The Winter Ghosts

by Kate Mosse

  Fabrissa, too, seemed to be tiring. She did not move, but I sensed a restiveness in her, as if she had already lingered too long. I could feel her slipping away and, much as I wanted to keep her with me, I felt powerless to stop her.

  ‘It’s morning,’ I said, looking down at the village stirring beneath us. ‘I should take you home.’

  Sweat was trickling down between my shoulder blades, though I was shaking, frozen right through. I tried to stand but found that I couldn’t. I raised a heavy hand to my forehead. My skin was hot to the touch.

  ‘Perhaps I could see you again?’ I tripped over my words. ‘Later today. I . . .’

  Did I even speak out loud or only in my head?

  Again, I tried to get up, but my knees buckled. I slumped back to our makeshift bench, feeling ridges of the bark jabbing into my skin.

  ‘Fabrissa . . .’

  It was a struggle to hold my head up. I wanted to free myself, to escape from the prison of my memory.

  ‘I must . . . take you . . . home,’ I repeated, but it came out all wrong. I tried to focus on Fabrissa’s face, on her grey eyes, but there were two girls now, and the image floated in and out of focus. I tried to say her name again, but the word turned to ashes in my mouth.

  ‘Find me,’ she whispered. ‘Find us. Then you can bring me home.’

  ‘Fabr—’

  Was she leaving me, or was I leaving her? My heart turned in on itself.

  ‘Don’t go,’ I murmured. ‘Please. Fabrissa!’

  But she was already too far away. I could not reach her.

  ‘Come and find me,’ she whispered. ‘Find me, Freddie.’

  Then nothing. Only the dreadful knowledge that I was alone once more.

  The Fever Takes Hold

  ‘Monsieur Watson, s’il vous plaît.’

  Someone was calling my name. There was a hand on my shoulder, shaking me. But I did not want to wake.

  ‘Fabrissa . . .’

  ‘Monsieur Watson.’

  My whole body ached. I was stiff everywhere and unpleasantly conscious of the bones along my left side - ribs, hip-bone, knee-joint - pressing against the hard ground. I swept my right arm in an arc around me and felt dust and wooden floorboards beneath my hand.

  I tried to raise my head, but the world spun away from me and I slumped back down. Where was I? Then the same voice, a little louder. Brisk, inviting no argument, like the nurses in the sanatorium.

  ‘Monsieur, s’il vous plaît, vous devez vous lever.’

  ‘Fabrissa?’ I murmured again.

  Again, the hand on my shoulder, strong fingers pressing firmly through to the bone.

  Why were they waking me? I didn’t need their pills. I didn’t want to be awake.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ I muttered, trying to turn over.

  ‘You must get up, monsieur. It is not good for you to lie here.’

  The woman was not going to go away. I forced my eyes open once more. Instead of white starched uniforms and the black shoes of the ward nurses, I saw a pair of wooden clogs.

  Madame Galy. Not the sanatorium, but the boarding house in Nulle. And for some reason I couldn’t immediately fathom, I was lying on the floor. I struggled to push myself into a sitting position, dragging my legs round from under me, then tried to stand.

  ‘Let me help you, monsieur.’ Madame Galy’s strong hand was under my elbow, guiding me to the chair. ‘Here.’

  I slumped down and leaned forward, elbows on my knees, waiting for the spinning to stop.

  ‘Is she here?’

  ‘Is who here, monsieur?’

  ‘Fabrissa,’ I said, my voice rising a little. ‘Did she come back with me? Is she here?’

  ‘There is no one else here,’ she replied. I could detect confusion behind the kindness.

  ‘She’s not here?’ A wave of disappointment seeped into me, like ink through blotting paper, though I told myself it was only to be expected. She would be home in bed by now, of course she would. A glass of white liquid appeared under my nose.

  ‘Drink this.’

  I’d only taken a couple of bitter sips before my fingers started to shake. Madame Galy’s firm, warm hands cupped around mine and helped me to finish. Then she gently removed the glass from me.

  ‘It will help you sleep.’

  I nodded, having long ago lost the habit of asking what this pill did or what that medicine might achieve.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Ten o’clock, monsieur.’

