Richard Zimler - Hunting Midnight

His pain and rage made me feel immensely useless, and I could not fathom how he could have known for certain what had come to pass. Likely he had discovered a telltale sign in her eyes that I had not detected. Or a mark of hidden significance on her body. I knew not what to look for, since I had no clear idea of what it meant to be violated. All I knew was that it was something abominable that happened to women and girls and an evil that could be broached in conversation only at the level of a shameful whisper.

After she had dressed, Violeta allowed us to approach her once again. Avoiding Daniel’s eyes, she begged me to sneak her back into my house, for she could not be seen by her mother in such a state. There would be far too many questions asked.

“Look at me — I’m standing here too!” Daniel snarled, shaking a fist at her.

The lass gazed at the ground, her brow furrowed with worry.

With a renewed gentleness, he asked quietly, “Do you hate me now?”

Tears glazed her eyes as she forced herself to witness the hurt in his face. “No, Daniel, but I’m frightened. I cannot bear both your emotions and my own. I am not so strong. Not now. Have no expectations of me.”

She would explain no further, and Daniel stopped questioning her after she allowed him to take her hand, which he brought to his lips only to have her snatch it away. We walked one on each side of her all the way home. I had taken a linen cape along with me and we covered her with it so no one along the city streets would notice her disheveled state.

I entered my house alone at first. Thankfully, Mama and Papa were out. Behind the closed door of my room, the lass cleaned herself with my towel and brushed her hair. Her face went pale when she saw her reflection in my looking glass. In the cold dark depths of Daniel’s watchful gaze I sensed him plotting vengeance.

“Now I must go,” she said.

Daniel begged to be permitted to accompany her, but she refused, although she did wish to keep Fanny for a few days.

Outside, I squatted to Fanny’s level. Kissing her on her snout, I told her that Violeta needed only gentleness from those around her. There was to be no snarling, lunatic pawing, mad licking, or suicidal crashing into furniture. I felt compelled to say these things not so much for the dog but to communicate my love for Violeta. She showed no particular interest in my concern for her, however. Calling Fanny to her side, she rushed away down the street as though fleeing a storm. Next to me, Daniel tossed a large stone in the air and caught it in his fist.

Vileta’s mother refused to open her door to Daniel and me over the next several days. I only saw our friend again five days later, when she returned Fanny. Mama was busy cutting bread, so it was I who opened our door to her knocks. Fanny immediately leapt into my arms, her tail wagging furiously. Violeta stood frozen in our doorway. I gasped when I finally looked at her, because her auburn tresses had been cut in a scraggly line just above her shoulders.

“But, Violeta, what have they done to — ”

She turned her back on me in mid-sentence and rushed away.

I saw nothing more of her until over a week later, when I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of her pebbles against my window. There was a moon out, and I could see she wore a frilly bonnet, which was alarming because she had always refused to hide her hair.

Sneaking out of the house, I ran to her.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” she said, sobbing. “So sorry for everything. I have been very wicked. Forgive me, John.”

“For what? I don’t understand. Violeta, what has happened?”

She removed her bonnet. Someone must have again taken a rough shears to her, as her hair was now clipped just below her ears into a ragged mess. Nicks and scratches covered her neck.

“Violeta, who is cutting your hair?”

She shook her head and walked away without answering. I let her go thirty or so paces, then started to race after her, calling her name. When she started running, she proved herself too swift for me, but she stumbled near the jailhouse at the end of the street. When I caught hold of her, she shrieked and threw out a hand, catching me a fierce blow on the mouth and drawing blood.

We were both so stunned that we simply stared at each other. Tasting salt in my mouth, I spit on the ground. She embraced me as she apologized, and I could feel the fragility of her thin bones. We sat down in the street together, not caring about the filth. “He used to come to me sometimes,” she told me, “and … and touch me — just touch me. But he did more to me that day in the woods. He’d followed me. He was drunk. And since then … He said if I told anyone he would kill me. I promised that I would not speak of it. But I did. I was wicked.”

“Who was it — who hurt you?”

“I cannot say.”

“Violeta, you must come with me to my parents. You must tell them.”

“No.”

I stood up and tried in vain to pull her to her feet.

“Do you not trust me?” I asked.

“Oh, John, I cannot trust anyone.”

“You are lying. You do trust me or you would not have come to me.”

“You don’t understand. You’re too young. Life … my life has become a locked room. I only wanted you to listen to me.” She sprang to her feet. “I’m sorry to have hurt you,” she said. She began to walk away, her head down.

“There must be a way out,” I called after her.

Though she made no reply, I believed those words of mine; I had yet to learn that we do not always receive keys to the rooms we inherit.

While searching for sleep that night, I foolishly decided to take matters into my own hands.

The following Friday afternoon, after lessons with the Olive Tree Sisters, I went to Violeta’s home and called up to her window. Finally, to get rid of me, she agreed to meet me at the tarn the next day. I informed her that Daniel would not be able to join us. She was glad of that, she said, as she could not face him now that she was so ugly. She made me promise not to tell him anything of what she’d confided in me during our nighttime conversation. “It would only lead to trouble,” she said. “For him, for me, for everyone.”

To ensure his absence, I walked to Senhora Beatriz’s house and told him that neither Violeta nor I would be able to go to the tarn the next day. I had decided, you see, to follow her alone and in secret. My expectation was that whoever had hurt her would try again. My very presence — and my eagerness to reveal his identity to the entire world — would be enough to frighten off the evil man for good.

Yes, I was indeed that reckless with her well-being.

As to why Violeta had agreed to join me, she undoubtedly wished our lives could go back to the way they’d been before. As I have had ample opportunity to learn in my life, a desire to return to a happier past can give us blind courage.

Violeta lived on the Rua das Ventainhas, a bumpy road on the far eastern edge of the city that sloped down toward the river. The next morning, Fanny and I hid behind the stone wall of a nearby barn. At just past the stroke of ten, she stepped out her door and rushed off along a route I had not anticipated. She was behaving with foresight, hoping to elude any pursuer through this change to her usual route.

Fanny and I followed her from two hundred paces behind. I was quite sure that no one else was. But what neither of us had anticipated was that her enemy had left the city before her. There was but one possible route over the last mile to our destination, and it was there that he was waiting for us.

A ramshackle old mill, overgrown with blackberry vines, used to stand alongside the country lane we walked on Saturdays. When this landmark came into sight, a man in a long dark coat emerged and stood in the road for a moment, then crossed to the other side and disappeared into a pine grove.