Winter's End Read online

  “That’s the toilet,” she explained, pointing to a tin bucket. “Emptied once a day. You’ll get a meal once a day too. And that’s your bunk.”

  The Sky! thought Catharina, eyes raised to the top of the wall. Light up a bit of the Sky, you old witch! Even if I can’t see it clearly! I don’t mind about the bucket! But Miss Merlute wasn’t going to linger here. She was probably in a hurry to finish her meal in the Tank’s company. She turned on her heel and left the cell. The next moment, the place was plunged in darkness. Catharina heard the key turn in the lock, then the supervisor’s rapid footsteps as she went away, and after that all was silent. Groping in the dark, Catharina made her way to the bunk and sat down on it. It was made of planks and had no mattress. She took the box of matches out of her hair, where it had been resting safely, and carefully opened it. She counted the matches three times, taking great care not to drop any on the damp floor. There were eight exactly. How many seconds of light do eight matches come to if you let them burn right down to the end in your fingers? Sixty-four seconds? Seventy-two? She remembered what the Tank had said about mental arithmetic. What did she mean by that, the mad old bag? Anyway, it would be better to hold out as long as possible before using them. She must save them up, a bit like saving up visits to the consolers. Catharina felt a pang when she thought of her own consoler, her kind little mouse. How sad she’d be to think of her in here! With her right hand she pulled the blanket up to her nose and found that it didn’t smell as bad as she might have feared. She wrapped herself up in it to sleep. It must be ten in the evening. A long night lay ahead.

  When the cold woke her, she couldn’t tell whether she had slept for only a few minutes or several hours. Was it morning yet? She thought she heard an insect moving close to her ear. Or a spider? She pulled her coat close around her, hauled the blanket up again, and tried to go back to sleep. It was no good. Gloomy thoughts kept coming into her mind, like an army of insidious beetles scuttling over her. Where have you gone, Milena? Will you be back soon? Who’s going to come looking for me here?

  She held out for what seemed an eternity, although perhaps it was only an hour, and then made up her mind to strike the first match. She would burn one after each meal, so that would be one a day, and she wouldn’t be using them up too quickly. She got up and pulled her bunk over to the back wall. If she stood on it, she was very close to the beam they talked about. Just as she was about to strike the little sulfur head of the match on the side of the box, she felt sudden anxiety: suppose there was nothing on the beam after all? No sky, no cloud? No picture of any kind? What a disappointment that would be! And if there really was something, would she be able to see it without her glasses? She hesitated for a few seconds and then finally decided. The match caught fire at once, and Catharina was amazed to see how it lit up the entire cell. She raised her trembling arm toward the beam, and she saw it.

  Yes, a patch of sky was painted on the half-rotten beam. It measured only about twelve by six inches, and the azure blue had certainly faded, but it definitely showed the sky! You could tell from the cloud to the left of the picture. A billowing white cumulus cloud like a cotton ball. The flickering flame made its shape swell and seem to move and change: it was an elephant, a mountain, a dragon. Catharina watched, fascinated. It seemed to her that the sight of those colors, even blurred by her short sight, had plucked her out of the dark depths of the earth and brought her back to the land of the living. It was as if the wind were blowing in her hair and the blood running through her veins again.

  The sudden return of darkness and the sharp burning pain at her fingertips brought her back to reality: she had just used up her first match. Now there were only seven left. But never mind: she had seen the Sky, and it made her feel stronger. She lay down again, full of courage now.

  Don’t worry, Milena! Go where you have to go and do what you have to do. I can hold out — for you, for Helen, for all of us. Never fear, girls, little Catharina Pancek has seen the Sky and she’ll hold out. You’d be surprised!

  Her handkerchief was drenched with tears, but to hell with the Tank. The Tank could get lost — they weren’t tears of misery or fear.

  Miss Merlute had told the truth. Someone visited Catharina next day. The sound of the key turning in the lock made her jump. A flashlight dazzled her.

  “Your meal.”

  A small woman put a tray down on the side of the bunk. It held a piece of bread, a plate, a jug of water, and a glass.

