Winter's End Read Online Free PDF Page A

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,