The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski [88]
It was nearer to me than ever. I could almost touch its airy shroud, gaze into its misty eyes. It stopped in front of me, preening itself coquettishly and hinting at another meeting. I was not afraid of it; I hoped it would take me along to the other side of the forest, to the fathomless marshes where branches dip into the steaming caldrons bubbling with sulphurous fumes, where one hears at night the thin dry clatter of coupling ghosts and the shrill wind in the treetops, like a violin in a distant room.
I reached out my hand, but the ghost vanished among the trees with their burden of rustling leaves and heavy crop of hanging corpses.
Something seemed to burn inside me. My head was spinning, and I was covered with sweat. I walked toward the riverbank. The moist breeze cooled me and I sat down on a log.
The river was wide here. Its swift current carried timber, broken branches, strips of sackcloth, bunches of straw in wildly swirling eddies. Now and again the bloated body of a horse floated by. Once I thought I saw a bluish, rotted human corpse hovering just under the surface. For a moment the waters were clear. Then came a mass of fish killed by the explosions. They rolled over, flowed along upside down, and crowded together, as if there were no longer room for them in this river, to which the rainbow had brought them long ago.
I was shivering. I decided to approach the Red soldiers, though I was not sure how they would look upon people with black, bewitching eyes. As I passed by the array of hanging bodies I thought I recognized the man who had hit me with his rifle butt. He was swinging in wide circles, openmouthed and fly-ridden. I turned my head up to get a better view of his face. A pain again pierced my chest.
16
I was released from the regimental hospital. Weeks had gone by. It was the autumn of 1944. The pain in my chest had disappeared, and whatever had been broken by the butt of the Kalmuk’s rifle was now healed.
Contrary to what I had feared, I was allowed to stay with the soldiers, but I knew that this was temporary. I expected to be left in some village when the regiment went into the front line. In the meantime it was encamped by the river, and nothing suggested an early departure. It was a communications regiment, composed mainly of very young soldiers and recently recruited officers, who had been boys when the war began. The cannon, machine-guns, trucks, telegraphic and telephonic equipment were all brand-new and well oiled and as yet untested by war. The tent canvas and the men’s uniforms had not yet had time to fade.
The war and the front line were already far away in enemy territory. The radio reported daily new defeats of the German Army and of its exhausted allies. The soldiers listened carefully to the reports, nodded their heads with pride, and went about their training. They wrote lengthy letters to their relatives and friends, doubting that they would have a chance to go into battle before the war ended, for the Germans were being routed by their older brothers.
Life in the regiment was calm and well ordered. Every few days a small biplane landed on the temporary airfield, bringing mail and newspapers. The letters brought news from home, where people were beginning to rebuild the ruins. Pictures in the newspapers showed bombed Soviet and German cities, smashed fortifications, and the bearded faces of German prisoners in endless lines. Rumors of the approaching end of the war circulated more and more frequently among the officers and soldiers.
Two men looked after me most of the time. They were Gavrila, a political officer of the regiment, who was said to have lost his entire family in the first days of the Nazi invasion, and Mitka, known as “Mitka the Cuckoo,” a sharpshooting instructor and a crack sniper.
I also enjoyed the protection of many of their friends. Every day Gavrila used to spend time with me in the