He disinfected the wound again and inspected it. “That’s all done.”
“Aren’t you going to put anything on that?” asked Kalinka. “Stitch it, maybe? That’s what my mama would have done.”
“These horses heal better the natural way. Now that the bullet is out, she’ll mend soon enough, I reckon. As long as we keep the wound clean, it should be all right. It’s not likely she’ll be rolling in any dirt for a while. With God’s help, she’ll be fine, I think.”
“God,” said Kalinka, and made a snorting noise that had the stallion turning around to look at her curiously. “If he lived on earth, I think people would smash his windows. I know I would.”
“I bet that’s not something your grandfather said,” said Max, washing his hands in the freezing pail of water.
Kalinka shivered under her blanket and did not reply.
“There’s no point in trying to understand God,” said Max. “If we did, he wouldn’t be God, I think.”
Max fetched the two horses some rice and some oats in a couple of pails from a big bag in the loft and watched them eat for a moment, simply taking pleasure that there was a pair of the horses that had escaped Captain Grenzmann and his men. With a pair, you could breed again.
“Any more of them alive, do you think?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “The Germans killed almost all of them, I think. They’re good at that.”
“True,” said Max. “Look, you’d better come into the cottage and get warm.”
“What about the horses?”
“They’ll be all right in here,” he said. “I don’t think anyone will come out here on a night like this. All the same, we’ll move them somewhere safer in the morning. I’ll leave them the light so they can finish their oats in comfort, although I suspect their vision is pretty good in the dark.”
The sound of horses feeding greedily filled the stable.
“They are hungry, aren’t they?” said Kalinka.
He smiled. “You look as though you could use some feeding yourself, Kalinka.”
“I’m all right,” she said.
But then she fainted, and it was clear to Max she wasn’t all right at all. He scooped her up in his strong arms and carried her into the little blue cottage.
KALINKA HAD FAINTED BECAUSE she was starving; the four squares of dark chocolate given to her by the old man had reminded her of just how hungry she was. It had been three days since she’d last eaten something. But in front of his roaring log fire, swaddled in blankets, and with the old man’s wolfhound lying on her feet, she quickly regained consciousness and drank a glass of hot sweet Russian tea from the samovar Max always kept lit when he was at home, and ate a piece of black bread and butter.
“Feeling better?” he asked her.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Please don’t mention it. I haven’t much in the way of company these days, so you’ll have to excuse my housekeeping. Sometimes, there’s a German SS officer who stops by to water his horse in my stable and to give him some oats and rice—that’s why there’s a bag of feed in there—but he wouldn’t ever dream of coming in here. Which is just as well. The Germans make me nervous.” He shrugged. “Well, I suppose they make everyone nervous. For all the reasons you mentioned earlier.”
Kalinka nodded, thinking she understood what the old man was too ashamed to come right out and say to her face.
“It’s all right. I’ll be on my way in just a minute, just as soon as I’ve finished this lovely tea. I wouldn’t like to get you in any trouble.”
“What are you talking about?” said Max. “You can’t go anywhere on a night like this. You’d die of exposure.”
“You really mean it? I can stay the night? Here? With you?”
“Stay the night and as long as you want, my girl. You’re very welcome here.”
“But I thought—what I mean is—well, everyone else I’ve been to for help since I left Dnepropetrovsk has told me to go away. And not as politely as that. They all said it was too dangerous for me to stay and drove me off with stones. Even when I was just sleeping in their barns or in their hayricks. Some of the local villagers set their dogs on me. Fortunately, I’ve always been good with dogs, so they didn’t bite me.”
She leaned down and patted Taras, who turned and licked Kalinka’s hand as if he recognized someone who needed to feel some affection.
“You mean the villagers around here?”
Kalinka nodded. Before the old man had given her the chocolate, it had been months—perhaps longer—since anyone had shown her kindness.