He reached the other end of the arena, not too bothered by Flavius, who was now reduced to the role of spectator. Then the gate opened for the third time, and Basil came in. He looked savage. He was faster than Caius, and quickly reached Milos, who was backed up against the barricade. He struck fast and precisely, and Milos’s hip was covered with blood.
“That’s enough!” boomed Myricus’s deep voice at last.
“Sorry — I’m sorry,” stammered Basil, who was kneeling beside his friend. “I didn’t have any choice. That bastard, he’d have finished you off. Took you for a cat, didn’t he?”
“Thank you,” breathed Milos. “I think you’ve saved my life.”
“Don’t mention it. That’s OK. Me, I always liked cats.”
Fulgur didn’t trouble to hide his delight when he saw the injury to Milos’s leg. “There’s a pretty sight! Who gave you that, Ferenzy?”
“Rusticus.”
“The cart-horse, eh? Think yourself lucky. He usually strikes harder. Anyone can see you two are good mates. Come on, then, I’ll give you a little encore.”
Without more ado, he gave Milos an injection and didn’t even wait for it to take effect before setting to work. Milos turned his head aside and gritted his teeth under the piercing pain of the needle. Then, gradually, he felt it die down, until at last he felt only the unpleasant sensation of the thread as it was pulled through the edges of his wound, drawing them together.
“That cart-horse, he ever talk to you about his brothers?”
“What?”
“Rusticus. He ever tell you about ’em?”
“Tell me about what?”
Milos remembered the conversations he’d had with Basil at the school. The other boy had indeed introduced himself as a cart-horse, but without explaining exactly what he meant.
“No, he didn’t,” he said, careful not to insist on keeping quiet to Fulgur anymore. “He hasn’t told me anything.”
“Pity. You’d have enjoyed it, especially the last bit. Because it all turned out badly for them. Very badly. I could have been a cart-horse myself, you know. I had all the qualifications: I’m hefty and I didn’t exactly invent hot and cold running water. Problem is, I like to be on the winning side. Yup, that’s my problem.”
Fulgur finished his stitching. Hearing the little sound as the thread broke, Milos knew that the brute had just bitten off the remains of it with his teeth, as you might bite the thread after sewing on a button. He preferred not to look. Fulgur completed his care of his patient by painting the place with iodine.
“There, you can go back to your room. Getting into the habit of this, aren’t you? Soon there won’t be space on you for any more stitching! And don’t forget: next chance you get, ask your friend Rusticus to tell you all about his mates — if you want a good laugh. Ask him how Faber is, for instance. Oh yes, that’s a very funny story.”
Milos didn’t have to wait long for his next chance to talk to Basil. Late in the afternoon, Milos was dozing in the infirmary sickroom when the door opened. His friend’s large head appeared around it.
“You asleep?”
“No, come in.”
Basil sat down on the edge of the bed and raised the sheet. “Dammit, I didn’t miss you.”
“That’s OK. It’s not deep,” Milos reassured him.
“Sorry, but I didn’t know where to strike. Finding the right place isn’t easy. I mean, finding somewhere to bleed a lot that’s not too dangerous. I thought of a buttock, but you didn’t turn your back, and then sitting down’s tricky later.”
“Really, don’t worry. You aimed very well.”
“Caius is furious with me. Told me if I ever found myself facing him, he’d make a hole in my hide. But he doesn’t scare me, just because he’s won twice . . . Hey, look! A jay!”
The big, colorful bird had settled on the windowsill without a sound. It just fit between the bars and looked almost as if it wanted to come in.
“We know each other already,” said Milos, smiling. “He comes visiting the sick.”
The two of them fell silent and watched the jay. They were both thinking the same thing: you’re free, bird. You can come and go; you can fly away over the wire fence and perch on the forest trees when you like. Do you know how lucky you are?
As if guessing, the jay turned weightily on the sill, took off, and flew away.
“Who’s Faber?” asked Milos into the silence that followed.
Basil’s mouth dropped open. “You know Faber?”
“No, but Fulgur mentioned his name just now. Who is he?”
Basil bent his head. He was frowning. “Faber is the leader of the horse-men,” he muttered at last. “Our leader, see?”
“And . . . and something bad happened to him?”
“Yes.”
“Did they kill him?”
“Worse than that.”
Milos dared not say any more. Basil sniffed noisily and then wiped his nose and eyes angrily on the back of his cuff.
“They did worse than kill him, Ferenzy. They made fun of him. I’ll tell you, but some other time. I kind of don’t feel like it here.”
If she hadn’t been missing Milos and feeling constantly anxious, Helen’s time in the capital city might have felt like the best days of her life. She had never known such a delicious sense of freedom before. Having a place of her own, her name on a door that she could lock and unlock with her own key, going out when she liked, getting on the first tram to come along and losing herself in unknown streets: she relished these small pleasures day after day. They never faded. Mr. Jahn had given her half her first month’s pay in advance so that she could get herself what she needed. She bought an alarm clock, a brightly colored hat, a pair of woolen gloves, a scarf, and a pair of boots. The coat that Dr. Jose f ’ s wife had given her, although a little old-fashioned, was warm and comfortable and she decided to keep it. She also unearthed a dozen novels going cheap in an old bookshop near the restaurant, and lined them up on the shelf in her room. “My library,” she told Milena proudly.
She came back quite dazed from her solitary walks in the city. She loved mingling with the anonymous crowd swarming over the sidewalks at rush hour. If you could see all these people, Milos! Racing about, bumping into you without even noticing you’re there. You feel like an ant among millions of other ants. If you were with me, we’d have to hold hands to not get separated. I go into shops, boutiques, hardware stores, choosing what I’ll buy when I have more money. If only you were here too, my love. . . .
But what she liked even more was walking at random, going farther and farther afield, delighted to discover a new bridge, a pretty square, a little church. She walked fast, wrapped in her warm coat, until her legs began to tire. Then she would catch a tram or a bus going back toward the city center.
Dora was right: people here weren’t very good-tempered. Or rather, it was as if they didn’t trust one another. You heard little laughter and few cheerful conversations. The fact was that the people of the capital seemed depressed. Sometimes Helen met a glance from a pair of friendly eyes, but they turned away at once. She soon learned to spot the Phalangist security police and the agents on night duty: men with wary faces, often hidden behind newspapers like something in a bad thriller, but you could easily guess that their ears were working harder than their eyes.
When she got off the tram one afternoon, she found that someone had slipped an invitation to a meeting into her coat pocket, and she thought the wording suggested that it was for people opposed to the Phalange. She thought of the young man who had been sitting beside her; it must have been him who’d given it to her. He had looked attractive and rather nice. “A trap!” cried Dora. “Whatever you do, don’t go!” And she advised Helen never to talk freely to strangers, however friendly they seemed. “New friends, whoever they are, must be introduced to you by someone safe, or it’s better not to trust them.”