  ‘In the morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked around the room. Clearly, it was morning. Everything was bathed in a flat, white light. The fire had burned out, leaving a pyramid of soft, grey ash in the grate. On the hearth, the bottle and glass, both empty.

  ‘We were concerned when you did not come down to breakfast, monsieur.’

  ‘I had no idea it was so late.’

  I frowned, trying to get the sequence of events clear in my mind. I’d taken a bath, come back to the room to enjoy a cigarette and a drink while I got ready. I looked down at my clothes. I was wearing the tunic and my tweeds, but of the soft leather boots there was no sign. I could not remember taking them off. I shook my head and a kaleidoscope of colours exploded behind my eyes. I clutched at my temples to control the pain.

  ‘Shall I send for a doctor, monsieur?’ Madame Galy said quickly.

  ‘No, no. No doctors.’

  The spinning in my head slowed and then finally stopped altogether. Why did I have no memory of leaving Fabrissa and making my way back to the boarding house? I had evidently removed my boots and started to undress, but then what? Had I fainted?

  ‘What time did I come back, do you know?’

  ‘Back, monsieur?’

  ‘From the Ostal? Someone must have heard me.’

  There was some quality of caution in her silence, I could tell Madame Galy was struggling with something, perhaps something she wanted to say but dared not.

  I wonder how much she knew then about everything that had happened. I was aware that the fever had already taken hold, but I didn’t care. All that mattered at that cold moment in the boarding house in Nulle was why Fabrissa was not with me.

  Why had she left me?

  I leaned back in the chair. What could I remember? The early part of the evening, yes, that was clear. Crossing the place de l’Église, down the alleyway beside the church in the frost. Stars, diamonds in the sky, my fingers cold in my pocket holding the hand-drawn map. Finding the Ostal, Guillaume Marty welcoming me and introducing me to other guests. The heat from the fire and the lilting melody of the troubadour’s voice, the ebb and flow of conversation.

  And Fabrissa.

  I caught my breath. Fabrissa, yes, talking and talking. Laying bare my soul and feeling awkward, but also knowing that my burden had been lightened. And then the trouble had started and the gathering had ended in a brawl. Yes, I remembered that. But we had left, Fabrissa and I, hadn’t we, because she told me it would be all right? The memory of the dust and the cobwebs in the tunnel, our hands tearing against splintered wood, then emerging blinking into the tail end of the night on the hillside to the west of the village. And how we sat beside the dewpond as dawn broke, her turn to confide in me. Telling stories of loss and remembrance.

  Hadn’t we?

  I launched myself out of the chair and across the room in a couple of strides. I pulled the windows open, sending the frame banging back against the wall, and thrust myself out as far as I dared. I needed to see the place on the hill where we had sat. Had to prove to myself it was there. Icy air rushed into the room and wrapped itself around me, though I do not believe I could feel it.

  I felt Madame Galy’s hand on my arm. ‘Monsieur, please, come back inside. You will make yourself ill.’

  ‘Up there,’ I said, waving in the direction of the rising sun. ‘That’s where we were.’

  I saw the concern in her kind face and was about to reassure her, when I suddenly became aware of
the texture of the light in the room. The place de l’Église was covered in a thin dusting of snow.

  ‘When did it start snowing?’

  ‘In the early hours, monsieur. Three or four o’clock.’

  I spun round to face her. ‘You must be mistaken. It was certainly not snowing when I came in and that was . . .’ I stopped, for in truth I could not remember. ‘I don’t know precisely,’ I admitted. ‘It was already light.’

  It had not been cold enough to snow, I told myself, but my confidence was swiftly eroded. I looked down at my thin, bare arms. My skin was rough with goosebumps and my knuckles, braced tight on the sill, bulged blue.

  ‘It must have been later,’ I insisted, pointing down at the pristine snow beneath my window. ‘See, no marks. It must have begun to snow after I returned.’

  ‘You should rest, monsieur,’ she said gently. It was clear she did not believe me. Discouraged now, I stepped back from the window and allowed her to fasten the windows. The hinges squealed and a sliver of snow fell from the rim to the floor beneath the sill. Then she closed the shutters, too, barricading us against the world. The metal catch fell into place with a rattle.

