A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli Page A

to eat with?’
    The Pole replied in his own language. We didn’t know what he said, but it sounded nasty too.
    We weren’t afraid of him, of course, but he wasn’t afraid of us either. He replied to us the way we’d spoken to him. Bauer took his spoon from a pocket and showed it to the Pole. Moving it around, he said, ‘Show me yours!’
    The Pole’s gaze moved from the spoon to the soup tous. He was trying to understand. To help him out, Bauer pointed at him then moved the spoon closer towards him. This time, the Pole shook his head and patted his quilted jacket to say that no, he didn’t have one.
    â€˜Well then, little man, you’d better go home,’ said Bauer, ‘because we don’t want you touching our soup. You make me sick.’
    The Pole, I am sure, did not catch a single word of this, yet he understood anyway. He had sensed a threat in Bauer’s voice and eyes. He began to twitch. Then he replied to Bauer, unleashing a sort of bitter, fearful litany. We did not catch a single word of it, yet we understood it anyway.
    â€˜Yeah, yeah, go ahead and cry, little man,’ Bauer said.
    The Pole continued to whine. Bauer nodded sympathetically and smiled sadly at him. Then suddenly the Pole moved away from the stove and crouched down in front of the remains of the storeroom door. He started searching through the bits of wood, his litany unabated. But when he found what he was looking for, he stopped talking, showed it to us, then returned to the side of the stove. He took a hideous little knife from his pocket and began feverishly sculpting his bit of wood, glancing up at usfiercely from time to time. His lips peeled back from his gums occasionally too, and his vile mouth was more terrifying to us than any evil stare.

WE LIT A cigarette, our last before the soup. We smoked it while watching the Pole carve his piece of wood. He had forgotten us. Concentrated, careful, he carved away, and as the daylight had continued to fade and the flames in the stove did not directly illuminate him, he moved his eyes very close to the wood. Some shavings fell on his dog. Others fell on the cast-iron stovetop and burned up instantly.
    Although it was still afternoon, it looked dark enough outside to be evening. The layer of clouds between us and the sun must have grown even thicker.
    The shape of the spoon appeared fairly quickly. Within a few minutes, the handle and the oval end could both be easily made out.
    But what we were waiting to see was how he would make the hollow. Because without a hollow, there was nospoon. He finished the shape, looked at it for a moment, then wedged it against the stove and began to scratch at it with the point of his knife. But the wood was hard, and he seemed unable to hollow it out just by scratching. He grumbled, and looked up at us blankly, as if by staring through us he were searching for a solution. He did not look frightened by the thought of not eating if he couldn’t do it, nor angry with us, just focused on his search for inspiration. And then he began working again, in a different way. We leaned forward. In the dying light, it took us a while to understand.
    Still using the point of the knife, he was now tracing and retracing grooves in the wood, several times over. When two grooves became deep enough, he broke off the wood between them. And so on.
    â€˜He’s going to do it,’ I said.
    â€˜In that case, he’s going to pay for his soup,’ said Bauer, turning round to take the flask from the table.
    But before taking a drink, he hesitated. He turned the flask in his hands, looked down at his boots, lifted his head, and said, ‘Or we could just chuck him outside. Spoon or no spoon, he still makes me want to puke.’
    â€˜Make him pay,’ I said, to calm Bauer down.
    â€˜Yeah, that’s better,’ Emmerich agreed.
    Emmerich and I were not afraid of the Pole. But being here felt like returning to a