ache of anxiety for her. It is not going to get any easier for them. The family is Jewish.
“How are the children?” he asks.
She shrugs, smiles. “Always hungry. Outgrowing their clothes.”
She, herself, looks translucent in the winter sun.
—
Suzanne has unravelled an old sweater. She is knitting him mitts, the fingerless kind, so that he can continue to write despite the cold—so he can at least hold his pen. It’s complicated work, the separation of the fingerholes, the angling of the thumb. She’s counting stitches, tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth. She will not allow him any excuses: there can be no reasons not to write.
“I saw Lucie Léon today,” he says.
She lets her hands fall, the knitting bundled in her lap. “Lucie! How is she getting on?”
“She seemed all right.”
He gets up, prowls out to the pantry, where he opens cupboards, stares at the bare shelves. A quarter-full bag of barley-coffee, an inch or so of brandy, a small packet of saccharine. A tin of toothpowder.
“I bought a swede,” Suzanne calls. “And there are two carrots left. I’ll make a purée later.”
He nods, in the little pantry, where she cannot see him; he calls back to her, “Thank you.” But it wasn’t his own hunger that he had been considering.
—
The next morning, they wake to an apartment of ice. They fumble into their clothes, clumsy, skin bristling, their breath clouding the air. The heating-pipes are cold to the touch.
“The boiler must have packed up.”
Huddled in her little cubbyhole off the lobby, the concierge just shakes her head, her hands stuffed into her armpits. She has her husband’s old coat pulled on over layers of sweaters, wraps, aprons and cardigans. She has a blanket over her knees.
There’s nothing wrong with the boiler; the boiler’s completely fine, or it would be, if they had anything to feed it with.
This is, she informs them, the drop that made the vase overflow. Simply put, there is no coal. There is none to be had. Not from their usual supplier, nor from any other, and believe her, she has tried. Between them, she and her husband have telephoned to or trudged round every coal yard in the quarter, and there’s nothing in them but horse dung and black dust. The coalmen are in trouble: it should be their busiest time of year, but they have nothing left to sell.
Suzanne’s not having it. “That’s ridiculous.”
The woman shrugs. “That’s the way it is.”
“But why?”
“The coal’s gone the way of the potatoes and the wheat and all the blessed wine.”
“What way’s that?”
“To Germany.”
—
But life is not impossible, not yet. There’s a fireplace in the apartment, though he has never thought to use it before. Suzanne crouches to peer up the chimney, pulls out damp balled newspaper, which is followed by a fall of soot and twigs and the mummified body of a bird. They drop the corpse in the waste chute, then flatten out the paper and read the news from March 1936. There in grey and paler grey is news of the remilitarization of the Rhineland, an obituary for Jean Patou. That one could feel nostalgic for that!
Stiff with cold, they scavenge fallen wood and fir cones in the parks and squares and from the trees that line the avenues. They build inexpert smoky, spitty little fires in the grate and huddle close to them, wrapped in blankets. But the parks are soon picked clean; all the lowest branches are torn clear off the lindens and the plane trees; the boards are dragged down from the windows of boarded-up shops. People—people who are clearly much better equipped for this than they—start to cut down trees, so that there is nothing left but sawdust, and the disc of a stump, and an absence up into the air that the tree had used to fill.
—
She gives up her apartment: impossible to keep both places.
He tries to work. There’s a tickling at the back of his brain, an irritation, something squirming and wanting to be noticed,
“How are the children?” he asks.
She shrugs, smiles. “Always hungry. Outgrowing their clothes.”
She, herself, looks translucent in the winter sun.
—
Suzanne has unravelled an old sweater. She is knitting him mitts, the fingerless kind, so that he can continue to write despite the cold—so he can at least hold his pen. It’s complicated work, the separation of the fingerholes, the angling of the thumb. She’s counting stitches, tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth. She will not allow him any excuses: there can be no reasons not to write.
“I saw Lucie Léon today,” he says.
She lets her hands fall, the knitting bundled in her lap. “Lucie! How is she getting on?”
“She seemed all right.”
He gets up, prowls out to the pantry, where he opens cupboards, stares at the bare shelves. A quarter-full bag of barley-coffee, an inch or so of brandy, a small packet of saccharine. A tin of toothpowder.
“I bought a swede,” Suzanne calls. “And there are two carrots left. I’ll make a purée later.”
He nods, in the little pantry, where she cannot see him; he calls back to her, “Thank you.” But it wasn’t his own hunger that he had been considering.
—
The next morning, they wake to an apartment of ice. They fumble into their clothes, clumsy, skin bristling, their breath clouding the air. The heating-pipes are cold to the touch.
“The boiler must have packed up.”
Huddled in her little cubbyhole off the lobby, the concierge just shakes her head, her hands stuffed into her armpits. She has her husband’s old coat pulled on over layers of sweaters, wraps, aprons and cardigans. She has a blanket over her knees.
There’s nothing wrong with the boiler; the boiler’s completely fine, or it would be, if they had anything to feed it with.
This is, she informs them, the drop that made the vase overflow. Simply put, there is no coal. There is none to be had. Not from their usual supplier, nor from any other, and believe her, she has tried. Between them, she and her husband have telephoned to or trudged round every coal yard in the quarter, and there’s nothing in them but horse dung and black dust. The coalmen are in trouble: it should be their busiest time of year, but they have nothing left to sell.
Suzanne’s not having it. “That’s ridiculous.”
The woman shrugs. “That’s the way it is.”
“But why?”
“The coal’s gone the way of the potatoes and the wheat and all the blessed wine.”
“What way’s that?”
“To Germany.”
—
But life is not impossible, not yet. There’s a fireplace in the apartment, though he has never thought to use it before. Suzanne crouches to peer up the chimney, pulls out damp balled newspaper, which is followed by a fall of soot and twigs and the mummified body of a bird. They drop the corpse in the waste chute, then flatten out the paper and read the news from March 1936. There in grey and paler grey is news of the remilitarization of the Rhineland, an obituary for Jean Patou. That one could feel nostalgic for that!
Stiff with cold, they scavenge fallen wood and fir cones in the parks and squares and from the trees that line the avenues. They build inexpert smoky, spitty little fires in the grate and huddle close to them, wrapped in blankets. But the parks are soon picked clean; all the lowest branches are torn clear off the lindens and the plane trees; the boards are dragged down from the windows of boarded-up shops. People—people who are clearly much better equipped for this than they—start to cut down trees, so that there is nothing left but sawdust, and the disc of a stump, and an absence up into the air that the tree had used to fill.
—
She gives up her apartment: impossible to keep both places.
He tries to work. There’s a tickling at the back of his brain, an irritation, something squirming and wanting to be noticed,
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