Free The Longest Winter by Harrison Drake Page A

let him be the one to look down, and Kara hoped it would help to relax him. She took out a small voice recorder and showed it to Claude.
    “Have you seen one of these?” She took out the tape from the relic she’d hung onto for years.
    “Daddy still has some, but they’re bigger.”
    Kara tried to keep up with Claude and talk at a normal pace, but it was hard for her to find the right words and the right pronunciation. Yuri would have been a better choice.
    “That’s how we used to listen to music. This one though is to record our conversation. I’m not as smart as I used to be, getting old, you know? My memory isn’t as good as yours, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    She handed the recorder to Claude and asked him to push the red button to start the recording. He smiled as he did it.
    “Thanks,” she said. “So, Claude, do you have a middle name?”
    “Henri, after my dad.”
    “That’s nice. Mine is Gertrude… I hate it.”
    Claude laughed. Even halfway around the world, it was a name that was seriously out of date.
    “You like school?”
    “Yeah. I like gym and math.”
    “I was never very good at math. I had to work really hard at it.”
    “It’s easy for me.”
    “That’s awesome. You’ll have an easier time than I did then.”
    “I’m even better at math than Jacques,” he said. Kara heard his voice drop at the end, as if he already felt the guilt his words brought.
    “What’s he better than you at?”
    “Sports,” Claude said, then he gave a weak smile. “He’s better at every sport.”
    “He’s bigger, once you guys are the same size you’ll win some games I bet.”
    “I beat him at video games sometimes.”
    Kara smiled. “Then I bet you could beat me every time. I was never very good at video games.”
    “It’s too bad we don’t have any here. That would be fun.” He looked at Kara for a moment before his expression grew serious. “But we can’t. You have to ask me questions.”
    Usually Kara was the one to take the interview from the mundane to the specific. Claude was an unusual child with a maturity beyond his years.
    “You’re right, Claude,” she said. “I know this is going to be hard, but can you tell me what the room you were in looked like?”
    She wanted to start with the easy questions and build his confidence with praise and gratitude before she broke into the hard ones.
    “Ummm… it looked old and not very nice. The walls were just blocks and the floor was cold cement, like in a basement. We had a little window that was open sometimes. I liked it when it was. There were some birds that I could hear. One sat on the window ledge one time.”
    “That must have been nice. What colour was the bird?”
    “It was dark brown. I think it was a swift. I liked when it was there. He stayed for a while.”
    “That would have been nice. I love birds.”
    Claude smiled. “Me too.”
    “Did you have food to eat when you were there?”
    “Yeah, but it was mostly just rice and water. I don’t like rice but I was really hungry so I always ate it all.”
    “It is good for you.”
    “I know, that’s why I don’t like it.”
    Kara couldn’t help but let out a little laugh.
    “That makes sense,” Kara said. “How did you and Jacques pass the time? Did you play any games?”
    “We told each other stories and stuff. We tried playing ‘I spy’ but that was too easy. We played rock-paper-scissors a lot too.”
    “I always lose when I play.”
    “Do you always pick scissors too?”
    “Yep, that’s probably why I lose. I need to change it a bit.”
    “Me too. But I like doing scissors.” Claude held up his hand and made the shape then opened and closed his fingers to mimic cutting.
    “You should go rock next time and confuse people. Do you remember the first day, Claude?”
    He nodded, but Kara could see he was nervous.
    “Can you tell me what happened?”
    “Ummm… we were walking home and he came up. He told us he was looking for his daughter who was only five. He