The Most Precious of Cargoes Read online

  Our poor woodcutter’s wife hugs the little one to her, tucking it into her multilayered scarves, and then she runs, and she runs, holding her treasure against her chest. Suddenly, she stops, she feels a hungry mouth attempt to suckle at her scrawny breast, then stop and start to howl again, wriggling, struggling, crying, wailing. The child is hungry, my child is hungry. She feels herself become a mother, at once blissfully happy and terribly anxious. Fulfilled, yet overwhelmed. Here she is, a mother, and a mother with no milk. My child is hungry, what can I do, what can I do? Why did the god of the cargo train not bless her with the milk to feed the child it has given her? Why? What were the gods thinking? How do they expect me to feed this child?

  Back in her cabin, the small package laid on the bed writhes and squirms, driven by a strength born of despair, by the hunger of a wolf caught in a trap. The poor woodcutter’s wife lights the fire, pours water into her kettle, and searches, searches, searches.

  While the water is boiling, she finds some kasha that she can mix with the hot water, but first, to calm her little package, she presses a finger to the hungry mouth. The little package latches on, suckles, suckles with stubborn fury. Then suddenly, realizing that it has been duped, it stops sucking and once more begins to howl. The poor woodcutter’s wife, echoing its sobs, takes it in her arms as she mashes the kasha to make a buckwheat porridge that she tries to slip into the bawling mouth with a spoon. When this does not work, she dips her finger in the kasha and offers it to the baby, who now sucks eagerly, then releases the finger and spits out the bitter kasha.

  The poor woodcutter’s wife feeds it a little of the cooking water, then once again holds out her finger and the child sucks again. Little by little, as the cooking water quenches its thirst and the kasha staves off its hunger, the child in the arms of the new mother grows calm and she whispers a song in its ear, a lullaby that resurfaces from the shadowy past, surprising even her:

  “Sleep, sleep, my little cargo, sleep, sleep, my own little package, sleep, sleep, my own little child, sleep.”

  Then she gently sets her precious treasure in the hollow of the bed. Her eyes alight on the unfurled shawl, which she hung on the end of the bed to dry. It is a magnificent shawl woven from slender threads, twined and knotted, fringed at both ends, and embroidered with gold and silver threads. Never has she seen or touched such a precious shawl. Truly, she thinks, the gods did well to wrap their gift in such rich material. Soon, she too dozes off with her little package, her precious little cargo clasped in her arms, wrapped in that magical shawl.

  She sleeps, the poor woodcutter’s wife, sleeps with her baby cradled in her arms, sleeps the sleep of the just, she sleeps on high, high above the heaven granted to poor woodcutters and their wives, high above the Eden bestowed upon the fortunate, far above, far above, she in the garden reserved for gods and for mothers.

  4

  Night draws in while the poor woodcutter’s wife and her gift from heaven sleep, and the poor woodcutter, worn out from his public works, returns to the cabin. At the noise he makes, the little cargo wakes, and finding its hunger unsated, immediately begins to cry.

  “What on earth is that?” roars the woodcutter.

  “A child,” says the poor woodcutter’s wife, sitting up with her little package in her arms.

  “What the devil do you mean, a child?”

  “The joy of my life,” says the poor woodcutter’s wife, without blinking or trembling.

  “The what?”

  “The gods of the train gave it to me.”

  “The gods of the train?!”

  “So that he might be the beloved child I never had.”

  The woodcutter immediately grabs the little cargo, ripping it from the arms of the poor woodcutter’s wife, which has the paradoxical effect of calming the wailing and the sobs of the baby. Its frantic hands clutch at the husband’s beard, which it tries to suck on.

  “Don’t you know what it is, this child? Don’t you know?”

  And suddenly, in disgust, he drops the child onto the bed as one might toss a piece of rotting meat into the trash.

  “He stinks! Don’t you know what race this brat belongs to?”

