The Guard by Peter Terrin Page B

roots, deep in our subconscious, and are now pushing up quickly toward the light.
    62
    We’re doing a round when I break first and raise the subject of the resupply.
    “That’s right,” Harry says. “The cardboard box was in the furthest corner . . .”
    “Do you think he could have been keeping the rations hidden there? Out of sight of someone who happened to glance in through the windows?”
    “Hidden? Then he would have thrown a blanket over it. The ration was right there in the back of the van. Why would he want to hide it?”
    I shrug. “There weren’t any other boxes in the load compartment.”
    “I noticed that.”
    We shuffle on for a few meters until Harry gradually picks up the pace and we’re back at our normal tempo.
    “We were the last address on his route,” he says. “That’s why the box and the water were right up the back.”
    Were we the last address? It was the dead of night.
    “If we were the last post on his route,” I say, “then it’s strange that there weren’t any empty trays in the back of the van. Trays he gets back when he makes a new delivery.”
    “Maybe they put everything straight into storage at other posts?”
    I see four or five beaming guards in a storeroom. One stands at the trays, the others at the shelves. The first says the name of the provisions out loud, then tosses them to the right man. In a few minutes everything is in its place.
    “Then the load compartment would be filled with the trays they’ve just emptied, surely?”
    “True.”
    “He was eight days late,” I say after a silence. “That’s a long time.”
    “There could be numerous causes for that, Michel. Causes we can only guess at.”
    “We almost starved to death.”
    “We might not have been the only ones. Maybe we got off lightly. Maybe other places have suffered casualties.”
    “You think?”
    “I don’t know. The main thing is we’re not dead. Understand? You and me, we’re still alive.”
    63
    I’m washing our socks, kneading the wet, black lump against the sloping sidewall of the washbasin. Harry comes up behind me. When I neither stop nor turn around, he sits down on my bed.
    “The driver said, ‘Be glad I still bring you anything.’ What he meant was: We should be glad he still brings us anything. We should appreciate it. He meant: I’ve been racing around all day. I’m exhausted. But I’ve still made it here with your provisions at this hour. And then you treat me like this. He must have been pissed off about me kicking him in the butt after such a long day. That’s what I think. That explains his reaction.”
    “Maybe,” I say, “but I didn’t get the impression he was reacting out of anger. Plus, he didn’t look tired. He didn’t look like he’d been working all day.”
    “Those guys are all front, Michel. Even when they’re tired. What were we like ourselves? Always ready with a smart answer. Never backing down.”
    I wring the water out of the lump cautiously, trying not to rip the old material. I hang the socks up on the side of Harry’s bed. It will take hours for them to dry.
    “His day’s almost over,” Harry says. “His second-to-last address is close to the depot and we’re more or less on the way back to base. So he thinks, I’ll unload the van first, then I won’t have to drive all the way back later. That’s why the van was already empty, except for our ration.”
    64
    It’s night. In these unchanging surroundings lit by emergency lighting, the days don’t differ from the nights. But still my wristwatch and biology have the capacity to color the hours, dividing the days into sections. It’s night and I walk past the garages alone.
    I keep my eyes peeled, but let my mind wander. I feel like Harry and I have overlooked something. If only the driver had stressed the most important part of his sentence. That’s the problem. What, for instance, does it mean if he’d meant to say, “Be glad I still bring you anything?”
    Should we be