Bolstered by this joy, this happiness, the woodcutter now worked with greater zeal, with greater strength. His comrades warmed to him more, and despite his taciturn nature, they invited him more often to join their post-work libations. One of them, more enterprising than the rest, had set up a home still that produced wood alcohol. He provided the drink. I do not know the recipe for this homemade wood alcohol, and even if I did, I would not give it to you. Suffice it to say that drinking wood alcohol is not advisable and that, in large quantities, causes blindness. “What matter, we’ll just have to make the best of things, and besides it’s not as though there’s much worth seeing,” announced the amateur distiller. The comrades were brave and boozy. After the day’s labors, they raised their glasses, since at home they did not have a little cargo bequeathed them by the train and by the heavens that might lead them to cherish life, if only their own.
On certain evenings, after their labors—glug, glug, glug—the woodcutter agreed to bend the elbow with his co-workers, reluctantly deferring the pleasure of returning to his beloved little cargo. In doing so, he shared his newfound happiness with his companions in misfortune—glug, glug, glug—and they would raise a glass, and then another. To what? To whom? One suggested they drink to the imminent end of this accursed war—glug, glug, glug—and then they drank to the extermination of the heartless—glug, glug, glug. One comrade announced that the crowded train they had seen returning empty was transporting heartless creatures from the seven corners of the world. Another went further: “Here we are, slogging our guts out for starvation wages, while the heartless are being ferried around for free on special trains!”
At length, a third man clarified: The heartless killed God, they brought about this war! They did not deserve to live, and their accursed war would end only when the world was finally rid of them forever!—glug, glug, glug—To their demise!—glug, glug, glug—To the death of the heartless!—glug, glug, glug—they cheered in concert.
Not quite in concert . . .
Our poor woodcutter, husband to our poor woodcutter’s wife—since all were woodcutters and all were poor—our woodcutter drank but stayed silent. At once, the others turned to him, waiting to hear him speak. They did not have to wait long (glug, glug, glug). The woodcutter wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and then, in the silence, to his surprise, he heard himself speak:
“The heartless have a heart.”
“What, what, what? What did he say? What does he mean?”
And the woodcutter once again surprised himself, this time in a thunderous voice that he had never before felt in his throat, the woodcutter, having slammed his tin cup down on the rickety table, causing it to collapse, said: “The heartless have a heart.”
Then he set off at speed, though weaving a little, toward his hut, toward his home, his ax slung over his shoulder, suddenly terrified that he had bellowed his truth, the truth: the heartless have a heart. He was terrified and at the same time relieved and proud, proud to have roared it into the faces of the others, to have freed himself, to have suddenly ended a whole life of submission and silence. He was heading home to his beloved wife, to the apple of his eye that the wood alcohol would not blind that evening. He was heading home to the precious cargo that the gods—for it could have been no one else—had bestowed on him. And as he walked, he felt his heart pound and pound. Then he was surprised to hear himself singing, singing as he walked, a song he had never sung, though neither had he ever sung another. He was walking and singing, intoxicated, drunk on freedom and on love.
His consternated comrades exclaimed: “He can’t hold his liquor like he used to! He’s drunk! He’s off his head!”—glug, glug, glug—“He’ll be fine tomorrow when he’s sober.” And they too began to sing, songs taught to them by their masters, by the hunters of the heartless, by the invaders, songs that said:
“We will plunge our knives into the hollow chests of the heartless until not one remains, until they have returned to us all the things they stole—death to the heartless”—glug, glug, glug—
And as he drank, the man who made the wood alcohol remembered that, before the war, the local authorities had offered a reward for the head of every verminous animal that hunters brought to the town hall. Glug, glug, glug.