“I was almost chubby when I joined up,” admits Bill.
I’m astonished. I can’t imagine him overweight, and wonder with a rush of anxiety if I will still love him if he becomes overweight like his mother when we get back to England. I try to imagine his finely sculpted face padded out with layers of fat, but it’s impossible.
“We should weigh ourselves tomorrow,” suggests Max. “Where we weigh the marble.”
Bill is eyeing up Ralph’s sweater. “I could probably make two out of that, if I unpicked it,” he says, “Or a jumper with a matching scarf and mittens.” He has been knitting furiously, using patterns and wool brought by the amused Berta. If Berta wonders how he understands the Czech patterns, she never asks.
Ralph laughs and wraps his sweater back up in the brown paper. “I’m sure you could,” he says, “but hands off. It’s mine. Knitted by my sister.”
• • •
The next day Ralph asks permission from Herr Rauchbach, and we weigh ourselves where they weigh the quarried rocks. Bill is fifty-seven kilos, and I’ve dropped from fifty-four to forty-four. This is with my boots and outdoor clothes on, so I guess my real weight might be even less than this, maybe only forty-two. There’s a long debate between Ralph and Max about the conversion from kilos to stones and pounds. Apparently there are fourteen pounds in a stone. Bill tells me there are sixteen ounces in a pound, and I wonder how I’ll ever be able to bake a cake or buy groceries. It’s just as well I’m good at numbers. Eventually the calculations are done and Bill exclaims, “So fifty-seven kilos is nine stone. I was thirteen stone when I joined up. I haven’t been nine stone since I was fourteen. And Cousins must be—hang on a minute—under seven stone. Six stone something. Blimey, that’s not much.”
Herr Rauchbach has been watching—at first with interest and then with some consternation. Ralph sees his opportunity and saunters over. “Herr Rauchbach. As you see, the prisoners are losing weight. The work here is so heavy. I worry that they will become too weak to be productive.” He points to me. “Cousins here is only forty-three kilos. A strong puff of wind could blow him over.”
“Yes, yes, I can see that. Don’t worry. There will be extra potato rations from now, and dumplings, and God knows it’s not easy, but I’ll try to get sausage, and Kurt can shoot some rabbit.”
“Thank you, Herr Rauchbach. Whatever you can obtain will be much appreciated.”
The quarry owner hurries back to the house, and sure enough that dinnertime, Berta has cooked up a stew with additional potatoes, and we each have a portion of sausage, no bigger than the end joint of my thumb, but at least it’s meat. We all still feel hungry, but the rest of the house is delighted, and everyone shakes Ralph’s hand to thank him. We all agree to have one ladleful for lunch and save the rest for the evening. I go to bed feeling less hungry for the first time in two months.
Ever since the letters and parcels came, I’ve been thinking how much I want to write to my mother, trying to work out what could I say that wouldn’t give away our whereabouts. Finally I decide Bill must write to Flora and ask her to send a thank-you note to the farm where people were so kind to him. We pore over it together as he gives Flora the exact words to use: My cousin Bill has asked me to write to say thank you for your kindness and generosity to him. He is well and happy and taking great care of the gift you gave him. Of course the Oily Captain will know what it means, but Bill’s letter has to go all the way to England, and won’t mention our location, and then Flora’s will come from England to Vražné, and by then surely we won’t be here anymore. I ache for the day I can write to my mother myself.
One personal parcel somehow became separated from the rest, and arrives a few days later. It’s for Max, and he goes white when he sees the handwriting. Most people rip open the parcels from home as soon as they arrive, but Max thrusts his under his bunk. Nobody makes any comment.
When we are all in the kitchen, he slips away to the bedroom, and when he returns, some time later, the dark circles under his eyes seem to have deepened. We all pretend not to notice the fact that he doesn’t speak all evening and retires early. When I go to bed, Max is curled away from us, facing the wall, but I know by his breathing that he’s only pretending to be asleep. During the night I hear him blow his nose as quietly as he can.
• • •
The next day in the quarry Max beckons me over to where he’s working, indicating the chippings around his feet. I begin to sweep them up into my bucket. “It was from Rachel, my parcel,” Max says in a rush.
My heart is full of sorrow for him, but he isn’t looking to me for sympathy. He is bursting with the need to speak, and my silence seems to draw more words out of him. “She sent it over a year ago. Full of things she knew I liked. She must have still loved me then, mustn’t she?”
I know he’s talking to himself as much as to me, before he explodes with these pent-up thoughts.
He glances up at me. “But you don’t know, do you? My fiancée wrote to me. About ten days before you came.”
The words wring slowly out of him, with each fall of the pickax. He doesn’t lift his head again.
“I had a letter. First one for ten months. From Rachel. Saying she had. Married. Someone else. My brother. Married my brother. D’you see?”
He pauses, sweat and tears running down his face, and looks directly at me.
“How could they do that to me? My own brother and my fiancée?” he asks.
He shakes his head, and freezing droplets spin from his face as he resumes work with a hammer and chisel.
“How could they?” he asks.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, and I touch his arm, fleetingly. I hope that conveys the words I want to say, that I don’t understand how she could do that to him, but one day perhaps he’ll meet someone else, and they will be happier than he could ever be with Rachel.
Max’s voice is raised, as if he is convincing himself, and it attracts Kurt’s attention. “The only way I can get over it will be to have a different focus in my life. To put all my energy into the defeat of fascism. It’s all I’ve got left. I’ll never have a wife and kids. Not now.”
He lifts his pickax, and a few more blows fall.
When I’m nodding to show I understand, Kurt arrives, as if he has a kind of antennae for emotion. He stares hard at Max and points to my half-full bucket of chippings. I lift it to take up to the toolshed, and as I walk away, I hear Kurt say to Max in Czech, “What’s the matter? Won’t he let you shaft him? Or is it a lover’s tiff? Has he thrown you over for a new one? Don’t you worry. When I catch him, I’m going to bugger him unconscious.”
I stagger away with my bucket of chippings, terror like a cold hand around my heart, taking care not to slip on the wet stone. As I put the bucket down, I imagine these chippings are for Kurt’s grave. I see myself pouring them over his dead body.
• • •
When my monthlies come again in mid-December, there’s less pain than last time, and the bleeding only lasts for three days. I feel my body is returning to the size and shape it was when I was fourteen, before the curse ever began. I wonder if my breasts will shrink to being little bumps behind the nipple and then finally flatten away like a boy’s, and if I will become hairless again like a young girl.