Snow Hunters: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

other men cry and he knew that they were covering their mouths and he did nothing. He lay against the wall, his foot brushing someone’s head. He stared up at a hole in the ceiling where in the winters the snow would fall, once building a mound on someone’s stomach the size of a child’s palm.
    He wondered what choice there was in what was remembered; and what was forgotten.
    There were moments when it seemed possible that they would survive, that all of them would.
    But there were also times when the hours slipped away and he no longer knew how many days had passed. When his mouth grew numb and he lost his sense of taste. When he could not stop shivering in the cold and Peng held him, his body cocooned in a blanket. He listened to the footsteps of the guards and watched the shadows theycast into the cabin, circling the floor and the walls, this slow carousel that would not end. He pressed his forehead against the wall, straining to see a corner of a field, the web of a fence. He longed to listen to a song. To breathe deeply. He grabbed Peng, pushing his hands through what little there was of his hair, as though in search of something. He shouted, waking everyone, until he lost his voice. He ran in place, lifting his legs as high as he could, or turned in circles until he grew dizzy, a delirious energy in his fingers, Peng reaching into the dark and trying to calm him until the guards took him outside and beat him. He lay in the clearing, unable to rise, his body illuminated by the electric lights of the perimeter. He opened his eyes, in that brief moment, with two weapons pointed at him, and felt the unexpected joy of glimpsing the stars.
    •  •  •
    In the winters the wounded were sent to the textile mill. Broken windows were covered with wood and blankets. There had been tables and looms in the workspaces, long abandoned. Portable sewing machines were discovered in a closet.
    Now there was a sea of beds. Birds nesting in the high rafters. A cup of medicine was passed from convalescentto convalescent to reach a boy in the far corner, who lay still and turned his head to watch the slow procession of arms in the air. In the sunlight, against the frosted window glass, there was a wall of indecipherable drawings made by a sleepless hand.
    They stood in a line, waiting for a doctor to check their health, their teeth, their eyes. They had been shoveling snow all day. A skin infection had begun near Peng’s wounds. Yohan watched a doctor feed him a pill and unravel the bandages.
    While he was cleaning Peng’s face, a bird descended. It flew low over the beds, collecting stray hairs, and he heard laughter. He saw Peng tilt his head, grow alert. It circled, turned, and Peng remained motionless as it flew past him, this sudden movement beside his ear.
    That winter Peng’s energy had begun to slow. He grew hesitant in his movements, and disoriented, forgetting where a building was. There were times when it took him a moment to respond.
    He used to share with Yohan all the places he had seen, all his performances, keeping them distracted from the cold and their hunger. But the moments when they were reminded of their years as children had grown farther apart.
    When he tried to clean Peng’s wounds, as the doctor told him to, rubbing a wet cloth over his face, Peng flicked his arm away.
    Once, Yohan turned to find him gone, only to see him later crouched behind the cabins. He had unwrapped his bandages and was rocking on his heels, digging his fingernails into his head, a thin stream of blood following the line of his jaw.
    —It itches, he said, his breath visible in the air, and Yohan reached for him, waiting for his body to calm.
    One night they woke to find their shoulders pinned against the floor. Prisoners surrounded them. With the weight of three men on him, he watched Peng struggle as a pair of hands pushed down against his forehead. They ripped off his bandages. They inspected his dead eyes. They pressed their