Winter's End

Bombardone Mills, an apron around his waist, was breaking the eighth egg for his omelette into a chipped bowl when the phone rang. Automatically looking at his watch, he saw that it was a few minutes past two in the morning. Once again hunger had woken the regional police chief in the middle of the night and forced him to get up, sure that he’d never fall asleep again unless he methodically satisfied his appetite. He had the stomach of a hippopotamus. He took time off to throw a generous handful of diced bacon into the pan, then wiped his hands on a greasy dishtowel and turned toward the living room, wondering why someone was calling him in the middle of the night. No one was allowed to disturb him at this hour except for something very important, and the mere idea of that set off a pleasant tingling in his chest and his guts.

Back in his kitchen less than a minute later, he celebrated the good news by breaking two more eggs into the bowl. He enjoyed all aspects of his job, but manhunts had always given him more of a thrill than anything. Finding the scent of your quarry, tracking it down, running it to earth, capturing and killing it — how could anyone feel more alive than at these moments? More powerful? More pitiless? And this time the quarry wasn’t single but double. Twice the pleasure lay ahead!

He beat the eggs vigorously, added salt and pepper, and slid the omelette into the pan, where the bacon was already sizzling. Then he went back to the living room, picked up the phone, and dialed a number.

“Is that the barracks? Mills here. Put Pastor on the line, would you? . . . Hi, Pastor, get the pack ready. No, not the full pack, five or six. The best. Yes, at once.”

A shape on the sagging sofa moved in the dim light.

“Hear that, Ramses? Going to enjoy this, are you?”

A strange head emerged from under a moth-eaten rug. The lower part of its face was elongated like a dog’s muzzle, but the rest of it was human: its eyes, its hairless skin, its flat skull covered with short hair.

“You heard that. You got it, right? We’re going hu-u-un-ting! Hu-u-un-ting!”

Mills lingered on the u sound, and then spat out the last syllable abruptly.

Ramses started whimpering and directed a still-sleepy eye on his master.

“Uuuu-in,” he laboriously articulated.

“Hunting!” Mills corrected him. “Hunting! Say it after me, Ramses: hunting.”

“Uuuu-in.”

“OK, Ramses, get dressed and join me in the kitchen.”

The omelette was ready. Mills slipped the whole thing into a soup plate that had been standing on the table since he ate his supper. He cut a huge chunk of bread and took the top off a tall bottle of beer. The aroma of the omelette and the prospect of the hunt delighted him. It struck him that life was a beautiful, simple thing when you made no particular demands on it. He began eating with a hearty appetite. Ramses, in a jacket and pants, sat down opposite him. He had done up the buttons of the jacket in the wrong holes, so that its front hung oddly. Mills felt slightly moved. Good old Ramses could always give him a laugh. But he’d never managed to teach any other dog-man to do up his own shoelaces!

“Eat? Want something to eat?”

“E-e-e-eee,” the creature replied, with a trickle of saliva running down his chops.

Mills pushed part of the omelette across the table to him and handed him a spoon.

“Here, and watch what you’re doing. Neat and clean, right? Neat and clean!”

Ramses laboriously stuck the spoon between the three fingers of his right hand, which had nails like claws, and concentrated on conveying a little food to his mouth.

They were finishing their meal when someone rang the doorbell. A thin, pale man was standing out on the landing, holding a travel bag.

“I’m a supervisor at the boys’ boarding school. I’ve come from Mr. Van Vlyck to bring you the —”

“Yes, I know,” Mills interrupted him. “Come in.” He led the man into the kitchen. “Sit down.”

The man gingerly perched on a corner of the chair. He never took his eyes off Ramses, and his hands were trembling.

“Forgive me, but this is the first time I ever . . . I’ve never seen a —”

“Never seen a dog-man before? Well, better take your chance now and have a good look. His name’s Ramses. Say hello, Ramses!”

“L-l-o-o-o!” the creature got out, twisting his mouth into a distorted smile that uncovered two rows of powerful teeth.

The man flinched so abruptly that he almost fell off his chair. Beads of sweat shone on his forehead.

“Right,” said Mills. “So show me what you’ve got there.”

The man opened his bag and took out a pair of leather boots.

“Here. They belong to the young man. I hope they’ll do. And for the girl, I’ve brought this.”

He dug into the bag again, and, still staring fixedly at Ramses, produced a scarf.

“She often wore it. We asked.”

“No perfume to mask the girl’s own odor?” asked Mills.

