Winter's End

When 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.”

“I certainly can. It’s what I felt about Basil. He might seem stubborn, but he had such a generous spirit. I got the impression that he’d have died to deliver that letter to me.”

“Not just an impression. I can assure you he’d have done exactly that. When you entrust a mission to a cart-horse, he’s ready to die to carry it out. That’s why the Phalangists wanted the horse-men on their side when they seized power. What a godsend that would have been: a hundred thousand of them, immensely strong and ready to demolish anything once they were given orders to do it. But there was one thing the Phalangists had forgotten.”

“What?”

“They’d forgotten that while the horse-men need a master, they like to choose that master for themselves. And simple and uncomplicated as they may be, they don’t pick just anyone.”

“They refused to serve the Phalange?”

“Every last one of them! People think they are uncouth, but they know the difference between good and bad. Your father was sent to make contact with them. I thought he was the wrong choice, too reserved and short-tempered, while they think in simple terms and are very emotional. But surprisingly, they adored him and he instantly and entirely trusted them. In short, they allied themselves with the Resistance. It cost them severely. It’s all very well to be physically strong, but that’s not much use when you’re facing armed men. Many of them were killed. Others were arrested and treated like animals in prison. When it was all over, the Phalangist police did a deal with their leader, who was called Faber.

“They’d never been able to capture him. They would release all the horse-men who had been taken prisoner, they said, in return for his own public surrender. Faber had been chosen by the horse-men as their leader not because he was the most intelligent or the wisest of them, simply because he was the strongest. The Phalangists never imagined that the unfortunate Faber would fall into their trap so easily, and next day the guards were surprised to see a giant of a man with almost no neck and large, gentle eyes — eyes like a horse’s — turn up at the gate saying, ‘Good morning, I’m Faber. I’ve come to surrender.’

“The poor fellow thought he’d done the right thing. He never suspected they were going to humiliate him. They harnessed him to a cart with ten or so Phalangist leaders in it, and he was made to pull them through the city streets by himself, bare to the waist, amid laughter and mockery.”

“But I thought you said people respected the horse-men.”

“Most do, yes. But they realized that there were a great many others around who backed the Phalange. These Phalangist supporters had kept well hidden up to this point, but now the fight was won, they emerged from the shadows. They let fly at Faber with all the cruelty of cowards who have nothing to fear anymore. Someone even put a cap with horse’s ears on his head as the cart went up the street to Phalange headquarters. They spat at him and shouted abuse. He was treated as a cart-horse, and the name stuck.”

“He took it all without protest?”

“Everything. He’d decided to sacrifice himself, and he went all the way. Any horse-man would have done the same. He braced himself to climb the hill. He took the handfuls of oats and buckets of water they flung at him without flinching. He was a proud man, and it was hard for him.”

“But you . . . were you there? Did you watch this show?” asked Bart, aware of the condemnation in his question.

Jahn registered it too. “I saw the parade pass from my window, like thousands of others, and I was ashamed of doing nothing. But you have to remember that we had fought back fiercely until then, losing almost all who were dear to us: Eva-Maria Bach, your father, hundreds of other comrades. It was over. They could do anything they liked now, and they indulged themselves to the full.”

“But did they keep their word? Did they release the horse-men?”

“Months later. Once they were sure there was no one left for their prisoners to follow.”

“They must have borne my father a grudge, surely? After all, he’d dragged them into disaster.”

“That’s not the way they reason. They still think they did the right thing. And your father had given his own life for the cause. You don’t bear a martyr a grudge.”

“What about Faber? Did they let him go?”

“Yes, but the humiliation left its mark on him. He hardly speaks anymore, I’m told. He’s withdrawn to a remote village with his family, or those of it who are left.”

“And that’s where we’re going?” asked Bart in a low voice.

“That’s where we’re going,” Jahn confirmed.

