“Do you know what time there’d be a bus going up there?” she asked.
“There’s one that leaves from the bus station at twelve thirty, but you’re surely not going to . . . Why, you haven’t even eaten!”
Helen was already on her feet. “If I run, I can catch it.”
She put her coat on, checked that she had enough money in her purse for a ticket, and ran back to Octavo, who was still splashing about in the tub.
“I’m off again, Octavo darling. Sorry.”
“I know. You have to leave because if you’re not back, they’ll put someone else in the black hole.”
It took Helen several seconds to realize what he was talking about.
“Oh no, that was at the school! I’m not there anymore now. I’m free. I can come and go at random!”
“Where’s Random? Will you take me there with you?”
She burst out laughing. “I mean I can go where I like. And yes, I’ll take you around with me sometime.”
“Promise?” asked the child, drawing a design in bath foam on Helen’s cheek.
“Promise. As soon as things are better again.”
She hugged Marguerite as if she’d known her forever, and ran down the stairs. “Any message for your sister?” she called up from the yard.
“Yes, tell her I’ve put Octavo down for school!”
She ran along the riverbank, the front of her coat still wet from Octavo’s bathwater, retracing the way she had gone several months earlier in the middle of the night when she was looking for the Wooden Bridge. She hadn’t known at the time that she was soon to be reunited with Milena. And now she’d lost touch with her again.
The bus station was quiet, but Helen noticed several soldiers pacing up and down in their khaki uniforms, with guns in their hands. They were clearly on a war footing. She swiftly boarded the almost empty bus bound north. Once she was seated, she had time to think about what she had done. Yes, she was leaving the capital just at the moment when it looked as if the fighting were about to begin; yes, she would have to be back in a few days’ time for the winter fights, supposing they were held. But a force ten times stronger had made her catch this dingy bus to go find Paula. She couldn’t abandon the woman who had been so good to her, not after Paula had comforted her when sadness and despair threatened to overwhelm her. She wouldn’t let Paula down. She could never forgive herself if she did.
With nothing to read, it was a long journey. At every village people got out of or onto the bus, taking no notice of one another. The red-faced driver manhandled his vehicle around the bends and up slopes, tooting angrily at everyone else on the road as if they had no right to be there. Late in the afternoon he stopped outside a café, went in, and didn’t come out. Gradually the passengers followed him, and soon they were all inside. The room was dark and smoky. Helen sat down at the end of one table. Steaming bowls of soup were passed over her head, and plates of ham or omelettes. Her stomach was crying out with hunger. She looked in her purse, but it contained just enough for her to buy her return ticket.
“Aren’t you eating anything, young lady?” the man on her left asked. She recognized him as one of her neighbors in the bus.
“No, I’m not hungry.”
“Not hungry or short of cash? Come on, I saw you counting your pennies; there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone has a right to eat, you know!”
He was about fifty. She had no time to protest; he was already summoning the waitress. “An omelette for the young lady, please.”
As she emptied her plate, he turned away from her to talk to other people, perhaps to keep her from feeling awkward.
“Where are you going?” he asked when she had finished her omelette.
She told him her destination, and he looked surprised. “Do you think you’ll get that far?”
“Why not?”
“They say there’s trouble there. Barricades. No one’s being let into the town. Now, how about a coffee?”
Night had fallen by the time they set off again. The shared meal had loosened the passengers’ tongues, and for several miles the cheerful sound of conversation mingled with the purring of the engine. Then the conversation gradually died down and most of the passengers dozed off. Helen, who had no one sitting beside her now, took off her shoes, put her feet up on the seat, and used her coat as a blanket to keep her knees and elbows warm.
As she dropped off to sleep, she thought of Octavo wanting to go to “Random” with her. Then she wondered again how Paula came to have her little boy and who his father was. Her consoler had told her many of her secrets, but never that one! She just used to laugh and call Helen nosy if she persisted in asking.
She was woken by the cold. The bus had stopped, and the folding doors had opened, letting in a blast of icy air. The driver was standing in the aisle, looking at her impatiently.
“Here you are, miss. This is where you get out.”
She got to her feet, looked around her, and saw that she was the last remaining passenger. The bus was empty. Night surrounded them.
“But we haven’t reached the bus station!”
“I’m not going there. There’s fighting. I can do without any trouble.”
Helen stood on the step, frightened. “Surely you’re not just going to leave me here!”
He didn’t even bother to reply.
“At least tell me where the town is.”
“That way. Follow the road and you’ll get there. Or you can take the shortcut over the hill there. Got a flashlight with you?”
Helen was surprised. “The hill? You mean where the consolers live?”
“That’s the one. Good night, then.” He touched her shoulder with his fingertips, not even trying to hide his impatience. “Make up your mind, won’t you? Want me to push you out?”
She wasn’t going to spend any longer arguing with the driver. She got out. Did the man have a daughter of her age, she wondered, and if so would he have liked the idea of her being left alone in this deserted spot in the middle of the night?
She didn’t have a flashlight. She decided that the best thing would be to go on along the road, reach the town, and then take the route she knew so well over the bridge and on into the village. She stood there motionless until the sound of the engine had died away entirely and then started walking. After going only a little way she stopped short: she caught the sound of dogs barking over in the direction of the town. Their excited yapping could be distinctly heard in the silence and seemed to be coming closer. She shivered, turned on her heel, and made for the hill.
The moon shed faint light on the rising path. She stumbled on rocks several times but reached the top of the hill without hurting herself. The wind was blowing in gusts, and her teeth were chattering. The rooftops of the first of the consolers’ houses came into sight below her. She tried to see the town or the river in the distance, but they were hidden in the night.
Following the road through the village, she felt nervous. There was something wrong here. The place was sleeping, certainly, but it was an uneasy sleep. She saw one front door standing wide open. A shutter swung in the wind. She quickened her pace. When she came to the fountain, she took the familiar little road to her right. Marguerite’s words came back to her: “I haven’t heard anything from my sister for over a month.” What would she do if Paula wasn’t at home? Where would she sleep?
The farther she went, the more certain she was that the houses to the right and left of the road had been abandoned. She could sense their emptiness, as if the large forms of the consolers no longer warmed them with their sheer size. She stopped at Number 47, her heart thudding. The light of a candle trembled on the other side of the window. She looked through the window and saw Paula.