Free A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli

serious, impassive expression it had worn since he entered the house.
    Bauer nodded to him. ‘That’s not all. Come over here and look. Our soup is going to be magnificent, but it’ll cost you.’
    The Pole moved towards him and carelessly handed him the flask, not even looking as he did so. As I already said, this stuff fell like rain in Poland. Bauer drank a mouthful, gasped like a horse, then passed the flask to Emmerich. He gasped like a horse too, and moaned with pain. And while I, in turn, burned my throat, the Jew sniffed andcoughed in the storeroom, as if he were the one who’d just drunk the alcohol.
    The Pole took a step forward, almost touching us, then looked inside the storeroom, through the half-opened doorway. Because, up to this point, the Jew, though very close, had been invisible to him. The Pole stayed there now, motionless in front of us, staring with his black eyes at the squatting Jew, who stared sadly back. After a moment, the Pole turned his gaze on us, and the distinguished handsomeness of his face vanished. He opened his mouth and bared his gums in a kind of monstrous smile, like a dead fish without teeth.
    He looked at the Jew again.
    â€˜What’s up with you?’ Bauer asked. Then, a few seconds later: ‘What did you see that made you grin like that?’
    The Pole seemed unwilling to stop staring at the Jew, and his peeled-back lips expressed a sort of satisfaction. Bauer demanded, ‘What’s got into you?’
    The Pole, looking at Bauer, quickly said a few words before his gaze swung back to the storeroom. And then he spoke, in the universal language of malice, his head nodding maliciously too.
    The Jew stared at him for a few more seconds, before lowering his eyes. And then, with his elbows on his knees,his chin in his hands, his back bent, he seemed to completely ignore all of us. He was looking at a point in the storeroom that we couldn’t see. But that did not dry up the flood of the Pole’s words.
    â€˜Do you know him?’ Bauer asked impatiently.
    The Pole went silent and turned to Bauer, who pointed at the Jew with one hand, then at the Pole with the other, and then, bringing his two index fingers together, asked, ‘So, do you know him?’
    The Pole shook his head. He looked stunned by the question.
    â€˜So shut your mouth a bit,’ said Bauer. ‘Leave him in peace, and us too.’
    The Pole began to speak to the three of us.
    â€˜No, shut your mouth,’ Bauer said nastily, ‘or we’ll chuck you outside, and I’ll beat the shit out of you.’
    The Pole kept silent. He glanced once more at the storeroom, then went back close to the stove. He did not peel back his lips any more. His face returned to the serious, distinguished expression it had worn before, but it no longer had the same effect. It no longer meant the same thing.
    I still had the flask in my hand. I leaned across to hand it back to him. But, without resentment, he signalled thatI could keep hold of it. I put it on the table in front of me.
    The dog had woken up and raised its head when Bauer spoke, and I noticed that the little balls of snow had begun to melt. They were no longer as round as before. There was a small puddle of water between its paws.
    Bauer had seen it too. I could sense his astonishment, next to me.
    â€˜Oh, Emmerich!’ he gasped.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Does it hurt?’
    â€˜Does what hurt?’ demanded Emmerich, at first failing to grasp, as before, the joke about his balls.
    Crossing his arms high around his chest, so his sides wouldn’t split, Bauer pressed his mouth into his sleeve. His stifled laughter shook his body so strongly that the bench began to shake too. We could feel his laughter beneath us now.
    Emmerich, sitting on the other side of Bauer, leaned forward so he could see me and silently ask me what was going on. I didn’t feel that it was up to me to tell him, so I pretended not to