Winter's End

The wet slate shone sparkling black. Sitting on the roof ridge of the boarding school, Helen and Milos wrapped themselves in their coats and looked down at the little town. It was still sleeping between the steel-colored river and the dark northern hills.

“Isn’t it beautiful!” Helen gasped. “Have you ever walked in the town?”

“Yes, every time I’m companion to a friend visiting his consoler,” said Milos. “I never go to the library — I’m not all that big on reading. It sends me to sleep. So I go back down the hill, over the bridge, and into town. That’s what three-quarters of the boys do.”

“But what if you get caught?”

“I’ve told you already. I never get caught. Look down there, where the smoke is rising — it’s almost purple. That’s the slums; they’re full of bars and hoodlums. People go there to drink and fight.”

“You’re scaring me! Have you ever been there?”

Milos roared with laughter. “I’ve been through them, but don’t worry, I never drink and I don’t fight either. At least, not in bars.”

“That’s right, you said you’re a wrestler, didn’t you?”

“Greco-Roman wrestling.”

“What’s that like?”

“Same as freestyle wrestling except you’re not allowed to grab your opponent’s legs. Or punch or bite or put a stranglehold on him.”

“So what’s the idea of the sport?”

“You have to get the other man down on his back by attacking just his upper body and make his shoulders touch the ground. It’s called a fall.”

“It sounds primitive.”

“I am primitive.”

“I don’t believe you. Are you good at . . . at Greco-Roman wrestling?”

“I’m not bad.”

“The best in your school?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Milos said this without sounding arrogant. Helen had asked him a question and he was answering it truthfully, that was all. She was impressed. Once again, she felt she could be in no danger beside this boy with his large hands, even though she hardly knew him. They both looked up. The countless stars seemed to be blazing unusually brightly. Their sparkling, silent, distant light filled the frozen sky. Helen shivered.

“Are you cold? Do you want to go back?”

“Not until you’ve told me what you had to tell me, Milos. You promised.”

He hesitated for a moment. A cat put its head out from behind a chimney, watched them briefly, surprised to find two humans up here, and then moved gracefully away.

“We must look weird up here on the roof!”

“Come on, tell me, Milos!”

“OK. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“Then let’s begin at the beginning. It was last spring. A new boy arrived at the school. Odd kind of guy, about our age, taller than average but sturdy too, shoulders like a furniture mover, long face, blunt features, right thumb very crooked, nose had been bashed in, scars on his arms and hands, hair standing up in tufts. In fact the sort of tough-looking character I’d be very wary of in the ring. Out in the yard his first evening he came over to us and spoke to Bart, hesitating a bit. ‘Seems like you’re Bartolomeo Casal?’ Bart looked him in the face and said yes, that was him. I wondered for a moment if the guy was going to throw himself at Bart and attack him. But no, he opened his huge mouth, buried his face in his hands and kept on saying, almost groaning, ‘I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!’ He seemed so shattered that we took him off into a corner of the yard where no one would see us. ‘You certainly kept me on the run!’ said the boy. ‘Three years I’ve been looking for you! Three years I’ve been getting myself chucked out of every boarding school I could find on purpose, trying to track you down! The detention cells I’ve been in! The beatings I’ve taken! Look at my face, will you?’

“He was all choked up with emotion. He took a dirty handkerchief out of his pocket, cried into it for a bit, and blew his nose. ‘Explain yourself!’ Bart said. ‘We don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. First of all, who are you?’

“‘I’m a cart-horse,’ says this boy.

“‘A what?’

“‘A cart-horse! Don’t you know what that is? I’m the sort that wears themselves out chasing after clowns like your kind! We’re told there’s mail to be delivered; we deliver it, even if it means ten years searching and the person it’s for can’t be found. We’re ready to go through hell and high water to deliver it. Mind you, not for just anyone. Not for those Phalangist bastards! My dad never could stand them. Me neither. To think I’m the one who’s found you! I just can’t believe it! You swear you really are Bartolomeo Casal?’

“‘Yes, I swear it,’ says Bart, feeling more like laughing than anything else by now. ‘But why are you looking for me?’

“‘I just told you,’ says this boy, sounding annoyed. ‘Are you deaf or what? I have a letter for you! Sewn into the lining of my jacket, that’s where your stupid letter is. It’s been going around sewn into people’s linings for twelve years! I’m the fourth cart-horse to carry it. Unpicking the lining and stitching it up again every time I change my jacket or coat, I’m sick of it. I’m a cart-horse, not a fashion designer! See my hands? Right, I’ll go off to the bathroom to fetch it out and then you can have it. Wait here.’

“Bart and I looked at each other, stunned. A minute or so later the guy was back. ‘Thanks,’ said Bart, slipping the worn envelope into his pocket. ‘What’s your name?’

