The Prince and the Nun

by Jacqueline George

  Chapter 34

  Mefist had joined her for a walk. The day was ideal for it; high cloud kept the sun away, and the east wind they had suffered from for the past few days meant the snow was cold and free-running. Therese followed behind him, using his tracks and sliding easily. She had become used to skis now, and traveling uphill came more easily than it had done.

  They stopped at the top of the cleared ride above the castle. Therese had not been further than this before, and she was glad of the opportunity to rest for a while.

  “We’re very lucky here,” said Mefist, “Having the forest so conveniently near. With this clearing too. The view is wonderful on clear days, all the way down to the castle. I should think an artist could spend years just wandering up and down this ride, painting pictures of the different seasons. Here, try this.” He pulled a silver hip flask from inside his jacket and passed it over.

  The fiery liquor trickled warmly down to her stomach. Then, just as she leant over her skis to give the flask back, he whispered, “Still!” A hundred metres away, she saw a movement at the edge of the forest. Something was coming. An elk shouldered its way through the bushes and stepped onto the open ride. Therese froze, still with her arm out-stretched. They watched as the big animal walked without fear across the ride and disappeared into the trees and they could breathe again.

  “What good luck!” said Mefist. “The gods are being kind to us. Shall we go on up?”

  Therese felt doubtful, but with Mefist she was prepared to try anything. They swung into the trees and kept climbing. The trees closed around them, and they skied over ice fragments that had dropped from their branches. Therese realized that Maria must have come this way on her epic trip. “How far did Maria go, Mefist?”

  “Oh, a long way past here. Ten or twelve kilometres. She did well for someone who wasn’t used to skiing. Has she ever come back?”

  “I don’t think she likes skiing very much. She goes for short walks with Lamoreaux, but I don’t think she’d go out by herself. Unless she had to.”

  “I love skiing in the forest. It’s good walking in summer as well, but nothing compares to swishing down the tracks in winter.” He stopped at a fork in the track. “Here we are. Rado’s post box.” An old beech hung over the track. Reaching into a hole in the trunk, he pulled out a sealed envelope. “Mmh, delivery to the village. And here’s the return, Army paper work.” He folded a bulky envelope and forced it into the hole.

  “It’s a real postal service!” said Therese.

  “Yes. The patrols check it every day. It’s usually just letters to and from the village, but, as Rado is beginning to find, being an officer in the Imperial Army means bureaucracy is never far away. That’s the way Maria went, by the way. Rado’s camp is along there and up the hill. It’s quite cosy. Shall we plan to spend a weekend together there?”

  “You’re not inviting me away for a dirty weekend, are you, Mefist? I’m a single girl, so I shall have to refuse.”

  “Oh well, it was worth making the suggestion. We’ll go up this way; there’s a nice view not so far away. Hey, stop! Listen!” Therese strained her ears to hear above the noises of the trees. An insistent drone was intruding into the peace. “Coalition planes,” said Mefist. “Coming this way.”

  “Are we safe?”

  “Of course. They’ll never see us in the trees, and even if they did, they will have gone before they could do anything about it. Here they come, look, to the left of Tergov. Oh, the men are shooting at them. That’ll be a surprise.” As Therese scanned the horizon near Tergov, she could see flashes and smoke. Shells burst in the sky in distant puffs of cloud, and now she could see the black spots of the planes weaving and scattering as they passed through the barrage. Then they collected themselves together and continued their progress. Therese watched in awe as the camouflaged planes ground past between her and the village. They were not flying very high, and she could see figures through the cockpit canopies.

  “Light bombers,” said Mefist. “They’ll probably be looking for railway targets. Bridges, tunnels. Let’s hope they miss.”

  They skied on across the forested slopes until the track swung out to pass around a rocky nose. Mefist unbuckled his skis and stamped his feet. “There! Look at that.” They looked out over a sea of dark treetops, beech and oak, swept clean by the wind. Through the nearer trees, the snow blanket could be seen beneath them. White snow shone far away in the distance, where the forest ended and the fields began. The castle was small and distant, with the white finger of the ride probing up towards them.