They didn’t talk as they drove the next few miles. The landscape had changed; the car was now winding its way through wooded hills with their tops veiled in mist. Farther on, they drove past gray rocks thickly covered with lichen, looking like the backs of some strange species of animals. Bart opened his window and breathed in the moist moorland air. He felt as if they were leaving the human world behind and entering a land of legend. He would hardly have been surprised to see an elf or a goblin appear around a bend somewhere ahead.

“The horse-men thought very highly of your father,” Jahn said, breaking the silence. “They’ll feel the same about you. That’s why I’m taking you to see them.”

The question that had been troubling Bart for some time was on the tip of his tongue. “What exactly do you expect me to do?” But he refrained from asking it. When they finally drove into the horse-men’s village, he was almost dropping off to sleep, lulled by the regular purr of the engine.

A boy of about fifteen came to meet them.

“Basil!” Bart cried in spite of himself.

The boy bore a striking resemblance to his friend at the school: the same long face, the same flattened nose, the same powerful shoulders, the same unruly hair.

Jahn stopped level with the lad. “Do you know where Faber lives, please?”

“No,” said the boy, frowning. “What d’you want with Faber?”

“Only to talk to him. Don’t be alarmed — we’re friends.”

“I’m not allowed to . . .” the young horse-man let slip, without realizing that he was giving himself away.

“Is it farther on?” asked Jahn.

“That’s right.”

They drove slowly on and met two children coming downhill at a run, one carrying the other on his back.

“This is amazing!” exclaimed Bart. “They’re all like miniature versions of Basil!”

Higher up in the village, a girl with the same long, rough-hewn face was climbing the hill slowly, carrying a bucket of water.

“Is Faber’s house over there?” asked Jahn, his elbow on the open window of the car.

“Yes . . . er, no,” said the girl, confused. “Who are you?”

“Friends. That’s his house, is it?”

“That’s right.”

It certainly wasn’t difficult to worm information out of these people.

Jahn stopped the car a little farther up the hill, and they came down again on foot to knock at the door. It was opened by a very tall, strong woman of about fifty with a look of sadness about her. She let them in. The curtains were drawn, and it was some time before their eyes adjusted to the dim light in the room. A large ginger cat was asleep on a chair near the fireplace. The woman wore an apron and a head scarf with locks of white hair escaping from it. Faber was in bed, she told them. “But if you’re friends . . .”

She climbed the stairs with a heavy tread. No more was heard for some time. She must have been talking to her husband in low tones. Then she reappeared at the top of the stairs, leaned forward, and called down, “What was your name, please?”

“I’m called Jahn. He knows me.”

She disappeared again, and the silent waiting resumed. The two men downstairs looked at each other, baffled. What could the couple be talking about up there? At last the woman slowly came down again and planted herself in front of Jahn, arms spread helplessly to show there was nothing she could do. “He doesn’t want to see you. Hasn’t wanted to see anyone for months. He’s not well.”

“Tell him this is important,” Jahn persisted. “Tell him I’ve come with . . . with Casal.”

She went off for the third time.

“But,” murmured Bart, “he’ll think it’s —”

“Your father back again? I don’t know. I just need him to get up.”

As she came downstairs this time, the woman was nodding. Apparently there was news.

“He’s coming,” she announced, and something that was almost a smile spread over her kindly face. “Sit down while you wait.”

They sat down on the benches set on each side of the table. She remained standing, automatically wiping her hands on her apron. She was a heavy woman, but the floor on the story above hadn’t creaked while she was up there. Now, however, it was groaning under the weight of the man walking about as he dressed. It sounded as if it might collapse.

“He’s coming down,” the woman repeated.

There was the dull thud of a shoe that had gotten away, then footsteps, then two gigantic feet were placed on the top steps. Two endlessly long legs followed, and when Faber appeared on the staircase in his entirety, the sight took Bartolomeo’s breath away. He had never seen such a huge human being. The man’s torso in particular was twice as broad as the chest of a normal man. His shoulders, arms, and hands all appeared double the usual size. Above this enormous mass his long face suggested the head of a sad, old horse, with drooping cheeks and a soft mouth.

