The Longest Winter

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘The proprietor thinks you are beautiful,’ said James.

  ‘There, you see, he is the kind of flatterer who will make me think I am,’ said Sophie.

  The proprietor re-emerged, bringing the coffee on a tray, the earthenware pot full, the cups rattling. He bowed the tray on to the table. He beamed at Sophie.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he said again, at which Sophie laughed and shook her head and James smiled. The proprietor chuckled happily as he disappeared. Anne returned to her chair. Sophie busied herself pouring coffee. James turned and eyed the view again as he stirred his coffee. The range of mountain heights was sharp under the light of the clarifying sun.

  ‘If you want to sketch,’ said Sophie, ‘we don’t mind.’

  ‘He’s dying to, aren’t you, James?’ said Anne. ‘So please do.’

  He opened up his sketchbook. With his pencil he began to put down soft, sweeping impressions. The sisters watched him, Anne with interest, Sophie with a sensitive awareness that images were changing for her. He was still sketching when they had finished the coffee.

  Anne said, ‘Do you think the proprietor will give us lunch? If not, we can drive up to Jajce and have it there. James?’

  James allowed himself to be interrupted. He rattled his cup in the saucer. It brought the proprietor out after a moment or so. He blinked sleepy but amiable eyes.

  ‘Lunch?’ said James. ‘In an hour, perhaps?’

  The proprietor reached for the coffee pot.

  ‘Good, yes?’ he said.

  ‘No, not more coffee,’ said James in his now not quite so erratic German, ‘food.’

  ‘Ah, so. I do you good food.’

  ‘In an hour,’ said James.

  ‘Good,’ said the genial fat one. He looked at Sophie and Anne, his beam plumply happy for them. ‘Beautiful,’ he said yet again, then returned to his chair in the shady comfort of his café.

  ‘Anne,’ said Sophie, ‘we have made a hit. Which is rather nice these days when it’s only motor cars that make a hit with most men. Perhaps our good proprietor will treat us to an excellent lunch. We shall pay for it, you and I, because we would like to treat James for once, wouldn’t we? Isn’t it intriguing to notice how people of rather stout proportions are nearly always much more affable than everyone else? Do you remember the story about the fat man of Salzburg? His smile was wider than his front door, and he was always smiling, and when he laughed the church bells shook, and the only thing that worried him were his extraordinarily large feet. He grew fatter each year and when at last he was so fat that he could no longer see his feet he laughed so much that the church bells chimed.’

  James, for all his concentration, said, ‘Oh, good God, Sophie.’

  Anne said, ‘But, Sophie, if he was always smiling and his smile was wider than his front door, how did he get through it?’

  ‘Oh, he took a deep breath,’ said Sophie coolly, ‘and edged out sideways.’

  James laughed.

  ‘It’s difficult for a fat man to hold a deep breath,’ said Anne.

  ‘Naturally,’ said Sophie, ‘there were times when he got stuck.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘He laughed,’ said Sophie.

  ‘And brought the house down,’ said James.

  Inside the café the sleepy proprietor chuckled. It was good to hear people laughing. They were all laughing, those three. They were nice people.

  ‘I think we’re interrupting James,’ said Anne.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, James,’ said Sophie. ‘Anne, let us leave him to it for a while. We can walk up to the top of the village and look around. There may be a shop. They sell braid and lace in some of these places.’

  ‘Watch out for the fleas,’ said James as the girls rose.

  ‘Fleas?’ said Anne a little uncertainly.

  ‘They don’t sell them, not in these places,’ said James, ‘they give them away.’

  ‘Well, whatever they give us we’ll share with you,’ said Sophie generously. She and Anne walked up through the village. People began to materialize in doorways. The women in embroidered blouses and braided skirts were silent but curious. Here and there a shy smile peeped.

