Accident (26 page)

She took a long look at those boney hands which, even in their present domesticated state, retained a certain hardness. She kissed them. She poured her whole female sensual gravity into this act. Paul was unable to suppress a twinge of embarrassment.

“No, Nora.”

She didn't understand. “How stupid men can be, Paul! So many superstitions, so much fear ... You're afraid of the simplest things. Only a woman knows how to really kiss hands, my love, and make it into something beautiful.”

She approached him with her eyes closed. She showed neither hysterical haste nor bashful modesty. Every movement of her body spoke of authenticity and conciliation.

 

 

Morning revealed again the sharp, alert Nora, ready for the trail. In her blue jacket with her peaked cap pulled over her forehead she was, like him, a skier.

No troubled feelings lingered between them from the night, which had passed without leaving behind a trace.

IT WASN'T SNOWING. The light was like cinders, but the clouds seemed to be farther away and the horizon more open.

They left their skis at the Touring Club, stuck into the snow with the tips facing up, and climbed to the summit of the mountain.

“Maybe we'll see Braşov,” somebody said.

They couldn't see anything. Postăvar floated alone amid an ocean of clouds. The pine forests that covered the opposite slope in the direction of Timiş melted after a few hundred metres into a whitish fog.

“Down below us is the Timiş Valley. Over there is Piatra Mare. To the left is Braşov.” Nora pointed out with her hand places that were lost in the mist, enveloped in nothingness. “You know what's happening in Braşov tonight?” she asked suddenly. Still smiling, she replied: “They're performing the
Christmas Oratory
at the Black Church.”

“Is it the twenty-third already?” Paul said, surprised.

“Yes.”

He remained still for a time with his gaze trained in the direction of Braşov, invisible behind the mist. The haze seemed to soften the distances. “What do you say? Would it be madness if we went down to Braşov this evening?”

“It might not be madness,” Nora said, “but it would certainly be daring.”

“Is it that hard?”

“Hard, no. It's long.”

“And you don't want us to try it?”

“Of course, Paul. If we do a morning of serious training beforehand.”

He accepted all of her conditions. After the long run that lay before them, the evening's concert would be a reward.

 

 

Gunther received without pleasure the news of their departure.

“We'll be back tomorrow,” Nora assured him.

All through lunch, the boy continued to frown. Only towards the end of the meal did he brighten up. “I've sung in the
Christmas Oratory
, too. In a choir, of course. I was in grade seven and we were asked by the school to perform. I think I still remember a few things today.”

He thought for a moment and finally, turning his gaze towards the window, as though he were seeking someone there, he began to sing:

He pitched his voice too high and the final note, although clear, made his cheeks turn red.

“Mama was down in the church. I can see her now, next to the third window on the right. She was smiling. She was the only person in the whole Black Church who was smiling. I felt that she was listening to me. I felt that she was answering me.”

He kept looking towards the window. Finally, he averted his gaze from there and spoke again with the grim tone that they had heard on other occasions. “A real Grodeck doesn't smile. Watch them carefully this evening. The whole clan will be gathering there. Dozens, hundreds of members of the Grodeck family. Not one of them smiles.”

Nora tried to soothe him, to bring some peace to his tormented child's forehead. “Tell us the truth, Gunther. Do you want us to stay?”
“No. But I want you to come back.”

“Understood. Tomorrow evening we'll be here to light the Christmas tree together.”

Before they left, Gunther drew them a map of the trail. From the SKV chalet they would go down the leisure run, which would take them as far as the centre of Braşov. It was a groomed trail, with a gentle slope (the Saxons called it the
Familienweg
²²
), well marked with blue-and-white signs right to the end, but from which several smaller trails branched off towards Timişul-de-Jos, Noua and Honterus.

“But if you pay attention, you can't get lost.”

The map he had drawn was clear and detailed. In the margins were all the landmarks that they might meet along the way and which he recommended they watch out for. In addition, he gave Paul a compass and showed him how to use it. Nora would have to carry bandages, cotton and vials of pills in her backpack.

Their departure for Braşov was becoming a real expedition. “Is it that dangerous?” Paul asked.

“In winter in the mountains you never know what's going to happen.”

They had barely set out when Hagen overtook them from behind.

“Gunther wonders where you're thinking of sleeping in Braşov this evening.”

“In a hotel, of course.”

“He doesn't think you'll find a room. He told you to give me this.”

It was an envelope on which Paul read a woman's name –
Frau Adelle Bund
– and an unknown street:
Strada Prundului, 26
.

“It's my house,” Hagen said. “I wouldn't advise you to go there. It's an old house and it's far away. But if you can't find a room anywhere, don't sleep in the street.”

He spoke with ill will. It was clear that this turn of events did not please him.

Nora made an effort to placate him. “We thank you, but I think
we'll leave Frau Adelle in peace. It can't not be possible to find a room in town.”

He didn't look entirely placated. “Have a good trip,” he said.

He looked after them for a long time as they headed off.

 

 

They made a quick stop at the SKV chalet to consult the map. From there, they set off on a trail that was unknown to both of them. The run started behind the chalet. Gunther had drawn it in a meandering blue line that descended towards a circle that was coloured green. Inside this circle he had written in small block letters:
Ruia
.

Nora let Paul go ahead in a snowplow.

“Don't leave the snowplow for even a second,” she told him.

“Whatever you do, if you're not going at high speed, nothing serious will happen.”

Paul set off in a strained silence. He clutched the poles' handgrips with closed fists. He had the impression that his whole effort was concentrated there, in the joints of his hands. His knees were bent as though he were preparing for a jump. His skis slid ahead of him, made heavier by his braking.

