How Huge the Night (14 page)

He had veered away from the cart tracks.

He lifted his face from the snow, straightened, began to get up. He cried out from the pain.

His left ankle was broken. He could see in his mind’s eye, when he moved it, how the sharp shards of the bone were sticking out through his flesh. So vivid was the image that, crumpled there in the snow, he felt down to his ankle with his hand, knowing his touch would confirm it.

No sharp edges of bone. No blood. His ankle was whole and firm. He breathed.

Then, because he had to, he got his right foot under him and stood. He touched his left foot to the ground, a tiny touch, enough for one limping step. He gasped with the pain.

But he had to.

A deeper terror had entered him. His mind was clear now, horribly clear. This was not a story he could tell himself about courage in the face of the storm. This was death if he was not found.

He must have veered off toward the edge of the woods. To the left, he thought, from the slope of the hill. So go right. Look for the tracks. If he hit the woods, he’d know he’d gone wrong.

He went right. Every step was a jolt of pain. After the pain, he would stand a moment balanced on his right leg, scanning the snow hungrily for tracks. Then another step forward, like a knife through his leg. He cried out every time.

Then suddenly, there it was in the snow, blue-shadowed and deep: the print of a boot. “Oh!” he cried out, a pure sob of relief; but the wind caught it and carried it away, tiny: a tiny voice in all that immensity of white. Desolation found him.
Now what? Oh, God, now what?

“God,” he whispered. “Help. Help.” The memory rose in him of his hand slamming the note on Pierre’s desk; of his arrogant
fantasies
, Pierre lying bleeding by the road; of his white rage over ink on his homework. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Help.”

But then he put his left foot down, and the pain shot up through his leg. And instead of mercy, instead of his father’s voice on the road up ahead, came a buzzing in his ears. The white womb of the snowstorm around him was darkening, turning grainy and black. Dark shapes were pouring past him, and he was falling, falling, through a wilderness of white and rushing wind.

When he woke, he could not think where he was. Softness under him; for one blessed moment, he thought he was in bed. Why was everything white? And cold. So cold. Pain in his ankle. He was lost in the snow.

He gritted his teeth and pushed and fumbled his way upright again, resting his left foot carefully on the snow. But the pain spread higher and higher in his leg, crept white-hot into his thigh, and the buzzing returned, and darkness around the edges of his sight. He fell.

He began to crawl, dragging the ankle behind him. The snow came up to his chest. He forced his way forward, hands in the snow, tears freezing on his face. His hands and knees were numb. He crawled. The buzzing came again, the darkness creeping in on him. He lay down on his side in the snow to wait.

This was it. No
boches
, no heroics, no tanks. Just snow and wind and stupidity. And God. Through the white haze came back the image of his sister’s laughing challenge to the sky: “Hey, Old Man Winter! We’re not scared of
you!
”

What a foolish thing. Not to fear the powers of the world.

Was it true—everything he’d been taught? Would Jesus step through that blinding white curtain to take him home? He felt a strange warmth in his limbs, but his eyes hurt, and the tears on his cheeks were freezing. It was getting darker. He wished Jesus would have the kindness to come soon. He wished he didn’t have to die in the snow.
I was going to grow up. I was going to be a pro soccer player … or something
. He’d never know what it was like. To grow up, be a man. He hadn’t even
done
anything.

He was so tired.

His mind broke free of the white haze—it had been floating in whiteness forever, quiet and warm—when he felt something hard lodge behind his knee. Then a heavy weight crashed down on the injured ankle, and he screamed.

“Wha’?
Qu’est-ce qui s’passe?
” said a muffled voice, and the weight rolled off him, leaving him sobbing with relief, and the face came up within inches of his own. The surprised eyes and heavy jaw of Pierre Rostin.

No.
Tears welled in Julien’s eyes. Pierre blinked twice, snowflakes falling from his lashes. “Julien Losier,” he said softly. The
burle
blew a bitter breath between their faces. “What are you doing here? On the ground—in
this
—” His eyes were incredulous. “Get up!” He grabbed Julien’s coat sleeve and pulled. “Get
up!
”

Julien’s tears spilled over. He stirred and pulled back against Pierre’s grip. “I can’t,” he gasped. “I sprained my ankle.”

