| The Refuge, Brennert Alan |
| 1 | ALAN BRENNERT THE REFUGE WINTER SCREAMED ITS DIScontent. Another blast of frigid wind and freezing rain lashed at the man wading through knee-deep snowdrifts; the icy rain, needle-sharp, blinded and buffeted him, as it had for -- how long? He didn't know. He had no way of telling how long he had been here, lost under sunless skies, in the cold, brutal heart of the storm. The pearl-gray sheen of the clouds hinted at daylight, but could not tell him how many hours he had struggled, through snow draped like a pall across the coffin of the forest floor. |
| 2 | Hours of bitter wind that chafed and burned; of snow turning to sleet turning to hail turning back to snow again. Nor could it tell him how he got here, or where he was; his mind, it seemed, was as clouded, as opaque, as the sky itself. He did know some things: he knew that his name was Raymond Bava; could see his mother's face, feel the rough tickle of his father's beard as he lifted young Ray into his arms. |
| 3 | He could see faces, hear voices, summon up names of lovers and family and friends . . . but there was no progression to the images, no order from which to construct a life, or a memory of a life. And at the moment, it was hardly a priority. He had a vague recollection of growing up in winters like these; he knew the signs of frostbite, of chilblains, as well as anyone. He knew that if he did not find shelter soon, he would be dead--and then it wouldn't matter who he was, or where he grew up, the work he had done or the lovers he had known. |
| 4 | And so he stumbled on, damning whatever fates had brought him here so ill-prepared: as his bootless shoes sank foot-deep into the snow; as the rain soaked through his light cotton jacket; as his frostbitten fingers grew colder, harder, paler. Suddenly another blast of wind caught him, tossing him off-handedly into a snowbank, losing him some of his hard-won ground. He shouted an obscenity into the air, but all it did was plunge an icy blade of air into his lungs and he instantly regretted it. |
| 5 | For a moment, his pain and despair got the better of him -- how hard could it be, he wondered, to just close his eyes, to cease the struggle? But the beginnings of delirium proved his salvation: he had begun to think of the storm as a living thing-- a killing thing which existed to kill him, which would take considerable joy in his slow, painful demise. "God damn you," he whispered, once again taking in a gulp of frigid air, this time invigorating him; "I'll be damned if I'll make it easy for you." Fueled by an irrational, delirious hatred, he pushed himself to his feet and continued on. |
| 6 | The forest of dead skeletal trees -- gaunt sentries standing watch over some long-lost redoubt -- gave way to a low rise. Reflexively he climbed it, skidding more than once on the icy drifts, finally gaining its small summit. He expected, frankly, to see nothing: nothing but denuded trees, icy rain, and drifted snow. He was wrong. Down below, in a clearing at least a hundred yards across...there was a house. |
| 7 | Ray stared, dumbstruck, at the sight: an enormous, two-story, Southern Colonial mansion, fronted by a colonnade, a gabled roof crowning a white clapboard facade...its balustrades and shuttered windows miraculously untouched by the raging blizzard. Elation quickly gave way to disbelief. This couldn't be real. Nothing so fragile, so beautiful, could stand unravaged in this murderous storm. It had to be part of his delirium: a hallucination, a winter's mirage. |
| 8 | He started to turn away from it, in disgust. Turning, he caught a glimpse of something in the window. It was a big, three-part window on the ground floor; warmly lit from within. It stood at an angle to him, but there was a flash of movement, a shadow in the glass, and he adjusted his position to get a better look. There were people inside. At least two men; at least one woman. The woman had a champagne glass in her hand; one of the men was taking a pull on a fat cigar; another scarfed up a canape in one bite. |
| 9 | They laughed, ate, drank. A fire burned invitingly in the hearth. They were having a party, for God's sake. Slowly, Ray began to laugh. It was so absurd, so unlikely, that it was either real. . .or a damned fine piece of delirium.Either way, he chose to embrace it. Given a choice of dying with hope, or without it, he opted for the former. He scrambled down the icy slope into the clearing, ready to embrace the illusion -- to let it swallow him whole. |
| 10 | But strangely, the closer he got to the mansion, the more real it seemed: he could make out faces behind the glass, could tell what kind of hots d'oeuvres the partiers were nibbling, could almost taste the wine in their fluted glasses. He was almost there now, a few dozen yards from the rear porch -- Then, suddenly, something was screaming, and he realized it was him. At first he thought he'd been hit by another blast of frozen rain and snow -- but no. |
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