Armageddon In Retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut [25]
“We’re sorry you lost your pips on account of us,” said Donnini at last.
“Lucky privates,” said Kleinhans gloomily. “Two wars I go through to be a corporal. Now,” he snapped his fingers, “poof. Cookbooks are verboten.”
“Here,” said Kniptash, his voice quavering. “Want a smoke? I got a Hungarian cigarette.” He held out the precious cigarette.
Kleinhans smiled wanly. “Let’s pass it around.” He lit it, took a puff, and handed it to Donnini.
“Where’d you get a Hungarian cigarette?” asked Coleman.
“From a Hungarian,” said Kniptash. He pulled up his trouser legs. “Traded my socks for it.”
They finished the cigarette and leaned back against the masonry. Still Kleinhans had said nothing about work. Again he seemed faraway, lost in thought.
“Don’t you boys talk about food anymore?” said Kleinhans, after another long silence.
“Not after you lost your pips,” said Kniptash gravely.
Kleinhans nodded. “That’s all right. Easy come, easy go.” He licked his lips. “Pretty soon now, this will all be over.” He leaned back and stretched. “And you know what I’m going to do the day it ends, boys?” Private Kleinhans closed his eyes. “I’m going to get three pounds of beef shoulder and lard it with bacon. Then I’ll rub it with garlic and salt and pepper, and put it in a crock with white wine and water”—his voice became strident—“and onions and bay leaves and sugar”—he stood—“and peppercorns! In ten days, boys, she’s ready!”
“What’s ready?” said Coleman excitedly, reaching where his notebook had been.
“Sauerbraten!” cried Kleinhans.
“For how many?” asked Kniptash.
“Just two, my boy. Sorry.” Kleinhans laid his hand on Donnini’s shoulder. “Enough sauerbraten for two hungry artists—eh, Donnini?” He winked at Kniptash. “For you and Coleman, I’ll fix something very filling. How about twelve pancakes with a slice of colonel between each one, and a big blob of hot fudge on top, eh?”
Happy Birthday, 1951
Summer is a fine time for a birthday,” said the old man. “And, as long as you have a choice, why not choose a summer day?” He wet his thumb on his tongue, and leafed through the sheaf of documents the soldiers had ordered him to fill out. No document could be complete without a birthdate, and, for the boy, one had to be chosen.
“Today can be your birthday, if you like it,” said the old man.
“It rained in the morning,” said the boy.
“All right, then—tomorrow. The clouds are blowing off to the south. The sun should shine all day tomorrow.”
Looking for shelter from the morning rainstorm, the soldiers had found the hidingplace where, miracle of miracles, the old man and the boy had lived in the ruins for seven years without documents—without, as it were, official permission to be alive. They said no person could get food or shelter or clothing without documents. But the old man and the boy had found all three for the digging in the catacombs of cellars beneath the shattered city, for the filching at night.
“Why are you shaking?” said the boy.
“Because I’m old. Because soldiers frighten old men.”
“They don’t frighten me,” said the boy. He was excited by the sudden intrusion into their underground world. He held something shiny, golden in the narrow shaft of light from the cellar window. “See? One of them gave me a brass button.”
There had been nothing frightening about the soldiers. Since the man was so old and the child so young, the military took a playful view of the pair—who, of all the people in the city, alone had recorded their presence nowhere, had been inoculated against nothing, had sworn allegiance to nothing, renounced or apologized for nothing, voted or marched for nothing, since the war.
“I meant no harm,” the old man had told the soldiers with a pretence of senility. “I didn’t know.” He told them how, on the day the war ended, a refugee woman had left a baby in his arms and never returned.