Men of Snow (21 page)

The next day they walked deeper into the forest, memories still haunting him.

Automatically he followed these strangers.

Again when they stopped for the night he lay on the soft earth between the trees.

When he awoke the group of Poles was larger. They were crouched together talking in low voices.

He did not recognise any of the new ones. Again without thinking he went after them when they decided to move, in line, between the tall pines, trudging on all day with hunger beginning to take over, the tight emptiness stretching, demanding like thousands of tiny hands turning and twisting, begging to be given something, anything.

This time when they stopped he curled up on a bed of pine needles as though to protect his stomach from the hunger. He could not sleep because of the pain. All he could do was squeeze his legs up tighter. For a few minutes he would lose consciousness and then be awoken by the need to fill his stomach, a throbbing inside him, something he had never experienced before until he was remembering over and over cousin Ruth cutting the bread into thick slices, spreading a light smear of butter and then pouring out the strong tea. That’s all he wanted, continuously wanted, continuously remembered.   

‘Eat all of it,’ she had said, ‘Eat all of it,’ he heard again, ‘Eat all of it.’

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‘These are the clever ones,’ Uncle David often said, ‘Everybody goes on about artists and scientists but it’s rubbish. It’s these people who are the real creative ones. They hold the wonders of being practical. You can’t beat it. What you see are men of high skill solving problems by the minute. They’re brilliant and yet I pay them hardly anything.

His uncle’s workshop made everything needed in the town, furniture, window frames, barn doors, fencing, roof beams, floor boards, farming equipment, cartwheels, anything created in wood.

Leon was sitting on a packing box in the yard as weak snow slanted across the light from the lamps hanging from the main beam across the open doors of the workshop. With his gloves cut to leave the fingers exposed he tried to sketch what he was seeing. Even though it was cold he still had to try and draw what was in front of him. He loved to come after school to watch and sketch Uncle David’s carpenters. They appeared so confident and relaxed in what they were doing and yet to Leon the whole thing was a mystery.

He was now in his seventeenth year, stocky in build with a round face and black curly hair that was hidden under a fur hat he pulled far down over his dark eyes. In the summer he would wear light boots, baggy trousers, a waistcoat and collarless shirt. But as it got colder he would put on his long winter coat that came down to his ankles and heavier, padded boots. In the middle of his long nose was a small birth mark, a tiny piece of dark brown skin that often he would poke at in the mirror until he made it bleed.

‘So what’s education for?’ was one of uncle’s favourite questions, ‘Is it to produce people who just pass on knowledge from one generation to the next to do exactly the same? They actually produce nothing. Their world, like your father’s, is all in the mind, whereas here we have practical solutions to things that need fixing. These men are what education should be about. They build things. They change things. That’s what this country needs, more joiners and stonemasons and road builders and all the rest. That’s what schooling should be about.’

Leon was always uneasy with the men. To him they were magicians casting their wooden spells.

‘You should try it,’ uncle had told him, ‘So long as you don’t tell your father I suggested it. Become a part time apprentice. Old Petro will show you. Make a chair or a table or something.’

‘I couldn’t do it,’ was always his answer.

‘Nonsense,’ David laughed.

‘I just know I would be absolutely hopeless.’

‘My men are all Jews. They would help, would guide you. You can draw, so where’s the difference?’

‘I’m not good with my hands, not practical and I know I would just get everything wrong. Please uncle, don’t ask.’

‘It’s just a suggestion.’

‘I know.’

‘You’re a funny one Leon. For God almighty’s sake, don’t you turn out like your father, he, bless him, lives in a world that doesn’t exist.’

One side of the work shed was open onto the rest of the yard where carts and trucks were constantly on the move bringing in fresh supplies. There was always the smell of fresh sawdust and the oil used for softening the wood. Tools hung from the walls of the long work shed. Snow flurried across the lamp light. There were five craftsmen and three apprentices. They all knew him. He would often visit and sit there sketching them, remembering prints he had seen of some of Van Gogh’s figures working in the fields.

The wood glowed yellow in the light as the sky darkened and the men put on their coats and hats.

‘Tell your uncle to give us more money,’ was one of the requests when Leon was visiting.

‘Your uncle says you’ve not the brains to work here.’

‘Better than these lads starting who come every morning with eyes like pee holes in the snow.’

‘With your uncle we spend more time mending his drink shop than anything else.’

‘Any excuse for a quick swallow,’ muttered old Moses who had been working the longest in the yard. He would be silent for hours and then come out with some comment before going back into his silent shell. Leon enjoyed the sense around the old man of slowness and carefulness. Nothing was hurried. Everything was done to the best finish. Only once had Leon managed to capture something of the old man’s wrinkled face, a hurried drawing that emphasised his heavy brows and thick mouth.

It was the same with the rest of the men. They all took pride in their work. Leon knew that they carved their initials on the inside of the most important things they made. Their jokes were to pass the time. Leon loved to listen to their banter from one to the other. It was the apprentices who came off worse. They were no match for the older men when it came to a quick comment or joke.

