The Bread-maker
The bread-maker was afraid. Red-faced and wheezing, sweat dripped down his brow. He looked to the grand piano, the only object in the small room besides the oven, and he rushed to it, crashing into it in a terrible din of chords. Before he had time to hide, as it seemed that he had planned, the door swung open. A small man in a grey suit entered.
“What have you done?” the suited man said.
The bread-maker hung his head. With a large hand he rubbed grease across his dripping brow. His eyes stung and he blinked at the suited man, who he found strange – he could not determine why. He did not know who the man was, or why he had entered at that moment.
“I had no choice,” he said in a hoarse voice. “But tell me – never mind what is done…it is done. What am I to do now?”
“You can’t stay here,” hurried the suited man straight away, and he moved forwards into the room, peering around as he did so with some distaste at the bread-maker’s lodgings. All in the same room were the oven, the worktable, a small bench which doubled as the bread-maker’s bed and then – quite out of place – the grand piano squashed into the corner, behind which the bread-maker had squeezed himself. The suited man’s face was contorted, as though he were torn over whether to help the bread-maker or not, but there was something about the latter’s desperate face and humble frame that moved him.
“I will lend you the money to take a car to Dwola,” the suited man said, and fumbled in his pocket. “Here. There is a car that goes every evening just before dark. But don’t go to the main station, flag it down on the corner just past the crossroads. It’s dark there and nobody will notice you standing. Flag it down there and get to Dwola, then you will be on your own.”
The bread-maker nodded. His broad hands shaking, he stumbled out from behind the piano and took the note from the suited man’s hand. He stood still, without moving, and looked around the small room which, as far as he knew, had always been his home. His eyes at last rested on the grand piano. From here, he could not bring himself to remove his gaze. Then a noise spooked him and, like a frightened animal, he rushed from the room without a word. The suited man was left standing alone. A strange smile spread across his face. He put his hands to his waist and peered around. ‘There isn’t much here, but that piano…’ He ran his fingers across the ivory keys and beamed. Then he moved to the corner of the stove, where the bread-maker’s wife lay motionless on the ground. A pool of blood stained the ground around her head.
‘It was a shame,’ the suited man thought, nudging her with his foot as though to ensure that she was dead. He took another look around the room, and then opened the door to the street. The bread-maker was long gone but he could hear shouts outside. There were a group of men gathered, he saw, by the roadside. A few of them had sticks and one had a plank with a nail on it. The suited man stood still and looked at them.
“That’s him!” One of the men shouted, and in an instant the men were upon him. Another dozen had appeared from doorways armed with sticks and clubs. They beat him to death in only a minute, maybe two. A policeman stopped by.
“What did he do?” the policeman asked.
“He killed his wife,” an onlooker said.
“How do you know?”
“Her brother was told, I believe, by a small man in a suit no one has seen before,”
“Well, just as well they killed him,” the policeman said.
As it grew dark, the bread-maker stopped the car to Dwola on the corner just past the junction out of town.
“Did you see it?” the man next to him asked.
“See what?”
“They killed the bread-maker. Apparently he killed his wife.”
“He didn’t!”
“How do you know?”
“Because…” the bread-maker stopped and said nothing.
A while later, as the car still trundled along in the darkness, the bread-maker said. “It’s terribly sad, for a man to lose everything.”
“Who are you anyway?” the man next to him asked.
The bread-maker was silent. He thought about how long it would take for him to save to buy a grand piano in Dwola.