The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason

Author:Daniel Mason
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2018-09-10T16:00:00+00:00

They lay on one of the blankets in the high grass in the lee of the willow tree, sheltered by the swaying ranks of mustard.

Now out of the water, they both found themselves beset by sudden modesty. He didn’t know what to say. It occurred to him that he had never seen a woman completely naked who wasn’t on an autopsy slab, but decided this was a thought best kept to himself. A breeze came; he shivered, debated asking for a shirt. The ground was stonier than they had expected, and the army blanket itched. Pollen from the pines swept through, and he fell into a fit of sneezing. A scuttling startled them: but it was only a sparrow! Then an invisible sand fly raised pink, vampirish welts upon their necks.

At first this mattered, then it didn’t matter very much.

After, they found they had rolled far from the blanket. Laughing, they crawled back. She wrapped the second blanket around her torso and drew out the bread she’d brought along. It crumbled as she broke it open and spread crushed currants with her knife. She took a bite and then a second, before passing it to him. Her hands, despite their swim, still smelled of mushrooms and soil. Neither spoke.

The only questions that he could think of now were questions that seemed too great to ask her. How long she had felt like this. If she’d imagined this would happen. What was next.

He thought of the roads leading away from the hospital, which led to thoughts of distant hospitals, which led to thoughts of Horváth. Against the summer forest, he saw the snow, the evacuation lorry disappearing on the winter road. I do not deserve this kind of happiness, he thought.

Then he shivered. She had touched his back. The winter vanished, the hills burst forth in green. They kissed, then parted. Her lips tasting of currant, her chin dusted with the flour from the bread.

On his shoulder, his skin was bruised where earlier she had bitten him. Was it a specialty of the nurses of Saint Catherine? he almost asked, feeling giddy again. But he had no interest in reminding her of broken vows. Instead, he lay beside her and ran his fingers tentatively up her dirt-flecked calf. He stopped at her knee, now shy again. A katydid trundled across the blanket, below the double arch of her knees. He waited, watching. He broke a blade of grass and ran it along her ankle. She slapped it away. He felt bold, flirtatious. Again, he tickled her. “The Louse,” he whispered.

“Lucius!”

“Oh, no! The Louse!”

She dug her fingers into the earth and threw a clod at him.

A moment later she was picking through his hair. “I’m sorry! Your poor face! Oh, your eyes!”

She licked a finger and wiped dirt from an eyelid, brushed his lashes gently, kissed him. “There. You’re clean.”

But really, he shouldn’t joke like that.

He lay back, looked up where he could see her neck and shoulder silhouetted against the sky.

It seemed impossible, not simply the circumstances, but the change she’d undergone.

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