  “Eat it while I take the bucket away to empty it.”

  “What time is it, please?”

  “I’m not allowed to talk to you,” replied the woman, and she went out, taking care to lock the door again behind her.

  Catharina drank half the contents of the jug in a single draft. She realized that she was incredibly thirsty. Feeling around on the tray, she found a spoon and gingerly tasted the contents of the plate. Beans, barely warm. She swallowed a mouthful, bit into the bread, and thought it was almost nice. I’ll keep it, she told herself. I’ll eat it bit by bit and make it last. She hid it under the blanket and forced herself to finish the beans.

  A couple of minutes later, the woman was back. She put the bucket down in the corner of the cell and came over to the bunk, shining her flashlight on the tray.

  “Finished?”

  “Yes,” said Catharina. “Do you . . . do you work in the boarding school? Are you new? I don’t know you.”

  “I’m not allowed to talk to you,” the woman repeated. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  She picked up the tray and went away.

  Alone again, Catharina lay on her back for a long time with her eyes wide open, in a very strange, dreamy state. She could have sworn that she knew the woman’s voice.

  Passing the time was difficult. Catharina exhausted all possible games. She tried to remember poetry she had learned as a child. She went through the names of all the countries in the world in alphabetical order, then boys’ first names, then girls’ first names, then trees and animals. How much time did all that take? Hours or minutes? How could she know? Do mental arithmetic . . . Why not, after all? She started saying her multiplication tables.

  On the second day, the same woman came back, and it was all just as it had been the day before. The only difference was that she had boiled potatoes instead of beans.

  On the third day — had her hearing grown sharper? — Catharina thought she could just hear the sound of mealtimes in the refectory above her: footsteps, plates and cutlery clinking, chairs being pulled over the floorboards. But the sounds were so faint that she didn’t know if she was imagining them or not.

  On the fourth day, when she was about to light her fourth match, she struck it clumsily and the flame went out at once. This tiny incident plunged her into deep despair. That same day the small woman stopped dead in the open doorway as she was leaving the cell and asked, “Is your name Pancek?”

  “Yes,” replied Catharina.

  The woman stood there perfectly still for a few more seconds, saying no more, and then she went away.

  On the fifth day, Catharina began coughing, and she had a sore throat. She realized that she was finding it more and more difficult to keep count of the days she had spent in the cell. Everything in her head was completely mixed up. The only certain way she could check was by counting the number of matches she had left, because she burned only one a day, and she couldn’t prevent herself counting them over and over again. Three matches left . . . three. Three more days when I can see the Sky . . . and then what? Where would she find the strength to keep going after that?

  On the sixth day, the woman stopped in the doorway again and continued with the question she had been asking the day before. It was as if she had thought of nothing else since.

  “Pancek — Catharina Pancek?”

  “Yes,” said Catharina. She was sitting on the bunk, trembling feverishly.

  There was a long silence, and then the woman said, “It’s nine in the evening. I always co
me at nine in the evening. I’ll leave the jug of water close to the door for you. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  That voice . . . Just for a second Catharina felt she would be able to put a name to the woman any moment now; it would spring to her lips. She had it on the tip of her tongue, deep in her heart. But as soon as the door closed again, she knew the name had escaped her and she couldn’t remember it. She had confused dreams. They were full of fires, the sound of keys turning, swarms of insects, and the Tank shouting, “I beg your pardon?” She searched for the matchbox in her hair for at least an hour before remembering that it had been in her coat pocket since the first evening.

  On the seventh day, she couldn’t get up when her tray was brought in. The woman came over to her, put her flashlight down on the bunk, and helped her to sit up. “You must eat, Miss Pancek,” she said.

  Catharina sat there with her teeth chattering. The little woman helped her to drink, then put the spoon in her right hand, but her fingers were trembling so badly that the entire contents fell on her lap. Then the woman took the spoon and fed her like a baby.

  Once she had swallowed the first mouthful, they stayed sitting there side by side. The woman appeared to be hesitating.

  “Don’t you recognize me?” she murmured at last.

