The mute stood by the door of his house. His dark hair stood out wildly from the sides of his head, as though he had been dragged from his bed, his chin was rough with stubble and his eyes wide. He wore dark trousers, but the belt, Yael noticed, hung loose and his shirt was unbuttoned. She saw at once he had not betrayed her to the Nazis.
There were six or seven smartly dressed German soldiers. They milled around the farm, opening doors, calling crisp commands. A large, fair-haired soldier had slid back the bolt of the outhouse from which Yael had fetched hay the previous evening. Looking out now, through the narrow gaps between the boards, Yael noticed the thin trace of hay she had trailed across the field.
The morning was dry, but the sky overcast. Large clouds moved south, stained and heavy. Snow was imminent. At the top of the path Yael noticed a civilian, a poorly dressed man in his mid-thirties. She vaguely recognised him from the town. The German soldiers called up to him. Reluctantly he made his way down to the house. One of the Germans barked at him in Polish.
“Well?”
The man took his cap off and held it tightly in his hands, screwing it around, as if it were a wet dishcloth. He glanced at the mute in the doorway and then away, settling his gaze on the soldier’s polished boots.
“There were some of them in the woods,” the Pole stammered. He nodded in the direction of the woods on the other side of the road at the top of the farm. “Last night, the night before. They’ve been around local houses demanding food.”
The soldier turned to the mute.
“What have you seen?” His tone was impatient. He scarcely glanced at Aleksei’s dishevelled face, his eyes casting around instead, flicking from window to doorway, to the woods, the well. The other soldiers stood around, following the conversation. Two had moved down to the well. One kicked at a stalk of hay absent-mindedly.
“Answer!” the German shouted.
The mute stood back a pace. His shoulders rose and his eyes darted about frantically. She saw them sweep across to the hencoop, linger a moment and then move away.
The German stepped forward and punched the mute hard in the stomach. He doubled up and fell with a grunt to the ground.
“Do you know I could have you shot for refusing to answer?” the German barked. “Do you know what the price is for sheltering vermin?”
The Pole tried to speak, he held up his hand lamely, but the German turned on him viciously, snapping the clip from the leather holster at his waist, from which he half drew a pistol.
“The Poles are no better,” one of the soldiers at the well muttered. “It’s like rats sheltering fleas.”
The other soldier laughed softly. In the hencoop Yael’s pulse raced. The German was more or less understandable, similar to her native Yiddish.
The German interrogator turned to the two by the well. “Search the house,” he yelled. “See what you find.”
“He’s a crazy one,” the Pole finally stuttered, nodding at the mute. “He don’t speak, never has.”
The German cocked his head to one side and gazed at the figure on the floor. The mute’s long hair hung over his eyes. He was muttering, coughing, choking, the sounds arising like the bubbling of a brook.
“Mentally retarded?” the German said.
“He’s not dangerous, or nothing,” the Pole interjected quickly, his voice shaking with nerves. “It’s just that he don’t never seem to have learned to speak.”
“Speech,” the German said, taking a clean handkerchief from his pocket and blowing his nose with it. “Speech is what makes us human. It is what defines us. It is what civilises us. Without speech we are what? We are no better than beasts, no more significant than dogs, than pigs.”
“Well I don’t know about that,” the Pole said. He was shaking his head and realised the German was humouring him. Despite the cold, a line of sweat glistened on his forehead.
The mute had got to his feet. He was taller, and much broader than the German. He brushed his hair back from his face and attempted to tidy his clothes. From behind him the two soldiers pushed out of the house.
“There’s nothing in there,” they said, “just a whole pile of books.”
“Books?” the interrogator laughed. “What would this dog want with books?” He fingered the pistol in its holster and seemed to be considering. “We should take him in,” he said. “It’s not right to leave him here, he’s no more than an animal.”
“Leave him be,” another of the soldiers remonstrated, “we’ve got enough on looking for these partisans.”
The interrogator shook his head, as though it was against his better judgement. “You wouldn’t leave a stray dog, would you, to starve to death? It’s better to kill it. Put it out of its misery.” A thought seemed to strike him. “And what if he breeds? What then? We would end up with a whole race of them! Mute!”
The other soldiers laughed. “I could see the benefit of it,” the joker said, nodding his head in the direction of the Pole. “Anyway, don’t worry, the only thing he’s going to be having sex with out here is one of the pigs.”
As they turned to leave the mute reached out and touched the arm of the interrogator. The German jumped back and wiped his sleeve as if disgusted. The mute pointed towards the hencoop, a strangulated noise tearing his throat. Yael froze. The mute moved quickly down the path towards the small wooden building. Yael shuffled to the far corner, pushing her back tight against the boards. Her heart was thumping, and yet the blood seemed to have drained from her face. By the house the group of German soldiers looked on bemused. The mute paused a moment by the small door of the hencoop. He glanced back over his shoulder. Opening the door his arm snaked inside. Yael whimpered. The hand reached up, feeling along the shelf, between the sitting hens and quickly, expertly, extracted a number of fresh eggs.
Yael did not see the mute as he made his way back up to the farmyard, his arms full of the eggs. She heard though the sound of the laughter, of their receding feet. The cough of an engine and then silence.
The air hissed from Yael’s lungs as she exhaled. She pressed her forehead against the boards. For some moments she struggled to take control of her breathing. Her vision blurred and she thought she was going to faint. Slowly her pulse settled and she leaned back against the side of the coop, her eyes closed.
Later when she looked out, it had started to snow. Thick flakes that fell heavily and rested on the grass like down, not melting, so that a few minutes later they had begun to join up, forming small white islands, spreading, colonising the back field. A thin column of smoke rose from the chimneystack of the farmhouse. The mute appeared in the window, his face black against the darkness. He disappeared but a few moments later the door opened.
The footprints he left in the snow were large. He stopped at the hencoop and opened the flap. His face appeared in the opening. He beckoned her gently. Without saying a word she followed him up to the house, lingering for a moment on the threshold. He took her arm and gently pulled her in, closing the door behind her.