He didn’t spare a moment’s glance for Jahn but walked slowly over to Bartolomeo and stopped in front of him.

“You’re Casal?”

“His son,” said Bart, feeling uneasy. He had to put his head back slightly to look Faber in the eyes, not something he usually needed to do.

“You’re his son?” asked Faber, and emotion made his chin wobble.

“Yes,” Bart confirmed.

The giant took one more step, opened his great arms, and flung them around the young man. He clasped Bartolomeo to his chest and didn’t let him go for several minutes. Bartolomeo felt as if he had been swallowed up. Held so close to this peaceful colossus, he felt that nothing bad could happen. When Faber loosened his embrace, his eyes were moist with tears. Only then did he turn to Jahn and offer his hand.

“Good morning, Mr. Jahn. Pleased to see you again.”

A few moments later, they were sitting at the table with a jug of wine. Faber’s wife brought him a bowl of milk, and throughout the conversation he dunked pieces of bread in it and fished them out again with a soupspoon. In his hand it looked as if it belonged to a doll’s tea set.

Jahn began, cautiously, “Listen, Faber. You must be aware that a long time has passed since they did you such harm.”

No reply.

“And you must also be aware that things changed some while ago.”

“They did? I don’t know. I don’t go out. What’s changed?”

“People are sick and tired of the Phalange, understand? If there’s a revolt, they’ll be with us.”

“Why would they be with us? They did nothing when I was pulling that cart and folks threw filth at me.”

“They were afraid,” Bartolomeo put in. “Afraid of being arrested, beaten up, killed.”

“You’re right there,” Faber agreed.

“And then,” Bart went on, “then they thought perhaps the Phalange wasn’t such a bad thing after all. It would put the country in order. They’d wait and see. So now they do see —”

“And they see it wasn’t a good thing,” Faber finished the sentence. He needed to have everything put into plain words.

“Exactly. They see it wasn’t a good thing, and they’ll support us. Are the horse-men ready to fight on our side?”

Faber put his spoon down on the table and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, looking awkward. “Us horse-men, we don’t like killing.”

“No one likes killing,” said Bart. “But we have to defend ourselves. You saw what they did to you — to you personally and your people. You can’t have forgotten!”

Faber looked at him with his large, moist eyes. “I know that, but we’re used to putting up with things, we are. We’re strong but we don’t like fighting.”

“Those of your age, perhaps, but that’s changed too. I made a friend at the boarding school, a horse-man like you, and I can tell you it wasn’t a good idea to cross him. The horse-men have learned not to let themselves be humiliated, I assure you. We’re going to need your strength, Mr. Faber, the strength of all the horse-men. Without you we’ll be defeated for the second time.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Faber mumbled unhappily. “Who’ll command us?”

Jahn, who had said nothing for some while now, looked at Bartolomeo and gave him an encouraging nod.

“I will command you,” said the young man firmly. “You can count on me.”

As he spoke those words, he felt that his father was there beside him, almost as if he were physically present at the table with them. He felt convinced that his father heard him and approved of what he said. His throat tightened.

“I will command you, with Mr. Jahn. I’ll be back here with you when the moment comes. Until it does, build up your health again and talk to your people. You know how pleased they’ll be to see you up and about. They must all be ready on the day, and it’s up to you as their leader to convince them and gather them together. Prepare them to fight, Mr. Faber!”

At seventeen Bartolomeo didn’t have the necessary experience to lead the horse-men himself, and he knew it. But that was not what Jahn expected of him. He had brought him here because his name was Casal, because he knew how to handle words and find arguments to persuade the huge horse-man to emerge from his state of depression. And Bart had indeed found them.

“You’ll have something to eat, won’t you?” the large woman asked them.

“A good idea, Roberta,” Faber agreed. “You must be hungry, coming all that way. You came from the capital?”

They had no time to reply, for a child of about eight rushed in, clung to the woman’s apron, and whispered something to her. His nose was running.

