How Huge the Night

chapter 22





Gate





Gustav stood by the convent wall, waiting for his sister. For Niko.

He hated calling her Niko. Nina was his fierce-eyed sister, who had walked home one day on a shattered leg, her teeth gritted, not a single tear in her eyes. Who had said so fiercely, “We have to do everything he told us.” Who had made him cut her hair. But Niko—Niko was this strange, new, sad person. Niko was someone who lay on the floor with empty eyes, looking at something he could not see. Something that was eating her. Ever since the border. He knew. But he couldn’t make it stop.

They never talked about that night. He hated it. Hated that there was nothing he could do.

He’d tried so hard. He’d learned to split wood, milk goats; he’d learned rough Italian and the alleys of Trento to get food for her. He’d tried so hard to make her laugh. She’d laughed. Sometimes. And with the Gypsies, she’d been almost herself. But he’d never imagined this.

“Gustav,” Sister Theresa had told him, “you have to get your brother out of here. I went to Mother Superior about it, I told her I don’t believe he’s crazy—just frightened—but she wouldn’t listen. She keeps saying she saw with her own eyes—Gustav, she’s written to the bishop about sending him to some kind of ‘home’—I don’t know …”

He knew. He knew he had to get her out now.

They were letting her out once a day for a couple of hours; Sister Theresa had gotten that much. Soon. If they let her out soon enough, her chance was sitting in the driveway.

A delivery truck. Men unloading it, manhandling huge sacks of flour through the double kitchen doors. A truck that would be driving out the convent gate when it was done.

The far door opened, her door. He heard the click of her crutches on the stones. He stood waiting as she walked toward him, and when she reached him, he looked her in the eye. “Niko,” he said quietly, “do you want to get out of here? Now?”

She took a deep breath, standing a little taller. “Yes,” she said.





Niko woke when the truck stopped, her cheek on a hard bag of flour, her mouth open. It was almost pitch dark.

“Got your crutches?”

“Ready.”

He was peering out the tiny, side window. Beneath her, she felt the engine cut out.

“Now,” said Gustav. She heard him slide to the back and open the door. In the red glow of the taillights, she slid forward between the flour bags, set her crutches on the ground and swung down. Cold air met her. “Behind that rubbish heap,” whispered Gustav, and she followed him, quietly—they heard voices ahead, people standing far off in the light of the headlights, a low square building with lit windows—she ducked behind the heap and breathed quietly in the dark.

The sound of the engine again, the truck moving off toward the building. Then voices in Italian, the thump of the huge flour bags being unloaded. She looked around, but it was deep dark. Thick clouds hid the moon. Then the truck was coming back, and in the light of the headlights, she saw it and cried out. Gustav jumped to his feet as he saw it too: a tall gate swinging open, framed by high, chain-link fence topped with razor wire. In the red glow of the taillights they saw it swing shut; closed by two uniformed men.

Gustav sank to his knees. “Oh, Niko,” he whispered.

Niko said nothing. There was nothing to say.