How Huge the Night (13 page)

His cheek stung where the crusted ice had scraped it. He stood with his fists clenched uselessly, looking at the stream of faces. They had
all
seen. And Pierre wasn’t there. How many
friends
did the guy have? Was it the whole school now?

That evening, he knelt beside his bed, rubbing his face with his hands. He couldn’t fight Pierre. Last time had been horrible, and this time would be worse. That was Pierre’s plan, probably: make Julien start it, make Julien take the blame.

All right. He’d do it then.

Pastor Alex had said to look to Jesus to learn the weapons of love. He meant, Julien supposed, read the whole story and see how Jesus acted; but he didn’t have time. He looked up what Pastor Alex had read to them from Matthew 5; “love your enemies” wasn’t much use, but the next bit—“pray for those who persecute you”—he could start on that right now.

Lord, please bless Pierre and make him willing to be my friend again. Please make Pierre understand that I never even told on him once.

It was embarrassing, praying those things; it felt weak. Did it sound to God like he was afraid to fight Pierre again, afraid of getting in trouble? Afraid of Pierre and Henri, how everyone was on their side, how they could make those gray school hours even darker? God knows the heart, Papa had always told him; but that was no comfort at all. God might know better than him; all of those things might be true, and he only a coward. Fearless love, Pastor Alex had said.

I’m not scared of him. I think.

Sunday, Julien was forced to sit beside Pierre, sandwiched in the pew between their families, as Pastor Alex preached on the Good Samaritan. They looked straight ahead as Pastor Alex told them we all have people we’d prefer not to be in the same room with. After the service, they sat awkwardly as their fathers shook hands over them; finally they stood, and Julien put out his hand, and Pierre shook it, looking away.

On the walk home, Magali went on about some new teacher at the girls’ school as Julien thought about the sermon, tried to
picture
Pierre lying beat up in one of the alleys of Tanieux.
Great, now I know what to do if he gets mugged by a gang of mad farmers. That’s a real help.

“Her name’s Miss Fitzgerald, she’s from England, and everyone’s calling her
la Meess.
And she knows
Greek
, and there’s this new girl Lucy who’s her niece—her father’s a reporter and she’s lived
everywhere
. He’s in the United States reporting on why the Yanks won’t fight the Nazis. But she can’t go. I’m glad. And she’s in my class!”

“I really don’t think she’s from England, Lili,” Papa put in.

“Oh, yeah—I don’t get it, Papa. They
speak
English, and
la Meess
says the part they’re from is
part
of England, but when I called Lucy English, her eyes got all big, and she yelled, ‘
Ire
land! We’re from
Ire
land!’”

“Ah,” said Papa. “History.” He smiled at Lili. “What did you think of the sermon?”

Magali gave him a sideways look. “Ever wonder why there’s no women in these stories?”

Papa’s eyebrows went up. “Should the Samaritan be a woman? Or the wounded man?”

“The robbers,” muttered Julien, and Magali made a face at him. “Not the wounded man,” he said. “It’d change everything.
Anyone
would help a wounded woman. If you don’t—that’s just wrong.”

“But with a guy it’s okay?”

Not …
okay
. But for him to help Pierre, it would take …
something
. He’d do it though. “It’s just different.”

“Oh, yeah. Girls are
different
.”

Julien ignored her and walked on, picturing Pierre by the
roadside
, bleeding.

Julien kept praying.

He spent his school hours watching the clock; he came home to the golden-brown workshop and carved. He carved out one good flipper on the side of his dolphin and began to smooth the wood below it into a tail.

Nothing happened Friday, or Saturday. Sunday, in Grandpa’s workshop, he took a long stroke of the knife along the dolphin’s side and gouged the flipper half off. He sat staring at it for a moment, then threw it hard against the wall. The flipper broke off with an audible
crack
.

“I’m sorry,” said Grandpa. “The dolphin was my mistake. I didn’t realize how difficult those flippers would be.”

Julien threw the dolphin away.

Roland stood by the school door, beckoning, eyes wide and urgent. Julien followed.

