Jean-Claude Mourlevat - Winter's End

Silence suddenly fell when there was no one in the arena but the two gladiators facing each other. About sixty feet separated them. Milos took a few steps toward the other man, who imitated him. He had the bent shoulders of men who are too tall; his chest was flabby and wrinkled, covered with white hairs. His sword was held at the end of an arm that seemed to go on forever; there was gray stubble on his hollow cheeks. Milos put his age at over sixty. There had been no one of that age in the camp where he himself had trained. He’s a grandfather, he thought, I can’t fight him! The full sense of what Myricus had said hit him now. Don’t turn all soft.

When there was no more than fifteen feet between them, they made the same movement: both bent their knees and reached out the arms holding their swords. Milos resisted the pressing temptation to shift his weapon to his good hand. They stayed watching each other like that, hardly moving.

A few whistles came from the seats, then shouts of “Go on! Attack!” followed by grotesque encouraging noises as if they were inciting animals to fight.

They can’t wait to see our blood flow, thought Milos with disgust. They sit there safe in their seats, sure that nothing can hurt them. Is there a single man among them who’d have the courage to jump the palisade and come down to fight on this sand? No, they’re all cowards! They don’t deserve me to give my life up for them.

He was less than ten feet from his opponent now. The other man’s forehead was deeply lined, and he read in his eyes the same fear that he himself felt. He made himself ignore it. He had to hate this man, not feel sorry for him. He breathed out noisily through his nose, made his glance steely, clutched his sword so firmly that it hurt, and took one more step. The other man chose that moment to lunge forward suddenly like a fencer. His blade stung Milos’s bare ankle, and then he broke away at once. Milos cried out with pain and saw blood cover his foot, while applause and laughter greeted this unusual move. The vague pity that Milos had felt a moment before instantly vanished. This thin, elderly man was here to kill him, and he’d do it at the first chance without any scruples. He realized he couldn’t let his guard down.

As the other man came toward him again, he suddenly shifted his sword to his left hand and began moving rapidly with small, sideways steps, making his adversary turn his weaker side to him. The man seemed disconcerted for a few moments and then lunged forward again, once, twice, again and again, always thrusting at Milos’s legs or feet. You think you’ll get me like that? thought Milos, amused, recovering a competitive wrestler’s reflexes. You’re planning to attack me low down there ten times, make me lean forward ten times to protect my legs, and the eleventh time you’ll attack from above and open up my chest, right? Come on, then. I’m ready for you . . .

They went on with their deadly dance like this, each sticking to his strategy. The old man kept attacking low down by Milos’s feet. Milos hopped and skipped around him. The fight hadn’t been going on long, but there was such tension between them that they were both already breathless and dripping with sweat.

Attack from above! Milos begged, for his own sake. His foot was burning, leaving a red trail in the sand at every step he took. Please, attack me from above. Just once. Look, I’m leaning over, offering you my chest. Come on, don’t hesitate.

It worked. The old gladiator suddenly rushed forward, his sword horizontal at the end of his long arm. He uttered a piercing cry, more of despair than rage. Milos was ready for him. He dodged but stumbled and fell on his side. The other man was thrown off balance himself by the failure of his attacking move. Now he too was lying on the ground, face in the sand. Milos was quicker to get to his feet: he was standing up in a fraction of a second, and then he leaped. He smashed his knee into the small of his slower adversary’s pale, sweating back, and with his elbow raised in the air he set the point of his sword to the wrinkled neck.

With his free hand, he immobilized the man’s head, and his lower body held his opponent’s leg trapped. But there was no need for that now. The old man was a pitiful sight, gasping for breath, saliva running from his twisted mouth and mingling with the sand. A faint wail rose from his lips. The crowd had been roaring; now it was waiting for the human sacrifice it had come to see. For a few brief seconds, Milos felt a violent sensation of delight: I’ve won! But it was instantly dispelled by a terrible feeling: he was reliving a nightmare. Here he was once more, against his own will, master of the fate of another human being who was at his mercy.

A few months earlier, in the cold and solitude of the mountains, he had brought himself to do that terrible thing to save Helen, trembling with fear and cold there behind the rock, and to protect their other two friends who had escaped. Now he had to kill to save himself, and it was happening under the dazzling beam of floodlights, before the eyes of spectators whose excitement made them rise from their seats to see better, row after row of them. What did they want to watch? His humiliation? Did they want to see him kill an old man who could be his grandfather?

He knew he couldn’t give them the death they wanted. How could he push his blade farther into a defeated man’s body? How could he go on living after that? He’d thought he could do it in self-defense, to save himself. But this was nothing short of murder. He wasn’t going to give them that pleasure. He would relax his hold, stand up, and then what was bound to happen would happen. The old man would be declared the winner. As for him, he would be handed over unarmed to a gladiator, then to two at once, then three if necessary, and he would die at their hands. We’ll see, he thought. We’ll see.

The crowd was shouting now, yelling words he didn’t understand. He leaned over his opponent again, almost lying on him.

“What are you doing?” the old man groaned. “Kill me. And save yourself. You’re young.”

“I can’t do it,” said Milos.

He raised his sword — the point had traced a bleeding scratch shaped like a comma on the man’s old neck — threw it six feet away from him, knelt down, and waited. Go on, do whatever you want.

At that moment, instead of the protests he expected, a strange silence fell, as if preceding some terrible event like an earthquake. The dull sound of a heavy impact shook the arena. Mouths opened, ears were strained, and then came the second impact, just as heavy and with just as deep a sound. The Phalange leaders got to their feet and fled headlong from the grandstand. Other spectators did the same. Uneasiness was spreading to all the tiers of seats.

The old man, pale-faced, had gotten to his knees beside Milos. “What’s going on?”

But no one was taking any notice of them.

“They’re breaking down the gate!” a voice shouted.

It was the signal for panic. People began running in all directions among the rows, jostling each other as they looked for a concealed exit.

Who were “they”? Who was breaking down the gate? Milos, kept in ignorance of the outside world for months, could hardly believe it. And yet he had to admit the evidence of his eyes: the Phalangists had gone, a few baffled soldiers were waiting for orders that didn’t come, and the audience was trying to leave the arena in a mad stampede. Who but the Resistance could have set off such a headlong flight?

At the moment when Milos and the old man got to their feet again, hearts beating wildly, the gates on both sides of the arena opened and the gladiators, liberated from their cells, surged in with a terrifying noise, brandishing their swords in the air. They invaded the arena and attacked the palisades. Their fierce faces and wild cries spread terror among the frightened audience.