Winter's End (19 page)

They rode through a maze of narrow alleys and reached a small paved square. It was deserted. Mitten stopped outside a restaurant with an old-fashioned facade running at least sixty feet along one side of the square. The glazed door bore the name of the place,
JAHN,
in gilded lettering. Behind the curtained windows Helen could just make out rows of tables with chairs perched on them upside down, a forest of legs sticking up into the air.

“This is it,” said Mitten, without turning off his engine. “Off you go. I won’t come in. You ask for Mr. Jahn, get it? Not just Jahn, right? Mr. Jahn. You tell him you want work. He’ll tell you to clear out. So then you say, ‘I’m ready to wash dishes.’ And then he says, ‘Ready to wash dishes?’ And you say, ‘Yes, I’ve already mashed potatoes for
Napoleon . . .’ and he’ll take you on. Easy as pie. Got all that, have you?”

Helen wondered if she was in the middle of some crazy dream. “I don’t understand. Who’s Napoleon?”

“Why, Dr. Josef’s giant pig. Didn’t you see him up in the hills?”

“Yes, but I never knew his name.”

“He’s our mascot, Napoleon is. When we’ve seen those Phalangist bastards off, we’re going to build a great big bonfire, have a hog roast, and eat Napoleon, in tribute to him, like. Off you go, then. I’ll wait to see if you’re OK. Give me a wave from the window, right?”

“Right,” said Helen. “I’ll go in — and thank you for everything.”

She was on her way to the entrance of the restaurant when Mitten called her back. “Wouldn’t have a little cash for the gas and the guided tour, would you?”

“Oh, of course!” cried Helen apologetically, ashamed of herself for not thinking of it first. She gave him a few bills.

Then she opened the door and found herself in the comfortable warmth of the building inside. Dim standby lights faintly illuminated the large restaurant. She made her way between the tables, passing double doors that must lead to the kitchens. At the back of the restaurant there was a wide oak staircase with a faint light at the top of it.
She climbed the stairs in silence, drawn as if by a magnet to the line of light showing under a door. She had almost reached the landing when she tripped on one of the steps.

“Anyone there?” asked a deep voice from the lighted room.

“Yes,” said Helen. “I . . . I’d like to see Mr. Jahn.”

“You want to see Mr. Jahn?”

“Yes, please.”

“Come on in, then, and you’ll see him.”

A chubby-cheeked man was sitting at a desk, poring over accounts books. He glanced rapidly at Helen and went back to his calculations. Classical music was playing on the radio, but the volume was turned down, and Helen had to strain her ears to pick it up.

“So what brings you here, young lady?”

“Work. I’m looking for work.”

“No vacancies.”

His thick lips gave the impression of a sulky pout. Helen stood her ground.

“I . . . I’m ready to do any kind of work. I can wash dishes. . . .”

Still writing with his stub of a pencil, the man muttered, “Ready to wash dishes, are you?”

“Yes, I’ve already mashed potatoes for Napoleon, so . . .”

She had the odd sense of speaking lines in a play, but a play that would determine the whole course
of her future life. Jahn glanced up. This time he was really looking at her, and his eyes were very gentle.

“Ah, so that’s it. Potatoes for Napoleon. And how old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Did you run away from your boarding school too?”

“Yes.”

The stout man put down his pencil, took off his glasses, and ran both hands through his curly hair. Then he sighed, as if all the cares of the world were weighing down on his shoulders.

“Right,” he said at last. “Right. I’ll show you to your room. It’s up in the attic. You can begin tomorrow morning. But I already have more than enough people washing dishes. You can . . . Let’s see, yes, you can sweep up in the restaurant and wait on tables. The others will explain the job to you. Your salary won’t be very much, but you’ll get your board and lodging. Are you hungry?”

“No,” said Helen. She hadn’t even finished the food Dr. Josef had given her for the journey.

“Then off to bed with you now. It’s late.”

He switched off the radio, rose, and led her up more stairs. They climbed two floors higher and reached a dilapidated, low-ceilinged corridor with a dozen small closed doors on each side of it.

“Your colleagues’ rooms,” said Jahn.

When he reached the end of the corridor, he
opened the left-hand door and stood back to let Helen in.

“Here we are. This is your room, and here’s the key.” He stepped back out into the corridor, and then turned back. “What’s your name?”

“Dormann,” said Helen. “My name is Helen Dormann. Please . . . is there a girl called Milena Bach here?”

“Milena sleeps in the room next to yours,” said Jahn as if in passing, “but don’t call her that anymore.”

“What should I call her, then?”

“Anything you like, but not Milena. Good night.” The stout man didn’t give any further explanation, and she heard his heavy tread as he walked away.

The tiny room contained only a narrow bed, a table, a chair, a washbasin, and two shelves. A cord stretched across one corner did duty as a wardrobe. But Helen was holding the key to her room for the first time in her life, her own room, and she felt wonderfully happy. A cast-iron radiator gave gentle warmth. She stood on the chair to see out of the skylight and had a view of the river, wide and silent, and the sleeping city with its street lights on.

A beginning,
she thought,
a new beginning. Everything will be all right.

She went to bed, worn out by exhaustion and emotion, and as she slowly fell asleep, she called to mind everyone who had ever been dear to her:
her parents, coming back out of the night to smile lovingly at her; Paula, who must know what had happened by this time and might be thinking of her; Milos, now in the middle of his hardest fight somewhere; and Milena asleep on the other side of the wall, with her hair cut short.

