The Longest Winter by Mary Jane Staples

once immersed in Sophie’s poetry, had lost count of the time. He got up, restoring sheets to Sophie’s folder. She made no comment as he put the folder on the table and asked her mother to keep an eye on it for him. He wished, he said, to read them again.
    Sophie said then, ‘Are they so incomprehensible?’
    ‘For me,’ said James, ‘poetry in German has to be read very carefully, I need to think up an English translation that does it justice. I haven’t done too badly but I’d like another go at them.’
    ‘They are hopeless in English?’ said Sophie.
    ‘I should think,’ said James, ‘that they’re poetry in any language. I’ll get my stuff.’
    ‘Hurry, James,’ said Anne, ‘I am longing to be whizzing off.’
    ‘No whizzing, darling,’ said the baroness.
    James disappeared for a moment.
    ‘Mama,’ said Sophie, ‘did he say if he liked them?’
    ‘Liked them?’ The baroness regarded her elder daughter fondly. ‘He was captivated.’
    ‘Captivated? Are you sure?’
    ‘He was so amused by the one about the whistling man on the horse.’
    ‘Amused?’ Sophie did not seem too delighted. ‘But, Mama, that poem was a moment of summer delicacy, a wistful look at the incomprehensibility of man.’
    ‘Yes, darling, delicious,’ said the baroness.
    ‘Did he really think it was funny?’ asked Sophie.
    ‘I have never seen a man so full of appreciation.’
    ‘He laughed,’ said Sophie.
    ‘Well, in a way –’
    ‘I shall speak to him,’ said Sophie.
    ‘Oh, poor James,’ murmured Anne.
    But Sophie was laughing herself.
    They departed a few minutes later, taking the road to Jajce. They promised to be back before tea.
    In Sarajevo the palely passionate Gavrilo Princip was discussing a brave new world with the other conspirators. They had all arrived safely and sat under the noses of passing policemen as inconspicuously as the good citizens of Sarajevo. They did not look like the kind of young men who would prime bombs and load revolvers to do away with a majestic archduke.
    Meanwhile Boris Ferenac, his violin put into safe keeping, was travelling by quiet ways to meet and confer with others who belonged to the cloak-and-dagger fraternity.

Chapter Six
    The road to Jajce was winding and pitted, crumbling in parts, but the solid Benz did not fuss. They turned off for the village of Kontic after an hour’s drive, and the road became little better than a loose-surfaced cart track. It got worse as they approached the village, so they left the car and walked the last hundred yards. There was a valley on their right, beyond which hard brown hills rose starkly, only to be dwarfed by distant mountains soaring to ravage the sky. On the hills gigantic boulders were cupped so precariously by hard ridges that it seemed a touch would topple them. In the valley a river wound its way over a rocky course, the banks and the waters strewn with fallen stone. At the foot of the hills trees had forced their way into the light and bushes had sprung from cracks. The sun poured down to give life to colours invisible at grey dawn.
    The walk was uphill and the village itself climbed steeply. The stone and timber cottages looked warm but quiet, their overhanging roofs shading the upper windows. Doors stood openand interiors, defying the outside heat, seemed dim and cool. Somewhere a kid goat bleated for its mother. Two women, scarves around their heads, black hats over the scarves, emerged from a path leading up from the river. They were carrying baskets of wet washing. They cast quick, shy glances as James and the young baronesses entered the village. Anne and Sophie, parasols up, looked in their bright elegance as if they had just come from a garden party. James was bareheaded, the sun deepening his dark tan. His white cotton shirt was tucked in comfortable knickerbockers, his jacket and sketchbook under his arm.
    The little tavern, with its whitewashed front and faded awning, stood at the lower end of the village.