  “I had no idea we’d come so far,” said Therese. “I hope we can get back before it gets dark.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be back in the castle in half an hour, you’ll see.” The long, near-continuous slide back felt deeply satisfying, and Mefist was right; half an hour after standing on the rocky outcrop, they walked up from the wagon park with their skis on their shoulders.

  The Bishop’s letter waited for her in her office. She tore open the envelope and two sheets fell out. The first letter was addressed to her as chatelaine of Montebello. It gave the Bishop’s sympathy and exhorted her and her sisters to strength in this hour of trial. It ended by eagerly looking forward to their return to their vows as soon as the current difficult situation would allow. Good, she thought, we’re safe!

  The other letter was hand-written, apparently by the Bishop himself. It addressed her as “My Dear Sister Therese” and told how nice it had been to hear from her the other day. She swallowed a biting retort and read on. In view of the current uncertain times, it is probably best to send the money to Switzerland. This is not a matter that should be discussed with others; in fact, I would ask you to keep the matter between us, as the political implications of sending church money abroad might be misunderstood. At the end of the letter were an account number and the address of the Credit Suisse bank in Hauptbahnhofstrasse, Zurich.

  She was surprised and then, as she thought about the second letter, her surprise developed into suspicion. She hurried down to Mefist to beg a car and went to see Rebecca.

  She was returning to the car outside Isaac’s shop. Andrei was holding the car door open for her to enter when two children hurried up. They were calling, “Food, Your Honour, can you give us food?” Andrei rushed to intercept them, but Therese ordered him back and looked at the children. A boy and a girl, dark and dirty, with black eyes peering out of pinched faces. They both wore rough coats tied at the waist with rope and had woollen caps pulled down over their ears.

  “Where are your parents?”

  “Dead, Your Honour,” they chorused glibly.

  “Where are the rest of your people?”

  “There ain’t no one, Your Honour,” said the boy. “We’re by ourselves but we don’t have no food, and we’re hungry.”

  Therese tried to identify their accent. It had much in common with the way the gypsy people spoke, but the whole sound was different. “Where do you come from?”

  “We’ve come from Bacau.”

  “By yourselves?” They nodded, and Therese looked at their feet. They had boots they must have stolen on the way, cracked and dirty. The girl’s boots seemed far too big for her thin legs. Bacau was far away in Rumania; it was hard to credit that they had walked so far.

  “There are no more of you around the village? Down at the gypsy colony, perhaps?”

  “They don’t like us down there, Your Honour. They say we talk funny and sent us out.”

  She thought for a moment and waved them into the car. She ignored Andrei’s look of hurt disapproval and sat beside him. As he drove up the hill she could hear the children whispering behind her in another language. She thought she could recognize Roma, but she did not know that language and she could not be sure. They were silent and over-awed when the car pulled up at the guardhouse.

  “Please, Your Honour, where are you taking us?”

  “For a bath and dinner, and somewhere to stay for the night. Does that sound g
ood?”

  “Ooh, thank you, Your Honour. What is this place?”

  “It’s a castle. Just now the Army is staying with us, and on the other side the nuns have a Convent. You can stay with them.”

  The girl stopped dead. She looked trapped. “What’s the matter, child?” asked Therese.

  “She don’t like nuns, Your Honour,” the boy answered for her. “They locked her up in Bistrita. We won’t go near no nuns again. No, not even if we have to stay hungry.”

  Therese thought for a moment and looked at her watch. “Very well, I’ll take you to meet some friends of mine, but we’re going to go through the places where the Army officers work, so you must be very quiet. Come along.”

  As she ushered them inside, she realized they were older than her first impression. They were both taller than her shoulder. She also realized that they smelt; a sort of smoky, farmyard smell hung about them. She hurried them up to the club.

