Winter's End (12 page)

“Just coming,” a faint voice replied from the second floor.

They waited. Milos, dripping with sweat and still out of breath, stood the sick girl on her feet, put her glasses back on her, and held her upright, close to him. He could feel her burning in his arms. At last the door was opened by a woman in her dressing gown. She was so tiny and delicate that you couldn’t help thinking of a mouse. Her eyebrows shot up, revealing large eyes full of surprise and concern. She clasped her hands in front of her
breast. “Catharina, my poor child! What have they done to you?”

“She’s been in the detention cell,” Helen replied.

“Oh, Holy Virgin Mary! Come in, quick, come in!”

Milos carried Catharina to the bedroom and laid her down in the warm bed that the little mouse had just left.

“I’ll give her something to bring her temperature down. My God, how can people be such savages? How they can do it I don’t know! Do you know?”

Milos and Helen had no answer. The little woman was bustling eagerly about Catharina. She washed her face and hands, caressed her, breathed softly on her forehead, murmured comforting words. A few minutes later, Catharina was fast asleep. Her consoler sat with her for a little longer and then came downstairs to sit at the kitchen table, where the two young people were talking in low voices.

“Can you keep her here, Emily?” asked Helen.

“You know my name?” said the consoler, surprised.

“Yes, Catharina’s often talked to me about you.”

“She’s a good girl. I’ll keep her here until she’s better. I’ll hide her; don’t worry. But what about you two? You have to be back before dawn, don’t you?”

“We ought to be back by dawn, yes,” said Helen gloomily.

In the silence that followed, they thought they heard sounds out in the street, and a man’s muted voice giving orders.

“Put the light out! Quick!” Milos ordered.

Emily ran for the switch at once and turned the light off. They waited, keeping absolutely still, and then cautiously ventured over to the window. Gray shadows hovered like ghosts in the twilight. They were slowly moving away. One of them, lagging behind the others and passing close to the window, showed his long profile: a dog’s muzzle.

“The Devils!” whispered Milos. “Mills
and his dog-men. They’re on their way to hunt Bartolomeo down.”

“And Milena,” said Helen, shuddering with horror.

They dared not move or put the light on again until the last shape had entirely disappeared at the far end of the road.

“Come along, I’ll make some coffee,” said the consoler when the dog-men had gone. “And you must eat something.”

Helen wasn’t very hungry after helping herself to the buffet supper in the assembly hall, but Milos managed to eat a slice of roast pork and some quiche.

“We’ll have to go back now, I suppose,” said Helen, once they had finished their coffee.

Milos took a deep breath, and his features suddenly hardened. “I’m not going back there, Helen. I’m never setting foot in that school again.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not going back. Ever!”

“Then what will you do?”

“Follow the pack of dog-men, catch up with Mills and his Devils, and stop them from taking Bart. I know him; he’ll never be able to defend himsel f! He’s finished without me, and Milena with him. Those filthy dogs will eat them alive.”

“Don’t do it,” the consoler begged. “They’ll eat
you
alive.”

“No one’s going to eat me! I’m off, and that’s that!”

“But someone else will be sent to the cell instead of you. You know that,” Helen objected.

“Yes, I know. But you’re talking like them now, and I don’t want to hear that kind of thing anymore! They’ve always controlled us by threatening to punish someone else instead. Bart was the first to defy them, and he was right! Basil’s shown us another way to do it, though not one I’d go for. Well, I’m leaving too, and not feet first! I’m off, and that’s that!”

Helen had to accept it: Milos had made up his mind, and he wasn’t going to change it. In silence, she and the consoler packed him a bag full of food and warm clothes. It was three in the morning when they left the little house.

At the fountain, where their ways parted, they stood face-to-face for a moment, distraught, not knowing how to say good-bye. Then — and it was hard to tell which of them moved first — they came together, embraced, and held each other close. They kissed each other’s cheeks, mouth, forehead, hands. The cold welded them together.

“I can’t leave you,” Helen cried. “I can’t!”

“Do you want to come with me?” asked Milos.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“You won’t blame me for dragging you away?”

“Never.”

“You realize I don’t know how all this will end.”

“I don’t care. I’m coming.”

“We’ll stay together for good?”

“Yes, we’ll stay together for good.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

They went back to Emily to tell her what they had decided. The little consoler could only moan, “Oh, my children, my poor children!” But she didn’t try to make them change their minds. She found some spare clothes for Helen too and said good-bye, promising to take good care of Catharina.

When they had climbed above the village, they turned to look back at the sleeping town. They gazed at it in silence, guessing that they would never see it again.

“I’d have liked to say good-bye to Paula and Octavo,” said Helen, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Who are they?”

“People who live here. I love them.”

“Then don’t go to say good-bye. They’d stop you from leaving.”

A large, gray bird turned north in the moonlit sky, wings spread wide. They heard it utter its cry.

O
n the evening of their own flight, a week before their friends followed, Milena and Bartolomeo got on a bus that had crossed the whole country and was now driving north. They wanted to get over the mountains as quickly as possible. What awaited them after that they had no idea, but anything would be better than falling into the hands of the Phalangists again.

Martha, Milena’s consoler, went with them as far as the road that skirted the hill, and they all waited in the drizzling rain for the bus to arrive. It was a monstrous, old bone-shaker with a square hood that made it look like an angry animal. The night was dark. As soon as she heard the engine, Martha planted herself fearlessly in the middle of the road and waved her arms to stop the bus. She pushed the two young people inside, and when the driver asked where they were going, she gave the name of a town
one hundred miles farther north in the foothills of the mountains.

“That’s where they’re going, and here’s the money.”

The man glanced suspiciously at the long coats worn by boarding-school students, and asked cunningly, “So where do they come from?”