  ‘You must have heard me come back,’ I insisted.

  Madame Galy sighed. ‘It is not simply a matter of when the snow started,’ she said, obviously reluctant to be forced into admitting as much.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  She paused, choosing her words with the greatest care. ‘Are you certain, monsieur, that you did go out at all? I did not see you at the Ostal last night. None of the other guests saw you. I was worried you had got lost.’

  ‘But that’s . . . ridiculous.’

  ‘I concluded that you must have thought better of coming out in the cold. It was only when you did not come down this morning that I began to worry you might be unwell.’

  I became aware that I was swaying. Hoping to disguise my unsteadiness, I propped my shoulder against the wall. The paper was old, a repeated pattern of blue and pink meadow flowers, faded in strips where the sun had sucked the colour from it.

  ‘Monsieur, please,’ she said. ‘You should sit.’

  I crossed my arms. ‘I quite clearly remember putting on the tunic,’ I glanced down, ‘this tunic, and the boots. I left the letter on the counter in reception downstairs, then headed out. Ten o’clock on the button. ’ I paused. ‘Did you find the letter?’

  ‘I did,’ she said carefully, ‘but I assumed you had left it there, then returned to your room, monsieur. Monsieur Galy says he did not hear you leave.’

  I had no answer to that. It was clear she was increasingly concerned for my mental state. Perhaps she thought I was still drunk or suffering the after-effects of yesterday’s smash. Her eyes flicked away from mine for an instant, then immediately back as though there was something she did not want me to see. Too late, too slow, mocked the voice in my head. The spiteful voice I had heard so often in the sanatorium, setting me against the doctors and nurses, but had thought I had long since vanquished.

  The borrowed boots were lying beneath the table. Had I kicked them off when I’d returned to the room? I could see they were pristine. No evidence that they had been worn outside, certainly not in the snow. The toes had no tell-tale stains of frost or dew. I felt the turn-ups on my trousers. They, too, were dry.

  ‘Look, I remember quite clearly walking to the Ostal.’ I spoke slowly, carefully placing one word in front of the other, as a drunk considers each step before taking it. ‘I followed your map to the letter. Across the square, along the passageway to the left of the church—’

  ‘The left? You should have gone right.’

  I kept talking. ‘Well, it served me just as well in the end. I did linger a moment at the crossroads, a bit of a labyrinth in that quartier behind the church, as you’d warned me, but pretty soon I got my bearings—’

  ‘Crossroads, monsieur?’

  ‘—and found the Ostal with no difficulty. There was quite a crowd there, everyone dressed up for the fête, as you had promised, so it’s quite possible, don’t you think, that you simply missed me in the crowd.’

  Her expression was beginning to alarm me. Sympathetic, but genuinely worried. I had seen such an expression before on the face of the ward sister at the sanatorium on the evening I was admitted. An inexplicable gulf, now as then, between the logic of my world and of theirs. I steamed on all the same.

  ‘I’m relieved to see you didn’t come to any harm in the uproar, Madame Galy. I was worried you might have been hurt.’

  ‘Hurt, monsieur?’

  ‘Fabrissa said not to worry. Part of the tradition of the fête, I suppose, but I don’t mind telling you, I was taken in. It looked real enough. But, of course, that was much later. Perhaps you had gone already.’ I knew I was talking too loudly and too fast, but I couldn’t help myself. ‘A pleasant chap, by the name of Guillaume Marty, took me in hand, introduced me to . . .’ I faltered, trying to recall the names. ‘Two sisters, a widow, Na Azéma . . .’

  Madame Galy was silent. She had given up trying to reason with me. My confidence cracked a little more.

  ‘ . . . and a husband and wife by the name of Authier, yes, and so many of your other neighbours. But most of the evening I spent in the company of a charming girl.’ I hesitated, suddenly shy. ‘Fabrissa. Do you know her?’

  I met Madame Galy’s stare and saw pity in her eyes. A sharp memory of Mother that day in the restaurant near Piccadilly, and the contrasting look upon her face. Not pity then, but distaste. I blinked, furious that such a worthless memory, and one of many such, still hurt me.

