Winter's End

As Helen and Milena walked into the consolers’ village, the chilly drizzle surrounded them like liquid dust, its tiny droplets glittering in any light from the street lamps or windows. The brick houses, crowding close to each other all along the road, looked like miniatures. You went down a few steps to reach most of them, and you almost had to bend to get through the doorway.

Milena stopped at the first house. “I’ll wait for you here. And don’t forget me if your consoler’s cooked something nice. I’m starving.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll remember. I just hope it’s warm for you in the library.”

To make sure, Helen followed her friend into the tiny, low-ceilinged room. A flame was flickering behind the glass door of the wood-burning stove, and it was indeed warm.

“They never forget, do they?” said Milena.

A lighted lamp on the table welcomed visitors, and halfway up the wall were two shelves with a hundred or so well-worn books on them. As Milena took her coat off, she was already looking at them, deciding which to choose.

“I’m off, then,” said Helen. “See you soon. Have a nice read!”

She herself had been here several times as companion to Milena or one of the other girls. She loved the library, a place cut off from the rest of the world where no one ever disturbed you and you could read and dream in peace. It was like a nest or a cradle, she thought — somewhere warm, in any case, where no one ever wished you harm. And no one else would come in except, from time to time, a quiet man who must be married to one of the consolers, coming to add a log to the stove on the hearth. He would ask kindly, “Enjoying your book?” You assured him that you were, and he went away again. She had only once had to share the room with another companion, a boy who read for a few minutes but then sat huddled up in a corner with his head on his knees and went to sleep.

All the girls loved being chosen as companions and having the chance of two hours in this library. Sometimes, of course, they would rather have visited their own consolers, but Rule 22 was quite clear: Girls acting as companions are not allowed to visit their consolers. And the severe punishment didn’t encourage anyone to disobey: no outings for the rest of the year.

Helen went straight ahead, turned left at the fountain, and started along a sloping road. As she reached Number 47, she found herself smiling. She knew in advance what happiness she was going to give and receive. She went down the three steps and tapped lightly on the window rather than the door. The panes were steamed up inside. In a moment a small hand rubbed one of them and a bright little face appeared. The child’s mouth opened wide, and Helen could see his lips shaping the two syllables of her name: He-len!

A few seconds later Octavo was throwing himself into her arms. She picked him up and kissed his chubby cheeks. “You’re so heavy!” she said with a laugh.

“I weigh fifty-seven pounds!” said the child, very proud of it.

“Is your mama here?”

“In the kitchen. I’m doing my homework. Will you help me like last time? I like it when you help me with my homework.”

They went into the living room. It was not much larger than the library, but stairs to the right went up to the second floor, where there was a bedroom, and a door at the back of the house led to the kitchen. This door opened to reveal the monumental form of Paula.

On one of her first visits, Helen had cried her heart out and then fallen asleep in Paula’s arms. When she woke up, she had murmured, “How much do you weigh, Paula?”

She was only fourteen at the time, and this tactless question had made the fat woman laugh. “Oh, I don’t know, my dear. I’ve no idea. A lot, anyway.” When she hugged you, it was hard to make out where her arms, shoulders, breasts, and stomach were. Everything merged into a sensation of sweet warmth, and you wanted to stay there forever.

Paula opened her arms now for Helen to snuggle up in them. “It’s been a long time, my beauty.”

Paula often called her “My beauty” or “My pretty one.” And she would hold Helen’s face between her hands to get a better look at her. Helen had heard herself described as a number of things — emotional, odd, a tomboy — but no one else ever said she was pretty or beautiful. Paula did, and she meant it.

“Yes, last time was before the summer,” Helen said. “I wanted to wait until December at least, but I couldn’t manage to hold out.”

“Well, come on in. I’m just making supper for Octavo. Baked potatoes, and there’s some of the pear tart we had for lunch left. Will that be all right?”

“Couldn’t be better!” said Helen happily. Everything she ate here, far away from the hated school refectory, tasted delicious.

Octavo was already impatient to get back to his homework. “Come on! I can’t do it on my own.”

As Paula went back into the kitchen, Helen rejoined the little boy and sat down beside him. “So what are you learning at school, then?”

“Words that go in pairs for males and females.”

“Right. Like what?”

“The teacher gave us the first one. It was husband and wife. We have to write down three more pairs.”

