glad for our starvation,” I spit back reflexively, overcome by anger at Rudolf’s disgusting sentiment. “Since they could use it to try to get us to fuck them.”
It’s only after my initial rage dissipates that I feel myself blush, surprised I’ve said those words out loud, less than a day after I also said piss.
Josef laughs, the same sharp, surprised laugh I heard yesterday. Maybe I cursed this time because I wanted to hear that laugh again. And suddenly I am laughing, too. About something dark and terrible and not at all worth laughing at, but I’m laughing anyway.
“It’s true, right?” I press. “A horrible man like Rudolf wouldn’t be able to get it any other way.”
“Something tells me that a horrible man like Rudolf has never gotten it under any circumstances,” Josef says. “He’s a true latrine-puncher.”
“A piss-goat,” I concur.
“I promise you, very few people here were sorry to see something happen to Rudolf.”
“So you’re, what—the avenger of the camp?”
“No.” Josef is still smiling, but there’s less mirth in his eyes now. “I’m not. I’m just the person who doesn’t really care if Rudolf hits me back.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“Nothing. It was a joke.” He turns abruptly back to his work, coaxing Feather’s final hoof out of the water. She nickers again, a noise that sounds almost like a laugh.
“Josef,” I say softly. “Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday, when I asked about the fight?”
He answers with his back to me again. “Because I didn’t want you to think I thought I was a hero,” he says. “And I didn’t want us to owe each other anything.”
“Oh.”
I’d thought his explanation would have to do with the vulgarity of it all, with his wanting to protect me from profane words. That’s what Dima would have done. Protected me. Gallantly, like a knight. Josef’s explanation—transactional, matter-of-fact—isn’t one I was prepared for. It throws me off balance.
Josef finishes Feather’s last hoof, moving to the other horse and telling me I can feed Feather the apple now.
I notice for the first time that he’s wearing the same shirt from the fight. It’s been laundered; the bloodstains are barely visible, and the two buttons have been sewn back on. Sewn clumsily—I can tell that from here—but attached nonetheless. The ripped pocket still hangs loose, though, a flap against his