Mud Pie

“What’ll it be, Zev?” the whey-faced guard, holding the baton, commanded.

Who does he think he is? Why is he playing like them? Zev thought to himself.

Shakily, Zev sat up from the wooden bunk and planted his bare feet on the cold floor.

“I’ll have the venison and truffles, sir.”

“Venison and truffles, you say? A last meal fit for a king.” The guard narrowed his eyes. “Tell me. Do you fancy yourself a king?”

“N-no, sir.”

“Stand up, boy.”

Zev stood and steadied himself before the guard. The chains rattled against the concrete.

“For your high crimes against humans, you will be put to the sentence of death by hanging at six o’clock tomorrow morning. Tonight, you will have your last meal. Your request is not able to be fulfilled.” The guard snapped his fingers. “Samuel, the meal!”

The guard motioned for Samuel to come forward. Samuel shuffled closer and placed a glob before Zev’s feet.

“Mud pie. Bon appétit!”

Zev knelt down, placed his hands on the pile of mud, clenched his fists, and pelted handfuls at the guard, covering his long shirt with sludge.

The guard gasped.

For one second, the whole prison went silent.

Then Samuel laughed.

It came out sharp and bright, too loud for the room. He slapped both hands over his mouth, but the laugh had already escaped. The guard turned on him, eyes wide, trying to look furious, but his own mouth twitched.

“You dare laugh in my courtroom?”

“This isn’t a courtroom,” Zev said.

“It is if I say it is,” the guard replied.

Zev wiped his muddy palms down the front of his shirt. “Then where’s the judge?”

The guard lifted his chin. “I am the judge.”

“You said you were the guard.”

“I’m both.”

“You can’t be both.”

“I can be anything. I have the baton.”

He raised the stick, which was not a baton at all, but a broken piece of crate wood, smoothed down by many hands. Someone had carved a crooked line into the side of it. Someone else had wrapped one end in a strip of cloth.

Zev stared at it.

The guard followed his gaze and lowered the baton.

“What?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“You looked at it funny.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

Samuel crouched beside the mud pie, poking it with one finger. “It needs grass. Truffles are little black things, right? Grass can be parsley.”

“Truffles don’t have parsley,” Zev said.

“How would you know?”

Zev opened his mouth, then shut it.

He didn’t know. None of them knew. They only knew the words because Zev had heard them once from his father, who used to tell stories about restaurants in cities with gold lights and white tablecloths and waiters who carried plates like they were holy things.

Venison. Truffles. Apricot tart. Roast duck. Buttered potatoes. Chocolate so dark it looked like night.

The words were meals by themselves.

The guard noticed Zev had gone quiet.

“What else?” he asked.

Zev blinked. “What?”

“For your last meal. Mud pie was only the first course.”

Samuel nodded solemnly. “The prison is generous.”

Zev looked between them. The guard’s face was still stern, but there was something behind it now. An offering. A way back into the game.

Zev swallowed.

“I’ll have soup,” he said.

“What kind?”

“Chicken soup. With noodles.”

Samuel leaned forward. “Thick noodles or thin?”

“Thick.”

“Carrots?”

“Yes.”

“Onions?”

“No.”

The guard tapped the baton against his palm. “No onions? Suspicious. Only traitors refuse onions.”

“I’m not a traitor.”

“That is what a traitor would say.”

Zev lifted his chin. “Then I’ll have onions.”

Samuel scooped up a handful of dirt and sprinkled dry grass into it. “Chicken soup.”

He set it beside the mud pie.

The guard inspected it. “Very fine. What else?”

Zev sat cross-legged on the floor. The concrete bit into his ankles, but he ignored it.

“Bread,” he said. “A loaf. Warm.”

“Warm bread,” Samuel whispered.

The guard looked down. His bare toes curled against the floor.

“Do you want butter?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“A lot.”

“That is greedy.”

“It’s my last meal.”

The guard considered this, then nodded. “Allowed.”

Samuel found a flat stone near the wall and presented it with both hands.

“Bread,” he said.

Zev took it carefully. The stone was cold and hard and gray. He held it anyway.

“Thank you.”

The guard paced before him, dragging one foot slightly because his shoe had split down the side. “Anything to drink?”

“Milk.”

Samuel made a face. “Milk?”