“Have you thought of your three?”

“Yes, but I’m not quite sure about the third.”

“Go on.”

“Wizard and witch.”

“Very good.”

“Bull and cow.”

“That’s fine. How about the third?”

“That’s the one I’m not sure of.”

“Never mind, let’s hear it.”

“Fox and foxess.”

Helen found it hard not to laugh. At the same time a deep, strong wave of melancholy swept over her. Did she have a little brother of her own somewhere? A little brother puzzling over his homework? Sticking his tongue out as he concentrated on the past tense of the verb to do or a problem like 3 × 2? No, she didn’t have a brother or sister anywhere. Or parents either. She thought of the orphanage where she had spent her childhood, and the autumn day when she left it. How could she ever forget?

Three grim-looking men push her into the back of a large car. They lock all the doors and drive off in silence.

“Why have you locked the doors?” she asks the man next to her. “Do you think I’m going to jump out or something? Where are we going?”

He doesn’t reply, doesn’t even turn his head. All the way she smells the strong odor of his leather jacket and the cigarettes that the other two are smoking in the front of the car. They drive through the countryside for hours, and then the road runs beside the river to the nameless little town and the gray boarding school building.

About a hundred other girls are waiting in groups of five or six, coats over their arms and small books in their hands. They are all surprisingly quiet. She is led along shabby corridors to the room outside the headmistress’s office, where she has only a few minutes to wait. Then the door opens and a girl comes out, also with a coat over her arm and a book in her hand. She is small, wears thick glasses, and looks even more downcast than the others. This, as Helen will learn later, is Catharina Pancek. She just murmurs, “Your turn to go in,” and then walks away. Helen cautiously goes through the doorway.

“Name?”

This is the first time Helen hears the headmistress’s voice.

“Dormann. My name’s Helen Dormann.”

“Age?”

“Fourteen.”

“Come here.”

Helen goes up to the desk, where a massive woman with short gray hair is sitting. She wears a man’s jacket, and her shoulders are wide and powerful. Helen will soon discover that the girls’ nickname for her is the Tank. The Tank searches some papers, finds a file on Helen, and runs through it. Then she opens a drawer and brings out a leaflet.

“Here, take this.”

The leaflet is well worn; its cover has been mended many times.

“These are the school rules. You must have them with you at all times. There are eighty-one rules. Learn ten a day. If you have to come back here, which I hope you will not, you must know them all by heart. Go into the cloakroom next door, find a coat that fits you, and go out. If there’s anyone sitting outside my door, tell her it’s her turn.”

Helen goes into the room next to the office, which is full of dozens and dozens of coats hanging there like theatrical costumes. Except that all these costumes are identical: heavy wool overcoats with hoods. It’s like a maze. If I ever need to hide, thinks Helen, I’ll know where to go. She chooses a gray coat that looks a little less threadbare than the others, tries it on, and decides that it fits. She takes it off, puts it over her arm, and goes back through the headmistress’s office. The Tank ignores her.

A tall, pale girl is sitting on the bench in the waiting room, bleeding slightly from the nose into a handkerchief stained with red. Helen will learn later that her name is Doris Lemstadt; she will become so ill that she leaves the boarding school. “Your turn!” Helen tells her, and she goes out into the yard where a faint ray of sun falls on the girls standing there motionless, with their coats and their booklets of rules.

“I know — I’ll say duck and drake instead. Is that better?”

Helen came back to the present and smiled at Octavo. “Yes, that’s better. Not as funny, but better.”

The delicious smell of baked potatoes was coming from the kitchen, and Paula called, “How’s your friend Milena? Is she all right? Do you admire her as much as ever?”

“She’s fine,” said Helen, laughing. “And yes, I do! She’s waiting for me in the library. Can I take her something from supper?”

“Of course, and a slice of tart if there’s any left.”

Paula was always cooking: for herself, for Octavo, for people who happened to drop in. It was impossible to go to her house and not eat anything, or come away without something to eat: a helping of bread-and-butter pudding or chocolate cake or just an apple. She had one child, Octavo, but no husband. When Helen asked her about that, she had said she didn’t need one. The village on this hill belonged to the consolers, and it was no place for men unless they were very discreet. Like the man who comes to put wood in the stove, Helen had thought. He must be one of those shadowy men who were allowed to live on the hill. Other men didn’t feel at ease here; they lived in the town and seldom came up to the village.

