A Morsel of Bread

‘A Morsel of Bread’

He got up before it was light. Not in the usual way: it was as though something had lodged in his chest and he was trying to dislodge it with a forced breath. He reached for the kettle, then stopped in the middle of the kitchen, as though remembering that even a cup of tea would not ease his wife and child's hearts.

From beneath the blanket, his wife said, ‘Don't go… not today…’

He smiled, one of those brief, lifeless smiles you give only so the other person will not see your heart collapsing. ‘I'll be back soon,’ he said. ‘Just this once…’

The child whimpered in sleep and rubbed a cheek against the pillow. He went to the bed and gently brushed the child's hair aside. The smell of a sleeping child held a sweetness that made you ashamed. Ashamed that the world could force you to choose between holding your child and shouldering a load.

His wife sat up. Without a mirror, she slipped her headscarf on. Her look was neither pleading nor quarrelsome, but something between fear and exhaustion. ‘Last week they said there'd been shooting… They said so-and-so came back, but he'd lost a leg… You…’

He cut her off. ‘Didn't they say why?’ Then, without waiting, he answered himself: ‘Because bread doesn't ask why. Bread just has to find its way to the table.’

She said nothing. She simply reached out and held the edge of his jacket, as though holding on to the cloth could hold on to the man. He bent and kissed her forehead. A brief kiss, like a seal. Then he went to his shoes.

At the door, he stopped for a moment. He seemed about to say something that, if left unsaid, he might never have another chance to say. But no words came. He only said, ‘Remember to turn out the light.’

Such an ordinary remark is the worst kind of goodbye. With these simple sentences, we deceive ourselves into believing, ‘I'll come back.’ As though coming back were certain.

The door closed. For a few seconds, his wife stayed where she was. His footsteps moved along the corridor and faded. Then silence settled over the house, a silence that was neither clearly morning nor night, hope nor despair.

The child woke and said, ‘Has Dad gone?’

‘Yes, darling. He'll be back soon.’

‘He promised to buy me an exercise book.’

Smiling, she put the lie into her mouth like a soft morsel. ‘Yes… he promised.’

Hours passed. Every few minutes she picked up her phone. Not to call, but to light the screen and check the time, as though looking at time could bring it under control. Whenever a sound came from outside, a motorbike, the neighbour's door, a man coughing in the alley, her heart leapt. ‘It's him…’ But none of them was him.

Noon came. She served the child some food but could not eat herself. As she raised the spoon to her mouth, she remembered what he had said that morning: ‘Just this once…’ It is those ‘just this onces’ that grow us old.

In the afternoon, the air grew heavier. There was neither cloud nor rain. Yet the sky seemed to be holding something back, refusing to let it fall, like the tears of someone trying to stay composed in front of a child.

As dusk drew near, she began tidying the house. Not from a need for order, but from helplessness. When there is nothing we can do, we take refuge in small tasks to feel that we can still control something: move a glass, smooth the corner of a rug, fold a child's clothes. But none of them could take the place of a phone call.

‘Mum… why is Dad late?’

‘It's a long way.’

‘What if a wolf comes?’

Her breath caught. For a moment, images of a wolf, snow, a landmine and a bullet all came marching before her eyes. But she would not let herself go there. She took the child's hand. ‘Nothing will happen. Dad knows what he's doing.’

At that very moment, the phone rang.

At first she froze. Her finger trembled over the screen. The number was unknown. Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it in her ears. She answered. ‘Hello?’

A man's voice, tired and hurried: ‘Mrs…? Mrs… so-and-so?’

‘That's me. What's happened?’

The man paused. That pause is the worst part of bad news, because in that single second, you go through your whole life. He said, ‘Your husband… on the route… he's been shot.’

‘Where? When? Where is he now?’

‘The hospital in town… we brought him…’

She seized on his words. ‘Is he alive?’

Heavy breathing at the other end. Then the sentence no one wants to hear, but anyone might hear one day: ‘We did everything we could…’

Her ears rang. It was as though the whole world had suddenly gone underwater. The man's voice receded, further and further away. Only the words fell like shards of ice inside her head: ‘Shot… hospital… everything…’

The child stood beside her legs, looking up with wide eyes. ‘Mum? Is Dad home?’

She tried to speak, but her tongue would not move. It was as though her mouth were full of earth. The phone fell from her hand onto the rug. She sat down. Her hands trembled on her knees. She looked at the child and saw that the child was waiting, as though expecting the world to give its answer through the mother's mouth.

‘Dad… will be late.’

‘Then why are you crying?’

She quickly wiped her face. ‘It's nothing. My eye…’

But the child understood. Children catch the scent of truth sooner than we think. The child came closer and rested against her stomach. ‘I don't want my exercise book… I just want Dad to come back.’

That was where she broke. Not with a scream or a wail, but with a small sound like a wounded breath. She laid her hand on the child's head. ‘But why… why…’

That night, mother and child sat in front of the heater. The little light was on. It was the same house: the same walls, the same dishes, the same rug. But it was as though a supporting pillar had been pulled from beneath the roof, and the house remained standing only because it had not yet realised it ought to collapse.

She looked at his jacket hanging behind the door. She had hung it there herself that morning. That morning she had thought, ‘He'll be back soon.’ Now the jacket was a silent witness: proof that someone could leave home and never return, all for a morsel of bread.

The child fell asleep. In sleep, the lips moved: ‘Dad… exercise book…’

She got up and went to the window. Outside, the alley was dark. A few distant lights burned like tired stars. Under her breath, she said, ‘You went so we could stay alive… but without you, all we do is breathe.’

Then, for the first time that day, she made a decision. Not some grand, heroic decision; the simple decision of a real woman. She picked up the phone, found the man's number, and sent a message: ‘Please send me whatever evidence there is, whatever report. I won't let his name become nothing more than a brief news item.’

Because if a kolbar's death remains merely ‘news’, it will happen again tomorrow. But if it becomes a story, told in the voices of a wife and child, perhaps someone, just one person, will pause for a moment and understand that behind that ‘morsel of bread’, a home has collapsed.

She came back and sat beside the child. She took the small hand. Softly, she said, ‘Dad has gone… but you're staying. And I… I have to hold firm. Not because I'm strong, but because I have no choice.’

And she said it so softly that the house would not hear and collapse again.