The Convalescent Read Online Free Page B

mountain, gasping for air, hot with sweat and dirt and body oils. Right now she would
kill
for a frigging barn. The child growing inside of her presses down on the coils of her gut. Breathing is difficult. Fever boils in her throat. She wheezes painfully, looking for the male who made this happen to her, but he’s ditched her for another she-Pfliegman, one who can walk faster than she can. One with swooning, pendulous breasts. If it were possible for her to say it, if she could possibly formulate the words, she might mumble “Mother-
fucker
”; instead, she reaches forward and grabs on to the pelt of one of the Pfliegman men in front of her. She gives him a desperate, pleading look.
    Annoyed, he shoves her off.
    So when she reaches the crest of the mountain, she stops walking. With relief, with sorrow, she realizes that she cannot continue. She steps out onto a large rock, balances herself and her large belly for a moment, and then, as though nudged by a gentle breeze, pitches herself forward down the mountainside.
    Of the half a million early Hungarians on the march, only one, a man riding high up on horseback, happens to glance behind him. He is anextremely healthy and appealing early Magyar. Muscles pepper his body. He wears a thick warm cloak secured with a strap of leather, and a pointy hat made from fabrics the color of sunset, peaked with a shiny gold button. The world has been easy on this man. He overflows with inner resources. He is happy for his people and often surges with pride. He will throw his hands in the air and cry, “We are a new people!” or “This is an historic journey!” But as he turns his horse around to gaze at the shoulder-shaped peaks of the Carpathians, at the wide, sagacious eastern sky, he watches, in horror, as a pregnant woman tumbles down one side of the mountain.
    “Hooy!” he cries, and digs into his stirrups.
    He rides quickly back to the mountain, maneuvering his way up around the rocks and switchbacks until he finds her. She is alive, albeit uncomfortably embroiled, amidst a tangle of branches and sap and pine needles. He has never seen a woman like her. She is small, he observes. Inordinately hairy. Her belly is enormous, like a well-fed tick. He dismounts and squats down next to her, studying her face. He cringes. Her eyes do not look like regular eyes, he thinks. They are wide.
Black
. Exacerbated by the dark half-moons beneath them.
    Politely, the Magyar removes his hat and holds it to his chest. “Are you all right, Madam?” he says.
    She does not answer. She only stares, dumbly, at the gold button on his hat.
    “What is your name?” he asks.
    “
Pshaw
,” she gags, and passes out.
    So the Magyar reaches his arms beneath her body. He picks her up. “Even pregnant, she is
remarkably
small,” he thinks, then ties a long sack from the horse’s neck to his saddle. He places the woman in the sack to lie, hammock-like, until they reach the New Region. He talks to her, even though she does not talk back. He gives her a proper Hungarian name.
    “I will call you Aranka,” he says. “For ‘gold.’ For the way you looked at my button.”
    From that point on, the handsome Magyar stays close to watch over the Pfliegmans. He gives us water to drink. He gives the children pieces of sweet bark to chew. He smiles at Aranka, swinging in the sack. But despite his many kindnesses, we Pfliegmans distrust him. This man is too friendly,too
pink-cheeked
, and where we only drink water, the smiling man drinks warm animal milk. He also eats meat every day.
    Come evening, he builds a campfire to cook his meat, and we Pfliegmans twitter around it, attracted to the light. “Careful,” he says, but a few of us get too close. Our fingers singe, and we howl into the darkness.
    “No!” he shouts. “Get back! Now look here…”
    So he shows us how to make a proper hearth; he shows us what to do with fire and what not to do, and then brings out thick slices of salted meat. He sticks them