  I tried again.

  ‘A most striking girl, with long dark hair worn loose. Pale complexion. The most astonishing grey eyes. You must know her.’

  Madame Galy shifted. ‘I know no one of that name,’ she said.

  ‘Well. Well, maybe she came as someone’s guest?’

  Before the words were out of my mouth, I knew that was unlikely. If Fabrissa had come with someone else, would she have talked to me all night? Would she have left with me?

  ‘Then again, she might,’ I mumbled to myself. ‘If she liked me.’

  I remembered something else, proof of a kind. ‘My coat,’ I said vigorously. ‘I left it in the lobby of the Ostal. When the brawl started, in my hurry to get us away, I forgot all about it. It must still be there.’

  She held her gaze steady. ‘Your coat is still hanging on the hook by the front door where I myself hung it up to dry yesterday evening.’

  ‘Well, someone must have brought it back for me,’ I shot back, though, in truth, the fight had gone out of me. I couldn’t make sense of things. Madame Galy’s evidence contradicted my recollection of the evening. What more could be said?

  ‘Fabrissa must have found it and brought it back,’ I muttered. Where was she now?

  I was shivering. My feet were suddenly painful on the bare floorboards. I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling my ribs beneath the thin tunic.

  Madame Galy put her arm around me. ‘You should lie down, monsieur.’

  ‘Someone must know her,’ I said, though I allowed her to steer me off the chair and towards the bed. She turned away as I took off my trousers, then she lifted the eiderdown and I obediently climbed in. How easily I slipped back into the role of patient. Individual pockets of shiny material hemmed into tight squares of the eiderdown, the colour of nicotine. She pulled it up to my chin, patted it down. Where was Fabrissa? Fragments of our conversation were coming back to me, the awful tragedy of what had happened to her family.

  ‘Was there much enemy activity around here during the War?’ I asked.

  If Madame Galy was surprised at this change of tack, she did not show it. I realise now, of course, she was humouring me. Like the doctors and nurses in the hospital. Rule One: do nothing to provoke or agitate the patient.

  ‘There was a prison camp near here for prisoners of the Germans at Le Vernet,’ she replied, ‘but it is some distance from here.’<
br />
  ‘I meant rather more along the lines of German units operating in the area? Unofficial action.’

  She leaned across me to fuss at the counterpane. Busy, busy hands.

  ‘We lost many of our young men fighting in the north. Monsieur Galy and I . . .’ She stopped and, for a moment, before she managed to mask it, raw pain flared in her eyes. To my shame, I did not press her. It was only later I learned what had happened to her. To her family.

  ‘No rogue units?’

  ‘No, monsieur. There was no fighting here.’

  I sank back against the bolster. Fabrissa’s descriptions of the raid on the village, how they’d all fled into the mountains. Her brother. These were real experiences, vividly remembered.

  ‘So Nulle itself never came under attack? No raid, no evacuation, nothing?’

  ‘No.’

  Had I misunderstood? It was possible, certainly. Was it also possible that I had blurred Fabrissa’s story with my own? Again, I supposed it was. I closed my eyes. Was I a man who could tell true from false? That’s what Fabrissa asked me last evening. Then, I had been sure. But now? Now I was no longer certain the question had even been asked.

  ‘But it is such a sad place,’ I heard myself saying. ‘When I arrived, I felt there was something, some shadow hanging over the village.’

  Madame Galy stopped her housekeeping.

  ‘It was different in the Ostal last night,’ I continued. ‘There - at least, until the trouble started - everyone seemed in good spirits.’

  As if a switch had been flicked, she resumed her fussing. Still she said nothing. She replaced the chair in its position at the table and hung my trousers over the clothes horse.

  ‘Is there anything else you need, monsieur?’

  There was nothing I could think of. But I realised I wished she would stay. Her presence was comforting.

  ‘I’m sorry to be such a bother . . .’

  ‘I am happy to do it, monsieur.’ She picked up the empty liqueur bottle and glass and put them on the tray. ‘I will look in on you in an hour or so,’ she said. ‘Now you should sleep.’