Part 11 (1/2)

”Oh, it's all right.” Pierre stood for half a minute while his labored breathing slowed. He looked at the darkening sky and at the snow up past his knees and muttered, ”Merde.” Then with a sideways glance at Julien, ”Sorry.”

”You don't have to apologize for cussing when you're saving my life!”

Pierre laughed. Julien did too. They looked down at the snow.

”Guess tomorrow's off,” said Julien.

”Yeah.” Another pause. ”You wanna call it off or do it when you're better?”

Oh, what a stupid fight it would be. ”Maybe it should be up to you.”

Pierre grunted.

”Um. But. Listen.” I want you to know the truth. That's what I want. ”I really didn't tell on you. Honest. Either time.” Pierre gave him an unreadable glance. ”Okay, the first time there was a kind of accident-”

”Accident?”

”I came home, and your mom was in my living room! And man, she's really good at jumping to conclusions.”

Pierre snorted. ”Tell me something I don't know.” He looked away into the white for a long moment. ”She gave me double my share of ch.o.r.es for a month.”

”That's not right. When you didn't even start it. I told her you didn't-”

”Oh, if I didn't deserve it this time, I will next time. Ask her.”

A lump was forming in Julien's throat. No. You deserve ... something else. ”You sure she's right about you?”

Pierre looked at him. In the dusk, in the snow, it was hard to see his eyes.

”I really didn't tell on you, Pierre. I swear.”

Pierre held out his big hand. Julien took it in his numb fingers, and they shook.

The swish of skis on snow woke him, and voices. ”I'm sorry, sir. I just went for a walk. Yes, sir.” A man's deep voice, indistinct. Then, ”He's hurt his leg.” A circle of golden light on the snow. A stocky figure, his legs lit by the lantern in his hand, his face dark.

”I can carry him now,” said the deep voice. Monsieur Rostin. ”Anyone looking for him?”

Julien lifted his head with an effort. ”My family-I fell behind ...”

”Headed to town?”

”Yeah.”

The lantern light bobbed crazily as Monsieur Rostin bent down. ”Here.” He was pus.h.i.+ng his skis toward Pierre on the snow. ”Go into town. If you don't meet the Losiers before your uncle Maurice's place, get him to come with you and go tell them the boy's safe with us. But don't come home tonight. D'you hear? Stay with Maurice.”

”I can make it back-” Pierre began, but his father cut him off.

”Sure you can. But you do what I say. I want you back tomorrow. Understood?”

”Yes, sir.”

Julien felt himself lifted, laid across Monsieur Rostin's powerful shoulders like a sack of potatoes. A chaos of white and dark and bobbing lantern light, silence; then warm windows, all golden brown, and a door opening, light spilling out, the crackling of a fire. Hands s.h.i.+fting him, arms under his body. Then he felt himself falling, not into light, but into darkness.

He was floating in the sea, the warm sea, in Italy. No. He was lying on the sh.o.r.e by a driftwood fire. What was that sound of pots and pans clanging? The slamming of a cupboard door. Julien opened his eyes.

He'd never seen this place before.

It was beautiful. Small, full of lamps and firelight, warm. A little kitchen with a big iron stove, a shape in a gray dress bending over it. He was on a rug. His fingers brushed old stone. He turned his head and saw the fire, and tears welled up in his eyes. The red and the gold and the little blue flames licking the wood, was.h.i.+ng the whiteness from his mind; life flaming bright against the great dead world outside. He had never known what beauty was before.

”Where does it hurt?” It was Monsieur Rostin. He was beautiful too.

Julien's wet coat and sweater were pulled off; the fire was warm on his bare skin. Monsieur Rostin prodded and squeezed his leg for where it hurt, got towels full of snow from Madame Rostin, whom he called Ginette. Imagine. Ginette, like a little girl in pigtails. His leg was packed with snow that stung with cold and wrapped with towels; he was given a swallow of something fiery, then a bowl of warm milk. ”Mon pauvre pet.i.t,” said Ginette.

He slept.

Julien woke in the dark with a single thought: I'm alive.

It was quiet. The fire was banked and barely glowed; there were deep shadows. The hush was unnerving. The burle had moaned around the house and rattled the shutters for hours, and he'd hardly heard it; now it was still. It was the silence that had woken him.

He was alive.

He had been rescued. And he had cried. In front of Pierre Rostin.

Julien closed his eyes again and pressed his palms against them. In front of Pierre- Pierre who had looked at him and said, It's going to be okay. And said, I think I can carry you.

For a moment he writhed.

In that moment all was clear as day inside him, unbearable. The dim fire-glow warmed and softened the bare room around him, but in his head was a horrible brilliance that lit, with sharp-edged shadows, everything. How he'd prayed and hated, how he'd hoped to win, and how he'd lost. How it shamed him that Pierre had carried him, Pierre the Good Samaritan, safe as in the arms of G.o.d. And what that meant about him.

Julien swallowed, a trail of broken-gla.s.s pain down his throat. He tried not to swallow again, and failed.

He turned away from the shadows. He propped himself on one elbow and reached for the woodpile, got another log onto the fire. A shower of sparks rose, and the flames flared and lit up this place he was alive in, this bare little house.

A table with two benches. Against the wall, a wooden hutch with doors; no other cupboard in the room. In the far corner, a woodstove with a sink beside it; and on his right, four straight-backed chairs. The living room. Bare walls. No books that he could see. No radio.

No, there were books on the hutch. Two of them. A big family Bible and a brown almanac; and two framed pictures. One old daguerreotype reflecting the fire in its metal surface; two dim figures, sitting stiffly upright. The other was Andre in his tank-driver's cap and leather jacket, standing tall.

The truth rested on Julien's shoulders, waiting, like a huge and heavy hand. The truth was it shamed him, that Pierre had saved his life; that Pierre had spoken to him gently, as he cried; that Pierre had been, most truly, the hero. It shamed him because he had already decided who was who in this story, and Pierre was the bad guy, and Julien was the hero with the weapons of love. Because he'd wanted to come out on top. Because that was what he'd thought G.o.d's weapons were good for. The truth whispered itself without sound; the truth filled the room like the fire's light. You cannot attack with the weapons of love.

He bowed his head.

The fire breathed warmth on him, and he lifted his eyes to it, the blue and red and gold. G.o.d was stranger than he had ever known; strange and terrible and kind.

You carried me. He whispered aloud the words that stuck in his throat. ”I was wrong. I am sorry.” The firelight danced in his tears, and the world was red and golden, and he raised his head. ”G.o.d. Can you forgive me. Please.”