“There’s another black car driving into the village,” Roberta told the three men.

“Who’s in the car, my boy?” Jahn asked.

“Two thin gentlemen, sir,” said the child, proud to be asked in person.

Jahn was on the alert. “Did they ask you any questions?”

“Yes, they asked if I’d seen you.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“I told them I wasn’t allowed to say. Then they said they’d give me money to tell them.”

“And did you tell them?”

“No. I said your black car had gone on!”

Jahn swore. “The Phalange. I thought I’d shaken them off. Those idiots drove on at random and now they’re here. We’ll have to hide.”

“Go up to the bedroom,” the woman suggested. “I’ll tell them there’s no one here.”

Jahn, Bart, and Faber quickly climbed the stairs, while the horse-child, beaming, opened his hand. “Look, Roberta, see how nice they were! I didn’t tell them anything and they gave me the money all the same!”

The room upstairs was half filled by the large unmade bed where Faber had been lying only an hour ago. The other furnishings consisted of a wardrobe with one door missing and a rush-seated chair where, no doubt, Roberta sat to watch over her husband during the day.

Jahn went to the window and cautiously moved the curtain aside. The car drove slowly past without stopping. A minute later it came back downhill at the same slow pace.

“They’ve found my car. Now they’re searching,” said Jahn, “asking the way to Faber’s house, and they’ll find it too. We should have hidden somewhere else.”

But it was too late now. They heard the sound of car doors slamming and knocking at the door. The three men sat on the bed so as not to make the floor creak by standing on it. Jahn shook his head, furious with himself for putting Faber in this situation and dragging Bart into it too. Automatically, Faber had put his pillow on his knees and was kneading it. He looked uneasy. Bart made himself calm his breathing. From below, they heard Roberta’s anxious voice as she opened the door.

“Good day, gentlemen.”

“Where’s Faber?” barked one of the two men, without bothering to give a civil greeting.

“Not here,” moaned the poor woman, terrified. “Gone out.”

Then she uttered a cry. Faber clenched his fists at the sound. He hated the idea of anyone hurting his Roberta.

“He’s upstairs! Go and get him!” bawled the man.

“Upstairs? Oh, not there, not at all!” cried Roberta, in a voice so obviously intended to mislead that in other circumstances it would have been funny. The horse-women were no better at lying than their children.

“Go and get him, I said!”

“He’s not well,” said the poor woman, contradicting herself. She didn’t know what to do now to protect her husband, and her helplessness made her cry. She was sobbing as she climbed the stairs.

“They want you to go down,” she murmured, kneeling in front of Faber and clasping his hands between hers.

“Are they armed?”

The large woman nodded. Yes, they were armed. Jahn was distraught. To be found with Faber and Casal’s son was a terrible mistake. The Phalange would inevitably draw their own conclusions about the revival of the network. All three would be arrested anyway, and the Phalange would definitely have ways of making them talk.

It was now that Faber’s huge form leaned toward his wife. “Where are they?” he whispered.

At first Roberta didn’t understand what her husband meant. She looked at him with a question in her eyes.

“Are they there?” Faber asked. “There? There?” He pointed to what would be different places on the ground floor below.

“There,” said Roberta. “Near the table. Both of them. If they haven’t moved.”

Faber rose slowly and did something unexpected: he climbed on the bed and stood there upright. His head touched the ceiling, and he had to bend slightly.

“There?” he asked once more, pointing his forefinger.

“Yes,” said Roberta, and she suddenly understood what he was planning.

“You coming down?” shouted the man who had done all the talking downstairs, and he hit the living room ceiling twice, hard, probably with a broom handle. He had no idea that he was pinpointing his exact position and inviting his own ruin.