  “I know that he is my own little angel,” the poor woodcutter’s wife says, once more scooping the child into her arms. “And he can be yours too, if you choose.”

  “That thing can never be an angel, yours, mine, or anyone’s. He is the offspring of the accursed race. His parents threw him from the train because they are heartless.”

  “No, no, no. The gods of the train delivered him to me.”

  “You’re raving, woman. When he’s grown, he will be as they are—heartless.”

  “Not if it’s us that raise him.”

  “And how will you feed him?”

  “He is so small, an hour ago I gave him my finger to suck and that was enough to calm his hunger.”

  “Don’t you know that to shelter the heartless is forbidden on pain of death? They are the ones who killed God.”

  “Not him, not him! He’s so small.”

  “They killed God, and they are thieves.”

  “Thank the Lord in this world we have never had anything to steal. And soon, if you are willing, he can help me fetch wood from the forest.”

  “If they find him in our house, they will nail us to the wall.”

  “Who will know?”

  “The other woodcutters will betray us to the hunters of the heartless.”

  “No, no, I will say that the baby is mine, that I finally grew big with child from your ministrations.”

  “And you belatedly gave birth to a fifteen-pound monster?”

  “We won’t take him out at first.”

  “We cannot make him ours; the child is marked.”

  “What do you mean, marked?”

  “Don’t you know that the heartless are marked, that this is how they can be recognized?”

  “Marked how?”

  “Their nature is not like ours.”

  “I saw no mark.”

  The woodcutter busies himself unwrapping the little package so that it is revealed in all its nakedness.

  “See? See?”

  “See what?”

  “The mark.”

  “What mark?” the poor woodcutter’s wife asks, gazing at the child in turn. “I see no mark.”

  “Look at the lad—he is not made as I am.”

  “No, but she is made as I am. Look how beautiful she is.”

  The woodcutter quickly turns away, scratches his head beneath his cap, then sets about rewrapping the little package whose eager fists push away the assailing hands.

  “What are you doing?” the poor woodcutter’s wife says anxiously as she watches her husband pick up the package and stride toward the door. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to leave it next to the railway line.”

  At this, the poor woodcutter’s wife hurls herself at him in a fury and tries to snatch her little package from her husband. When this fails, she blocks his path and says:

  “If you do that, husband, you will have to throw me with her under the wheels of the cargo train, and the gods, all the gods, of the heavens, of the earth, of the sun, and of the train, will hunt you down wherever you go. Whatever you do. You will be cursed for good and forever.”

  The woodcutter’s husband stands, motionless, for a moment. He returns the little cargo to his wife, the “little lad” now a “little lass,” since her nature has now been revealed to us and that nature is unarguably female.

  As the little cargo passes from hand to hand, amid wails and fury, she too begins to shriek like a thousand muted trumpets.

  The woodcutter, who is not, it seems, a music lover, instantly covers his ears and bellows:

  “So be it! So be it! Let it be so, and let all the misfortune that follows be your misfortune.”

  The poor woodcutter’s wife, hugging her little cargo to her, says:

  “She will be my joy, and yours.”
/>   “You can keep the joy to yourself, thank you. Much good may it do you. But know this: I don’t want to hear her or see her ever again. Shut her up and consider yourself warned.”

  As she rocks her little cargo, the poor woodcutter’s wife goes out to the woodshed, where there are no floorboards, and settles there with the child the gods have given her to cherish. Hard on her heels, the woodcutter appears and tosses her a tattered bearskin that has been gnawed by field mice.

  “Here! And don’t you go catching a cold!”

  “The gods will protect me,” the poor woodcutter’s wife responds.

  The child still sobs, now half asleep.

  As he leaves, the woodcutter growls:

  “Shut her up! Or else . . .”

