The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski [35]
I observed this spectacle as if paralyzed, unable to tear myself away from the edge of the opening, lacking sufficient will power to cover it with the tin panel. Suddenly the shifting sea of rats parted and slowly, unhurrying, with the stroke of a swimmer, a bony hand with bony spreadeagled fingers rose, followed by the man’s entire arm. For a moment it stood immobile above the rats scuttling about below; but suddenly the momentum of the surging animals thrust to the surface the entire bluish-white skeleton of the carpenter, partly defleshed and partly covered with shreds of reddish skin and gray clothing. In between the ribs, under the armpits, and in the place where the belly was, gaunt rodents fiercely struggled for the remaining scraps of dangling muscle and intestine. Mad with greed, they tore from one another scraps of clothing, skin, and formless chunks of the trunk. They dived into the center of the man’s body only to jump out through another chewed hole. The corpse sank under renewed thrusts. When it next came to the surface of the bloody writhing sludge, it was a completely bare skeleton.
Frantically I grabbed the carpenter’s ax and fled. I reached the cart breathlessly; the unsuspecting ox was grazing calmly. I leapt onto the box seat and pulled the reins, but the animal did not want to move without its master. Looking behind, convinced that at any moment the swarm of rats would rush out in pursuit, I jabbed the ox with the whip. It turned around in disbelief, hesitated, but the next few blows convinced it that we would not wait for the carpenter.
The cart jerked furiously over the ruts of the long untraveled road; the wheels tore the bushes and crushed the weeds growing across the trail. I was unfamiliar with the road and was only trying to get as far away as possible from the bunker and the carpenter’s village. I drove at a frenzied pace through the forests and clearings, avoiding roads with any fresh traces of peasant vehicles. When night fell I camouflaged the cart in the bushes and went to sleep on the box seat.
The next two days I spent traveling, once just missing a military outpost at a sawmill. The ox grew lean and its flanks narrowed. But I rushed on and on, until I was certain I was far enough away.
We were approaching a small village; I rode into it calmly and halted at the first hut I came to, where a peasant crossed himself immediately on beholding me. I offered him the cart and ox, in return for shelter and food. He scratched his head, consulted his wife and neighbors, and finally agreed, after looking suspiciously at the ox’s teeth—and at mine.
7
The village lay far from the railroad line and river. Three times a year detachments of German soldiers would arrive to collect the foodstuffs and materials which the peasants were obliged to provide for the army.
I was being kept by a blacksmith who was also the head peasant of the village. He was well respected and esteemed by the villagers. For this reason I was better treated here. However, now and then when they had been drinking the peasants would say that I could only bring misfortune to the community and that the Germans, if they found out about the Gypsy brat, would punish the entire village. But no one dared to say such things directly to the blacksmith’s face, and in general I was not bothered. True, the blacksmith liked to slap my face when he was tipsy and I got in his way, but there were no other consequences. The two hired hands preferred to thrash each other rather than me, and the blacksmith’s son, who was known in the village for his amorous feats, was almost never on the farm.
Early each morning the blacksmith’s wife would give me a glass of