Winter's End (27 page)

Helen was equally fascinated to see Dora’s mutilated right hand running lightly over the ivory keys. Sometimes she had to rest it for a moment and massage her aching wrist.

“I have difficulty spreading my fingers beyond a fifth these days and it’s no use even trying thumb passages!”

She might as well be talking Hebrew,
thought Helen. “I’d never have noticed anything,” she said, intending to comfort Dora. “I think you play incredibly well.”

“That just shows you don’t know anything about it!” cried Dora, bursting into laughter and holding up her damaged hand. “Myself, I feel as if I’m playing with my foot!”

Helen thought her laughter was just a little too cheerful. “Are there any records of Eva-Maria Bach?” she asked suddenly.

“Yes. I have one here, but Milena doesn’t want to listen to it.”

“Dora’s right,” Milena agreed. “The idea scares
me. But with Helen here today I think I could summon up the courage.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

Dora disappeared into the bedroom and came back with a black vinyl record in its sleeve. She held it out to Milena.

“There, this is all I have, and the few photos I’ve shown you. My treasures. I’d hidden them in a suitcase and given it to a friend for safekeeping before I left the capital. I was right to take precautions, too. They ransacked the apartment and took everything away. Everything. Except the piano, because it was too big. And guess what else those idiots left, Helen?”

“The Schubert manuscript?”

“Exactly! It was just where you see it today, pinned to the wall in full view. It’s the one thing they’d have been bound to take if they hadn’t been such ignoramuses! I think I’ll be laughing over that for the rest of my life!”

Milena turned the record sleeve over in her fingers. It had a simple design of a bunch of pale mauve flowers on it. She read out loud, in a low voice, “High-quality recording . . . symphony orchestra . . . contralto: Miss Eva-Maria Bach . . . They called her ‘miss’?”

“Yes, she wasn’t twenty-five yet, remember. And unmarried.”

“But she already had me, didn’t she?”

“Yes. I think you were two at the time. You had chubby cheeks, and you —”

“I don’t know if I will have the courage, after all. I’m all right with the photos, not so sure about the voice.”

It was Helen who took the record and put it on the gramophone. Dora had lifted the heavy varnished wood lid. The “high-quality recording” crackled badly. Dora turned the volume down very low. “My neighbors are safe,” she said, “but you never know; they might have visitors.”

The extract began with several bars played on the violin, and waiting was almost unbearable for the two girls. It was as if Eva-Maria Bach might suddenly open the door and walk in. At last the voice rose, distant and peaceful:

Overwhelmed, Milena hid her face in her hands and kept them there until the end of the aria. Helen listened, entranced by the fullness and balance of the low contralto voice. She realized how young her friend still was by comparison. Dora was smiling, her eyes bright with emotion.

“That’s enough for today,” murmured Milena, as the aria reached its last note. “I’ll listen to the rest of the record another time.”

All three wiped away tears, laughing as they brought out their tissues at exactly the same time.

“Well, what do you think?” asked Dora when she had put the record back in its sleeve.

“I think I still have a lot of work to do.”

“You’re right. So let’s get on with it!”

“Let’s do that.”

When Helen and Milena left the Old Town, the streetlights had already come on. They took the shortest way they could along little, sloping streets and down flights of stone steps. When they reached the square where Jahn’s Restaurant stood, they met Bartolomeo, returning at just the same moment with a huge black scarf wound around his neck.

“Bart,” called Milena, “Helen would like you to tell her what you know about Milos.”

“Come on, then, Helen,” he said. “Let’s walk on a little way, just the two of us, and I’ll explain.”

They left Milena behind, went toward the river, and walked along the bank. Without knowing it, they stopped at the same bench where Two-and-a-Half had been sitting before Mitten hit him on the head with his exhaust pipe. The quiet murmur of the ripples accompanied their voices.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Bart began. “I just couldn’t make up my mind.”

“Is it that tricky?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. Well, first you have to know that Mr. Jahn has always been sure that Milos is alive.”

