Winter's End Read online

  “To see if everything’s in order, I imagine. Checking up to make sure his lunatics are as crazy as ever. Wait a minute! Something seems to be happening down there. Your turn to have a look, and remember everything you see!”

  Helen took up her observation post again. The men and women down below had risen to their feet to applaud the energetic entrance of a powerful man with a red beard, in a sheepskin-lined jacket so worn that it was shiny at the elbows. He certainly hadn’t gone to the trouble of putting on evening dress, and his muddy boots could have done with a good polishing. Two men, apparently under his orders, followed close behind him. He made straight for the platform, sat down on a chair, which disappeared under his large posterior, and didn’t even take off his jacket. Evidently he didn’t intend to stay long. With a gesture, he invited the Tank and a man who must be headmaster of the boys’ school to come and sit on either side of him. The Tank was preening like a fat goose as she joined him on the platform. The headmaster, with a flower in his button hole, looked equally proud. The newcomer’s two henchmen stationed themselves at the door and never moved from the spot.

  “Ladies and gentleman, my dear colleagues . . .” There was total silence as Van Vlyck addressed them. His blazing eyes swept over the audience. “My dear colleagues, here we are again. As you know, I really enjoy these nocturnal meetings. They give us all a chance to get together every year, and . . .”

  “Can you hear all right?” asked Helen, who was in the best position.

  “Not great,” Milos admitted.

  “Come on, if we shove up a bit . . .” She moved a little way until they were lying side by side, almost cheek to cheek. “Better?” whispered Helen.

  “Perfect,” Milos replied.

  “As tradition demands,” Van Vlyck went on, “we’ll begin by reviewing the months that have passed since my last visit. Let’s start with the girls’ school. It is my pleasure to convey the congratulations of the Phalange to the headmistress for the firm and rigorous hand with which she runs the establishment. She is confirmed in her post.”

  The Tank murmured bashful thanks, but Van Vlyck gave her no time to luxuriate in these compliments.

  “Congratulations also to the supervisory staff, in particular Miss Zesch and Miss Merlute, for their conscientious devotion to duty. Congratulations to Miss Mersch, the mathematics teacher, whose exemplary commitment . . .”

  As these commendations were handed out, heads turned to those who were fortunate enough to have earned them and were practically swooning with self-satisfaction. Other staff members tried to smile, but jealousy distorted their faces. The Skeleton in particular tightened her lips and craned her scrawny chickenlike neck.

  After dealing with the girls’ boarding school, Van Vlyck went on to take stock of the boys’ school just as rapidly and with the same indifference. Then he suddenly raised his voice.

  “We are fighting a hard battle, my dear colleagues. A battle that calls for perseverance and determination. I want you all to know that you are supported in your efforts by the Phalange, which I have the honor of representing here. But I also want you to know that the slightest weakness on your part will be severely punished. For instance, as I am sure you are well aware, we regard allowing letters to pass into or out of the schools as a major misdemeanor . . .”

  At the back of the hall, the Skunk made a face and kept his eyes on the toes of his shoes for the rest of the speech.

  “Let me repeat this,” continued Van Vlyck. “If you ever doubt yourselves, if at any time you find yourselves beginning to feel some compassion for one of your charges, remember: these people are not like us!”

  He emphasized this remark by tapping the table with his forefinger, and then went on, pale with anger.

  “Secretly, these people despise you, and you must never forget it!”

  “These people?” whispered Helen. “Who’s he talking about?”

  “You and me,” Milos whispered back. “Listen . . .”

  “They are a threat to our society, just as their parents were.”

  Helen was trembling. “What’s he saying? Our parents? Milos, what does this mean?”

  Milos moved a little closer still to her. “Shh. Hear him out.”

  “We offer them the chance of reeducation in the establishments into which we have generously received them,” Van Vlyck was going on. “Our essential mission is to keep the bad seed from germinating. We must crush it underfoot, showing no pity. The rules are there to guide you in your task. They are not complicated; observe them and you will be safe. Forget them and the retribution will be severe. Finally, let me tell you, face-to-face, that the Phalange will tolerate no treachery.”

  Having delivered these threats, Van Vlyck jutted out his powerful jaw, while an uneasy silence fell over his audience.

  “And now I will take up no more of your time,” he concluded, clearly satisfied with the effect he had made. “I know there’s an excellent buffet supper waiting for you. If anyone has anything to say, speak up now. Otherwise I’ll close the meeting.”

  He spread his arms, sure that no one would venture to raise any other subject, and he was about to conclude proceedings when something extraordinary happened.

  The Skeleton, mortified by the lack of any special commendation for herself, rose from her chair, pale as a corpse and skinnier than ever.

  “Mr. Van Vlyck,” she began in nervous but clipped tones, “if I may ask, have you been told that one of our students has run away?”