“Yes.”

“There isn’t milk here.”

The guard smacked the baton lightly against his palm. “There is in the prison.”

Samuel looked around the narrow barracks, at the wooden bunks, the damp walls, the rows of hanging shirts, the tin bowls stacked in the corner.

“Where?”

“In the royal cellar,” the guard said.

“There’s no royal cellar.”

“There is if I say there is.”

Zev almost smiled.

“Then I’ll have milk,” he said. “Cold. In a glass.”

“A glass,” Samuel repeated, as if the word itself were fragile.

The guard bent down and picked up an empty tin cup. He wiped the rim with the sleeve of his muddy shirt and handed it to Zev.

“Milk.”

Zev took it. He lifted it to his lips and pretended to drink.

It tasted like rust, air, and wanting.

“Good?” Samuel asked.

Zev nodded. “Very cold.”

The guard sat down across from him, forgetting for a moment to remain standing like an officer. His knees stuck out from under his shirt. The mud had dried in brown streaks across his chest.

“What else?”

Zev looked down at the stone bread in his lap.

“My mother’s cake.”

Samuel stopped poking the dirt.

The guard became still.

“What kind?” he asked, softer now.

“Apple,” Zev said. “With cinnamon on top. She made it when the windows were open. The whole house smelled like it.”

Samuel drew his knees to his chest. “Did it have sugar?”

“Yes.”

“A lot?”

Zev nodded. “A lot.”

The guard looked toward the doorway. Beyond it, the yard was pale and empty. A line of wire cut the sky into pieces.

“My mother made plum cake,” Samuel said. “It stuck to your fingers.”

“My mother burned everything,” the guard said.

Zev and Samuel looked at him.

He shrugged, embarrassed. “She did. Bread, potatoes, everything. Once she burned water.”

“You can’t burn water,” Samuel said.

“She could.”

Zev laughed then, not sharply like Samuel had, but quietly. It hurt his ribs.

The guard smiled, then seemed to remember himself. He stood quickly and pointed the baton.

“Enough. Prisoner, you are being too cheerful for a condemned man.”

Zev straightened. “Sorry, sir.”

“Do you have any final words?”

Zev looked at him. “Already?”

“The execution is at dawn.”

“But I didn’t finish eating.”

“You threw the first course at me.”

“You deserved it.”

The guard narrowed his eyes. “That is contempt.”

“That is true.”

Samuel laughed again, but this time no one told him to stop.

The guard lifted the baton high. “For this insolence, the prisoner shall be..”

A whistle screamed outside.

All three boys froze.

The sound cut through the barracks, thin and brutal. The pretend courtroom vanished. The prison became real again. The baton was wood. The meal was dirt. The chains were not chains at all, but two bent pieces of wire Zev had twisted around his wrists for the game.

The guard lowered his arm.

Samuel looked toward the door. “Roll call?”

“No,” the guard whispered. “Too early.”

Footsteps passed outside. Heavy ones. Adult ones.

The boys scrambled.

Samuel kicked the mud pile beneath the bunk. Zev pulled the wire from his wrists and shoved it into a crack in the floor. The guard threw the wooden baton behind a stack of boards and wiped at the mud on his shirt, only smearing it worse.

“Your shirt,” Zev whispered.

“I know.”

“You look guilty.”

“I am guilty.”

“Not like that.”

Samuel grabbed a rag and rubbed at the stains. The guard hissed because Samuel rubbed too hard.

The footsteps stopped outside the barracks.

The boys went silent.

A shadow crossed the doorway.

A real guard stood there.

He was not whey-faced. He was not barefoot. He did not carry a broken crate stick wrapped in cloth. His baton was black and polished and hung from his belt beside a pistol.

His eyes moved over the room.

Zev lowered his head.

Samuel lowered his.

The boy who had been playing guard stood stiffly between them, mud across his shirt like a crime.

The real guard looked at him.

“What happened?”

The boy’s mouth opened, but no words came.

Zev felt the answer rise in him. He could say Samuel did it. He could say the mud fell. He could say nothing and let the boy take the blow.

Instead, he stepped forward.

“I did it,” Zev said.

The real guard turned his eyes on him.

Zev’s stomach tightened.

“You did what?”

“I threw mud.”