Most of the consolers were of considerable girth and made sure they stayed that way. How could you give someone a proper hug, how could you comfort people, if your bones were sticking out? Some of Helen’s friends didn’t agree; their consolers were slender and fragile, but they wouldn’t have exchanged them for the world. Catharina Pancek, for instance, said her consoler was like a little mouse scurrying about, and she loved her like that. She wouldn’t have wanted to drown in a mass of soft flesh like Paula’s.

Helen hadn’t chosen Paula for herself. The supervisor who took her up to the hill the first time, three years ago, had stopped outside Number 47 without asking her opinion and said in dry tones, “Her name is Paula. I’ll come back for you in two hours.”

Helen had gone down the three steps and knocked at the door, and Paula had opened it and burst out laughing at the sight of her.

“Oh, what a lost little kitten! Come in and have something to eat. Are you thirsty? How about a mug of hot chocolate? Yes, hot chocolate will warm you up.”

Since that day, Helen had visited Paula only six times, just as often as the rules allowed. About fifteen hours in all, no more. And yet she felt she had known Paula forever. She occupied a huge place in Helen’s heart.

Octavo put his school satchel away, and they set the table for supper. The baked potatoes were so fluffy and so delicious that Helen’s first few mouthfuls almost made her feel unwell.

“Oh, this is so good!”

She spared a fleeting thought for the other girls back at school having to put up with insipid soup. But their turn would come. She might as well forget them for the moment and enjoy the happiness here. Over supper they talked mostly about Octavo, his school, the practical jokes he played there. His teacher must be kept on her toes with a character like Octavo in her class. At eight o’clock he went upstairs to his room and came back down in pajamas to kiss Helen and his mother.

“I like it when you come to see us,” he told Helen, “but not in the evening because then my mommy can’t cuddle me.”

“I’ll come up and see you later,” Paula promised. “Go to bed now. Helen only has half an hour left. I’ve explained to you: it would be very serious for her to be late.”

“Is it true they’d put another girl in a black hole instead of Helen?” asked Octavo.

“Who told you that?”

“Some of the kids at school say so.”

“Well, it’s not true. Off with you now. Go to sleep.”

The little boy slowly climbed the wooden staircase. His eyes were full of anxiety.

There was a large and rather worn-out armchair against the left-hand wall. Paula dropped into it. “Well, my pretty one, what do you have to tell me today? Come over here.”

Helen went to sit at Paula’s feet and put her head in her lap. The plump woman’s two warm hands stroked her head slowly from her forehead to the nape of her neck.

“I don’t have anything to tell you, Paula. Nothing ever happens at the boarding school.”

“Tell me about before you were there, then.”

“I can’t. You know that.”

For a moment they were both silent.

“You talk to me,” Helen went on. “About when you were a little girl. I always like imagining you little. Were you already —”

“Fat? Oh yes, I always have been. And one of my cousins made it very clear to me one day. I remember, my sister, Marguerite, and I had caught a hedgehog —”

“You have a sister? I didn’t know.”

“Yes, an elder sister. She’s ten years older than me and she lives in the capital city. Well, as you know, hedgehogs look very round and fat, and . . .”

Still stroking Helen’s head, Paula told the story of the hedgehog, then another anecdote about a lost purse, and then yet another. She never told you what you should or shouldn’t do in life. She just told stories. A moment came when Helen felt herself falling asleep. She didn’t want to. She hauled herself up and buried herself in her consoler’s bosom like a small child. Paula put her arms around her and sang songs that flowed into each other with a sweet, dreamlike sound.

“Helen, are you asleep? You’ll have to go back now.”

“I wasn’t asleep.”

The clock said eight thirty. She slowly shook off the lethargy that had come over her and went to get her coat.

“Can I have something for Milena? And the end of the tart that we kept for her?”

“I’ll put it all in a basket. Just leave the basket at the library and I’ll collect it tomorrow. When will you be coming back to see me?”

“I don’t know. I’ll try to wait until January for my second outing. I hope there won’t be too much snow to get up here then.”

They stood on the doorstep in each other’s arms for a long time. Helen breathed in Paula’s scent: her apron, her sweater, her hair.