“‘Basil, and you know what I’m going to do now?’

“‘No,’ we said.

“‘I’m going to watch my step, I am. I’m going to be an angel, a little lamb, that’s what. And most of all I’m going to get some rest, because I’ve done my job.’

“Then he shook hands with both of us and lumbered off like a bear. We could hear him snorting ten yards away.

“After that, Basil became friends with Bart and me. It was fascinating to hear his story. He’d been in over six boarding schools; he knew all kinds of secrets. You just had to ask him. The annual assembly, Van Vlyck, the rest of it — it’s through Basil I know about all that.”

“I see. And he must have read the letter too. No one can keep a letter in his pocket for three years without being tempted to read it.”

“Of course not. Unless that person can’t read.”

“You mean Basil can’t?”

“No, none of the horse-men can.”

“The what?”

“Horse-men. Basil was making fun of himself, saying he was a cart-horse; he’s really one of the horse-men. I’ll explain more about them another time, but it’s a fact; they can’t read. From the start, Basil sat in the back row in the classroom. Everyone caught on quickly, and the teachers left him alone.”

“Poor boy. And what was in the envelope?”

“A letter for Bart.”

“Yes, of course, but what was the letter about?”

“All in good time. Bart read it right away in the bathroom while I kept watch at the door. Like in your school, they never leave us in peace. When he came out, he was white as a sheet. ‘Aren’t you feeling well?’ I asked. ‘Who was writing to you?’

“‘My father,’ he said. ‘It’s a letter from my father. . . . I never even knew I had one! He wrote it to me fifteen years ago.’

“Over the next few days, Bart changed. He’s not the talkative sort, but he started questioning lots of our friends one by one. And it was always the same question he asked. ‘Do you remember your parents?’ They’d have turned around and thumped anyone else, but somehow people don’t turn on Bartolomeo Casal. It was odd: he’d go up to boys he hadn’t said a word to in three years and ask them straight out: ‘Do you remember your parents?’ Most of the time the answer was no. But if someone did say yes, he’d go on asking questions for hours.”

“What for?”

“To check up on something his father explained in the letter.”

“Meaning?”

“Bart told me in the end, and that’s the serious thing I wanted to tell you.”

“Go ahead.”

“We . . . how can I put this? We’re not ordinary orphans.”

“Not ordinary orphans?”

“No. Our parents all had something in common.”

“What?”

“They all fought against the Phalange organization when it seized power.”

Helen’s heart was in her mouth. In her seventeen years of life, she’d never been able to form any kind of idea of her parents. She’d often tried imagining what they were like, but in spite of all her efforts, they slipped away from her memory like a fish slipping out of your hands. Hearing someone mention them, even so vaguely, seemed unreal. She felt as if after all this time those two shadowy, ever-elusive figures were giving her a loving wave from infinitely far away. She pressed close to Milos’s shoulder to convince herself that all this was real: the rooftop where she was sitting, the pure, cold night all around her, and this calm, quiet boy on the point of revealing extraordinary secrets.

“I don’t understand. You mean they rounded us up and put us together because of our parents?”

“That’s right.”

“But why?”

“Because our parents all died at the same time, more or less.”

“You mean they were . . .”

“Murdered, yes.”

“Murdered? Who did it?”

Milos hesitated for a few seconds. “The Phalangists. Bart’s father describes them very simply: barbarians, he calls them. They seized power by force a little over fifteen years ago. It was a coup d’état. They arrested and assassinated anyone who dared to resist, wiped out all trace of them, banned any mention of their names, destroyed their works if they happened to be artists.”

“But Bart’s father must have escaped if he wrote that letter.”

“He was one of the Resistance leaders, and yes, he did manage to get away. In the letter he writes that he’s up near the peaks of the northern mountains, and so far he’s succeeded in eluding the Devils, the dog-men under the police chief, Mills. But he won’t get much farther, he says. He’s exhausted and his feet are frozen. And he says he’s giving the letter to a companion in the hope that someday it will end up in his son Bartolomeo’s hands.”

“It took fifteen years, but it arrived in the end!” marveled Helen. “Thanks to Basil!”

“Exactly. And at the end of the letter,” Milos went on, “Bart’s father tells him that while he was on the run, he met an extraordinary woman, a singer. Everyone loved and protected her. The barbarians couldn’t silence her — as long as she was able to sing, they feared her and her voice. Her name was Eva-Maria Bach, and she had a daughter, a little blond girl who looked exactly like her.”

“Milena,” Helen murmured.

“That’s right. Those barbarians tracked her mother down to the mountains where she’d gone with Bart’s father and a handful of other partisans. The dog-men were let loose on them . . .”

Helen shuddered. “My God! Surely Bart’s not going to tell Milena that, is he?”

“I don’t know.”

