“I—” He couldn’t say no anymore. He wanted to see Laura. Perhaps the sight of her would tell him what to do, how to live, or when he could die. Perhaps he’d grown too tired at last to carry the weight of himself. “Listen, then,” he said.
Faland smiled at him, with heartbreaking gentleness.
Freddie told him about taking refuge in the shell hole, the night they escaped the pillbox. About the drowned man, and how Winter had looked Freddie in the face, after he killed him. What color were Winter’s eyes? They’d been dark, hadn’t they? No.
“Come with me,” said Faland afterward. He was glowing, as though Freddie’s love and terror were things he could hold, wear, possess. “I know where she is.”
“Where?” said Freddie. He was slow as a tired child.
“Poperinghe,” said Faland.
They walked, and sometime later—he’d no idea how long—Freddie saw the lights of Pop all around him, wavering as though underwater. Perhaps, months ago, when he’d first come to the hotel, he’d have been afraid. Afraid that the sheer, pulsing life of Poperinghe, its edge-of-death giddiness, would draw him back into the world’s bloody maw. But now he wasn’t. He was too far gone to be afraid. His tie to the world was thin as a silk thread.
Poperinghe was full of men, loud as a holiday, and Freddie watched them with distant eyes. “Where’s Laura?”
In answer Faland bowed his head and set his bow to his strings, and loosed music like a flight of arrows into the night.
This time it wasn’t fear that Faland conjured. It was rage, close kin to madness, unleavened by understanding, or sorrow. The hot rage of a soldier on a trench raid, the poisonous anger of men in the back area told they must polish their buttons between spells in the line. The rage that had drowned a man in a shell hole in No Man’s Land, under Freddie’s unflinching hand.
It was the worst thing he’d ever heard. It conjured it all, true as life: The sounds the soldier had made as he died, the color of his face, the smell of the rain, and Freddie’s entire existence shrank to that one moment, to that one wretched self—murderer. That was all he was. All he would be, forever and ever, amen. There was nothing else. He was screaming. But no one heard. The entire town was screaming.
Because they’d heard his anger—and answered it. The same violence lay at the heart of every man there, and Faland drew it forth like a conjuror. Between one note and the next, music morphed into the sound of riot: screams and running feet, shouts, and wild laughter. Glass broke, wood smashed, and the streets werepacked,everyone mourning, rowdy, drunk. Freddie was screaming with the rest. They might walk and laugh and fight like men, but they were all screaming underneath. Faland knew. Of course Faland knew. Faland might be oblivion with hands and a face and a quicksilver tongue, but he knew them all. He’d been a soldier too.
The crowd swung dizzyingly past. He thought he saw Faland standing face-to-face with the golden-haired woman. Her eyes were as wild as his. His lips moved. “Shall I show you?” he said. They disappeared in the turmoil.
He didn’t follow. The tumult was all around him, the tumultwashim. He was going to drown in it. Laura wasn’t here.Please let her not be here. Let it all be over.
But before he could move, he froze. He’d seen a ghost in the crowd.
A ghost he knew.
Not Laura this time, but Hans Winter, a point of stillness in all the wild movement. Their eyes locked. The left sleeve of Winter’s jacket was empty. Freddie realized Winter was fighting to get to him. Realized that he was doing the same, shoving forward. Winter hadn’t gone. He hadn’t forgotten. His eyes weren’t dark. They were a shattering blue.
They would despise you,Faland had said. Laura and Winter. But there was no scorn on Winter’s face. They pushed toward each other, and Freddie felt his mind slowly clear, felt reason briefly return. For a second, he was himself, and he thought,I am needed. Why should I give my soul to that dilettante musician?
Now Freddie heard running footsteps. A voice shouted, “Halt!”
There was fear in Winter’s eyes. Of course Winter would be a fugitive. How else could he be here? Their hands were almost touching when a pistol cracked from an unknown source, the crowd heaved, and Winter jerked back, his hand coming to press against his side.
Freddie saw the stain blooming.
Blue, desperate eyes stared into his.
“Hold on, Iven.” And then Winter ran again, stumbling, and vanished in the crowd.
· · ·
Freddie went straight to Faland, although it took far too long to find him, darting in a panic from lights to darkness, his head swimmingwith the sound of the gunshot, the look on Winter’s face. Freddie found Faland sitting in a café, of all places. He had a glass of something and an expression of heavy-lidded contentment. To Freddie he said, “You seem to have had a pleasant evening.” A gleam of knowing malice there. “See anyone you know?”
“Winter’s alive,” said Freddie, panting.
Faland lifted both brows, sipped his drink, made a face. It occurred to Freddie to wonder how much Faland knew, how much he’d planned, but he shook the thought away. It didn’t matter.
“He’s wounded—shot—they’re looking for him. I have to help him.”
“Do you?”
Bitter admission. “I can’t, alone.” He couldn’t do anything alone. He could hardly exist.