  James sketched on for a while, then sat back. The mountains which were so clear in this light cried out for colour. He mused on them. It was very quiet without Sophie and Anne. One missed their infectious animation. He got up. The small church of whitewashed stone and red tiles stood back from the street. It was a simple, four-cornered building with a small open belfry. He walked from the tavern and turned to meander along the church path. The grass on either side already looked parched. There was a wooden bench. He sat down and sketched an outline. He looked up, at the belfry and the red roof, studied his outline and began again on a new sheet. He heard the sudden murmur of voices. The tavern had new customers. He finished his drawing, it did not displease him. But he would never make money at it. Not the kind of money he was beginning to think about. He would have to go back home some time and talk to the guv’nor about things. Things would have to embrace car designing. He returned to the tavern. He heard men talking but did not understand the language. There were many different tongues in the Balkans. But as he came round to the little patio, sheltered by faded awning, he heard someone say in German, ‘Ah, so, an archduke is just as much an archduke in Ilidze as in Sarajevo.’

  It startled him. He stopped. The voices stopped. In blank silence four men at a table looked at him. They were in dark suits, black hats and tieless shirts. They were swarthy, their faces impassive but their eyes flickering with suspicion. They knew him for a man who did not belong here.

  ‘Good day to you,’ said James. He moved and sat down. He had spoken in English, instinctively rejecting German. Three of the men were uncomprehending. The fourth responded.

  ‘Good day,’ he said gutturally.

  James smiled and nodded. The proprietor came out and gabbled to the men. Then he turned to James and said in German, ‘Soon, food. Good.’

  ‘Good,’ said James in English. There was not much difference. He began to sketch again. After a while the four men resumed their conversation, arms on the table, heads leaning in. The man who had responded to James had a fine, expressive face and eyes of brilliant brown. His chin was dark with stubble and he had a pallor to his skin as if he had been too long out of the sun. James lit a cigarette and went on with his sketching, glancing occasionally at the pale man.

  A shadow fell across the veined marble table and a hand placed itself on his sketch. He looked up. It was the pale man.

  ‘What is this you do?’ asked the man in German.

  ‘You are saying?’ said James in English.

  ‘What’s that? Come, you understand me. What is this drawing?’

  James turned the pad and showed him. It was a likeness of the man himself.

  ‘Perhaps not very good,’ said James, resigning himself to German.

  ‘Why have you done this?’ The man was studying the drawing intently.

  ‘Oh, the impulse of my kind.’

  ‘What kind is that?’ The man was curt, suspicious.

  ‘I’m an artist of sorts.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘England. Oh, and Scotland.’ James smiled. ‘And where are you from?’

  ‘Here,’ said the man and waved an arm to expansively embrace all Bosnia, but his eyes were still on the sketch. ‘Have you done this to show to someone?’

  ‘Sometimes I show my work to friends. Would you like to have this?’

  ‘I will have it.’ The man ripped the stiff sheet from the pad, folded it and stuffed it into his pocket. He went into the tavern. Rickety chairs stood around wooden tables, the tables scrubbed and clean. Behind the polished black marble counter was an array of earthenware coffee pots and china, bottles and glasses. The man called, ‘Joja!’ The proprietor emerged from the kitchen. ‘Joja, who’s that stranger?’

  The proprietor shrugged. ‘He came with two young women and asked for co
ffee and food. That’s all I know.’

  ‘So. The two women are up in the village, looking. What are they looking for?’

  ‘Who is a magician? I am not. So how should I know? Listen, Dobrovic,’ said Joja, ‘sometimes people come in the summer to look and to buy braid. Then they go away. No one ever comes to stay.’

  ‘He’s not here to buy braid,’ said the man Dobrovic. ‘He heard Lazar say something, then he made a drawing. Of me. Look at it.’ He took the sketch out and showed it to Joja.

  ‘Ah, it is good,’ said Joja with placating good humour. Dobrovic was a touchy fellow at times. ‘You see? He’s an artist. Sometimes artists come here too.’

  Dobrovic spat on the floor.

  ‘Artist the devil, he’s a police agent more like. They come nosing too sometimes. This drawing, it’s me, isn’t it? A man with half an eye could see that. He’ll show it to the police if I give it back to him and the police will ask me what I was doing at Kontic when I’m not supposed to leave Mostar. Well, our number one comrade will be here soon and we’ll see what he has to say about artists and prying women.’

  ‘There’s to be no trouble,’ said Joja, ‘Avriarches won’t like it.’