“I don’t think so,” replied the man warily, not daring to say for sure.

Mills took the scarf from his hands, buried his nose in it, and sniffed noisily.

“That’s OK. You can go.”

“Thank you,” the man mumbled. “Thank you and — er — good-bye, Mr. Mills.”

At the kitchen door, he turned. He was probably hoping to hear the dog-man’s disturbing voice again. The terror he had felt when Ramses uttered his inarticulate greeting a moment before told him to run for his life, but his fascination was stronger than his fear.

“And good-bye to you too, Mr. . . . er . . .” he repeated, to Ramses.

The dog-man didn’t move a muscle.

“Don’t bother!” said Mills. “He reacts only to my voice. And my orders.”

“Oh — oh, is that so?” faltered the man.

“Yes,” Mills replied. “For instance, if I tell him to attack you here and now, then you have twenty seconds to live, no more.”

“Twenty seconds — really?” said the man, choking.

“Just enough time for him to leap at your throat and virtually tear your head off your body.”

“My head off — my body?” the man repeated. He gave a small, nervous laugh and then slowly backed out into the corridor, followed by the gentle gaze of Ramses. Mills could hear his steps accelerating, the front door of the apartment slamming, and then the sound of his feet running downstairs.

There was still half a saucepan of black coffee left over from the evening before. Mills put it on the stove to warm up while he dressed. He didn’t wash; he never did before setting out on a hunt. Nor did he wash at any time during the hunt, even if it was likely to last for weeks. He didn’t shave either. The dirt that built up in the folds of his stomach and between his toes, the beard spreading over his face as if to consume it, all made him feel he was turning into an animal. When it was over and the prey was caught, he liked to go home, exhausted, filthy, and hungry, take a hot bath, and then spend three days eating and sleeping and never showing his face outdoors.

He put on his boots and a leather jacket, swallowed the coffee on his feet, and threw a few clothes, a pair of snowshoes, and a chunk of rye bread into an old canvas knapsack. As he left, he picked up the travel bag containing the boots and the scarf.

“Coming, Ramses? Let’s have fun!”

The two of them set off for the barracks through the night. The deserted roads echoed under their feet. The police chief went ahead. Ramses followed a little way behind him, walking upright. Like all dog-men, he could maintain a vertical posture without much difficulty, but he had the hunched shoulders and rounded neck typical of his kind, making him look like a hunchback. His arms seemed too short and too rigid, as if they had atrophied. “Stand up straight!” Mills often told him. Then Ramses would straighten his shoulders and put his head back, but next moment he had forgotten again.

Soon they were in the suburbs.

“Walk beside me!” ordered Mills. “You know I don’t like to have you following me. Anyone would think you were a farmyard dog snapping at my heels!”

Ramses came up level with his master, and they walked side by side for ten minutes. Then, gradually, the dog-man fell back until he was walking behind Mills again. Mills gave up. This was one of the things he couldn’t get Ramses to do, although when he’d taken him to live in his own apartment five years earlier he had cherished high hopes of this exceptionally gifted member of the pack.

Ramses was one of the third generation of dog-men in Mills’s service. The first generation, which he had inherited when he was appointed to his post, consisted of twenty animals — or twenty men, whichever you preferred — who had been given the names of stars. The second generation, ten years later, bore the names of Roman emperors: Caesar, Nero, Octavius, Caligula. The third was named after ancient Egyptian pharaohs: Chephren, Teti, Ptolemy, and so on. Thus Ramses was the son of Augustus and Flavia, and the brother of Cheops and Amenophis. Mills had quickly seen the remarkable potential of the big dog-man with the dreamy look in his eyes, and one day it gave him the idea of adopting Ramses and keeping him in his own bachelor apartment.

They had made rapid progress over the first few weeks. Ramses had learned to write his name and read easy words like taxi or bike. He could soon say over forty words, beginning with hello, thank you, eat, hunt, and Bombardone — although they became “L-l-o-o-o! . . . an-koo . . . e-e-e-eee . . . uuu-nt,” and “. . . aaardone!” Then Mills had tried to do more, and that was harder: teaching him to play cards, whistle a tune, make an omelette.

Those days were over now. It had been obvious for some time that Ramses wasn’t getting any further.

“Why do you keep him?” Pastor the dog-handler asked. “Take him back to the barracks. He’ll be happier with his own kind. Isn’t he bored, living with you?”

