Chapter 21: Bread

The old baker made bread that night, because he said a ward that had just won a war ought to eat something that wasn't soup.

He stood at the ward's tiny stove at six o'clock with flour up to his elbows and argued with the nurse about yeast.

"You're killing it," the nurse said.

"I'm waking it up."

"You're shouting at it."

"It's an old yeast. It's hard of hearing."

The boy with the asthma laughed so hard he had to use his inhaler.

I sat at the long table made from three cots pushed together, with a mug of Leone's terrible coffee, and watched them.

It was the first meal I'd eaten in two days without tasting ash.

The bread came out of the oven with a crust.

The smell reached me before it hit the table, and my whole chest turned over.

It was warm.

Not the old burning warmth I'd carried out of the Board's hall.

It was an easy, small kind of warm, the kind a kitchen has.

"Eat," said the baker, putting a heel of it into my hand. "You're thin as a pin."

I bit into it.

It was the best thing I'd ever tasted, and I cried a little into it, and nobody said a word.

Paola came at seven.

She stood in the doorway with a small bag, in a plain grey coat with her hair in a braid, and the whole ward went quiet.

"I'm not here for anything," she said. "I only wanted to ask whether there's a floor I can sweep."

I looked at her.

She had the face of a woman who hadn't slept for three nights, and no makeup at all.

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