“How could he be sure?”

“He knows the Phalangists and the way their minds work. If they took Milos away on their sleigh in such a hurry, that means he wasn’t dead or they’d have dug a hole quite close and thrown him into it. They’re not the sort to bother about an enemy’s corpse.”

Helen had always thought the same, deep in her heart. And above all, over and beyond all reason, she had an utter conviction that her lover was alive. It had taken firm hold of her mind. She felt it in every fiber of her being. If not, how could she talk to him silently as often as she did, by night, by day, telling him her secrets, telling him about her difficulties and her moments of happiness?

“Since then,” Bart went on, “Mr. Jahn’s had confirmation through the network. Milos is alive. Only what comes next is rather more worrying. That’s why I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.”

“I’m listening,” said Helen, but a shudder ran through her.

“Well, if they spared his life,” Bart went on, “it was with one idea in mind.”

“What idea?”

“Look, I’ll repeat what Mr. Jahn said, shall I? That’ll be easier. The Phalange despises weaklings and losers. They eliminate them without any scruples, just like putting down the sick animals in a litter. But they respect the strong. As they see it, Milos is strong, and he proved it by killing Pastor. What’s
more, they found out that he was a wrestler. So they had him looked after, and now they’re going to use him in their fights.”

“Fights?” asked Helen, feeling as if the blood were draining out of her.

How could Bart explain gently about the barbarity of the arena and the savage shows it mounted? He did his best, but in spite of all his efforts he could only tell her unbearable things. No, no one can avoid fighting. Yes, one of the two must die. No, no mercy is ever shown.

“The winter fights begin next month,” he finished, determined to tell the truth to the end. “And Milos will be . . .”

For a moment he hoped Helen would slap his face to punish him for the horrors he was revealing. He’d have welcomed it; he hated himself so much for having to tell her.

“What can we do?” she asked at last, in a faint voice.

“I don’t know,” Bart replied. “Of course we’ve thought of getting him out of there, but even approaching the place is impossible. The army guards the camps.”

“Then there’s nothing to be done?” Helen was crying now.

“Yes, there is. Mr. Jahn says we mustn’t give up hope. He says things are moving.”

“Things are moving?”

“Yes. The network’s been in turmoil for some
months now. I’m supposed to keep it a secret. I shouldn’t tell you, but the hell with that.”

“What do you mean? Is there going to be an uprising? When? Before the winter fights? Tell me, Bart! Tell me!”

“I know almost nothing, Helen. They give me a few scraps of information because my name is Casal and I’m my father’s son, but I’m only seventeen, not sixty, like Jahn! If I learn anything at all, I’ll tell you. Promise!”

“Promise!” He had fired the word at her, like Milos had, without meaning to. Helen leaned her forehead into the hollow of his shoulder. He was so tall. He gently stroked her head.

“We mustn’t give up hope, Helen. I’m told that when things were going very badly, my father used to comfort everyone by saying, ‘Never fear: the river’s on our side.’ ”

They turned and looked at the dark, quiet waters, the sparkling eddies glinting here and there. Far away, on Royal Bridge, cars glided through the silence as night fell.

W
hen he heard three quiet knocks at his door, Bartolomeo thought at first that it was Milena. They often met at night; that was no secret. He put out his arm for his watch and was surprised to see that it was five in the morning. What brought her to his room at this early hour? Usually it was more like the time when she went back to her own! He got up, yawning, and opened the door. Mr. Jahn, hands in the pockets of his heavy overcoat and a fur cap on his head, saw his surprise and smiled.

“Get some warm clothes on and come with me. Don’t switch the corridor light on. I’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”

Bart didn’t even think of asking questions. He nodded and closed the door again. Then he put on his coat and boots and flung his long scarf around his shoulders.

Jahn was waiting in the dim light at the back of the restaurant. “Come on, we’ll go out through the kitchens.”

