Winter's End Read online

  “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 han
ds 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.”

  The next day was Friday, the day the Skunk came. Helen would have to get a move on if she was going to write her letter to Milos and leave it in the laundry cart before the old man arrived. She took advantage of Miss Mersch’s math lesson, which was from nine to ten. The math teacher was confined to a wheelchair and wouldn’t rush at her to snatch away her half-written letter shouting, “And what, young lady, is this?” She might have an eagle eye, but Helen, like the rest of her friends, was good at covering up.

  For a moment she wondered how to begin. Dear Milos? They hardly knew each other. . . . Hi, Milos? You might say that to anyone. She decided on just Milos. He could take it any way he liked. She told him how she had found the library empty, about her return to the boarding school without Milena, and above all about how miserable she felt when she saw little Catharina Pancek taken away to the detention cell. She wrote about Milena’s amazing voice, saying she’d never have thought her capable of letting anyone down like that. And she asked him to reply soon, adding that she’d be waiting impatiently for his letter. Then she cobbled together a makeshift envelope out of another piece of notepaper folded in half and glued together. She took the piece of paper that Milos had given her the day before out of her sock, where she had tucked it away, and carefully copied his name: Milos Ferenzy. The boys’ boarding school. Fourth year. Before slipping her letter into the envelope, she paused for a moment to think, and added, under her signature: By the way, I haven’t even told you anything about myself. I’m seventeen. I like books and chocolate (and I’m glad I met you).

  Writing that last line, she felt doubtful and uncertain. Had she said too much? Not enough?

  At ten o’clock break, she unobtrusively joined a group of fifth-year girls in one corner of the school yard and asked straight out, “How does the mail service work? Does someone put the letters in the laundry cart and then the Skunk takes them away?”

  A tall, slim, and rather pretty girl stared hard at her. “Who do you want to send a letter to?”

  “A boy from over there.”

  “What year are you in?”

  “The fourth year.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Helen Dormann.”

  “And what’s his?”

  “Milos Ferenzy,” said Helen. She blushed, and felt furious with herself.

  The older girls conferred by exchanging glances. None of them knew Milos. He’d probably be too young to interest them.

  “Give it here,” said the tall girl, and the others spontaneously formed a little barrier around them so that Helen could hand her letter over unnoticed.

  “You’re the one who leaves the letters?” Helen asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “I . . . I don’t have a present for you. Or for the Skunk. I don’t have anything. I didn’t have the time to . . .”

  “That’s all right. I’ll bring you the reply. If there is one.”

  A little before midday, Helen was looking out the music-room window, which had a view of the yard, and saw the Skunk arrive with his jolting cart. He disappeared into the laundry and came out with a pile of white sheets. The day’s letters must be hidden among them.

  I sent a letter to my love

  And on the way I dropped it.

  One of you ha
s picked it up

  And put it in your pocket.

  Helen hummed, amazed to find how easily the nursery rhyme came back to her from her early childhood.

  The days that followed were unbearable. Helen expected to be called to the Tank’s office at any moment. But the summons never came. The lack of reaction to what had happened was worse than anything. It meant that the school staff were sticking to Rule 16: If any pupil does not return after her three hours’ absence, another girl will be sent to the detention cell immediately and will stay there until the runaway is back. Everything was in order; the matter was closed.

  None of the girls dared mention Catharina, but everyone thought of her the whole time. Was she managing to sleep? Did they give her anything to eat and drink? Helen questioned a fifth-year girl who had spent a whole night and half the next day in the Sky last year for throwing her soup plate at the refectory wall and shouting that she was “Fed up! Fed up! Fed up!” She wouldn’t say much and seemed mainly anxious to know if Catharina would have had time to get a look at the picture on the beam.

  “Is it that important?” asked Helen. “Did you see it yourself?”

  “Only for a second or so, but it kept me from going around the bend. Was it you Milena went out with?”

  “Yes.”

  The girl turned her back. Helen felt that everyone held her responsible for what had happened, or at least thought she had been Milena’s accomplice. As Milena wasn’t there, they couldn’t tell her what they thought of her, so they took their fury and resentment out on Helen. Only Vera Plasil hadn’t turned against her.

  “It isn’t your fault. How could anyone think it was? She’ll come back, I’m sure. I expect she had something really important to do. You wait and see; she’ll do it and she’ll be back.”

  “Then why didn’t she tell me anything about it?”

  Vera Plasil had no answer to that. She just looked at Helen with sympathy in her big blue eyes.

  From Sunday onward Helen was counting not the days but the hours until Friday, when the Skunk came. Time just wouldn’t pass. She made herself imagine the worst to avoid feeling too bad when the moment came: the worst was if she didn’t get a reply from Milos this time and had to wait another week. The mere thought of it was disheartening.