Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden

Author:Joseph Boyden [Boyden, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780297847922
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2005-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

PAHKONIKEWIN

Skinning

ON CHRISTMAS, what seems like an uneasy peace settles over the trenches for a few hours. For the first time since I’ve been here, the pounding sound of the big guns does not serve as background to everything that we do. The quiet is unsettling. Our section is one of the lucky ones sent back in a nice bit of timing to behind the lines where festivities for the troops are planned. In a nearby village a great rowdy affair begins and the rum runs freely and we run from house to house drinking and visiting with soldiers from many different places. Gilberto is as happy as I’ve ever seen him and has become close with Graves and Fat. The three walk ahead of Elijah and me, arms around each other’s shoulders, singing an Italian song that Gilberto knows, a bottle between them.

Grey Eyes catches up to us with his glassy eyes dulled a little by the drink. He has been scouting around and brings with him half a goose stolen from the table of some British officers a few houses back. We all tear off a chunk and I eat mine as I walk, the taste reminding me of that place where I was born that feels so impossibly far away right now. I look to Elijah, his lips smeared with the fat of the goose’s skin, and in his eyes I see the sadness of what he too feels.

The sound of an accordion and a fiddle comes from a darkened house along the street and we are all drawn to it at the same time. Inside, Frenchmen with blue uniforms and dark hair and unshaven faces sit around a room lit by candles and sing in accompaniment. The words are soft and pretty and the music swirls around my rum-filled head so that I feel a peace I’ve not felt in a long time. I look over to Elijah. He feels the same thing, I see. He goes to a corner of the room and lets himself slide down the wall so that he’s sitting on his haunches, eyes closed and head swaying with the sound. The music stops but I know it continues to echo in his head as it does in mine. Eventually, he sits and stretches his legs and opens his eyes, seeing that only I remain in this room with the Frenchmen, keeping an eye out for him.

The men act as if Elijah and I are not even here, talking and gesturing and drinking from the many bottles on the table. A few of them hold long knives with thin, wicked blades and brass knuckles for handles and play games with one another, placing their hands out on the table and spreading their fingers, allowing the other to tap the point of his knife as fast as he can between the digits, a blur of glinting metal between fingers. Elijah is mesmerized by the game. He stares with his head tilted and his mouth held loose.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.