blade. The older takes off his cap, something soft and compassionate in the lift. His graying hair, a little damp, lies pressed against his scalp. When he leans forward she notices a smal scapular swinging at his neck.
“It was given to me by my grandfather,” she says final y. “It was the name of his own father.”
“So you're a real Gypsy then?”
“You're a real woodsman?”
The older laughs and drums his fingers on the table: “What do I say? We're paid by the cubic meter.”
So, she thinks, a workcamp for prisoners. They remain out here, al summer and winter. Minimum security. Morning until night, sorting wood, gauging it, chopping it, weighing. She watches as the younger rises and goes to the door where he takes an oilskin cloth out of the hanging pair of trousers. He unties a string from the cloth and produces a set of playing cards, slides them across the table to Zoli.
“Our fortune.”
“What?”
“Don't be a God-fearing idiot,” says the older, slapping the cards off the table.
The younger one retrieves them from the floor. “Come on, tel us our fortune,” he says again.
“I don't tel fortunes,” says Zoli.
“It gets lonely out here,” says the younger. “Al I want is my fortune told.”
“Shut up,” says the older.
“I'm just tel ing her it gets lonely. Doesn't it? It gets real lonely.”
“I'm tel ing you to shut up, Tomas.”
“She's worth money. You heard him. He said he'd pay us money. And you said—”
“Shut up and leave her alone.”
Zoli watches as the older goes to a smal bookshelf where he takes down a leather volume. He returns to the table and folds back the cover.
“Can you read this?” he says.
“Christ rides!” says the younger.
“Can you read it?”
“Yes.”
“For fucksake!”
“Here's where you are now. Right here. It's an old map, so it looks like it's Hungary but it's not. This is where Hungary is, along here. The other way, over here, is Austria. They'l shoot you before they lay eyes on you. Thousands of soldiers. Do you understand? Thousands.”
“Yes.”
“The best way to make it through is this lake. It is only one meter deep, even in the middle. That's where the border is, in the middle. They don't patrol it with boats. And you won't drown. They may shoot you but you won't drown.”
“And this?”
“That's the old border.”
He closes the book and leans in close to Zoli. The younger looks back and forth, as if a language lies between them that he wil never understand.
“Ah, fuck,” he says. “She's worth money. You heard what he said. A reward.”
“Give her back the knife.”
“Shit.”
“Give her the knife, Tomas.”
The younger skids the knife across the floor and sighs. Zoli picks it up, backs across the hard stone floor towards the door, pul s down the handle.
Locked. A brief panic claws at her throat until the older man steps across, leans forward, turns the handle upwards, and the door swings open. A
blast of cold wind.
“One thing,” he says. “Are you real y a poet?” I sang. A smgerr
“Yes.”
“Same thing, no?”
“No, I don't think so,” she says.
Al three step out into the stinging light of the morning. The oldest extends his hand.
“Josef,” he says.