  The poor woodcutter’s wife carries on rocking the child, holding her tightly and peppering her forehead with the gentlest of kisses. And here they fall asleep, mother and child. A silence descends, a silence scarcely troubled by the mournful snores that issue from the nostrils of the poor woodcutter’s wife, and the counterpoint of contented sighs that rise from the little cargo, gift from God, and her new and loving mother, wrapped as they are in a tattered bearskin gnawed at by field mice.

  5

  The cargo train, designated by the bureaucracy of death as Convoy 49, having set off from Bobigny-Gare near Drancy on March 2, 1943, arrived on the morning of March 6 in the pit of hell, its final destination.

  After offloading its cargo of former tailors for gentlemen, ladies, and children, both dead and alive, accompanied by their relatives, whether close or distant, along with their customers and their suppliers, not forgetting, for the devout, their ministers of religion, and for the invalids, the old, the sick, and the impotent, their personal doctor, Convoy 49—doubtless impatient to become Convoy 50, or 51—immediately set off back the way it had come.

  The poor woodcutter’s wife did not see it roar past, empty, absorbed as she was in her new responsibilities as a mother.

  Any more than she witnessed the passing of Convoy 50, or those that followed.

  Once the cargo had been received, it was immediately subjected to a selection process. Having conducted their examination, the expert selectors—all qualified doctors—retained only 10 percent of the delivery. A hundred head out of one thousand. After treatment in the late afternoon, the remainder, the rejects—the elderly, the men, the women, the children, the infirm—vanished into the thin air or the boundless depths of the desolate Polish sky.

  Thus it was that Dinah, registered as Diane on her provisional papers and her brand-new official family record book, and her child Henri, twin brother of Rose, slipped the surly bonds of the earth and reached the heavenly limbo promised to the innocent.

  6

  In many fairy tales—and this is indeed a fairy tale—there is a forest. And in that forest, there is a grove denser than the surrounding woodland, one that can be entered only with difficulty, a wild, secret place protected from intruders by the vegetation itself. An isolated place where neither man, nor beast, nor god can enter without trembling. In the sprawling forest in which the poor woodcutter and his wife strive to subsist, there exists such a grove, a place where the trees are lusher, denser. A place spared by the woodcutter’s ax, through which there is no path. A leafy copse into which one may steal only in silence. Children are not allowed to play here. And even their parents dare not set foot here for fear of getting lost.

  The poor woodcutter’s wife, who knows these woods as she knows her own pockets—the shawls in which she swathes herself in winter have no pockets, and if they did, she would have nothing to put in them—even so, let us say that she knows this place, which, she believes, is the preserve of faeries and sprites, of witches and werewolves. She also knows that a lone human lives herein like a hermit, a creature who inspires fear and horror in everyone, one whom even the Boches and their miserable conscripts dread encountering. Some say the creature is malevolent. Others say he is a friend to animals and an enemy to man. The woodcutter’s wife has glimpsed him only on days when she was gathering wood on the outskirts of the grove, over which he reigns supreme and solitary.

  Alas, she also knows, has known since the early hours, that her little cargo cannot survive and thrive without milk.

  After the woodcutter headed to work, she wrapped herself in scarves into which she slipped her little cargo, enfolded in the shawl provided by the gods themselves, the shawl trimmed with gold and silver that might have been woven by a faery hand.

  Then she set off for that part of the forest where no one ventures without trembling and committing his soul to God’s keeping. As she approached the grove, she was met by the darkness that perpetually reigns in this part of the forest. She waited and watched. Was the man here? Could he see her? What of the goat? Was the nanny goat still of this world? Did she still give milk?

  Before setting out, she tried to feed her beloved little cargo a little kasha porridge. To no avail. The kasha was spit up. And now the icy little head of the little cargo is nodding weakly. The child needs milk, she thinks, milk, milk, if not . . . no, no! Surely the gods cannot have bestowed this child on her only for her to watch it die in her arms?

