Stones in Water

by Donna Jo Napoli

  A desperate person could do unpredictable things—Roberto knew that. He’d left the last work camp out of desperation, and not even he could have predicted he’d do it.

  But a desperate person welcomed company, too—Roberto knew that just as well.

  He stood up slowly, keeping his eyes on the boy’s face, trying to make his own face radiate comfort. He let his blanket fall to the floor. He rubbed his bare arms. He was taller than this boy—and older. The boy couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. “I’m hungry.” said Roberto softly. He rubbed his stomach. “I’m so hungry. Is there any food?”

  The boy held the ax with both hands. He swung it hard, just to show he was ready to use it.

  Roberto resisted the urge to step backward, away from the ax. “I’m not the enemy.” He stood his ground and spoke in a level voice, a little louder now. “I’m hungry. And I bet you are, too.” He walked over to the hearth, checking on the boy over his shoulder. But the boy just stood at the ready, watching. The shelves near the hearth had been ransacked. The soldiers must have raided anything they could find. Roberto moved beyond, to the chest, stepping carefully around the old man’s body. He opened drawers till he found what he was looking for: a sweater. He pulled it on. Then he picked up his blanket and used it like a cape. He went out the door.

  The boy came after him, always shouting rough words, always holding that ax.

  Roberto went directly to the next house. The door had been bashed down. He wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t even horrified. The evil around him was numbing in a way. He stepped over the body of a woman and a girl without hesitation. That was the only way to get to the food shelves. And, yes, here was a burlap bag of buckwheat.

  He turned to the boy, who was standing in the doorway watching him. “Where do we get water?”

  The boy stared at him.

  “Wasser?”

  The boy just stared.

  “All right, that’s how it is. We’ll just each talk and not have any idea what the other says. I’m used to that.” Roberto picked up a pot and went out the door. The boy stepped aside as he passed, his eyes confused and tired. Roberto filled the pot with snow. He went back in and searched around the hearth till he found matches.

  There was plenty of kindling in the corner. He threw two handfuls of it into the fireplace and struck a match. It went out without lighting anything. He struck another. The same thing happened. He felt the kindling carefully now. It was damp. He walked around the room touching surfaces. Everything was damp. Frost had formed overnight, then melted when the morning sun came in the windows. He knew because the chair in the corner was still covered with the cold sheen.

  He needed something dry that would light easily. He needed paper. He looked around the shelves. There wasn’t a single newspaper, magazine, book. Then he remembered the chest of drawers in the first house, where he’d found the sweater. There was no chest in this room, but there was a large trunk at the foot of the bed. He opened it. Yes, it was lined with brown paper, just as the chest in the other house had been. He emptied the trunk and ripped the paper from the sides and bottom. He crumpled it into a loose ball and put it in the fireplace. He struck a match.

  Flames licked through the paper instantly. Roberto arranged the damp kindling around the edges, so it would dry. Then he fed the kindling to the fire, one piece at a time. Once the kindling burned, he went outside. Sure enough, there was a woodpile on one side of the house. He brushed the snow off the top of the pile and carried in two logs. He knelt and set them in the fireplace.

  The weak fire touched the wet logs and hissed and spit and went out.

  Roberto slumped back on his heels. He looked over his shoulder; the boy was gone. Roberto was all alone. If only Samuele were here. Or Sergio. Or Memo. Or anyone. The tears were hot on his cheeks.

  He had to start all over again. He had to start all over again when he felt he could barely move.

  But it would be all right. He just had to think, to act sensibly. He should have saved some of the paper from the trunk lining just in case. That wasn’t sensible. He’d be more careful from now on. He sat up tall.

  Where else could he find paper? He got to his feet and searched through every container in the house. Finally he found a tin full of loose tea leaves, lined with coarse paper. The leaves might burn, as well. He brought the tin over to the fireplace. Then he brought over the rest of the kindling. He’d built fires before, with his cousins at Easter time. They’d made bonfires outside and sat around talking late into the night. He shut his eyes and let himself remember the way they’d arranged the wood before they set it afire.