“See you soon, Paula. Thank you. Give Octavo a kiss for me.”

“See you soon, my beauty. I’ll always be here for you.”

Helen hurried along the village streets, carrying the basket. It was still drizzling, and hard to see. She hurried into the library, looking forward to seeing Milena enjoy her baked potatoes. She’d just have time to eat them and the pear tart before they set off to go back to the boarding school.

But when Helen entered the room, she stopped short. It was empty except for the end of a log burning out in the stove.

After the first moment of shock, Helen thought her friend might be upstairs. There was a door at the back of the room, and probably a staircase beyond it.

“Milena! Are you up there?”

She tried to open the door, but it was locked.

“Where are you, Milena?”

Terror rose in her. Why would Milena have gone back ahead of her? Was she afraid of being late? They had plenty of time.

Then she saw a book on the table with a piece of notepaper folded in half sticking out of its pages. Helen snatched it up. Milena’s elegant handwriting covered just four lines:

Helen, I’m not going back to school. Don’t worry. I’m all right. Ask Catharina Pancek to forgive me.

Milena

(Please don’t hate me.)

Helen stood in horror for a full minute, unable to react. Then she felt rising anger. How could Milena do such a thing? How cowardly to leave like that, without any explanation, either! She felt betrayed. Tears of rage came to her eyes. Please don’t hate me. How could she not? At that moment she really did hate her friend. Selfish and irresponsible, that’s what she was! What could she do? Go back to Paula and tell her what had happened? That wouldn’t be any use. Run away? Not go back to the boarding school hersel f? After all, she might as well take her chance, because little Catharina would be put in the Sky anyway. But where would she go? And suppose Milena came back after all? Then she, Helen, would be to blame for Catharina’s imprisonment. Questions came thick and fast in her mind, but no answers.

She put the note in her pocket and left, leaving behind the basket containing the plate of baked potatoes, still warm and wrapped in a cloth, and the slice of pear tart.

As she carefully walked back in the dark, it occurred to her that this would cause a sensation: never in living memory had any girl at the school not returned. If they were allowed out from time to time, it was because of the certainty that no girl would dare to condemn another perfectly innocent comrade to the torment of the Sky. The most cruel punishments stipulated in the school rules sent you there for a few hours, but never for days or weeks. You might even die there, thought Helen.

She retched with anticipation of the shame she’d be feeling in a few minutes when she had to confess to the others that Milena hadn’t come back. “Did she have an accident?” “No, she just hasn’t come back — that’s all.”

The shame of being Milena’s friend . . .

She crossed the bridge, and the memory of her friend’s arm in hers a few hours earlier as they walked over these same paving stones hurt her. It was a few minutes after nine when she reached the lodge and presented herself to the Skeleton. The woman, seeing Helen on her own, realized that her hour of glory might be about to come: after twenty-five years keeping watch at this gate, she would at last be able to tell the headmistress that a pupil had failed to return. “That’s right, Headmistress. She hasn’t come back!” She took her time savoring this once-in-a-lifetime moment.

“You went out at . . . let’s see, at eleven minutes past six?”

No, not until six thirty, and it was your fault, thought Helen, but she had learned to control herself.

“Yes, eleven minutes past six,” she said.

“And now it’s only seven minutes past nine, so you’re back on time.”

“Yes, I’m back on time,” agreed Helen, thinking Go on, spit your venom out. You’re just dying to.

The acrid smoke of cigarettes got up her nose and into her eyes. Did no one ever open the window here? The Skeleton hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, and then breathed, in a barely audible voice, “So . . . what about the girl who sings?”

“She isn’t here,” was all Helen said.

“She’ll be back by eleven minutes past nine at the latest, of course?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“That’s right. I don’t know.”

“Well, we’ll wait for her together. Then we will know. And we can keep each other company. Do you like company?”

Her small, bloodshot eyes held the sheer cruelty of a snake.

“Yes, I like company,” said Helen in an expressionless voice, gritting her teeth and trying to suppress her urge to hit this sadist.

The minute hand went around the dial of the clock on the wall three times. It seemed an eternity. Come back, Milena. Please walk into the lodge. Bring this nightmare to an end.

“Still not here,” remarked the Skeleton, pretending to be upset, though her delight was obvious.