But the snow was thickening. Leon had been at the work yard since finishing school for the day and the weather was worsening. Across the plains it was the winter winds bringing the snow from the East. He imagined the huge distances over which the icy winds had travelled. He stood outside the shed feeling his way into the thousands of miles of cold darkness in which his town Volnus and this work place was a tiny fragment. Here everything human was surrounded by the empty vastness. In a few weeks the roads would be blocked and the river frozen solid.

‘What’s the difference between Siberia and Poland?’ his friend Benjamin had asked.

Leon had no answer.

‘There isn’t one, stupid,’ his friend had laughed.

In the wood yard the work would soon be ending for the day. These men were the real artists, the creators who never considered how good they were. He had listened to them once discussing the building of a new house that was going to be constructed down near the river. They talked it through stage by stage. They could see it all in their imaginations, what materials were needed, what tools would be used, how many men would be on the job, how long it would take and every other detail. Leon was in awe of what they could do. He knew there were doctors and lawyers and teachers and every other job in the town, but to him these were the men who deserved all the respect. They built the town and its bridges and its farms. They were the ones upon whom everybody depended.

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In the morning he was aware of two men approaching. They stopped in front of him but said nothing. He knew they were trying to decide what to do with him.

‘I’m hungry,’ he muttered.

There was no response to this as they turned back to join the others.

That day the group was joined by others including women and children. He leant himself up against a tree watching the Poles as they began to build their temporary camp. He tried to overcome the hunger by concentrating on what they were doing. All of them began digging shelters. Some used their bare hands, others branches and a few with tools they had brought, digging into the soft earth, cutting through the roots of the high trees. They spent all day digging. At times Leon was lost in confusion at what was happening as he was sucked into the pains of hunger and started remembering meals he had eaten, started fantasising about huge platefuls of his favourite dishes, smelling them, feeling them going in his mouth to be chewed and swallowed, huge mouthfuls to fill his straining stomach.

By evening the group was still working at their holes that would lead to deeper dugouts underground. A late summer breeze wafted the pine branches. His eyes were filled by their patterns across a faraway sunset that sent orange shafts of light between the trees. The light was fingers stroking across his consciousness, dancing between the shadows, playing across his senses that had become so aware of movement and smells in the air and low voices from the others until later he caught the first odours of the food they were sharing between each other.

His throat was too dry to swallow, but his nostrils took in the odour of apples, of old bread, of carrots and raw potatoes. He was desperate for anything they might have. With his fingers he scratched at the earth, pulling up thin roots to chew as he watched the group huddled together before the forest darkness set in leaving him to try again to sleep.

For a moment he thought he heard someone speaking but could not tell where the sound was coming from. It was already morning as he looked around to see a young boy run from one tree to another.

‘Please,’ Leon muttered.

The boy popped his head out and then back again.

‘Please,’ he repeated.

But there was no energy left as he closed his eyes listening to the sounds of the forest.

‘Are you a Jew?’

It was a child standing near him, a ten or eleven year old boy wrapped in a thick jacket that was many sizes too big.

Leon looked away as the boy started talking, his voice coming fast and breathless.

When he stopped he leant forward to touch Leon on the arm before running off.

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It was Benjamin who told him about the woman he had seen down at the river.

‘If you organise it so I can kiss your sister I’ll tell you about the woman I saw.’

‘You want to kiss Hella?’ had been Leon’s incredulous response, ‘Benjamin, you’re nine years old. Hella is twelve.’

‘And is changing fast, she’s getting bigger.’

‘My hell, you’re crazy.’

‘So I won’t tell you.’

‘It’ll be just another of your stories.’

‘You’ll never know. Anyway you’re only nine as well so stop sounding so superior.’

‘But I am. I’m going to be a famous artist.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says me,’ Leon had laughed.

‘Just because you got a drawing set for your birthday.’

‘Hella would never in a million years want to kiss you.’

‘She was naked,’ Benjamin suddenly announced.

They were walking down Grinski Street that was busy with early evening horse and carts and workers coming home on their bicycles.

‘The woman by the river had not a stitch on. I saw her. I swear I did.’

‘Who was it?’ Leon needed to know.

‘I’ve never seen her before.’

‘And you saw......saw everything?’

They crossed the yard behind the printers’ workshop and then down an alleyway into the main square that was full of market stalls and busy with shoppers.

‘Ask me. Ask me anything you want to prove I saw her.’ Benjamin called over the noise of the stallholders shouting out their prices.

‘I don’t know what to ask.’

The two boys passed between mounds of vegetables piled on the square’s cobblestones as women haggled over what everything cost.

‘Well then, the woman was by the river. I was by myself. I saw her from the wooden bridge. I noticed that....that the hair on her head was a different colour to the hair.....to the hair on her thing.’

Leon swallowed hard as he grabbed Benjamin’s arm.

‘What?’ was the only word he could manage.

His friend swung round to face him, ‘There. You see. I wouldn’t make something like that up. It’s all true. So I want a kiss off your sister. Do you hear?’

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