Free The Mascot by Mark Kurzem

until the sun came up. It seemed as if daylight would never come.”
    As he spoke of being frightened, I formed a different picture of my father. This version had none of the bravado of his fireside tales.
    â€œThose long nights would eventually turn into day when I could walk and scavenge, walk and scavenge, but then the dark would come back again. So that was my life and I owed it to that soldier”—he hesitated a moment and added—“and the other dead people I came across.”
    â€œThere were others?” I cut in.
    My father nodded.
    â€œHow many?”
    My father shrugged. “Quite a few. Whenever I came across one—they were mostly men—there was always something good growing around them. Much later, when I was with the soldiers and the weather was warmer, I’d often find wild strawberries growing around or underneath the bodies. And they were the biggest, juiciest strawberries you would ever see! I guess the bodies fertilized the soil as they decomposed.”
    â€œDid you come across any living people?” I asked.
    â€œSometimes I did,” my father replied. “There were occasions when I heard voices in the distance or the sound of footsteps on one of the paths nearby, but I’d move away as quickly and quietly as possible and hide in the undergrowth. They must’ve been peasants or woodsmen, I guess.
    â€œBut I did meet someone once. Properly. And that day my life was to change forever. I told you before that I was wandering in circles and that I kept coming across the same isolated cottage that I would watch from the safety of the trees. Well, one time I saw this old woman come out. She was a babushka all rigged out with her colored head scarf. I watched her as she gathered up some logs from a woodpile. Then she went back inside with them. I crept over to the window of her cottage. I was just tall enough to peep in. I could see that she was alone, cooking something in a big pot on the fire.
    â€œI moved across to the door and I knocked. I was nearly mad from cold and hunger. Her face appeared at the window and she rushed to open the door immediately. I remember her words exactly.
    â€œâ€˜What in God’s name?’ she said. I stood there, shivering. But then she bent down and took my face in her hands. I hadn’t felt anything like the touch of another human being in a long time. Certainly not one who was alive. Her hands were covered with hard calluses, but they were so warm.
    â€˜You’re freezing!’ she exclaimed. ‘Come.’ I allowed her to usher me in. She sat me down by the fire and began to rub me up and down vigorously.
    â€œâ€˜Whatever were you doing out there?’ she asked. ‘You must be starving,’ she added. She prepared me some soup from the pot. I don’t know how many bowls I ate. I just ate and ate. At one point she took the bowl away from me. ‘That’s enough,’ she said. ‘You’ll be sick.’
    â€œMy reaction was terrible. I was like a wild animal. I growled at her and made a dive for the bowl, trying to snatch it back. I must have frightened her, because she took a few steps back. ‘Have it your own way,’ she said. Then she went to the other side of the room and sat down there, watching me. I calmed down eventually, and she slowly edged the stool closer to me until finally she was next to me again. I must have looked and smelled disgusting because I saw her flinch. She reached out her hand and touched my hair. She said that she would give me a wash. She took off my clothes and gave me a thorough wash down. I didn’t mind. I can’t tell you how happy I was at that moment.
    â€œShe put some old clothing on me and threw my rags into the fire. She made such a face as they burned. We had a struggle, though, about the overcoat and boots. She wanted to toss them into the flames. She didn’t understand what they meant to me—they were my