Chris Bohjalian - Skeletons at the Feast

Outside in the night there were great whistles of wind, but there was no longer the sound of the rain on the roof of the barn. “You're probably right,” said Leah, and briefly Cecile's heart sank. Then, however, the seamstress continued, “But the people here have seemed a little more uncomfortable when we've passed them. A little sickened, even. That's a good sign. Maybe we could find someone.”

“All we'd have to do is pass long enough to get a name-or an address.”

“Why not? We're just going to die if we keep on this way.”

Beside her Jeanne snorted. “For months you kept telling me to be strong. Be patient. All fall and all winter, that's all you kept saying. The Russians will get to us, the Russians will save us. Now you've changed your tune. Why?”

“Because I have a sense of where we are in Germany.”

“Oh, we're in Germany now, instead of Poland. That makes me feel much better. Much more confident.”

“This war is going to be over soon. The Americans and the British have crossed the Rhine. All we need is a place to hide for a little while. Till the summer, maybe.”

“Do we stay together tomorrow morning or do we separate?” Leah asked.

“I think we separate. Scatter.”

“Ah,” Jeanne muttered. “Very good. Then we will use our compasses and our radios to make sure we rendezvous at the same point in the woods.”

“We agree to return to this barn tomorrow night. At dusk. How's that? Then we walk back to the town we passed through earlier today. There was a church there. And so there must be a priest.”

Cecile felt Leah pressing her chest against her back, trying to spoon ever more tightly against her for warmth. “Do we have a signal?” Leah asked.

“You mean in the morning?”

“Yes. For when we escape.”

She contemplated this for a moment. “I don't think we need one. But in that moment when the guards are screaming for us to go to the bathroom and line up, that's when we leave.”

“We should go in different directions,” Leah offered. “And not at exactly the same second.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” Cecile said, pleased with all that the woman was contributing to the plan. “And so we'll do this? We'll leave?”

“Absolutely,” said Leah.

“Jeanne?”

There was a pause. “Jeanne?” She put her ear against her friend's chest, afraid that the woman had, once and for all, stopped breathing. But the chest rose and then fell, and with her head against her friend's body, she heard Jeanne informing her, “Don't worry, I was only thinking. Not dying. At least not immediately dying. But, yes, I'll go. I've thought I was going to die for six or seven months now, and I'm still here. Still starving. Still cold. At this point, I might as well expedite the process by trying to escape.”

THE FEMALE GUARDS were screaming at them to get up and get out, cursing them for either dawdling or moving too slowly, when most of the girls were moving as quickly as they could, and Cecile stood and started to stumble toward the wide barn doors, open now for the first time since they had been herded in here the night before. She could see that the skies were overcast and it was drizzling outside, and the sensation of proceeding toward the great square of light from the dark of the barn was reminiscent of walking through a tunnel. She glanced once at Leah, their eyes met, and she nodded. She tried to capture Jeanne's attention, but she couldn't find her: Already her friend had fallen behind. At least two girls were either incapable of rising or they had died in the night, and the female guard kicked once at each of their bodies and then bellowed for Blumer. He wasn't far away and Cecile passed him as she approached the entrance, shrinking against the door so she would not be in his way, while anticipating the sound of his pistol, two shots, in the coming moment. Then she looked back and saw Jeanne: The woman was plodding with the gait of a sleepwalker toward the entrance, her arms wrapped tightly around her frail frame and her hollow eyes blinking against the daylight. Cecile tried to catch her attention, too, because-and she felt guilty for even thinking such a thing, but it was a reality-the additional chaos that would occur when Blumer shot the women left in the barn might be exactly what she and Leah and Jeanne needed to disappear successfully into the woods.

Already the other prisoners were starting to squat in a line in the field to the south of the great structure, some silently and some straining. Others didn't bother to crouch, but simply stood where they were and allowed their pee to run down their legs. At this point, what did it matter? All of them seemed oblivious of the rain that was continuing to fall.

She saw Leah was moving to the end of the line, fading behind the woman at the very end, and then squatting. Sitting. Then-and here she felt her heart starting to pound-Leah was rolling along the wet grass, away from the prisoners and the guards. Inside the barn she heard the first shot and the birds on the peak of the barn flew high into the air from their perch. Cecile watched everyone reflexively turn toward the sound, and when she looked back toward the end of the line she saw that Leah was rising to her feet and starting to run toward the woods, her legs moving as they hadn't in years.

Quickly Cecile followed her lead. She went to the end of the line, took a spot beside-and then behind-the very last woman, and crouched like a toddler. She closed her mind to the smells all around her and breathed, as she did always at this moment of the day, only through her mouth. She had to pee badly, she felt pressure and pain in her groin, but she didn't dare start because she knew she wouldn't be able to stop. She realized that she had lost Jeanne-hadn't actually seen her emerge from the barn-and so she scanned the lines and the meadow, but she didn't see her friend anywhere. She guessed it was possible that for some reason the woman had remained inside, but it seemed that by now all of the prisoners who were living had been marched outside into the field.

The guards were hollering for them to finish their business and line up so they could be counted, and the woman before Cecile stood and started away, the back of her ragged trousers moist from the grass and brown with her feces. Cecile moved in the opposite direction. A foot, then two, crabwalking toward the woods. Still, however, she kept her eyes open both for Jeanne and for the guards. She honestly wasn't sure that she would be capable of rising to her feet in a moment-and in a moment she would indeed have to-and scurrying toward the woods if she didn't know for sure that Jeanne was escaping, too, because she was convinced that without her Jeanne would die. Her friend would simply give in to the pain and the hunger and the cold. Why not? Many of the prisoners did. Jeanne had given up perhaps a half-dozen times already and it was Cecile's encouragement alone that had kept her going. But any time now she would hear Blumer's second shot, and that would be her chance to run for the woods-and run she would, she told herself, regardless of whether she had seen Jeanne. She had to hope that her friend was already scuttling through the brush somewhere, scampering far from this motley column with whatever energy she could muster.

“You there! Stop, stop now!” It was one of the female guards roaring, and Cecile stood perfectly still, fearful that they had seen the way she had edged just a bit toward the forest. But it wasn't her they had noticed. Why would they? She was, essentially, still with the group. It was Leah. The guard had seen Leah.

“Now, stop!” the woman screamed again, but it was clear Leah knew she didn't dare. They'd shoot her anyway. Besides, the woods were no more than thirty meters distant. She'd be there in seconds. And so Leah kept running along the wet ground, and even when she heard the gunshot she didn't break stride. She didn't turn around to see that the male guard named Kogel had come up beside the woman who had ordered her to stop. There he was, his arm extended parallel to the ground, his pistol aimed at Leah as she fled. He was about to fire a second time, and Cecile knew he wouldn't miss twice. The idea entered her mind that she would be responsible for her friend's death-directly, clearly, unequivocally responsible-and she experienced a dagger of guilt so pronounced that it caused her to emit a small, choking cry. But then there was Jeanne. Beside the two guards. Or, rather, between them. Her friend wasn't in the woods, she was still back with the other prisoners. And she was pushing Kogel's arm upward toward the sky as he discharged the weapon once more, sending the bullet uselessly into the overcast mist as Leah disappeared into the woods.