“I don’t know who did it, Julien, I swear. But no one was gonna tell you. It’s not right.”

His books and papers were strewn across the floor. On his desk, the inkwell was overturned—onto today’s homework for Ricot.

“I wasn’t there, Julien, I swear.” Julien wanted to hit him. “I’ll get us rags from the broom closet. Quick.”

Julien stood staring at the deep black stain as Roland raced out the door. He was back in a moment with a wad of rags; Julien mopped at the ink, thick black stuff that soaked in and would never come out; he was powerfully reminded of a Sunday school lesson long ago about sin.
Exactly. But not my sin.

They rinsed the rags in the bathroom, and the ink turned the soapsuds gray and the water blue; they stuffed them under the sink for the janitor to find. They put the papers in the desk; the ink black homework in the trash. The bell rang.

“I’m sorry, monsieur,” said Julien when Ricot collected the
homework
. “I did it, but I’m not sure what happened to it.” He thought he heard a snicker from the back of the class.

“Well,
that
takes the prize for lamest excuse of the year,” said Monsieur Ricot caustically. “Have it for me on Friday copied five times over.” Another snicker.

Julien didn’t hear a word of the lesson over the blood pounding in his ears. He spent the whole hour composing his note to Pierre on a half sheet of paper with Pierre’s muddy footprint on it. This was the guy he had
prayed
for this morning. It was ridiculous. And it was over.

You are so stupid
, the note read,
you don’t
need
anyone to tell on you. I never did, not even the first time, and if you want me to prove it by
smashing
your stupid face in, I will. Friday after class. You choose the place.

When the bell rang, he walked back to where Pierre was sitting and slammed the note on the desk in front of him.

“Let me know,” he said and walked back to his seat.

It was Roland who let him know. After the last bell, at the gate, he handed Julien a slip of paper:
Take the road out of town till you get round the bend. I’ll be there.

“Thanks.”

Roland grunted.

There was a spring in Benjamin’s step as they walked home through the deepening blue evening. Julien looked at the lit
windows
of houses and thought of blood on the snow. Benjamin turned to him with an eager look, and Julien scowled.

“Are you okay, Julien?”

“
Yes
,” he snarled. Benjamin recoiled.

“Fine,” said Benjamin. “Don’t tell me. It’s not like I couldn’t see your note.
I’m
behind you a hundred percent. If you were wondering.”

Julien looked away. “Don’t tell my father, okay?”

“Don’t worry. I won’t. Anyway, he deserves it.”

“Yeah.” Julien looked at the warm-lighted windows and the
darkening
sky. “He does.”

Niko came back to herself slowly, floating up through the darkness of her mind, floating like thistledown on water. Was she dead? She couldn’t move. She was in a bed, under heavy covers.

She was at home in her bed with the yellow bedspread; she would open her eyes in a moment and see her mother’s painting on the wall, the little house between the trees, the yellow flowers. Soon Father would call her: Nina, Nina, it’s your turn to make breakfast,
herzerl
, get up …

No. She wasn’t Nina; she was Niko. She had no father, no mother; everyone was gone, even Heide, even stupid, stupid Friedrich;
everyone
she’d loved right or wrong except for Gustav was gone. They were homeless, they had no papers, they were nothing.

Why was she in a bed?

Her eyes flew open, and she sat up in bed. Gustav, where was Gustav—a room she had never seen before … a narrow, crowded room, white walls and a low curved ceiling, bric-a-brac everywhere. A long rope strung from wall to wall with clothes hanging on it, dark clothes, red shawls—she had seen women wearing those, bright-eyed, dark-haired women, their hands quick as birds,
speaking
some guttural language. And Gustav! He’d been with them; he was here! She remembered them … forcing her mouth open, pouring bitter-tasting liquid down her throat … and soup, she remembered soup. And music, from outside—the light of a fire, and a woman’s voice singing a high, quavering song, and drums. Gypsy drums. Gypsies.

No,
he had said,
I won’t let you die.
And then he had told them where she was.

Tomorrow after lunch. This would all be decided.