  “I recognize your voice,” said Catharina, hardly surprised to hear the gentle tone in which the woman spoke. “But it’s so long ago. . . .”

  The woman picked up the flashlight and shone its faint beam on her own face. “Can you see me better now?”

  Catharina raised her head and narrowed her eyes. But the sad, heavy face meant nothing to her.

  “I knew your father well,” the woman went on, and her voice was unsteady. “His name was Oskar Pancek. I worked for him as a maid.”

  “My father?”

  “Ah yes, your father. He was a fine man. He was very good to me.”

  “I don’t remember anything. . . .”

  “Or look at me this way,” said the woman, turning her face to show her right cheek. “Do you remember me better now?”

  The whole right side of her face was covered by a birthmark, a large port-wine stain. It ran from the middle of her forehead all down her cheek, covering half her mouth and jaw.

  “Theresa,” Catharina murmured. The three syllables escaping her mouth spread an instant gentle softness through the cell. “Theresa,” she repeated. It was like a door opening or a veil being lifted. She saw herself in a large drawing room with a sweet tobacco smell in the air. The curtain of the open bay window was moving in the breeze. Someone was playing the piano, a bearded man wearing a velvet jacket. His fingers caressed the piano keys. She could see him only in profile and came closer to climb up on his knees. “Oh, Cathia, leave your father in peace!” said a voice, and Theresa was bending over her to pick her up.

  “My father . . . did he play the piano?” Catharina ventured. Her heart was racing.

  “Yes, yes, he did,” replied the woman, rising to her feet.

  At the door she stopped again, and added, in a voice full of sadness, “Yes, he played the piano, but only for his own pleasure. Most of all he was a great mathematician. And a great figure in the Resistance. I’m not allowed to talk to you. Here are your glasses, your watch, and your hairbrush. I’ll put them down beside the jug of water.”

  Catharina thought she was about to leave now, but the woman hadn’t quite finished yet. “There’s no one watching the place tonight. After one in the morning, there’ll be no one on supervision duty in the school.”

  Catharina sat there for a long time, feeling stunned as she took in what the woman had just told her in those few words, and above all realizing that the key had not turned in the lock. She staggered over to the door, ran her fingers over the inside of it, and pulled it toward her. It opened easily. Emotion made her fall on all fours. She groped for the jug of water, found her hairbrush, her watch, and her glasses, and put the glasses on at once.

  I’m free, she told herself as her thoughts raced through her head. I’m free. I have my glasses and my watch back. . . . There’s no one on supervision duty tonight. . . . My father was a great mathematician and a great figure in the Resistance. . . . I still have one match left for a look at the Sky.

  Trembling all over in spite of her coat and the blanket, she lay down on the bunk. She fell asleep and woke up again more than five times before she thought the right amount of time might have passed. As best she could, she pulled the bunk over to stand under the beam, climbed on it, and struck the eighth and last match. Her watch said nearly two o’clock. For the first time she was seeing the Sky with her glasses on, and she was amazed to find what a vivid blue it was. The white cloud was like a huge feather bed.

  She drank from the jug again, trembling with fever, and went along the mud-brick tunnel, stepping carefully. My consoler, she told herself. I must go to her. I must get there somehow. Every step she took echoed painfully in her head. She climbed the damp spiral staircase, groping her way up it. She had gone about halfway when the door above her creaked. The beam of a flashlight fell into the stairway. Someone was climbing down. Was it Theresa coming back? Someone else? In panic, she just had time to take refuge in the space to her left by the cellar entrance. Flattening herself against the wall, she held her breath.

  “Careful, the steps are slippery!” a voice whispered.

  “Put your hands on my shoulders,” another voice replied. “You said this place is underneath the cellar?”

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

  The two figures passed Catharina without seeing her. The way ahead was clear again. She started up the staircase again, but suddenly felt dizzy and thought she was about to fall into the void. Her fever was consuming her, draining all her strength. She knew she’d never get to the top of the steps alone. So she’d have to gamble that the two people down there might be on her side. They’d soon see that the detention cell was empty and turn back. They’d be here again in a few seconds. She sat down on a step to wait for them.

  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 w
as 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?’