Chris Bohjalian - Skeletons at the Feast

Anna noticed that Theo was holding a wicker basket with a couple of biscuits in it and a porcelain mug filled with soup. It looked like it was beans with a little fatty meat floating on top. Theo started to hand it to her, but she brushed her brother aside.

“These two were probably scouts. Or artillery spotters,” Manfred said, motioning at the bodies in the straw. “Doesn't matter. We should join everybody else and get moving. Ivan isn't far behind.” He looked down at Callum. “You should take the rifle-and one of those bandoliers. And…”

“Yes?”

“And I'm sorry if I seemed a little callous just now. I've seen a lot and sometimes I forget myself.”

The Scot nodded, grabbed the firearm, and pushed himself to his feet. Manfred took Balga's reins in his hands and started to lead the animal back toward the wagons.

“How do you feel?” her mother asked her. “Can you travel?”

“Of course I can travel. I don't have a choice now, do I?”

“Would you eat something then? Please?”

She shook her head. “Later, maybe.”

“And you really must drink something.”

“Oh, no, none of you need to help me,” Manfred was saying. “I'll get the feed bags on the horses, I'll get them harnessed to the wagons. I'll throw the blankets and quilts in the back. You all: Just keep chatting and dawdling.”

“I'm coming,” Callum yelled out to him, and then he went to assist the German soldier, passing by her without saying a word.

“What should we do with those men?” Mutti asked, and with just a small twitch of her head she motioned down at the ground. “We can't just leave them here.” Theo was staring at the bodies, too. A small, thin rivulet of blood had begun to trickle across the frozen ground beneath the corporal; a stain the color of rotting cherries-more black than red-was waxing imperceptibly into a moon around the crater in the lieutenant's chest.

“What, you want to bury them, Mutti? Like your Luftwaffe pilot?”

“Is there time? You said they weren't going to harm you.”

She was still shivering, and she honestly didn't know anymore whether it was because of the cold or because she was sick or because she had been surprised as she woke by these two enemy soldiers. But she didn't care. She knew only that she was miserable. Still, she reminded herself that her mother was miserable, too. Her mother was losing, in essence, a lifetime's worth of work-her home, the farm, and everything there. Meanwhile, two of her three sons and her husband were off fighting the Russians somewhere.

She glanced over at Callum and Manfred and saw that it was going to take them a few minutes to attach the animals to the wagons. She was more proficient than either man with the horses and so she went to them. She told them that she and Theo could finish harnessing the horses if they could dig a grave for the Russians. She reminded them that they had brought a shovel from Kaminheim.

“I know I would want my husband and my sons to have decent burials if they were killed somewhere far from home,” Mutti added.

Manfred dropped the reins to his sides and folded his arms across his chest. “You would?” he asked.

“Yes, absolutely.”

“No, I don't think so. Forgive me. But if we bury those two, their wives and mothers-whoever-will never have any idea what happened to them. At least not for a very, very long time. But if we leave them where they are, someone will find them.”

“Besides, do you know how bloody hard the ground is?” Callum said. “Burying them would be no picnic, I promise you. It might not even be possible.”

From the road they heard an explosion, then another. Anna glanced reflexively in that direction-all the humans did-but the horses were already growing accustomed to the sound and barely looked up. She guessed the bodies would grow cold and then freeze before night. Or wolves might drag them away. Or crows might peck at the exposed flesh until it was gone.

“We could put markers where we've buried them,” Mutti said, and Anna wondered if her mother was envisioning precisely the same things that she was.

Manfred looked at Callum and then shook his head. He seemed beyond annoyed to Anna: He seemed downright disgusted. Nevertheless, he went to the back of the wagon and grabbed both the shovel and the pitchfork.

“Fine,” he mumbled, tossing the pitchfork like a baton to the POW. “We'll try to bury the damn Ivans. And then we are getting the hell out of here. Okay?”

“Thank you,” she said. “I know it must seem ridiculous.”

“The ground will be softer inside the barn,” he said to Anna. “We'll bury them there. As your mother suggested, we'll put their IDs on the marker,” he added, his tone softening slightly, his face losing its severe cast. “You're…”

“Yes?”

He clasped his hands behind his back as if, she thought, he were a boy pretending to be a man. Or, maybe, because otherwise he would have reached out to touch her when he spoke. “It is ridiculous. But you and your mother are kind to want to do this. And kindness is in short supply these days.”

Then he walked into the barn, muttering something to Callum, and she heard only the very tail end. It didn't make sense to her, at least not completely. It was something about her and her family as Germans. As those people. As something other than him, as if he weren't a German himself-or, possibly, as if he no longer wanted to define himself as one. She kept thinking about this as she wrestled the horses into their harnesses, wondering what he had meant. She made a mental note to ask him about it at some point, perhaps when they had once again put some distance between themselves and the Russians.

THE SKY WAS AS RED AS HOT COALS, AN UNDULATING river of crimson, and Cecile was confused. For a brief moment she thought it was the end of the day and the sun merely was setting. But as she staggered half-awake through the front doors of the train station she realized it was still dark to the west and it was the eastern sky that was alight. Yet clearly it wasn't morning, either. And, besides, when had she seen a sky like this at daybreak?

“That must be Berent. The whole village must be on fire,” Jeanne was murmuring, and she sounded more awed than frightened. Berent was no more than eight kilometers behind them. Around Jeanne the female prisoners were starting to form into lines.

Cecile vaguely recalled encouraging her friend to curl against her for warmth when they had gone to sleep a few hours earlier on the cement floor of the train station. When the guard had kicked her awake just now, it had taken her a moment to realize that Jeanne already was gone. Up and about. Apparently they were not going to wait any longer for the train to arrive that-the guards had told them-was going to take them to their new destination. And so the prisoners were being assembled outside in the cold, and once more they would resume their trek west on foot.

“I wonder if there was an ammunition dump in Berent, or an arsenal, maybe,” Jeanne was continuing. “So many of the buildings there were stone. Otherwise, I don't think the town would go up like that.”

Cecile nodded and took her place in line with the other women in the road before the train station. There were two streetlights and she was surprised they were on. Usually in the night the Germans dimmed everything to protect themselves from air attacks. She saw that one of their male guards, that bastard walrus named Pusch, was speaking to a pair of young German soldiers she'd never seen before who were sitting atop motorcycles. The three of them were using a flashlight to study a map, evidently deciding which roads were safest.

“There was an SS company back there,” Jeanne said. “In Berent. I just heard. I wouldn't be surprised if they set the whole town on fire themselves. You know, leave nothing for the Russians? Or maybe they're just going to fight to the death.” She spat on the ground and then rubbed her hands vigorously over her arms. “Well, good riddance to them. Good riddance to them all.”