  Van Vlyck, who had already been rising to his feet, slowly sat down again.

  “Has . . . run away, Miss Fitzfischer? Really? Kindly explain.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the Skeleton, overwhelmed to be mentioned by name. “I told the headmistress a week ago. The runaway is a girl in the fourth year.”

  Van Vlyck turned slowly to the Tank, who changed color three times within a few seconds: her face went first white, then red, and ended up with a tinge of green.

  “Yes, it’s true, Mr. Van Vlyck. But we instantly brought the rule for such cases into force. Another student is at present in the detention cell, and —”

  “A week ago?” asked the incredulous Van Vlyck, articulating every syllable. “The girl ran away a week ago?”

  “Yes, Mr. Van Vlyck,” babbled the Tank, suddenly sounding as nervous as a small child. “But I thought — I thought there wasn’t any point in —”

  “In telling me?” Van Vlyck finished the sentence, with terrifying calm. “You thought, Headmistress, the re ‘wasn’t any point’ in telling me, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” admitted the Tank as she bent her head, unable to utter another word.

  “Miss Fitzfischer,” said Van Vlyck, turning back to the Skeleton, who was still on her feet, “what is the name of the young person who has run away, if you please?”

  “Her name is Bach, sir. Milena Bach.”

  “Milena Bach,” Van Vlyck slowly repeated, and it seemed to Helen that he had turned deathly pale.

  She shivered. Even hearing her friend’s name spoken by this ogre made her feel as if he almost had Milena in his dirty hands already.

  “And what’s she like?” he went on. “I mean, describe her physical appearance.”

  “She’s quite tall, a very pretty girl . . .”

  “Her hair, please. What color is her hair?”

  “Light — light brown,” stammered the Tank, in a faint voice, although he had not been asking her.

  “Light brown?” asked Van Vlyck, surprised.

  “Oh no, she’s blond, sir,” the Skeleton corrected the headmistress. “Very blond.”

  The Tank found the strength to raise her head and look at the woman who had watched over the gate of her school for twenty-five years, and the glance the two of them exchanged was pure poison. There was silence while Van Vlyck passed his hands over his face at some length, as if to wipe mud off it.

  “This girl,” he went on at last in a very low voice. “Miss Fitzfischer, does this
girl have any . . . any special talent or quality?”

  “Yes,” replied the Skeleton, relishing what she was about to say in advance.

  “And . . . and what is this special quality, please?”

  “She has a very fine singing voice, sir.”

  There was a long and oppressive silence.

  “One final question, Miss Fitzfischer,” said Van Vlyck at last, “and then I shall be able to offer you the thanks and congratulations that are your due. Did this girl run away on her own?”

  The headmaster of the boys’ school, sitting on Van Vlyck’s left, had already been wringing his hands for some time. The prospect of having to confess to the same dereliction of duty as the Tank turned his stomach.

  “It so happens . . . Mr. Van Vlyck . . . it so happens that, unfortunately, our own institution has also had a similar —”

  “What’s the boy’s name?” Van Vlyck interrupted him forcefully.

  “His name is Bartolomeo Casal, sir, and —”

  He never finished his sentence. Van Vlyck had appeared to keep calm until now, but at this he closed his eyes, his chest swelled, and he did something no one would have thought possible: he raised his enormous, hairy fist, brought it down on the oak table where he was sitting, and broke the top of the table in two. The dreadful cry he uttered at the same time froze his audience with horror.

  “Someone tell Mills!” he shouted, beside himself. “Someone take Mills and his Devils an item of clothing, a handkerchief, a shoe — something, anything carrying the scent of those two vermin!”

  “Milos,” gasped Helen, terrified, “what are they going to do to them? I don’t understand any of this. Explain.”

  The two of them straightened up, kneeling face-to-face. Milos opened his arms, and Helen, on the brink of tears, flung herself into them.

  “Oh, Milos, this is a nightmare.”

  They heard chairs being overturned down below, and the sound of running feet.

  “Get out of here!” bawled Van Vlyck hoarsely. “Get out, all of you, before I murder you!”

  The racket died away, and ended with a door slamming violently. Helen looked down through the hole in the floorboards one last time. No one had stopped to put the lights out, and the hall was silent and empty again. Empty except for the Skunk, the only one left, still beside the buffet table with his cap on a chair beside him. He poured himself a glass of white wine, sipped it, clicked his tongue appreciatively, put the glass down, and began making himself a ham sandwich.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Uuuu-in,” he laboriously articulated.

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

  “Uuuu-in.”

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

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

  “Eat? Want something to eat?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “She often wore it. We asked.”

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

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

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

  “That’s OK. You can go.”

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

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

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

  The dog-man didn’t move a muscle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Coming, Ramses? Let’s have fun!”

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