They took the service stairs down to avoid waking everyone in the place by using the elevator, and once in the basement went along a corridor that Bart had never found before. They left through an emergency exit that opened into an alleyway behind the building and walked a hundred or so yards through the night. Then Jahn stopped outside the double door of a garage. He unlocked it with a large key.

“Where are we going?” asked Bart, seeing the car inside.

“For a little drive. I’ll bet you don’t even know the place. Give me a hand, will you?”

The two of them pushed the heavy four-door car out of the garage and then all along the road. At the corner they jumped in and coasted down the slope to the avenue that ran beside the river. Only then did Jahn turn the ignition key to start the engine. They drove for about a mile before turning off to cross Royal Bridge. The yellow light of the street lamps cast living shadows on the ten bronze horsemen, and the last, a gigantic statue, seemed threatening, about to bring his raised sword down on them. As they passed through the sleeping suburbs, Bartolomeo’s fingers caressed the supple leather of the seats and the chrome dashboard.

“First time you’ve been in a Panhard?” asked Jahn.

“First time I’ve been in a car at all,” replied Bart.

Jahn glanced at him in astonishment.

“I arrived at the boarding school in a bus when I was fourteen, and I got on another bus when I was seventeen, running away with Milena in the middle of the night,” he explained. “But that’s all. Well, maybe I was driven around in a car when I was really small, but if so, I don’t remember.”

“You’re right. Forgive me,” Jahn apologized.

Day was just beginning to dawn when they reached the country. Mist hung low over the fields. Soon the horizon ahead of them grew wider. Jahn looked in his rearview mirror several times and steadily slowed down. Bart turned to look behind them. In the distance, a black car was slowing down too. He thought there were two men in it.

“They’re following us,” said Jahn. He sighed.

“Phalangists?”

“Yes.”

“Do they often follow you?”

“They try to. But I can spot them. So I lead them sixty miles over the muddiest roads I can find, I buy a chicken from a farmer, and then I drive back. It infuriates them. I love that.”

Bart didn’t expect such practical jokes from the large man he thought of as placid and reserved. “So we’re on our way to buy a chicken from a farmer?”

“No, I didn’t wake you at five in the morning for that. I’m going to try shaking them off.”

They went on driving slowly for half an hour or more. The black car adjusted its speed to theirs and
stayed behind them. Just after a bend in the road, they found themselves at a junction. Here Jahn suddenly accelerated, went straight ahead, and was out of sight before his pursuers had time to come around the bend themselves.

“With a bit of luck, they’ll think I turned off there.”

The maneuver succeeded perfectly. They had lost the black car.

“We’re going to see the horse-men,” Jahn said, a little more relaxed now. “Also known as the cart-horses. Have you heard the term before?”

In his mind’s eye Bartolomeo saw the large form of Basil with his unmanageable tufts of hair and his long, rough-hewn face. What had happened to him? Surely he hadn’t been left to die in that cell. . . .

“I know one. He brought me my father’s letter. But he never explained exactly what the . . . the cart-horses are . . . I mean the horse-men.”

“I’ll tell you,” said Jahn, sighing. “We have plenty of time. There’s a good hour’s drive still ahead of us.”

He lit a cigar and lowered his window to let the smoke out. Bart decided that the smell wasn’t really so unpleasant. He felt well, wrapped in his warm coat, watching the winter landscape pass outside the car windows.

“No one knows exactly where they come from,” Jahn began. “They’re rather like a large family who have always been around. I suppose there are about
a hundred thousand in the country in all. All of them are brave, tough, and strong as oxen. But they are unable to learn to read and write. They marry among themselves so regularly that these characteristics go on from one generation to the next. They used to be employed in work needing strength and stamina, particularly carrying loads along narrow streets where horse-drawn carts couldn’t go. Hence their nickname of cart-horses. But you mustn’t think they were despised. Far from it: they were admired for their strength and steadfastness. A good many people even saw a certain nobility in their rustic manners, if you can understand that.”