  Roberto opened his eyes and went to work. He arranged the two logs in a V-shape. He made little pyramids of kindling in the middle. He saved the smallest pieces, the tinder, and shoved that into the center of each of the pyramids.

  The boy stomped his boots in the doorway and came in. He pushed the door shut with his elbow. The ax was tucked under one arm, but both forearms were piled high with kindling. He dropped the load on the floor by Roberto.

  Roberto looked up at him. “Good work. Thanks.” He nodded. Then he ripped the paper from the tea tin down the middle. He crumpled half and put it inside one of the kindling pyramids. He struck a match and lit the paper.

  The boy laid his ax on the table. He knelt on the floor and put his face down low and blew. He fed pieces of kindling to the fire. Roberto took a burning piece of kindling and set fire to the tinder in the other pyramids. Then he knelt beside the boy and blew like him. They blew and added kindling and blew.

  A log caught fire.

  Roberto stood and hung the pot of snow on the black hook over the fire. When the water boiled, he poured in a handful of buckwheat. Then another. He didn’t know how much buckwheat to use. At home his mother was the cook, and all he paid attention to was the taste of things. And in the work camps one of the German soldiers had always cooked. But Roberto knew some things—he knew buckwheat swelled. Still, how big could two handfuls swell? And there was the boy to feed, as well. He threw in three more handfuls. Then he searched till he found a long-handled spoon. He stirred.

  The heat from the fire made him queasy. He fell to his knees. Everything was going dark. He put both hands on the floor and dropped his head down between them. He waited. The darkness passed, and now he could hear the crackles of the fire once more. The water in the pot hissed. But Roberto didn’t dare stand, for fear he might fall in the fire. He held the spoon out to the boy. “Stir.”

  The boy took the spoon.

  Roberto lay on his back. He was suddenly too weak to even lift his head. He watched the boy stir the buckwheat and every now and then stoop and blow into the fire. It was as though Roberto were far, far away, looking on a distant scene. The boy could be a figure in a movie—a Western—they cooked over fires in the old American West—and Roberto could be in the audience. Like in Mestre.

  After a while, the room smelled hearty, as though the air itself could be eaten. “Taste it.” Roberto put his hand to his mouth and gestured eating. “Is it ready?”

  The boy grabbed a cloth to protect his hand and took the pot off the hook. He set it on the table, got two bowls and filled them, and handed a bowl and a wooden spoon to Roberto. His movements were smooth and competent. Roberto’s chest tightened in gratitude. The boy sat at the table and ate, his eyes on Roberto.

  Roberto sat up slowly and crossed his ankles. Every mouthful was wonderful. He ate as much as he could. “You cook good for an atheist,” he said to the boy.

  The boy looked at him solemnly.

  “That’s what they told us in school—that you’re all atheists, all you communists. Atheists and bastards. Are you a bastard? Do you know your father?” Roberto looked at the quiet face of the boy. “None of it matters, does it?” He lay back and slept.

  When he woke up, the boy was sitting in the chair asleep, his head and arms on the table. Roberto ate the rest of his buckwheat. He stood up and looked in the pot. The boy had f
inished it off.

  Roberto went outside and filled the pot with snow again. He came back in and cooked another pot of buckwheat.

  The boy woke.

  “I’m still hungry. How about you?” Roberto stirred the buckwheat. “Is there anyone else alive in this village?”

  The boy watched Roberto. The ax lay across his knees.

  “You’ve given up trying to talk to me, huh? That’s too bad. I’d like to hear your voice.” Roberto filled both bowls and sat opposite the boy at the table. He ate.

  The boy finished his buckwheat and went to a wooden box in the corner. He opened it and brought a bottle of vodka to the table.

  Roberto shook his head. “No, thanks.” He smiled. Then he laughed. “You don’t drink that, do you?”

  The boy put a glass on the table and filled it. He pushed it toward Roberto.

  Roberto went to the bed. There were two pillows. He shook them out of their cases and went outside with the pillowcases tucked in his waistband. “Come on. Stick with me.”

