If I Told You Once. Judy Budnitz

wide-eyed wonder, the way he looked at a new animal he had never seen before. His mouth worked; his fingers plucked at each other nervously. He ducked his head, then looked back at her and laughed. His laugh was a harsh sound, like choking.

      Anya was pleased by his attention, I could tell. I could see the familiar, languid, lazy expression creep over her face. Ari held her eyes and eased slowly, fluidly closer.

      Anya smiled. And then she ever so slightly loosened her coat, showed him a patch of white skin at her throat.

      Ari reached out slowly to touch a stray bit of hair. She laughed nervously. And then Ari grunted, leaped, pounced. Suddenly she was splayed out in the snow. Ari had his mouth at her throat and was tearing insistently at her clothes, twisting her head this way and that, pressing and tugging at her limbs, sniffing in her ears and eyes.

      He was just a child. He was only trying to see how she worked.

      Anya screamed.

      She screamed and screamed and would not stop screaming, not when I pulled Ari away from her, not when I slapped her face, not when the company of soldiers in their ugly brown uniforms came running stiffly through the trees, barking orders to each other and surrounding my brother with their guns.

      They had been tracking my brother for two days; they had recently lost his trail but Anya’s voice led them back.

      I stood and watched as my brother was taken away. The officer of the company stood beside me and barked orders. He wore tall shiny boots and carried a riding crop which he flicked impatiently against his leg. Between orders he ground his teeth; I could hear the rasp and squeak.

      He sent one of his subordinates to fetch a horse and bring Anya back to the army camp. The other officers will be very glad to make her acquaintance, he said. I told him about her feet; he shrugged and said she would not need them.

      I could not look at her as she was taken away. Her screams still echoed in my head. That gaping mouth.

      Now I stood alone with the officer. I was not afraid of him. I could see his viciousness, it was something I understood. I had seen it before.

      You should give up on my brother, I told him. He will never learn.

      I’m not yet convinced of that, he said.

      He’s too old, I said, he has been the way he is for too long for you to change him.

      There are ways, he said.

      What if there were others just like him? I said. Other ones, as big as him, and as strong, but young enough to teach the way you want.

      What are you saying?

      We have younger brothers, I told him. Take one of them, take all three of them, train them, and give up on Ari.

      The officer chewed over the idea. I heard his teeth clicking.

      What is the name of your village? he asked finally.

      My village was too small to have a name.

      So he said I would have to show him. He hoisted me up behind him on his horse, and we rode, to the jangling of bit and spurs, over hills and through forests, and I clung to his belt and felt immense hatred for the layer of red, bristly flesh that bulged over the collar of his uniform.

      I did not know what would happen next. My younger brothers were not at all like Ari; they were ordinary, big headed, knobby kneed little boys with runny noses. I did not want to give them up to this officer. In my desperation I had been thinking only of my mother. I thought somehow that if I brought this man back to my mother, she would find a way to make everything all right. This man’s viciousness was no match for my mother’s.

      As we jolted and galloped over hard-packed snow, I thought of her and wanted to crawl into her lap. She had managed to bring me home after all.

      I knew she would smell us coming, with her nose for soldiers. I thought of her eyes snapping, skirts whirling as she formulated plans.

      My mother.

      We rode until we came to a place that I knew so well, I knew the shape of the hills and the bend in the river. I felt a pang as I thought of home.

      We crossed the last rise, emerged from the trees.

      The village was gone.

      It was a black scar in the snow.

      We rode slowly down the only street. The houses were blackened skeletons, still smoking. A bloated cow lay in the road, legs in the air. Dogs, cats, goats lay in frozen twisted shapes in the gutters, daubed with red.

      The smoke made black smudges in the sky.

      I saw blotches and blooms of blood flowering on walls. I saw a boy’s cap in the road, cupping something dark and gelatinous.

      I saw a familiar skirt. I saw a fork, a spoon. I saw a pair of severed feet, lined up as neatly as shoes beside a doorway.

      I thought of Anya and how she could use them, and I heard myself laughing.

      I pressed my face against the officer’s sour back so I would not see any more.

      We are too late, the officer said musingly. He was riding slowly, looking about.

      Such a pity, he said, such a waste.

      I thought I heard a softness in his voice.

      To think—three more just like your brother, he said. That would have been amazing. Our company would have been the best in the division.

      He clucked his tongue at the horse as it shied at a child’s dress blowing on the wind.

      I held myself stiffly away from him all the way back to the army camp.

      I told myself that my mother had escaped, of course she had, she must have scented the impending disaster, certainly at this very moment she and my father were hiding in the woods with my brothers and sisters gathered around, roasting potatoes over a fire, my mother a whirlwind of activity and foresight.

      I still felt hope, I did, I held my chin like my mother always did. I told myself I would be brave like her, and resourceful, and I would do what I had to do to save them all.

      

      I ought to skip the next part of the story, you are too young to hear it.

      But I won’t.

      When we returned to the soldiers’ camp, the officer offered me another bargain, a trade. Your brother’s release in exchange for the pleasure of your company, he said.

      Just a little while, he said. It won’t take long.

      We stood in the mud, among tents and milling horses and the jangle of harnesses and spurs. A subordinate came to take the officer’s horse; as it was led away I saw that its legs were still flecked with the soot and debris that had once been my village.

      I looked at the officer whose eyes were set too close together, pinching his nose. Hair in his nostrils. I thought of my mother, her power over men, men meaning my father, the way my father jumped to do her bidding and cowered from her though she was half his size. And I thought of Anya, who could make men act like fools or grunting animals simply by rolling her eyes at them.

      I knew I was stronger than Anya. I had carried her on my back, I had dragged her through the snow. She was weak, I thought, and stupid, and not even whole, and yet she had driven a townful of men to madness.

      If she had that sort of power, I reasoned, then surely I did too. I looked at the officer, who was tapping his riding crop against his boots, flicking away flecks of mud, admiring them.

      I thought: surely I can get the better of him.

      I thought: I will drive him mad, he will do whatever I say. Because that is what women do to men.

      I thought: that is what Anya did, and I am far better than her, look at my two perfect feet. Cold but lovely.

      That was my reasoning. I thought it sound at the time.

      I