“At him?”

Zev nodded.

“Why?”

Because he was pretending to be you, Zey thought.

But he did not say that.

“I was angry.”

The real guard stared at him for a long moment. Then he laughed once through his nose.

“Angry,” he said. “Listen to that.”

He stepped into the barracks. The boys did not move.

“How old are you?”

Zev stared at the floor. “Ten.”

The guard looked at Samuel. “You?”

“Nine.”

Then to the muddy-shirted boy. “And you?”

The boy swallowed. “Eleven.”

“Eleven,” the guard said. “Old enough to know better than to waste time.”

He struck the boy across the side of the head.

The sound was small. Smaller than Zev expected.

The boy fell against the bunk and caught himself with both hands. Samuel flinched, but did not cry out. Zev’s fists closed.

The real guard pointed toward the yard.

“Outside. All of you. Now.”

They obeyed.

The cold hit their bare feet first. Then the smell. Smoke, waste, boiled cabbage, wet wool. The yard stretched gray under the wire. Other children were already lining up in rows too straight for children. Some looked at the mud on the boy’s shirt. Most looked away.

The sky had begun to darken, though it was not yet night.

Zev stood between Samuel and the boy who had been the guard. He wanted to ask if he was hurt, but speaking in line was forbidden.

The real guards counted them.

One by one.

As if they were spoons.

As if they were sacks.

As if they were already gone.

Zev stared at the mud drying on his friend’s shirt. The boy’s real name was not Guard. It was Marek. But in the game, Marek liked being the guard because guards had shoes, guards had coats, guards did not ask permission to stand, guards ate first.

Zev had hated him for it, for a moment.

Now Marek’s cheek was red.

Now Marek looked eleven again.

The counting ended. The children were ordered back inside.

No one spoke until the door was shut and the footsteps faded.

Samuel climbed onto the lower bunk and curled on his side.

Marek sat on the floor, touching his cheek.

Zev stood in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Marek shrugged. “I was the guard.”

“You were only pretending.”

Marek looked up at him. “So were you.”

Zev sat beside him.

For a while, they listened to the camp breathing around them. Coughs. Whispers. Boards creaking. Someone crying into cloth so the sound would not carry.

Samuel’s voice came from the bunk.

“We didn’t finish.”

Marek looked at him. “Finish what?”

“The last meal.”

Zev closed his eyes.

He could still feel the stone bread in his hands. The cold tin milk. The apple cake that was not there.

Marek reached behind the boards and pulled out the faux baton. He looked at it, then set it down between them.

“I don’t want to be the guard anymore,” he said.

Samuel rolled over. “Then who are you?”

Marek thought.

“A waiter,” he said finally.

Zev opened his eyes.

Samuel pushed himself up on one elbow. “A waiter?”

“Yes,” Marek said. “At a restaurant. A proper one. With candles.”

Zev stared at him.

Marek lifted the broken stick like a towel over his arm. His face was solemn, but not cruel now.

“Good evening, sir,” he said to Zev. “Your table is ready.”

Zev looked around the barracks. At the bunks. At the damp walls. At the children pressed into shadow.

Then he stood.

Samuel climbed down to join them.

Marek bowed and gestured to a crate.

Zev sat.

Samuel sat across from him.

“Tonight’s special,” Marek announced, “is everything.”

“Everything?” Samuel asked.

“Everything,” Marek said. “Soup with thick noodles. Bread with too much butter. Milk in a glass. Venison and truffles. Plum cake. Apple cake. Sugar.”

Zev’s throat tightened.

“And coffee,” Samuel added, though he had never tasted coffee.

“And coffee,” Marek agreed.

“With cream.”

“With cream.”

“With a white tablecloth,” Zev said.

Marek nodded. “Of course.”

“And music.”

“Yes.”

“And windows open.”

Marek looked at him.

Zev looked back.

“And tomorrow?” Samuel asked.

No one answered at first.

Outside, a dog barked. A man shouted. Somewhere far away, a train groaned along its tracks.

Marek set the broken baton down.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we open for breakfast.”

Samuel smiled a little.

Zev reached for the stone bread, still lying beside the bunk. He placed it in the center of the crate like a feast.

The three boys sat around it.

They did not pretend to be guards again.

They pretended to be fed.