  The boy followed him.

  They went from house to house. In one house they found a cage with a pair of canaries, and the birds were somehow still alive. Roberto marveled at finding the yellow birds here. He knew they were native to Germany, because a friend of his mother’s had a pair. The people of this house must have gotten them before the war started. Roberto picked up the heavy bag of birdseed under the cage. He opened the cage door and scattered seeds all around the bottom. He hooked the door so that it stayed open. Then he scattered seeds around the house, on every surface. He filled all the containers he could find with snow and left them in front of the windows where the sun might melt them. He and the boy went outside. “Good luck,” he called back into the room. Then he closed the front door to the house tight behind them.

  In another house, they found a hungry dog, skulking in the corner. It whined. But when Roberto called to it and stepped forward, it growled and raised a ridge of hair along its back. So far the dog hadn’t attacked the human bodies on the floor. But, then, it had probably been only a day since the soldiers had killed them. Soon enough the dog would decide the bodies were meat. Roberto backed away carefully, leaving the door ajar.

  The cat that he’d seen the night before had hidden somewhere. Roberto called for it, but it never came.

  And that was the sum total of living beings in the village. If there had been cows or goats or horses, there was no sign of them now. How had the boy survived the raid? Maybe he’d been off somewhere doing a task. Or maybe he’d been playing, sliding on a frozen pond, happy, and come home too late to die.

  And why had this village been so completely destroyed? Roberto’s head ached with the question. But now was the time for action; unanswerable questions couldn’t matter.

  Both pillowcases were near full with the various foods and supplies that Roberto and the boy had collected from the houses. And both Roberto and the boy were now fairly well equipped. They each had a knife in their pocket. They each had on a long-sleeved shirt, two sweaters, three pairs of socks, sturdy boots, two pairs of trousers. And they had gloves, scarves, and hats.

  It was midafternoon. They could get in maybe four hours of walking before dark. It wasn’t enough to merit the risk.

  “Let’s go on back to the third house.” That was the house farthest from the road, the only house without a body in it. The people must have heard the raid. Maybe they were smart and had run off into the fields and away—oh, maybe, oh, please let that be so. But maybe they had run out and met their murderers. Then their bodies would be lost in the snow somewhere. “Come on.” Roberto led the way, putting his boots down gingerly, just in case. The boy followed at his heels.

  They set up logs, kindling, and tinder, carefully and thoroughly. There would be no mishaps this time. And there would be no waste. Roberto had gathered all the matches and paper he could find—and he wasn’t about to use any now if he didn’t have to. There was no telling how long his little cache of matches and paper would have to last him. He’d been thinking about it as they went from house to house. His planning made him efficient.

  Roberto walked back to the house in which they’d built the fire earlier. The coals were still hot. He laid two wet logs on the floor in front of the fireplace, then used larger kindling to sweep coals onto the wet logs. With the two logs held tightly together, he ran to the third house. He dumped the coals in the fireplace. The tinder took flame. The flame passed from one pyramid to another. Samuele would have smiled at him. Roberto basked for a moment in the glow of the imagined praise.

  When Roberto was sure the fire wouldn’t go out, he got up and went once more from house to house, securing the doors as best he could. He didn’t know how long it might take wolves to discover the village was nothing but a heap of corpses, but he figured that if the houses were kept closed, it would take that much longer. And he needed to delay them only one night. Tomorrow Roberto and the boy would get far away from here.

  The only door he didn’t shut was of the house with the dog.

  The boy followed him in this work. He didn’t say a word. He watched everything Roberto did, every detail. And he did his part, often anticipating Roberto’s next move and helping before Roberto asked. He was smart. And he was such a little kid. And his family was dead. Roberto wished they could have talked.

  Roberto and the boy returned to their chosen house and watched the fire.

  After a while the boy got up. He lifted a section of board from the floor and pulled out potatoes and onions from a tiny cellar. They buried them in the embers of the hearth till they were roasted through. Then they ate till they were full. Roberto roasted half of the remaining potatoes from the cellar. He packed the roasted ones plus the raw ones into the pillowcases. He put three logs on the fire. Then he took off his boots and stripped down to a single layer of clothing. He lay on the bed and pulled the quilt over himself.