“I’m coming down!” replied Faber, and he jumped off the bed, raising his feet as high as possible so as to fall back on it with his full weight, landing on his posterior. The beam of the ceiling below him was too thin to stand up to the impact. It broke, and the bedroom floor exploded with a crash, opening up a gaping hole through which Faber disappeared. Jahn, Roberta, and Bart felt the floor beneath their feet give way, and they clung to the walls to keep from being carried down in the giant’s wake. The bed itself hesitated for a moment, leaning at a crazy angle toward the hole, and then it fell through the gap to land on the floor below. The faint groaning still to be heard down there soon stopped entirely, and there was only silence.

“Faber!” cried Roberta, and she ran downstairs with Jahn and Bart after her. When they reached the ground floor, Faber was already standing up and rubbing his forehead, which had a red bump on it.

“I flattened them, but the bed hit my head. Are you all right, Roberta? They didn’t hurt you?”

The couple embraced clumsily, and it was touching to see the colossus planting little kisses on his wife’s forehead. The two militiamen looked as if the sky had fallen on their heads. The first was lying on his stomach, his left leg folded under him at an unnatural angle. The other man, caught between the table and the frame of the bed, had broken his neck.

“We must get rid of the bodies,” said Jahn, and he started searching the dead men’s pockets for the keys to their car.

They went to get the car and parked it just outside the door. Then they extracted the two bodies from the debris of broken planks in which they were entangled and put them on the backseat. As he handled them, Bartolomeo tried not to look at their faces, but he couldn’t prevent himself from shaking. Faber helped too, muttering all the time, “My God, oh, my God, what have I done?” Jahn had to speak sharply to make him stop. Meanwhile Roberta was trying to shoo away the horse-children who were coming to gape, open-mouthed, at the strange spectacle.

A few miles from the village, there was a deep pond on one side of the road, half overgrown by rushes. They drove the Phalangists’ car to the side of the pond and pushed it into the water, with its two occupants in the front seats once more.

“An accident.” Jahn drummed the word home. “You hear, Faber? They had an accident. No one in the village saw them. If anyone makes inquiries, everyone must say the same thing. An accident.”

“That’d be a lie,” muttered the giant.

Jahn punched him in the chest. “Yes, but a lie to protect yourselves! Can you understand that?”

“I think so.”

In the pond, the roof of the car sank right underwater with a mournful gurgle. Reeds were already rising erect around it again.

They drove back through pouring rain. The windshield wipers worked hard; raindrops pattered down on the car. They said nothing for a long time, both still shocked by what had just happened. It was Bartolomeo who finally broke the silence.

“What was my father like, Mr. Jahn? You’ve never talked to me about him.”

Jahn hesitated. “Do you want the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Your father was a somber, secretive man. I often saw him at our clandestine meetings. I always remember his deep black eyes. When he looked at you, you felt he was reading your mind. It was extremely intimidating, and it made him very successful with women.”

“He didn’t talk much?”

“Very little. He was a taciturn man, but the moment he did open his mouth, everyone else fell silent. He still had quite a strong foreign accent. What else can I tell you? He seldom made a joke. There was a great melancholy in him. Very sad. I don’t know where it came from.”

Bart said nothing.

“Not that it kept him from being a hard man too.”

“Hard?”

“Yes, perhaps too hard . . . He never hesitated if there was any doubt of someone’s reliability. He would be in favor of eliminating that person, even at the risk of making a mistake, and he wanted the same to apply to him if necessary. He insisted on taking part himself in all dangerous operations: the execution of Phalangists, sabotage, commando raids to free comrades of ours. He took a great many risks. He was destined to die and he knew it. I often wonder if he wasn’t actually looking for a chance to die in his prime. Your father was no angel, Bart.”

“Was he tall, like me?”

“No. Lean, but not very tall. I suppose you must get your height from your mother, but I never met her, or I’d have talked to you about her, you may be sure. I don’t know much about your family.”

The car drove on through the ceaseless rain, throwing up fountains of water on both sides of the narrow road. Jahn said no more. Bart pulled his coat around him. He couldn’t have said if he felt sad or happy, confident or despairing. The picture of the two dead men in their car kept coming back into his mind, with their limbs dislocated like the joints of puppets as they sank into the muddy water of the pond.