“Out of their mothers’ bellies, same as you,” replied Martha smartly. “Keep your eye on the road and leave them alone!”

The man did not reply but handed Bart the two tickets. Experience had taught him to avoid quarrelling with the consolers — you weren’t likely to win! He pressed a button on his dashboard, and the concertina pleats of the folding door closed with a shrill, screeching sound, forcing Martha off the step. She blew Milena a kiss from the roadside. Milena, still standing, blew a kiss back and then waved as long as she could while the bus carried her away, waved until night and the mist swallowed up the large form of her consoler.

“Good-bye, Martha,” Milena murmured.

They put the voluminous bag that Martha had given them in the luggage rack overhead and sat down side by side on a dirty, scuffed leather seat — he by the window, she on the aisle side. Bart was short of space for his long legs. There were no more than ten passengers scattered around the bus, some in front of them, some behind. Most were asleep under blankets with nothing but their hair showing. After taking a nasty look at his new
passengers in the rearview mirror, the driver put out the dim lights inside the bus, and suddenly there was nothing but the yellow beam of the headlights in the night and the persistent snoring of the engine.

“So this is freedom?” whispered Milena.

“That’s right,” Bart agreed. “What do you think of it?”

“Wonderful! How about you?”

“I didn’t imagine it quite like this.” He smiled. “But I like it all the same. Anyway, let’s get some rest. We’ll be there in a few hours’ time, and we’ll need all our strength to get across the mountains as fast as we can.”

“You’re right.”

She leaned her head against her companion’s shoulder, and they tried to sleep. After half an hour, they had to admit that they weren’t going to manage. The bends and bumps in the road kept them awake, but so, most of all, did the turmoil in their minds. Milena sighed.

“Are you thinking of Catharina Pancek?” whispered Bart.

“Yes,” Milena confessed.

“Sorry you came?”

“Yes . . . no . . . oh, I don’t know. What about you? Are you thinking of whoever’s in detention instead of you?”

“Yes. Particularly because he’s the one who brought me my father’s letter.”

“What’s his name?”

“Basil.”

They fell silent, their hearts suddenly heavy with guilt. The driver lit a cigarette. There was nothing to be seen on either side of the road but lines of trees standing in the mist as if petrified.

“Did you notice how old this bus is?” said Milena after a while, scraping her fingernail over the dry, blackened leather of her seat. “Maybe our parents were in it too when they got away.”

“Maybe. Perhaps they even sat where we’re sitting now!”

“You’re laughing at me!”

“No, I’m not. My father doesn’t give any details in his letter. He just says he met your mother while they were on the run.”

“And he doesn’t say what happened to her?”

“No,” lied Bartolomeo, “he doesn’t.”

“Perhaps they both got across the mountains. Perhaps they’re still alive. . . .”

“I don’t know about that.”

“What does he say about her?”

“I’ve told you about ten times already, Milena. He says she sang beautifully, and everyone adored her.”

“Sang . . . adored. Was all that in the past tense in his letter?”

“Yes . . . no . . . I don’t remember.”

“Would you open it and look, please?”

Bartolomeo put his hand in his coat pocket and then changed his mind. “I won’t be able to read it. Too dark in here. Leave it till tomorrow.”

“Bart, are those words in the past tense in the letter?” Milena persisted.

He hesitated for a moment, and then said, “Yes. They’re in the past. But that doesn’t mean anything except that they were leaving this country. So it makes sense for him to have written in the past tense.”

The road wasn’t winding so much now. They fell asleep at last, leaning against each other. Milena had a very odd dream in which Old Ma Crackpot had brought a symphony orchestra into the classroom, but the musicians weren’t playing. Instead, they were sitting on the tables and making friendly conversation with the girls, who were delighted. The Tank and Miss Merlute, perched on the top rung of a ladder, were looking in through the window, their faces red with fury as they angrily tapped on the panes in protest. But no one took any notice of them except Old Ma Crackpot, who made gestures of powerless despair in their direction.

Milena woke up with a start. Two pale, washed-out eyes were staring at her from a few inches away. She realized that her head had slipped off Bart’s shoulder and was now hanging down over the aisle. The man on the next seat was scrutinizing her with frank interest. He wore a farm laborer’s jacket and pants, and his large, chapped hands rested on his knees. There was a cage containing two fat gray rabbits at his feet.

“Eva-Maria Bach,” he muttered in a thick voice.
His flat face, which wore a blissful smile, suggested that he wasn’t quite right in the head.

“I’m sorry?” said Milena. “What did you say?”

“Eva-Maria Bach . . . that’s you, right?”

“No, I . . . Who do you mean?”

The man did not reply but nodded, looking satisfied, as if Milena had said yes to his question. Seeing that he was still staring at her as hard as ever, she turned away. Bartolomeo was asleep beside her, his head against the window. She dug her elbow into his ribs.

“Wake up, Bart. There’s a weirdo on my other side.”

The boy opened his eyes, leaned forward, and spoke to the man on the other side of the aisle. “What do you want?” he asked.

The man, still beaming, picked up the cage so that they could get a better view of his two rabbits.

“Never mind him; he’s a bit simple,” Bartolomeo whispered into Milena’s ear. They smiled at the man and agreed: yes, they were very handsome rabbits; he should be proud of them.

Day was dawning now, and they were close to the town. Patches of light fell on the countryside here and there. Farmhouses with slate roofs sometimes came into sight as they turned a bend. Soon they were going along an endless straight road full of potholes, but instead of trying to avoid them, the driver was driving as fast as the engine would go. The bus raced furiously on. Tuned between two channels, the radio was blaring out appalling music
at full volume. Very soon the travelers, shaken like plums falling off a tree, were emerging from under their blankets one by one and beginning to get their things together.