  “Come on, Ragazzo,” said Roberto, calling him by the Italian word for “boy.” “Let’s sleep.”

  The boy stripped likewise and climbed into the wide bed beside Roberto.

  “I have a story to tell you,” said Roberto softly. “I don’t really like this story, and since you’re atheist, maybe it’ll mean nothing to you, and since I’m talking Italian, surely it’ll mean nothing to you. But a friend of mine told it to me and he thought it made sense. And he knew a lot more about how things work than I do. So I’ll tell you now, Ragazzo. I’ll tell you because I’m afraid that everyone you love is dead, and I have to try to comfort you. I have to try.” Roberto whispered, “There once was a man named Job, who had seven sons and three daughters.” He whispered on and on. He fell asleep whispering.

  * * *

  The rattle of a tin cup on a shelf woke Roberto. He leaped up. Morning rays shot through the windows. A cat sat on the shelf and looked at him. “Meow.”

  “How did you get in here?” Roberto walked around the house, looking everywhere. There were no openings he could make out, no drafts coming from secret holes. He jumped back on the bed and rubbed his feet—the floor was cold. He pulled the quilt up around his shoulders. The air was cold, too.

  The boy was awake by now. He got up and petted the cat, showing no signs of surprise at its appearance and no discomfort at the cold in the house.

  Roberto stretched. “Is it yours?”

  The boy looked at him.

  Roberto pulled on another layer of clothing. He got out of bed and jabbed at the fireplace with a shovel. There were a few live coals still. He fed them tinder and kindling. Then he put on the rest of his clothes, and he pulled on his boots. He went outside and fetched logs. It had snowed again during the night, like clockwork. Roberto went back into the house and slowly, slowly got the fire roaring. He poured the last of some dry oats into a pot of boiling water, then sweetened the hot breakfast mash with sugar lumps he’d taken from another house. Such a little thing, making breakfast. Yet Roberto felt distinctly proud of his resourcefulness. He could do this
. He could take care of himself and this boy.

  The boy produced a brown bread from a cloth bag. It was hard, but not rock hard. He sawed off a few slices and warmed them near the fire. They were good.

  “What else can you find stashed around these houses?” Roberto picked up a pillowcase. He held it open before the boy. “We’ve got to put whatever we can into these. We’re going to need it. Is there anything else you haven’t told me about?” He shook the pillowcase.

  The boy just looked at him.

  Roberto made a tsking noise. There was nothing left to do. He wished he could have found himself an overcoat. The boy had one. But there were none left in any of the houses—none except children’s, which were too small for Roberto. The soldiers must have taken them. Probably the Italian soldiers.

  Roberto took one last look around the room. He picked up two tin cups and put them into the pillowcases. Then he tied the top of each case closed. He handed the lighter one to the boy. “Come on.”

  They walked outside. The new snow had covered their footprints from the searchings yesterday. But it had also covered the soldiers’ footprints, so that Roberto couldn’t follow their trail anymore. That was okay. They’d just go south. And if they met any obstacles, they’d go west.

  He walked ahead on out of town.

  The boy stopped. He yanked on Roberto’s arm urgently. Then he handed Roberto his pillowcase and ran back toward the houses.

  “Stop,” called Roberto. He dropped both pillowcases and ran after the boy. “You can’t stay here. You won’t survive alone.”

  The boy disappeared behind a house.

  And now doubt hit Roberto hard in the chest. The boy had to know how far it was to the next bit of civilization. Maybe he knew that heading out on their own was sure death. Maybe he knew about something horrible in the wilds. The image of a photograph in an old school textbook came to him vividly: a big brown Russian bear. Maybe there were bears in Ukraine, too. Did brown bears eat people?

  Maybe their only chance was to stay here and wait for help. But then more soldiers might come. No wild animal could compare to soldiers. Roberto turned the corner of the house.