The last thing she heard was the noise of a motorbike rattling down the road and fading away.
Oh no! That’s Mitten riding off, and I forgot to wave from the window to let him know I was staying. Sorry, Mitten.

H
elen was so tired that she had been afraid she wouldn’t wake up until midday, but at dawn the sound of a door being carefully closed and a key turning in the lock of the room next to hers woke her. At first she had difficulty remembering where she was. Then it all came back to her: Mitten, the capital city, Mr. Jahn, the room that was now her own, and Milena sleeping next door. Milena! Those must be her footsteps moving away down the corridor! Afraid of missing her, Helen jumped out of bed, flung on a shirt, and left her room. Right at the far end of the corridor a tall girl with cropped blond hair, wearing a cook’s white apron tied at the back, was just starting down the stairs.

“Just a minute!” called Helen.

The girl turned. They looked at each other for a few seconds, astonished, and then ran toward each other, each of them needing to touch and hug her friend. The joy of their reunion made them laugh
and cry at the same time. It was a while before they were able to talk.

“Milena! What on earth have you done to your hair?”

“Bart cut it for me.”

“Bart slaughtered it! He’s out of his mind!”

“No, not at all. I’ll explain everything. But what are you doing here? I can’t believe it.”

“I ran away from school with Milos. We followed you to the mountains.”

“The mountains? How far did you go?”

“To the mountain refuge.”

“The refuge — but why?”

Their words were tumbling over each other. There was just too much to say all at once.

“Milos wanted to rescue you both from the dog-men. It’s amazing how that haircut changes you! Only your eyes are the same!”

“Milos? Is he here too?”

“No. No, he has an injured leg. I don’t even know if he’s still alive. I went to get help and meanwhile they caught him. The Phalangists . . . the police . . .”

Milena put a finger to her lips. “Hush, keep your voice down. You can tell me all about it somewhere else. What about Catharina?”

“Don’t worry — she’s not in the Sky anymore. Milos and I took her to her consoler, Emily — remember her? What about Bart? Where is he?”

“He’s here too, sleeping on the second floor. The men have the rooms down there.”

She had said men, not boys, as they would have said at school.

A door opened and a plump little woman appeared in the corridor, wearing a white apron like Milena’s.

“Hi, Kathleen!” she said in passing.

“Hi!” Milena replied. “This is my friend Helen. She’s just arrived.”

“Welcome to youth and beauty!” said the woman cheerfully, and she disappeared down the stairs.

“What did she call you?” asked the astonished Helen.

“She called me Kathleen, and you must do the same from now on.”

“I’ll never manage it! Where on earth did you fish that up for a first name?”

“It was a singer’s name, that’s why I chose it. I have to hide, you see — my face and hair, my name, everything. Are you working in the kitchens?”

“No, in the restaurant. Cleaning and waiting on tables.”

“Oh, what a pity. I’m in the kitchens. Mr. Jahn put me there specially so that people would see me as little as possible. Do you have an apron yet?”

“No.”

“Then get dressed quickly, and I’ll take you to the linen room to get one. It’s the first thing anyone does here, like getting our overcoats when we arrived at the school. Then we have breakfast down in the canteen.”

Less than ten minutes later, Helen, wearing a
maid’s blue apron, was going downstairs with her friend. Milena, who already knew her way around, led her along the second-floor corridor and knocked softly three times at a door on the left.

“Surprise, Bart! Open up!”

The young man put his tousled head around the door and stared. “Helen! We’re all together again!”

“No, not quite,” said Milena, after a moment’s hesitation. “Milos ran away with her, but he was caught.”

Bart’s cheerfulness vanished at once. His face fell. “Caught . . . by the dogs?”

“No, by the Phalangist police.”

Bartolomeo closed his eyes for a second, and lowered his voice. “We mustn’t talk about it here. Let’s all three of us meet outside the cemetery tonight when the restaurant closes. Do you know where it is, Helen?”

“The cemetery? Yes, in fact it’s the only place I do know here.”

“See you this evening, then,” said Bart, ending the conversation as he closed the door of his room again.

Jahn’s Restaurant was really a vast canteen for the local factory workers. It was much larger than Helen had thought the evening before. The double doors didn’t open into the kitchens after all but into a second room full of tables, even larger than the first. Three boys were already busy putting back
the chairs that had been perched upside down on wooden tables in this second room too.

“Do you know how many people can eat here at the same time?” Milena asked. “More than six hundred! You’ll see when mealtimes come — it’s like a huge party.”

“A lot of people must work in the restaurant, then?” guessed Helen.

“Three times too many!” said Milena, smiling. “Mr. Jahn hires everyone who’s ‘mashed potatoes for Napoleon,’ and there are a lot of us, I can tell you! But now we won’t talk anymore until this evening. Keeping quiet is the rule here.”

They went down to the basement in a service elevator that shook its passengers about like some kind of angry monster. Its heavy iron mechanism was visible through the glazed doors.

“The kitchens,” Milena said, when the lift reached the bottom of the shaft. They passed enormous cast-iron stoves and rows of copper saucepans hanging from the walls. “This is where I work, cleaning and preparing vegetables. Bart’s in the delivery area. He loads, unloads, and carries things, and he’s responsible for quite a lot of breakages. He’s really clumsy! And this is the staff canteen. We eat before the customers arrive every day. Come on in.”