  She ventures into the darkness, dipping under the low branches, calling on the gods of the train, the gods of nature, of forests, of goats. She entreats the faeries—one never knows—and even the mischievous sprites who, surely, would not stoop so low as to harm an innocent child. “Come to my aid, come to my aid all of you,” she whispers in the tangle of branches that crack beneath her feet. No one ever comes to gather wood here. The very snow dares not lie upon the ground. It melts in the treetops and settles on the boughs.

  “Who goes there?”

  The poor woodcutter’s wife stops, petrified.

  “A poor woodcutter’s wife,” she says in a quavering voice.

  The voice continues:

  “Let the poor woodcutter’s wife take another step.”

  She freezes. The voice continues:

  “What does she want, this poor woodcutter’s wife?”

  “Milk for her babe.”

  “Milk for her babe?”

  There comes a sound like a sinister laugh.

  Then, with a creak of boots on rotten wood, a man appears, on his head a czapka, in his hand a rifle.

  “Why do you not give her yours?”

  “Alas, I have no milk. And if the child that you see,” she takes the babe from under her shawl, “does not get milk this day, she will die.”

  “Your daughter will die? What of it? You shall make another.”

  “I am no longer of an age. And besides, this child was entrusted to me by the god of the cargo train that moves to and fro along the railway track.”

  “Who gave you no milk to feed it with!”

  Once more, he lets out a laugh bitter enough to chill the bones.

  Fearful but determined, the poor woodcutter’s wife says:

  “He forgot. The gods cannot think of everything, they have so much to do here below.”

  “And they do it badly!” the man concludes.

  Then, after a moment, he questions her again.

  “Tell me, poor woodcutter’s wife, where do you expect me to get milk?”

  “From the teats of your nanny goat.”

  “My nanny goat? How do you know I have such a thing?”

  “I heard it bleating while I was gathering wood on the borders of your kingdom.”

  He laughs again. Then, gravely, he composes himself and asks:

  “What will you give me in exchange for my milk?”

  “Everything I have.”

  “And what do you have?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s hardly an exchange.”

  “All the days the gods give, I will come here, winter and summer, and bring a bundle of firewood in exchange for two mouthfuls of milk.”

  “You want to pay me for my milk with my wood?”

  “The wood is not yours.”
/>   “Neither is it yours. Just as your milk is not your milk.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It is milk from your goat.”

  “But the goat is mine. Nothing in life is given without recompense.”

  “Without milk, my daughter will die, without recompense.”

  “So many people die!”

  “It was the gods who entrusted her to me. If you help me to feed her, she will live, they will be grateful, and they will protect you.”

  “They have protected me more than enough already.”

  He rips off his czapka to reveal a battered forehead, a crushed temple, and a missing ear.

  “These days, I shun their protection and take care of myself.”

  “But they have kept you alive, and your goat too.”

  “Small thanks.”

  “I will bring you two bundles of firewood every day for a small cupful of warm milk.”

  “I can see you’re well versed in business!” He laughs again. “Did the gods not give you some object of value when they gave you the little girl?”

  Our desolate poor woodcutter’s wife is about to say, “No, alas . . . ,” when suddenly her face lights up. She frees her little cargo from the prayer shawl and proffers it to the man with the goat, who eyes it scornfully.

  “It is a divine shawl, see how intricate it is.”

  The man wraps it around his neck.

  “Look how beautiful it is! It must surely have been woven by faery hands that embroidered it with silver and with gold.”

  The little cargo whimpers softly. The loud wails are past, she no longer has the strength to wail.

  The man with the goat and the battered face surveys the child and concludes:

  “This divine creature is hungry, like a common human child. I will give you a little milk from my goat. What you really need is milk from a jenny, but I have none now, so the milk I give you for the next three months must be diluted with boiled water, two measures of water to one of milk, and you should supplement her food with porridge and, come spring, with fruits and vegetables.”

  He hands back the child. She takes her daughter lovingly, then falls to her knees and tries to kiss the man’s hand. The man recoils.