Chapter Eight
Elsa set aside half of her bread to share with Klara later, tucking it deftly inside her clothing to keep it safe. She glanced up and noticed the escaped prisoner was doing the same. She hated him for having the same survival plan as her. It somehow narrowed the differences between them, and their differences were what they had clung onto for years. She stood up and looked through a knothole in the door.
The biting wind was lifting the branches and debris from the ground and swirling the freezing snow so it danced wildly as it tracked the base of the stone walls and the slope of the roof tiles of the barn next door. No one would be travelling today. She turned away, glad that the thatched roof on their barn muted much of the sound. She retreated with Klara into the furthest corner from the soldier. An uneasy peace descended.
‘Is the weather still bad?’
Elsa gave a curt nod.
‘Where are you going?’ Walker asked after some minutes. ‘Do you have a family? A husband?’
She glanced up.Whyshe was alone had nothing to do with him.
He must have read from the expression on her face how she felt. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so impertinent. I just meant that you look like you have been travelling for days. Travelling alone in wartime is a risky thing to do, particularly a woman and child on their own.’
‘What I am doing is no concern of yours,’ replied Elsa. She thought better of it. She was being rude and rudeness wasn’t in her nature. ‘But I thank you for your concern. I would not choose to travel alone. I understand the risks. I can see that I am at risk now.’
He seemed surprised. ‘You mean from me?’
‘I mean from you.’
‘I can assure you, hurting a woman and a young child is not on my agenda.’ He looked at the pitchfork. ‘What is on yours?’
‘Right now?’
‘Right now.’
‘To leave here — and you — as soon as the weather improves.’
‘It seems we are both hoping for the blizzard to pass,’ he replied. ‘You, so you can travel, me so I won’t be prodded with a pitchfork in my sleep.’
They sat in mutual silence, looking at everything except each other. Eventually, Klara became a magnet for their gazes to rest on, neutral ground, a calming sight...
The barn door slammed open.
A woman stood in the entrance, her legs and arms braced, trembling as she surveyed her barn. She was as tall as her husband but much stockier. She wore an old flowery pinafore over her grey dress and no coat, as if she had run straight from the kitchen without even thinking of the blizzard. Her thinning grey hair was swept up into a rudimentary small bun, which to Elsa seemed to carry far too many oversized pins than was needed. Tiny wisps of stray, dry hair had already attempted their escape, flattened somewhat by the snow. By night-time, Elsa thought, it would have enough to form a halo around her head. The woman snorted when her gaze fell on Elsa’s curious expression. Her cheeks, home to a mass of spidery rosacea veins, wobbled and reddened.
‘Three of them! Three!’ She turned to her husband, who had followed sheepishly behind. She hit him, over and over, the slaps alternating on each side of his head. The blows rained down on him in quick succession. ‘Have you gone mad?’ she shouted between each slap. ‘We don’t have enough food to feed ourselves let alone anyone else! No more refugees, I said!’
‘Come, Erna,’ he cajoled, warding her off with his forearms and splayed hands.
‘Don’t “Come, Erna” me!’ She stopped her attack and turned her venom onto Elsa. ‘Get out! Now! Before I report you for stealing!’
Elsa looked to Heinrich for help but found none forthcoming.
She calmly addressed the wife. ‘I didn’t ste—’
‘Out!’ She pulled Klara roughly to her feet. ‘Before I kill you!’ The woman grabbed the pitchfork and swung it wildly towards Walker. ‘You! Get up! Take your wife and brat out of here or I will stab you until you cry for mercy then I will stab you some more!’ She stabbed the air to prove her point.
Walker slowly stood.
‘Move!’ she shrieked. ‘Get out of here or I will kill you! What is your name? I shall report you!’
Elsa tried to placate her. ‘Please. We will leave when the weather is better.’
The woman turned on her again, furiously stabbing the air with her pitchfork so Elsa was forced to step back.
‘I want you outnow!’