Her cigarette was burning out in the ashtray. Forgetting about it, she lit another. Her hands shook as she pushed in a plug on her switchboard and picked up the phone. After a few seconds she had an answer on the line.

“Good evening. This is Miss Fitzfischer in the lodge . . .”

Miss Fitzfischer! Well, at least I’ve learned something new today, thought Helen. Who’d have guessed that the Skeleton’s name was Fitzfischer?

“May I speak to the headmistress, please? It’s urgent.”

The conversation was very short. Helen thought the Skeleton was going to have a stroke as she told her news, her voice was shaking so much with excitement.

“. . . Yes, that’s right. One of the pupils has failed to return. . . . Her name? Milena Bach, year four. . . . Definitely, Headmistress. . . . Yes, Headmistress. . . . Yes, the other girl is back. She . . . oh, absolutely, Headmistress. . . .”

“May I go back to the dormitory?” Helen asked when the Skeleton had hung up. She realized that she was breaking Rule 17, which forbade the students to ask adults any questions.

But the Skeleton was in such a state that she didn’t notice. “Yes, you can go.”

The dormitory, a vast room with fifty or so bunk beds and gray metal lockers, was above the refectory. In the faint glow of the night-lights Helen passed through the first part, where the youngest girls slept, amid whispers and the rustling of sheets. There was still a light on in Miss Zesch’s cubicle in the corner, casting vague shadows on the ceiling. When Helen reached her bed, near the windows, she sat down on the edge of it to take her shoes off. For the first time in more than three years, Milena’s bed, the one above hers, would be empty. She undressed, put on her nightgown, and disappeared under the covers, head and all. Less than ten seconds later, she heard Vera Plasil, in the next bed, whispering.

“Where’s Milena?”

Helen timidly emerged. “She hasn’t come back.”

“Will she be coming?”

“I don’t think so.”

Vera groaned. “Oh, no! I don’t believe it! So who was picked for punishment?”

“Catharina Pancek.”

“Oh, my God!”

The dormitory where the fifth-year and sixth-year girls slept was on the other side of a partition. One of the other supervisors suddenly burst through the door and marched straight toward Miss Zesch’s cubicle. Helen quickly recognized Miss Merlute, a tall, round-shouldered woman whose huge nose looked like a false one. People said she was the Tank’s lapdog, ready to do anything for her, obeying her orders without a moment’s hesitation. There was a low-voiced conversation, then both supervisors came out of the cubicle and made straight for the part of the dormitory where the fourth-year girls slept.

“PANCEK!” thundered Miss Zesch. “CATHARINA PANCEK!”

The girls started and sat up in bed.

“Catharina Pancek, get up, get dressed, and come with me!” ordered Miss Merlute.

“And the rest of you lie down again and stop talking!” shouted Miss Zesch.

In the next row, little Catharina sat up, unable to believe it. But a glance at Milena’s bed, impeccably made and empty, immediately told her what was in store for her. She looked at Helen, but Helen turned her head away.

“Hurry up!” said Miss Merlute impatiently.

Catharina put on her glasses, which she kept hooked over the metal bedhead, opened her locker, dressed, put on her shoes, and went out with her coat under her arm. As she passed close — the supervisors were waiting farther off — Helen called in a low voice, “Catharina!”

“What is it?”

“Milena asks you to forgive her.”

“What?”

“Milena asks you to forgive her,” repeated Helen, and her voice broke.

Catharina didn’t answer. She made her way past the rows of beds, while a chorus of voices rose as she went by.

“Good luck, Catharina! You can do it, Catharina! We’ll be thinking of you.”

One girl ran over to her and kissed her cheek. Helen thought she saw her slip something into Catharina’s hand.

Miss Merlute, impatient, seized the girl by the arm and led her away almost at a run. They both disappeared through the doorway.

“Bitches!” said one girl savagely.

“Bloody cows!” agreed another.

“Stop talking, I said!” shouted Miss Zesch, and the voices died down.

Once peace and quiet were restored, Helen hid under her sheet and blankets and curled up into a ball. In the darkness she tried to persuade herself that this was only a nightmare and best forgotten, and she did her best to distract her mind by thinking up male and female couples, like Octavo: husband and wife; wizard and witch; fox and vixen; boy and girl. And she trembled as she whispered, very quietly, “Milos and Helen.”