He held his breath as he waited for the first turn. His head was bowed between his shoulders, but his attention was locked on the point ahead of him, coming closer every second, where the trail turned to the left. He felt his temples throbbing. Now, now, now ... He pushed the tip of his right ski ahead of the other one, then leaned with all of his weight towards the left. The snowplow opened to a enormously wide angle. The turn was completed gradually, like the gliding wheeling of a bird on unmoving wings. The left ski, which for a second supported his entire weight, skidded around with a harsh scraping sound, then, in the next second, his equilibrium returned.

“Bravo! Very good,” he heard Nora shouting from behind him. He didn't have time to reply to her, nor to recover his breath. Ahead of him were several metres of straight downhill after which, ominously, there was another turn, this time to the right. He made his turn a little less slowly, a little less raggedly, than the first time.

He felt himself coming out of the curve at greater speed.
Let's not go overboard
, he thought. He clutched the poles' handgrips, determined to resist. He let his weight fall on both skis and opened his snowplow wider. He went into the next turn with all the resistance he could muster. His arms, his knees, his ankles, strained to stop, to brake, his onward motion. The skis stalled for a moment in the middle of the turn, as if they had been locked into place, but then they pulled out of it and, in a moment of release, set off downhill.

His speed increased. Paul opened his snowplow wider. The tips of his skis almost knocked against each other, while their back ends slid apart until they spanned the breadth of the track. Yet he felt the wind beating more sharply against his cheeks. He didn't understand what was going on. The snowplow no longer helped him at all. It was like a leaking brake that no longer transmitted the driver's commands. The curves became more and more frequent, and even faster. He came out of the turns now in a kind of automatic twisting of his body. Paul felt himself jerked now to the right, now to the left. At each new curve he had the impression that he was about to be hurled onto the packed snow of the trail, but at the last moment an unexpected strength would lift him out of the fall and set him upright again on his skis. Not a single thought was in his head: his whole being was in a tumult, overridden, as if by a shout, by the will to stay on his feet.

In front of him, at a distance he couldn't judge – was it far away? close up? – a tree branch heaved into sight, blocking his path. He crouched down on his skis, closed his eyes and plunged forward without paying attention, even in that same second, to whether he had struck it, whether he had fallen. His skis dashed ahead now – as though on their own, detached from his body – into a new curve that pitched him to the right, but by a miracle in that instant the trail came out of the woods and widened into a great expanse of white. He didn't realize what was happening. He had the feeling that he was flying over a level surface. The wind, which until now had been gusting violently into his face, seemed to subside. The edges of his skis no longer cut obliquely into the snow, but rather settled, as if floating, with the length of their undersides flat against the snow.

Once again Paul tried to recover his lost movements. To his amazement, his skis responded to him. The snowplow opened with ease, and, during a final turn to the right, the two skis had stopped, unresisting, one alongside the other.

“We're in Ruia,” Nora shouted from far away.

She came towards him, swinging easily on her skis, as though she were skating.

“It went really well, Paul. If we keep going like that all the way down, we'll reach Braşov in daylight.”

“If we keep going like that all the way down, I'll end up flat on the trail, hanging from a tree or falling over a precipice.”

Nora thought he was joking. He tried to explain to her the sensation of nothingness from which he had just emerged. He felt as though he were on the outer edges of human life.

“Well, the trail back is very short,” Nora laughed. “Do you know how long it took us to get here from up there? Four minutes.”

He couldn't believe it. As in those fleeting dreams that make us traverse the entire space of a life in a few seconds, Paul had the feeling that he was going around and around in an endless race.

“I assure you that you're exaggerating, Paul. Everything went really well. I followed you the whole time. Your turns were steady, your speed was under control. A little fast sometimes, but under control.”

“Under whose control? I felt like I was in a whirlpool, a chaos. I couldn't see anything.”

“Because the light was too strong. Skiing is an enormous light; you said it yourself. Your eyes have to get used to it.”

They didn't have much time to spend in Ruia. They hadn't foreseen this break. Before leaving, however, they took a look in the direction of the broad clearing, which they had just crossed without observing it. Gripped on all sides by woods, Ruia, with its pristine snows, was as white as a frozen alpine lake.

 

 

Gunther's map showed the trail winding more from here on. The little blue-and-white signs sprang up at regular intervals, spaced at equal distances, like coloured windows cut into the bark of the
fir trees. The trail descended in a gentle slope devoid of sudden changes of direction. The curves were wide and visible from far away. Paul waited for them with the same attentive concentration. He threw his whole body into braking his speed, as though a single movement had passed through him from his shoulders to his ankles. Then, in the instant in which the skis slipped out of the braking posture, he had a sudden sensation of release.

Now and then he dared to close his eyes. Only for a few seconds. He felt weightless, without memory, without a past ...

Sometimes Nora went first. He saw her heading away at high speed with her knees barely bent, her poles held behind her and lifted a short distance above the snow like two oars frozen for a second in midair. He would find her farther down the trail, waiting for him. They didn't speak to each other. He would pass close to her with a salute or a look. They understood one another very well with their eyes. Both knew that there were no words for what they wished to say to each other.

They made a brief stop at the point indicated by Gunther on the map, more to check their itinerary than to rest. On their left they passed a trail marked with red rectangles that went to Poiana, while on the right, a bit farther along, a trail marked with a red cross inside a blue square ran downhill towards Timişul-de-Jos. Not one of these trails had the gentle, restful slope of their trail. It unfurled before them, white between the pine trees, with barely perceptible undulations.