  The girls came to them out of curiosity. “What are your names, children?” asked Therese.

  “I’m Othello, Your Honour, and she’s Portia.”

  That was a surprise. Where could their parents have unearthed names like that? “Well, Othello and Portia, meet my friends. Girls, I think we need a good bath, and then we’ll all go for dinner. How does that sound?” The children were looking around them in amazement.

  “Your friends are pretty ladies, Your Honour,” said Othello, and the girls giggled.

  “The prettiest in the Empire! Now, if I give you both new clothes, will you give me your old ones?”

  “What do you want these old things for? Don’t have much time left in them.”

  “I was planning to burn them,” said Therese cautiously.

  Portia looked at the girls and said, “If we can have clothes like that, it’s a deal,” and she started to untie her coat.

  “Could you take care of them, and I’ll go and find something for Othello? I think I’ve got a dress or two we could use for Portia.”

  “Don’t worry about Portia, Mistress. There’s twelve of us here, I’m sure we can find something that’ll fit. If you ask Timko, I’m sure he’ll find something for the boy.”

  When she returned, Maria was sitting with Othello in front of the fire. He was wearing nothing more than a towel around his waist, and his narrow body looked half-starved. He was clean, and his dark wavy hair shone with firelight. She handed him a bundle of clothes. “Try some of those. The trousers are long, but we can take those up easily enough.” Othello went to the far side of the room to change; that seemed to be enough to soothe any embarrassment.

  “They’re actors’ children, Mistress. I don’t know what happened to their parents—I didn’t like to ask—but I think they did come from Rumania.”

  “Actors’ children? That would explain the names, I suppose. How old are they?”

  “The girl’s seventeen, and the boy’s eighteen. You wouldn’t think it to look at them, but you should have seen me trying to bathe the boy. I almost started work early today. He’s going to be a real devil for the girls when he’s a bit older. He says he can play the fiddle, and Portia dances. That’s how they’ve managed to get this far, dancing for money. Where are they going to sleep, Mistress?”

  “I’d thought about the visitors’ rooms at the Convent, but Portia has had a bad time with some nuns on the way, and she won’t hear of it. I don’t know. I know we have to get them out of here after dinner; I don’t think the officers would approve. I’ll see what I can do.”

  The girls had enjoyed themselves with Portia. She appeared in a flowing black skirt and someone’s Sunday blouse. Her waves of black hair had been tied back and disciplined with red ribbons. Makeup, earrings, and she looked like the gypsy princess of legend. Therese clapped her hands in surprise and delight. “Wonderful! Now we can all go for dinner!”

  Mefist came to see her that evening, and she was frustrated that she could not spend some time with him. Othello was curled up on the daybed asleep and Portia was reading magazines with her, struggling with the words and relying on Therese for help.

  Chapter 35

  The girls took Othello and Portia skiing in the morning and left Therese free to write Christmas letters. As she wrote, the feeling grew at the back of her mind that this would be her last Christmas in Montebello. Before, the Convent had been her family; now the family had changed a little to be the girls, Mefist and the Army. In her heart, she knew that things could not stay the same or ever truly go back to the past. The Army would move on, and whom would she belong to next Christmas? Her mother and father no longer seemed remote and shut away forever; she might find herself at home again. She recognized with a start that she was not even considering returning to the Convent, even though that was clearly where her duty lay.

  Mikhail disturbed her. “Your Honour, we’re just bringing the Christmas trees in. Will you be wanting one up here?”

  Mikhail stood and watched as the men wrestled the tree up the stairs and nailed supports to the trunk. “We delivered that table to old Isaacs house yesterday, Ma’am. Beautiful job it was, though I say it myself. We used some oak that old Tomaszek had put aside soon after we got back from the Great War. Lovely timber it was, but hard as nails. The lads worked hard on it too, for Miss Rebecca’s sake. Finished it so you can see your face in it. Proper job it was.

