Read Online Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey - Free Book Online Page A

don’t understand, not really. We are all distracted by our hunger. Strong emotion uses up a lot of energy, and we don’t have much of it anymore.
    I haven’t told Hazel. She was always partial to him, despite his cruel training methods. We are out of coal for heating, and my little household’s supplies of both petroleum and methyl alcohol are almost used up. The colder and darker it becomes in the lab, the stronger Hazel’s will seems to be to remain within her cage. The children and I try to keep her company in there as often as we can, when we are not standing in the ration lines.
    I have cut up the few clothes my husband left behind – they had been hanging uselessly in the cupboard since he left – and made small towels for the children out of them. We were down to a single bath towel for the whole family to use. I have impetigo rash from wearing the same unwashed wool suit for weeks, but there is no soap to be had.
    Hazel dictated the note below to you. She is still not herself; she is not thinking clearly. Nothing I can do or say will induce her to eat.
    Give me some time, darling, to pull myself together before you visit.
    Yours
    Evelyn
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    Did you get yourself a bit of pork in the recent Pig Murders, Red Peter? A fair share of the fatty spoils? I hear the pigs were so skinny there was almost nothing on them. Nine million hogs ordered slaughtered by the government to give everybody a break from months of meatlessness.
    Of course, how could I forget? You don’t eat meat.
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    Dearest Evelyn
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â I am sorry I disregarded your plea and came to see you the very day I received the letter about your husband. But I am not sorry for taking you in my arms and kissing you, tasting your tears, feeling your ribs pressed against mine. I am hungry, darling, starving, but only for you.
    In my delirious joy at holding you again I forgot to apologise for my appearance. Since the American cotton shortage, and the decree that men can no longer keep more than two suits of clothing, the police decided to enter my rooms at the hotel and requisitioned my suits from the wardrobe, and I have had some trouble finding suitable attire since. I don’t think I was specifically targeted, not this time at least. At the Academy I have heard stories about how dire this shortage is. A colleague told me of a soldier at the front who was issued a shirt made from a woman’s winter blouse, gathered with a ribbon around his neck. He refused it, and said he would rather die of cold in a shirt made of paper.
    For the first time in many years, I find myself grateful to have fur. It seems this war is slowly stripping me of the trappings of being human, thread by thread. But that is fine, as long as I am never again stripped of you.
    Yours always
    Red Peter
    Â 
    Dearest R.P.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The boots you found for my little girl to keep her feet warm while she is unwell fit her perfectly. The varnish on the paper uppers has cracked a little, but nothing I can’t fix.
    Hazel’s fasting has continued. She asked me to put a sign outside her cage, and dictated what I should write on it: THE HUNGER ARTIST . She must have picked that up from the man Herr Hagenbeck hired to fast at the zoo a few years ago, as a summer diversion. Now she wants me to charge spectators a small fee to stand outside her cage and watch her starve, but we do not have many paying visitors to the zoo these days. People get angry when they see animals being fed, even if it is with turnip peels – but you know this already. She has dictated another note for you. I fear she is losing her mind, but whether it is from hunger or as a delayed consequence of her training, I cannot tell.
    I can hardly wait to see you again tomorrow.
    Yours
    Evelyn
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    There was once a Hunger Artist who kept the good people of Stellingen and Hamburg entertained by fasting for forty days and forty nights.
    Do