  ‘Is that roaring thief still running this district?’ scowled Dobrovic.

  ‘What can we do?’ Joja spread his hands. ‘The police at Jajce are in his pocket as much as we are.’

  ‘You are, we aren’t,’ said Dobrovic, ‘but he has his uses sometimes.’

  Sophie and Anne returned. They arrived like the bright graces of summer. They made the four men stare. James was relieved to have them back. There was an atmosphere he did not like. He felt the men had been carefully watching him, scrutinizing him. Now they turned their eyes on the girls. Joja brought the food out. Anne and Sophie were delighted. There were trout, swimming in sauce, and salad containing something of everything, green with lettuce, red with tomatoes, rich with juicy cucumber and laced with sliced beans and peppers.

  ‘Good?’ said Joja with a confident beam.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Anne.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Beautiful,’ said Joja and smiled happily under his bushy black moustache. It was as well Avriarches was high in the hills. He might have been tempted by these two. They looked aristocratic. Avriarches liked high-born women. ‘Ah, well, good appetite,’ he said and went away.

  He returned with a bottle of wine from a southern vineyard, and persuaded them to have it. It was just right, light dry and delicate. They enjoyed their lunch.

  ‘Who’d have thought it?’ said Anne. ‘So out of the way, so small, yet such a good meal.’

  ‘I don’t think civilization stops beyond Vienna or is anything to do with the size of a place,’ said Sophie. She wondered why the four men sat so silently at their table near the café door. ‘I expect one could sit on the top of a hill and be just as cultured and civilized as a million people in a large city.’

  ‘One could point to Diogenes, who lived in a tub,’ said James.

  ‘Was that civilized?’ said Anne. ‘Or uncomfortable?’

  ‘That was mortification of the flesh for the purification of the soul,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Poor soul,’ said Anne.

  ‘This is hardly mortifying, is it?’ said Sophie, dissecting her trout.

  ‘It is for the trout,’ said James. He engaged in light conversation with the baronesses, but felt the silence of the four men was a heavy, brooding one. They were drinking endless cups of coffee and saying not a word. The man Dobrovic referred to his tin pocket watch from time to time. At the finish of the meal James rose.

  ‘I must pay,’ he said and went inside. Joja woke up and stood up. He brushed his moustache and smiled.

  ‘You wish?’ he said.

  ‘How much?’ asked James.

  Joja totted it all up on his fingers. He named an amount which James thought incredibly cheap. It brought Joja a handsome tip. He was more than happy.

  ‘It was good?’ he said.

  ‘Very good,’ said James, ‘and thank you.’

  ‘You go to Jajce now? Yes, very nice there. You go now.’

  ‘We weren’t thinking of that, only of returning to Ilidze.’

  ‘Ilidze, that is nice too,’ said Joja, ‘you come back and see me another day, yes? Make you more good food. Ah, you are a fortunate young man.’

  ‘You think so?’ James liked the fat man.

  ‘Beautiful,’ smiled Joja and spread his hands. James knew what he meant and patted the proprietor on the shoulder. Joja bustled him out, anxious apparently to see him on his way with his young ladies. Outside a horse-drawn cart had pulled up and a man was dismounting. An earnest-looking man in a dark suit and wide-brimmed black hat. Dobrovic went to meet him. They shook hands. James received a little shock. The newcomer was Boris Ferenac. Ferenac saw him while his ears listened to Dobrovic. He said something to Dobrovic. Dobrovic rattled off a long sentence. Ferenac pushed him aside and strode to the tables. Sophie was finishing the last of her wine.

  ‘Lazar,’ said Ferenac, ignoring James. The man Lazar got up and Ferenac pushed him inside the café, then turned savagely on him. ‘You fool,’ he said, ‘with your mouth as loud as a donkey’s – a German donkey’s.’

  ‘German – that was for friend Shuckmeister’s benefit,’ said Lazar, ‘he fumbles about in our language. And how was I to know that man was behind me? But it was nothing he took any notice of.’

  ‘Idiot,’ hissed Ferenac, ‘he’s a man who’d take a lot of notice. He’s heard things before and asked a child about me. He’s supposed to be a teacher—’

  ‘He’s an artist,’ said Joja.