But today they were hauling firewood from the farm. Papa had rented a horse and cart from the butcher. They set out a full hour before dawn.

The clouds hung low over the hills; the
genêts
waved in the wind, wild dark fingers pointing at the pale sky. The horse’s hooves scraped on the ice. Julien huddled into his coat, remembering blood on the snow and the flash of pain when Pierre had hit him. What was he thinking? Pierre was huge. Julien wouldn’t have the advantage of surprise this time. This time Papa wouldn’t crack jokes or say he was proud of him. The
burle
blew bitter in his face.

Light shone in the east when they reached the farm, and
everything
moved into high gear. “Going to snow before evening,” Grandpa said. “Let’s get this done.” They loaded the cart so full it creaked and started home, Papa and Grandpa on either side of the horse, Julien and Benjamin on either side of the cart, all watching, ready to grab hold and push if anything slipped on the steep road.

Then home, and tipping the cart into the backyard—“We can stack it tomorrow,” said Papa, “let’s move”—and Mama handing them sandwiches through a door that opened onto warm, firelit heaven and closed again. Magali came with them, rested and
disgustingly
cheerful. Julien’s face was starting to hurt, and his bones to ache, from the cold. Magali stood up suddenly, jolting the cart. “Hey!” She threw her head back and shouted to the looming sky. “We’re not scared of you!” She swayed with the motion of the cart, her hair wild in the wind. “Hey, Old Man Winter,” she cried
merrily
, “we’re not scared of you! Whoo-
hoo!
”

Julien hunched miserably in the bottom of the cart, too tired to even say shut up. Maybe it would snow tonight. It would all be off. He’d carve. He’d start a cat, a dog, a wolf. Please.

It was already snowing when they started the second trip home.

His arms ached in earnest, and the sky was dark as evening and heavy, starting to drop its load onto the earth. The air was thick with snow; the wind flung it in their faces, and it stung.

Julien pulled his scarf and hood over his face till only his eyes showed. In the blinding white, he could just see the dim forms of Benjamin and Grandpa and the straining horse, and Papa and Magali on either side of the cart. His shoulders hurt. It was so cold.

Julien’s world had shrunk to a small, white sphere: two meters in every direction, no more. The hills were gone, the sky pressed down like a white blanket. He forced his feet forward through the snow; flakes stung his eyes, and he lowered his head against the wind, his mind losing itself in an endless round. The pain in his shoulders. The weight of his boots. Fire, hot chocolate, hot soup on the table. How deep the snow would be tomorrow. How he could fight Pierre when he ached like this. How Pierre could take him anyway.

When he looked up, he was alone.

There was nothing. Just pure, aching white, like blindness. He looked down and saw cart tracks and footprints.

He began to run, stumblingly, in the ankle-deep snow.

He ran looking at the tracks; he lurched to his knees, got up, and ran again. He looked up, staring hard through the snow, and saw nothing; he ran. They were gone. There was nothing, just white, and a crisscross of flakes against it blown by the wind. He looked up a third time into blank, agonizing white. Then fear welled up in him like a terrible spring, and his voice came out in a yell.

He called for Papa and Grandpa. The wind stole his breath; his voice was distant and muffled in that air filled fathoms-deep with snow. He called again from the depths of his lungs; he could feel his heart pounding. He listened.

Silence. Only silence and the wind.

He stood for a moment, seeing it all: night falling, the snow still coming down, the cold seeping into his body like a dark tide. Papa and Grandpa and Benjamin out in the snow with flashlights, searching, the fear in Papa’s eyes. A groan shuddered from deep in his stomach. The wind fought him as he ran again, wildly, his mind a welter of darkness and the word
No. No, please God, no.

His panic-darkened mind cleared for a moment, an instant at the edge of time. The same instant he felt a sharp snap of pain in his ankle, a jolt that rushed up his leg; felt himself falling. The snow coming up to meet him. As the fluffy coldness touched his cheek, and his eyes and mouth were lost in white, the one clear thought came to him that had been trying to beat its way into his mind.