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not achieved the high and proud station of being considered a young man. He was even short for his age. But in the work itself, he obtained a certain substance and depth. When he focused on the task he was given, he became as one with it. While stooped over a stalk of corkwood, he was like a bee sitting on a flower sucking out the flower’s nectar. He would suckle and suckle. He’d suck out the essence of the work as if it were the essence of a flower. The sickle became like a fingernail, and the stalk of corkwood felt like a thorn caught in his foot. Rather than pulling a stalk out from the earth, he felt as if he were pulling a thorn out of his heel. He moved quickly, strongly. He would not straighten his back, for fear of falling behind his brother. For fear that at the end of the day, his bundle would be smaller and less significant.
    The fierce and nimble wind had left the boy’s hands raw; his fingers were as dry as a goat’s hoof. His nose was running and tears were streaming out of the corners of his eyes. His big ears felt frozen. The icy metal handle of the sickle burned in the palms of his hands. Still, he went from stalk to stalk, stooped over like a baby gazelle, following from one root to another.
    Needing to warm his hands with his breath, Abrau paused from his work for a moment. He straightened his back, raised his hands to his mouth, exhaled a “ha” into his hands and rubbed them together angrily, as if the fault were his hands’ for freezing. He once again took the sickle in his palm, but before he stooped his body over the stalks, his eyes passed over thefields before him. Others like him, both younger and older, were scattered across them and were gathering corkwood here and there. A short way up and over, only about a shout’s distance away, four or five children had started a fire. Abrau watched them gather around the fire as they lifted their hands or feet to the flames to warm them. A single word passed through his lips.
    “Fire!”
    Abbas turned his head without straightening his body, fixing his large eyes on him. Under his brother’s glare, Abrau came to himself again. Abbas said, “Sooner or later the sun will come out from behind the clouds; keep working!”
    He went right back to the task of pulling up the stalks. Abrau saw there was no point in him saying anything, so he bent over and went back to work, struggling with stalks and with himself. Abrau knew that his brother was aware of how he was doing. But there was an unspoken agreement between the brothers not to speak during work, as if they had both come to know from experience that what needed to be done would eventually be done. It could happen with crying and complaining, or it could happen quietly and stoically. And yet, the unspoken agreement between the two brothers would inevitably fall apart, because the pressure from their pain and hunger would seek a way to be let out. And neither of them could control this. When a calf is branded, it brays, stomps, scratches, and rubs its head on the ground. All that the boys could do was hold out for as long as they could. And when they lost the battle against their pain and hunger, a single gesture or sound would signal their defeat. And this signal indicated their loss of self-control.
    Abbas planted the handle of his sickle inside his belt andturned to gather and arrange the loose stalks he had just pulled from the ground. He went to work picking up the stalks, one by one, two by two.
    “Why are you taking my stalks?”
    “Which stalks of yours?”
    “Those with the thick roots—I sweat like a pig to get those out of the ground.”
    “Look at your scrawny self. How can you claim you pulled out stalks with roots this thick from soil this heavy?”
    “You’re blind if you think I can’t! Toss them over here. Those are my tracks anyway. Can’t you see my footprints over there? Hand them over to me!”
    The thick and knotted root of the corkwood remained in Abbas’ hand. Abrau