The chief of police couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth: he had become attached to his strange companion’s quiet presence and absolute loyalty. Sometimes he woke suddenly at night, a prey to uncontrollable fears, and eating didn’t help. Then he went to lie down beside Ramses on the living-room sofa and spent the rest of the night there, reassured by the dog-man’s regular breathing.

There was a light on in the barracks, on the second floor. They entered the building and went up a metal staircase. Pastor was waiting for them in his office, smoking a cigarette. He was a flabby, fat man with thick lips, and at present he had the untidy hair and reddened eyes of someone who has been hauled out of bed.

“Hi, Bombardone! Hi, Ramses! Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“No, it couldn’t wait,” Mills said. “Is the pack ready?”

“I picked the five best: Cheops, Amenophis, Chephren, Mykerinos, and Teti. I suppose you’re taking Ramses, so that makes six. OK? ”

“OK.”

“When do we leave?”

“Right away.”

Without further comment, Pastor rose to his feet, put on his heavy sheepskin-lined jacket, and picked up the knapsack hanging from a hook. He was obviously anticipating an immediate departure.

“Starting where?”

“Starting with the consolers. That’s where they were last seen.”

“Off we go then.”

Pastor liked his dogs but not manhunts. Chasing around the mountains for days and nights like an animal, shivering with cold under a blanket, going without food for days on end did not appeal to him. He had never had the predatory instinct of a man like Mills, who would put up with anything for the thrill of the chase.

The five dog-men were waiting in the dark near the barracks gate, rigid arms hanging by their sides. Two of them were smoking. They wore clothes and shoes, and from a distance might have been taken for factory workers waiting for a bus to pick them up at dawn. When Ramses joined them, they hardly looked at him.

Pastor crossed the yard, dragging his feet, a bunch of keys in his hand. He yawned, opened the gate, and whistled through his teeth — a short, sharp sound. The little troop set off behind him. Mills brought up the rear, glad not to have Ramses trailing along behind him anymore.

They reached the consolers’ village just before three in the morning. Mills stopped the pack outside the library, the last place the fugitives had been traced. He pushed the door open with his foot and glanced inside. The lighted lamp was on the table; a flame was still dancing behind the glass door of the stove. He went into the room on his own and gave it a brief inspection. The two young people had run away over a week ago, and he couldn’t expect to find any sign of them here now. Mills went over to the bookshelves and swept his forearm over the lower one, sending twenty or so books flying to the ground. He scattered them farther with a kick.

“Found anything?” asked Pastor, putting his head round the door.

“No, nothing,” said Mills, leaving the library. “We’d better give the dogs their things to get the scent.”

Pastor opened the travel bag and took one of the boots out of it. “I’ll give this to Cheops, Amenophis, and Teti. And we’ll let the other three have the girl’s scarf. That way we’ll know if our two birds parted company.”

“Good thinking, Pastor!” remarked Mills with sarcastic approval. “Brighter than you look, aren’t you?”

“I just want to get this over and done with quickly,” grunted the dog-handler, and he held the boot out to Cheops. “Here, Cheops, find! Find!”

The dog-man stuck his entire muzzle into the boot. He tilted his head to one side in a comical way and kept his eyes closed. When he had sniffed it at his leisure, he passed the boot to Teti, who did the same. Mills watched them out of the corner of his eye, observing the agitation that gradually came over them. He had always been fascinated by the moment when the dog-men shed their humanity and became all dog. Seeing them quiver with excitement and hearing them whine made him jealous. He too would have liked to be able to register his prey’s precise scent in the appropriate part of his brain and begin tracking it down, nose raised to the wind.

“Find, Ramses, find!” he said, holding the scarf out to his favorite.

“Uuu-nt,” said Ramses.

“Hunt, yes, that’s right,” Mills encouraged him.

Pastor’s opinion was that Mykerinos had the best nose in the pack, and as soon as he had smelled the scarf, he set off along the main road through the village. All the others followed. It was a strange sight to see the six hunched figures striding along in the pale moonlight like vampires after blood. When they reached the fountain, they didn’t hesitate for a moment but turned into a small, sloping road on their left. Halfway along it, they stopped in silence outside Number 49.

The dog-men never barked. All they ever did, at the height of their excitement, was to utter faint whines barely audible to the human ear. Nothing ever gave warning of their presence or their approach. If they were after you, you could expect to see them appear suddenly only a few feet away — by which time it was already too late.

The little house was sleeping. Mills didn’t bother to knock at the front door, which was just below street level, but stood in the road itself and threw a handful of gravel at the second-floor windows.