“Oh,” said Pierre. “Oh. Crap. What’re we gonna do?” He looked around at the storm, then down at Julien, a frown on his heavy face. “Okay. I’m going to see if I can carry you. But first you’re gonna have to get up.
Now
.”

Julien gritted his teeth. Pierre pulled on his sleeve, and in the snow he struggled up onto his right knee. Pierre grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him to his feet. “Okay. Can you walk at all? Try it.”

Julien put his left foot down and winced. He didn’t dare rest his weight on it. “No. I … I can’t …” More tears spilled out, helpless child’s tears. “I’m sorry—”

“It’s okay, Julien,” Pierre said quietly. Julien felt a hand on his shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay,” said Pierre, and his eyes were steady. There was no scorn in them. “I bet I can carry you. We’re not that far from my house, you know.”

Julien opened his mouth. There were so many things he wanted to say, but his mind offered no words. Not even
thank you.

“See if you can get on my back,” said Pierre. “Here—” He knelt in the snow. Julien climbed on, clumsily, gasping in sudden pain as his ankle caught Pierre’s coat. “You okay?” Pierre put his hands under Julien’s knees. “Does that hurt?”

“No,” Julien whispered. Pierre stood, slowly, and began to walk, his gait labored, forcing his way through the snow. There was no sound but the swish of his boots and the keening of the wind; no world but the broad back and strong arms holding him, and his head on his enemy’s shoulder.

He woke with a jolt. Pierre was squatting, trying to put him down. He slid off onto his good foot.

“Gotta stop a minute,” Pierre gasped. “Get my breath.”

“Yeah. Sorry …”

“Oh, it’s all right.” Pierre stood for half a minute while his labored breathing slowed. He looked at the darkening sky and at the snow up past his knees and muttered, “
Merde
.” Then with a sideways glance at Julien, “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize for cussing when you’re saving my life!”

Pierre laughed. Julien did too. They looked down at the snow.

“Guess tomorrow’s off,” said Julien.

“Yeah.” Another pause. “You wanna call it off or do it when you’re better?”

Oh, what a stupid fight it would be. “Maybe it should be up to you.”

Pierre grunted.

“Um. But. Listen.”
I want you to know the truth
. That’s
what
I want.
“I really didn’t tell on you. Honest. Either time.” Pierre gave him an unreadable glance. “Okay, the first time there was a kind of accident—”

“
Accident
?”

“I came home, and your mom was in my living room! And man, she’s
really good
at jumping to conclusions.”

Pierre snorted. “Tell me something I
don’t
know.” He looked away into the white for a long moment. “She gave me double my share of chores for a month.”

“That’s not right. When you didn’t even start it. I told her you didn’t—”

“Oh, if I didn’t deserve it this time, I will next time. Ask
her
.”

A lump was forming in Julien’s throat.
No. You deserve …
something
else.
“You sure she’s right about you?”

Pierre looked at him. In the dusk, in the snow, it was hard to see his eyes.

“I really didn’t tell on you, Pierre. I swear.”

Pierre held out his big hand. Julien took it in his numb fingers, and they shook.

The swish of skis on snow woke him, and voices. “I’m sorry, sir. I just went for a walk. Yes, sir.” A man’s deep voice, indistinct. Then, “He’s hurt his leg.” A circle of golden light on the snow. A stocky figure, his legs lit by the lantern in his hand, his face dark.

“I can carry him now,” said the deep voice. Monsieur Rostin. “Anyone looking for him?”

Julien lifted his head with an effort. “My family—I fell behind …”

“Headed to town?”

“Yeah.”

The lantern light bobbed crazily as Monsieur Rostin bent down. “Here.” He was pushing his skis toward Pierre on the snow. “Go into town. If you don’t meet the Losiers before your uncle Maurice’s place, get him to come with you and go tell them the boy’s safe with us. But don’t come home tonight. D’you hear? Stay with Maurice.”

“I can make it back—” Pierre began, but his father cut him off.

