“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?”