“Who’s there?” asked a woman’s voice.

“Police,” said Mills.

“What do you want?”

“Open up!”

The curtain at the window was drawn a little way to one side. The presence of the dog-men showed that this wasn’t some kind of joke. Whoever was inside the house could be heard grumbling for a moment and then coming slowly downstairs. The front door opened to reveal an enormous woman in dressing gown and slippers.

“You are Mrs. . . . ?” asked Mills.

“I’m known as Martha. What do you want?”

“You’re a consoler?”

“Would you believe me if I said no, I’m a professional cyclist?”

Having no sense of humor himself, Mills didn’t care for jokes. He had to make an effort to keep calm.

“And you are Miss Bach’s consoler?”

“I only know their first names.”

“Milena,” Mills said, and even in the mouth of such a brute, those three syllables were still surprisingly beautiful.

“I could be,” replied Martha.

“Yes or no?” asked Mills.

The large woman looked straight into his eyes without showing the slightest sign of fear. Mills felt his annoyance increasing.

“She came here last week,” he said, “with a young man, and they left together. Where did they go?”

“My dear sir,” whispered Martha, narrowing her eyes, “you know very well that no consoler will ever tell you about the visits a young person pays to her, still less what’s said on those occasions. We’re like priests, you see, like confessors. And if you don’t understand that, then let me put it in simpler terms for your benefit: it’s a trade secret.”

Mills was a hot-tempered man. In half a second he was beside himself with rage.

“Go indoors!” he ordered, as if the place were his own. Once he was in the house, he closed the door behind them both, forced the consoler down into a chair, and sat astride another facing her, his arms on the back of the chair.

“My good woman,” he whispered, “you and your colleagues are paid by the authorities, meaning me, to give these young people a chance of leaving their schools for three outings a year. At first you were simply called their contacts. I don’t know who thought up the stupid term consolers. But you can be sure of one thing. I have only to do this,” he said, snapping the fingers of his right hand — “this,” he repeated, snapping them again — “and all the jokey stuff will be over, understand? You can come down from this hill of yours and get on with your career as — a professional cyclist, was it? So I’m asking you for the last time: did Miss Milena Bach come to see you last week?”

“My dear sir, I really think you ought to drink verbena tea in the evenings. You’d sleep better. And then you wouldn’t have to go around in the middle of the night with those unfortunate creatures who —”

“Did that girl visit you or did she not, ma’am? I strongly recommend that you tell me.”

“Or there’s orange-flower water. You’re naturally high-strung, and it would help you to —”

A slap stung Martha’s left cheek. She was astounded. No one had ever slapped her, not even her father when she was a little girl, and Mills had a heavy hand. For a moment, stunned and distressed, she almost burst into tears, but she had no time for that. A sound like the booming of a gong was heard outside, followed by a creaking noise, and the door opened.

“Some kind of problem, Martha?”

Four consolers came in one by one, filling two-thirds of the room with their large bulk. The leader was Paula, Helen’s consoler, holding a frying pan. The other three were armed with rolling pins.

“No, none at all.” Martha smiled, with tears in her eyes. “We were just having a little chat, this gentleman and me — and a real gentleman he is too! But he was about to leave, or that’s what I think. . . .”

Mills, still sitting astride the chair, had been quick to assess the situation. In spite of his physical strength, he was far from sure that he could overcome those four mountains of flesh. And for a police chief who was a bachelor into the bargain to die at the hands of women armed with rolling pins would be a shocking humiliation. Of course, he had only to whistle up Ramses and tell him to attack, but setting a dog-man on the consolers would not look like a glorious feat either.

“That’s right. I was about to leave,” he grunted, rising from the chair.

The four huge women drew back, leaving a narrow passage through which he had to walk like a naughty boy running the gauntlet. Outside, Pastor was rubbing his head with both hands.

“Look what they did to me, Bombardone!” he said furiously. “The bump coming up on my head — you wouldn’t believe it. Those madwomen aren’t even afraid of the dogs!”

Mills ignored him. The six dog-men were grouped together a little way off. They were all turning to look north, muzzles pointing in the air and quivering. Mills joined them.

“They’re somewhere over there? They made for the mountains, right?”

“Uuu-nt,” said Ramses, craning his neck.

“I knew it,” muttered Mills. “Fugitives always try escaping over the mountains, never down the river.”

The other dog-men didn’t move, but as he came closer to them, Mills heard their impatient whining.