They said nothing for a few moments, and then Helen went on. “So all those people — I mean our parents — they’re dead? There’s nothing left of them?”

“No, nothing,” Milos said sadly. “There’s nothing left of them.” And then he added, very quietly, “Except us.”

His voice was strangely resonant in the clear night air. At that moment, perched side by side on the slate roof, they felt like the survivors of a terrible, long-ago disaster, two fragile and miraculous birds.

“I always knew Milena wasn’t ordinary,” said Helen, smiling. “She had that secret deep inside her — something greater than any of the rest of us had. It’s a unique gift. You only have to hear her sing to understand.”

“Bart’s not an ordinary boy either,” said Milos. “Those two were bound to meet. Remember the evening when we all met on the hill? They couldn’t take their eyes off each other! And on our way back to the boarding school, Bart stopped dead in the middle of the bridge and asked me, ‘Did you hear what she said? Her name’s Milena! It’s her!’ I knew at once that nothing would keep him away from her, not even the thought of sending an innocent person to the detention cell. It was stronger than anything else. We didn’t need to say any more. He just gave me a hug and he went off. When he’d gone a little way, he turned back and called, ‘We’ll meet again, Milos! We’ll meet again . . . somewhere else. We’ll all be together then, the living and the dead!’ And then he was gone. I was left alone on the bridge feeling like an idiot, just like you a few hours later.”

“They won’t be coming back, then?”

“They won’t be coming back.”

“But what about Catharina in her cell? We can’t leave her there to die!”

“You’re right. We have to get her out of there tonight. With the annual assembly, and what happened at the end of it, I don’t suppose supervision will be very tight.”

“There must be another boy in the detention cell in your school too.”

Milos dug both hands into his hair and then sighed deeply. “There was. But not anymore.”

“What do you mean? Did they let him out?”

“No, it was like this. A terrible thing happened. When Bart and I left the school last week for me to go and see my consoler, the supervisor picked a boy for punishment instead of us if we failed to come back. And guess what — he picked Basil. The poor guy found himself in the cell without doing anything wrong for once. All he wanted was to keep quiet and out of trouble! He was in there for five days and five nights, and on the Thursday morning I saw two men carrying his body out on a stretcher. His skull was all battered, and there was blood congealing on his face and shoulders. They loaded him into a van and took him away. I don’t know where. I think he couldn’t bear the idea of being punished unjustly. I think he went crazy with rage in that hole, and then flung himself at the door to kill himself. That’s what I work out happened. . . .”

Milos’s voice cracked. Helen turned to him, and thought his eyes were suspiciously bright for a boy who claimed to be primitive.

“Come on,” he said, pulling himself together. “We must find Catharina before she goes crazy too. Let’s get moving!”

They left the rope where it was on the roof and came back down through the skylight. The lock on the door at the far end of the loft didn’t stand up to Milos’s knife for long. They went down the stairs and into the hall where the assembly had been held. The Skunk, replete and dead drunk, had collapsed beside the wall, fast asleep with his mouth wide open. A plane crashing into the room wouldn’t have woken him. When Milos got a close-up view of the buffet — the old soak hadn’t been able to make any real inroads into it — he practically fainted.

“The pigs! Look at that: pies, ham, pâté, apple tart!”

“Chocolates!” moaned Helen.

They fell on the food and ate everything that came to hand. Then they helped themselves, not feeling at all guilty, to anything they could carry easily, stuffing their pockets with bread, cheese, and crackers. The doors had all been left unlocked after the guests fled in disorder. They opened them one by one and reached the ground floor unimpeded. In the dark they made their way along the corridor that ran the full length of the building. Milos didn’t switch on his flashlight until they reached the refectory, where he felt sure no one would find them at this time of night. The little door at the back of the room was open too. Milos started down the stairs first.

“Careful, the steps are slippery!” whispered Helen.

“Put your hands on my shoulders,” Milos replied. “You said the cell’s underneath the cellar?”

“Yes. Keep going! We’ll have to go right to the bottom.”

After about ten feet, a space opened out on their right. Milos ran the beam of his flashlight over it, saw nothing, and went on down. Following him along the mud-brick tunnel, Helen felt her heart thudding violently. What state would little Catharina be in? How would she have survived when Basil, who must be much tougher, had lost his head? How could they have left her alone for a whole week in that nightmarish cell? Shame and fear overwhelmed her.

“It’s not locked!” exclaimed Milos, incredulous. “Look, Helen, the door’s wide open!”

She joined him, snatching the flashlight from his hands. If the door had been left open, it could mean that Catharina wasn’t in any shape to escape. Perhaps she too . . . Helen swept the beam of the flashlight around the cell. It was empty.

“She isn’t here! I don’t understand. What have they done with her?”

“Come on!” Milos interrupted. “We can’t hang around here!”