  ‘Oh, so now he’s an artist, is he?’ said Ferenac and sucked at his teeth. Life, it seemed, was no longer a matter of secretive smiles. It had become troublesome. ‘He knows the son of Count Lundt-Hausen, the police superintendent of Vienna. I saw them together. Do you like the sound of that? I don’t. He’s drawn a likeness of Dobrovic and can no doubt do the same with the rest of you. But not with me. He knows me. He and I have met. This is a coincidence which is perhaps not a coincidence. And those damn women with him, they’ve been nosing about, Dobrovic says.’

  ‘We weren’t going to let them go, not until you came,’ said Lazar.

  ‘Look,’ said Joja, ‘don’t make trouble, nobody keeps healthy on trouble, and they’re nice people.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Ferenac. ‘If they’re informers there has to be trouble and we’re taking no chances with the day so close. I don’t want the police tapping me on the shoulder in Ilidze. Lazar, you go for Avriarches. He’ll take care of the women. I’ll look after the informer. We will make it seem as if Avriarches took all three of them.’

  ‘Informer, bah,’ said Joja, ‘he’s an artist, he’s been drawing everything. It’s madness to encourage Avriarches to take those young women, you’ll bring the whole Austrian army and police force down on us.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Ferenac again. ‘A man who was a teacher with friends in high places, and who now says he’s an artist hasn’t come here at a time like this looking for things to paint. He’s looking for us, for me. Well, he has found me. He’ll wish he hadn’t. Off you go, Lazar.’

  Lazar slipped out. Joja looked worried. Outside Anne and Sophie were ready to go. They were putting up their parasols and James was fidgeting to get them moving. Ferenac came out and interposed himself.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked James.

  ‘I wondered if you’d recognized me,’ said James amiably. ‘It’s a small world sometimes. Are you living in Bosnia now?’

  ‘What is it to you where I live?’ said Ferenac. ‘But now we’ve met again, sit down and we’ll talk. Joja will bring us coffee.’

  ‘I’ve had coffee, thanks all the same,’ said James, ‘and we have to get back to Ilidze.’

  ‘Ilidze?’ Ferenac’s eyes narrowed. He gestured. There were three other men now that Lazar had gone. The village was quieter than ever
as they moved to bar the way to James and the baronesses. ‘You,’ he said to the sisters, ‘go inside.’

  Sophie drew herself up very coolly and said, ‘I am not in your charge, neither is my sister.’

  ‘Goodbye, Ferenac,’ said James. He gave Anne his sketch book, then took both girls by the arm and moved forward, turning to avoid the men. The men shifted their position, presenting a more solid barrier. ‘Don’t be damned silly,’ said James.

  Anne trembled. Something very unpleasant seemed to be happening. James swore to himself. He felt he knew what it was all about now that Ferenac had arrived. It was all about assassination. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was in Bosnia for the Austrian army manoeuvres. A good archduke is a dead one.

  ‘You’ll be wise to do as you’re told,’ said Ferenac. Joja came out and said something. ‘Shut up,’ said Ferenac and jabbed his elbow into the proprietor’s round stomach. Joja gasped. ‘You, my friend,’ said Ferenac, ‘get these women out of the way. Inside. Nothing will happen to them as long as they’re sensible.’

  ‘Let us pass, please,’ said Anne bravely, ‘then nothing will happen to you.’

  James squeezed her arm. Sophie was becoming icy, looking at Ferenac as if his species could not be classified.

  ‘You’ll be carried inside if you don’t walk,’ said Ferenac.

  Sophie felt James tensing with anger. She did not want him to do anything foolish. She said, ‘We’ll go inside for a moment, Anne. Come along.’ She turned and took Anne into the tavern with her. James followed in seething fury. Inside Joja stood pulling at his moustache, uneasily avoiding the eyes of the baronesses.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said to James, ‘it is not—’

  ‘For the last time, will you shut up?’ said Ferenac, crowding in with his men.

  ‘For your own sake,’ said James, ‘let me tell you that various people in Ilidze know we’re here. They’ll expect us back this afternoon.’