  “The Prince gave us a truck to carry it down to the village, and old Isaacs was beside himself when he saw it. Devil of a job to get it into the room, and we had to get the old one out as well. He wouldn’t keep the old one, you know. I tried to buy the timber off him, but he wouldn’t have it. We don’t see mahogany like that in Krasna Dolina, and I’d have liked to use it. Could have made a pair of cabinets from it, it was so thick, but no. He made us saw it up and burn it in the garden. A wicked waste but, I don’t know, I’d probably feel the same if it had happened to any of my girls. I hope that black policeman froze in the forest, but let’s not think of such things at Christmas.”

  “You’re right. Drazevich has gone, and Rebecca seems to have got over it all. Now, call the men over and we’ll have some Christmas spirit.” Therese lined spirit glasses up on the bar and poured them brimful with schnapps. The schnapps disappeared instantly, and the men stood expectantly at the bar. It would have been churlish not to refill them, but she took her time over it. The castle workers were renowned for their ability to absorb spirits. “So here’s to you all at the end of a very strange year.”

  “Yes, Your Honour,” they answered.

  “Very strange year,” echoed Mikhail thoughtfully, “and I expect we’ve got worse coming. We’re lucky to have you to stand up for us, Your Honour. So a Merry Christmas for Mistress Therese is what I’ll be drinking this year.”

  “Yes, yes, Merry Christmas, Your Honour!” the men chorused as they tramped down the stairs.

  She was clearing the glasses when Timko appeared with the post. Mostly Christmas cards, pretty things she loved to get and that she would hang with the girls’ cards over the fire. There was also a perfumed letter that she tore open eagerly.

  My Dear,

  The war is becoming such a bore. They had the bad taste to drop bombs on us yesterday. Fortunately they were not interested in the old city but seemed to be trying to hit the railway station. I can’t say our hearts were full of martial vigour as we cowered in the cellar waiting for the planes to go away. The whole business is pointless and dirty. The prospect of the train journey home is just too awful to consider, so I am begging a place for Christmas with you and Franz at Montebello. I am planning to arrive on Friday, so please don’t turn me away.

  I must rush because there is a darling lieutenant who has promised to provide me with tickets, passes, escort, all the things a traveling girl needs. He comes from a poor local family and is quite unsuitable, but he is such an enthusiastic lover it’s all I can do to hold myself back and look demure. After an afternoon with him I am exhausted; my knees are shaking, and minette is stretched and ting
les as I walk. So I’m sure you’ll understand why I must hurry off!

  Please warn Franz and give my love to all the girls. I can’t wait to see them all again, and especially the valiant Maria who skied all the way from Montebello to the North Pole for the sake of love.

  See you soon,

  Wanda

  The letter swept away Therese’s sombre mood, and she ran to give Mefist the news.

  The girls returned from skiing rosy cheeked and hungry. While they were changing for lunch, Portia came to her office. She wanted to ask for something but seemed embarrassed, so Therese took her for an early lunch. They sat together across the long table, and Portia settled into her bread and gulas soup. The kitchen had taken pity on the children, and as soon as her plate was empty, another appeared. She continued eating as if the first helping had never existed. She was already looking healthier, and she had colour in her cheeks.

  “I like your girls, Mistress. They’re not like any others I’ve met. They’re real ladies. Can we stay here? I’m happy to work just like they do.”

  “But Portia, you’re only seventeen!”

  “Makes no difference, Mistress. I’ve been earning money with my dupka for a lot longer than any of them have. How do you think we got here? You don’t earn much money from ordinary folks by dancing, Mistress, no matter how you try. I’m good at it, too. The men always want to come back to me.”

  Therese was shocked. She had never met a prostitute before. Then she caught herself; she’d never met a professional prostitute before. Portia treated the whole business in such a matter-of-fact manner.