They turned back, baffled, not knowing whether to be glad or anxious to find Catharina gone. They were about to start climbing the stairs again when Milos stopped so suddenly that Helen bumped into him. Little Catharina Pancek was sitting on a step farther up the staircase, huddled in her coat. She smiled at them.

“Helen — oh, Helen, I’m so glad to see you.”

Helen rushed forward to take Catharina’s hands. They were burning hot, and the girl’s hair was sticking to her forehead. She smelled of earth.

“Catharina, what are you doing here? You’re shivering! Who let you out?”

“Theresa,” Catharina replied. “It was Theresa. . . . Would you . . . would you like to see the Sky?”

Helen realized that in her amazement at finding the cell empty she had completely forgotten to look up at the legendary picture on the beam. The girls at the school both feared to see it and dreamed of the sight.

“Yes . . . yes, I would. You mean the Sky really exists?”

“Oh yes, and it’s beautiful. I’ll show you, but . . . but help me. My . . . my legs won’t carry me.”

They took her under the arms, and all three went slowly back to the cell. Milos turned the flashlight on the beam, and they looked at it in silence. The sky was deep blue; the white clouds were crowding each other close as the wind chased them. A large gray bird soared through the air, wings spread wide. They could almost hear its cry.

“I never knew there was a bird,” whispered Helen, impressed.

“It wasn’t there just now,” said Catharina faintly. “It wasn’t there at all while I was in the cell. . . . It’s just appeared. . . . That means I’m the bird, and the bird has flown away. . . .”

“Are you sure it wasn’t there?” asked Helen.

“My father was a mathematician,” Catharina replied.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“My father was a mathematician. . . . Theresa told me so.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Milos breathed into Helen’s ear. “She’s feverish; her teeth are chattering.”

“Right, but where do we take her?”

“I want to go to my consoler,” Catharina declared.

The other two exchanged a swift glance and agreed. They helped Catharina up the stairs as best they could and left the refectory. They had expected the fresh night air to revive the sick girl, but the opposite happened: she almost fainted, and they had to support her to keep her from collapsing in the yard. They skirted the perimeter wall as far as the Skeleton’s lodge. There was no light on in there. Was the old battle-ax watching in silence from behind her venetian blinds? They bent double, keeping below the windows as they made their way silently on until they reached the gate. Milos tried the handle. No luck. It was locked.

He was turning back to tell Helen, who was still supporting Catharina, when an acid voice froze them where they stood. “Going for a little walk, were we?”

The Skeleton was standing ten feet away. Her skin looked yellow in the moonlight. She hadn’t taken off her evening dress or her makeup, and the ash of her cigarette glowed in her hand.

“And what are you doing here, young man?”

Helen opened her mouth to invent some story, but she closed it again at once. There was nothing to explain — or rather, there was too much to explain, and Milos was slowly moving toward the Skeleton.

“Don’t you come any closer, young man! One more step and I shall scream!”

“In that case, ma’am, I’m very sorry,” said Milos, “but —”

And he did something very simple and decidedly primitive: he knocked her out with a single uppercut to her chin. She uttered a strange, mouselike squeal, staggered a little way back, and collapsed like the bag of bones she was.

“Oops!” said Catharina, laughing.

Milos made for the Skeleton, lifted her with one hand, and carried her into the lodge. The next moment, he came out, locked the lodge door, and unlocked the gate.

“I’ve shut her in there and unplugged the phone, but we’ll have to hurry.”

Even with the two of them supporting her, one on each side, Catharina was terribly slow. After they had gone a little way, Milos stopped, took her glasses off her, draped her around his shoulders like a scarf, and set off again, striding vigorously. They started over the bridge under the indifferent gaze of the four stone horse-men.

“Watch out!” breathed Helen. “There’s a boat going under the bridge.”

“What’s it doing here in the middle of the night?” Milos wondered, and he moved a little way back from the parapet to escape the eyes of the oarsman, who seemed to be watching him.

They went up Donkey Road as fast as they could. The street was dark and silent. Soon they reached the place where they had met for the first time a week earlier.

“Do you remember?” Helen ventured to ask. Their situation didn’t prevent her from feeling romantic.

“Could I forget it?” replied Milos breathlessly.

Still on his back, Catharina was muttering disjointedly.

“What’s she saying?” Helen asked.

“She’s delirious. She’s talking about matches, a piano, spiders, I think. Do you know who her consoler is? And where she lives?”

“Yes, her name’s Emily. I think I can find the house. Can you make it to the top of the hill?”

“I can make it.”

Once they reached the fountain, they went around it and on up the road, which now ran straight ahead of them.

“This is it,” said Helen, stopping outside a brick house with blue shutters. She knocked on the door three times. “Open the door! Please open the door!” she called. “We have Catharina here!”

“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.