“Sure you can. But you do what I say. I want you back tomorrow. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Julien felt himself lifted, laid across Monsieur Rostin’s
powerful
shoulders like a sack of potatoes. A chaos of white and dark and bobbing lantern light, silence; then warm windows, all golden brown, and a door opening, light spilling out, the crackling of a fire. Hands shifting him, arms under his body. Then he felt himself falling, not into light, but into darkness.

He was floating in the sea, the warm sea, in Italy. No. He was lying on the shore by a driftwood fire. What was that sound of pots and pans clanging? The slamming of a cupboard door. Julien opened his eyes.

He’d never seen this place before.

It was beautiful. Small, full of lamps and firelight, warm. A little kitchen with a big iron stove, a shape in a gray dress
bending
over it. He was on a rug. His fingers brushed old stone. He turned his head and saw the fire, and tears welled up in his eyes. The red and the gold and the little blue flames licking the wood, washing the whiteness from his mind; life flaming bright against the great dead world outside. He had never known what beauty was before.

“Where does it hurt?” It was Monsieur Rostin. He was beautiful too.

Julien’s wet coat and sweater were pulled off; the fire was warm on his bare skin. Monsieur Rostin prodded and squeezed his leg for where it hurt, got towels full of snow from Madame Rostin, whom he called Ginette. Imagine. Ginette, like a little girl in pigtails. His leg was packed with snow that stung with cold and wrapped with towels; he was given a swallow of something fiery, then a bowl of warm milk. “
Mon pauvre petit
,” said Ginette.

He slept.

Julien woke in the dark with a single thought:
I’m alive.

It was quiet. The fire was banked and barely glowed; there were deep shadows. The hush was unnerving. The
burle
had moaned around the house and rattled the shutters for hours, and he’d hardly heard it; now it was still. It was the silence that had woken him.

He was alive.

He had been rescued. And he had cried. In front of Pierre Rostin.

Julien closed his eyes again and pressed his palms against them. In front of
Pierre
—

Pierre who had looked at him and said,
It’s going to be okay
. And said,
I think I can carry you.

For a moment he writhed.

In that moment all was clear as day inside him, unbearable. The dim fire-glow warmed and softened the bare room around him, but in his head was a horrible brilliance that lit, with sharp-edged shadows,
everything
. How he’d prayed and hated, how he’d hoped to win, and how he’d lost. How it shamed him that Pierre had carried him, Pierre the Good Samaritan, safe as in the arms of God. And what that meant about
him
.

Julien swallowed, a trail of broken-glass pain down his throat. He tried not to swallow again, and failed.

He turned away from the shadows. He propped himself on one elbow and reached for the woodpile, got another log onto the fire. A shower of sparks rose, and the flames flared and lit up this place he was alive in, this bare little house.

A table with two benches. Against the wall, a wooden hutch with doors; no other cupboard in the room. In the far corner, a
woodstove
with a sink beside it; and on his right, four straight-backed chairs. The living room. Bare walls. No books that he could see. No radio.

No, there
were
books on the hutch. Two of them. A big
family
Bible and a brown almanac; and two framed pictures. One old daguerreotype reflecting the fire in its metal surface; two dim
figures
, sitting stiffly upright. The other was André in his tank-driver’s cap and leather jacket, standing tall.

The truth rested on Julien’s shoulders, waiting, like a huge and heavy hand. The truth was it shamed him, that Pierre had saved his life; that Pierre had spoken to him gently, as he cried; that Pierre had been, most truly, the hero. It shamed him because he had already decided who was who in this story, and Pierre was the bad guy, and Julien was the hero with the weapons of love. Because he’d wanted to come out on top. Because that was what he’d thought God’s weapons were good for. The truth whispered itself without sound; the truth filled the room like the fire’s light.
You cannot attack with the weapons of love.

He bowed his head.

The fire breathed warmth on him, and he lifted his eyes to it, the blue and red and gold. God was stranger than he had ever known; strange and terrible and kind.

You carried me.
He whispered aloud the words that stuck in his throat. “I was wrong. I am sorry.” The firelight danced in his tears, and the world was red and golden, and he raised his head. “God. Can you forgive me. Please.”