When the Night (16 page)

His clients were next to me in the jeep. Before we left, one of them asked Albert, “Is Manfred coming?”

Albert answered quickly. “No, he decided to walk down.”

On one of the bends in the road, halfway down, the headlights illuminated his back as he walked in the dark, supporting himself with the ice axe. He didn’t turn around, but I looked back at him; I wanted to see his face, but as we
turned the bend he was no longer illuminated by the beam of light.

I sit at the kitchen table and reflect on the evening’s events. They seem surreal, as if they had happened to someone else. The conversation with Manfred, his hostility, the idea that maybe he knows something—all of it seems to have taken place in another world. The door has been repaired, and well; there is no trace of that night.

I drink a tisane. It was easy to shame him; he was the little boy with glasses.

He hid a marker in his bed and drew the picture in the dark so his brothers couldn’t see. At night he would touch the drawing with his finger before falling asleep, just as I did. The skinny little boy in short pants, with blond curls, his eyes lost behind thick lenses.

If he had been my child, I wouldn’t have left him. How can you leave a little boy who doesn’t speak, who never tells you what he feels, and who thinks he doesn’t need anyone? You have to take him in your arms, caress him, and tell him not to be afraid, because you’re there with him. Even if he doesn’t speak or play; even if he’s hostile and cruel, the last thing you should do is leave him. You wait for him after school, ask him a few gentle questions, kiss him even if he pulls away, make him a warm snack when he’s cold, his feet are wet, and the meal at school is bad. You help him with his homework, and when he skis or plays with his brothers, you clean off his glasses. I think of what their mother said to Stefan: “Ask your father why I left.” And his father’s response: “I have no idea what she’s talking about.”

That’s how it is with me and Mario. Neither of us knows what the other is thinking. We don’t have the words to explain it to each other. Can I explain what happened in this kitchen? How I closed my eyes and my body, hands, and mind all went in different directions? He would be afraid of me.

Manfred saw everything. I was hiding behind the door, and he picked up Marco and took us to the hospital.

Perhaps if I’d understood him from the start, if I had seen him as I do now, a little boy with his mouth open in a scream, or walking alone on the mountain at night, leaning on his ice axe. He’ll do the same when he’s an old man, with less vigor. No one greets him when he comes home, neither his mother nor his wife nor his children. I could open the door for him tonight, now that the air has cleared between us and he doesn’t frighten me anymore.

Take off your shoes, come in, I’ll get you a beer. Did you have a nice walk? Let’s sit here in the kitchen, the same kitchen from the other night. I’ll tell you about my parents, my house, my sisters, the seaside, my job, and men. I’ll tell you a secret I’ve never told anyone: I’ve never done anything I really wanted to, not even the baby, even though now I’m afraid they will take him away from me. I’ve always felt like an outsider. The thing that interests me the most is a man’s love, but I’ve never found a man I could say it to, or even a woman. What kind of love is it if one can’t tell a soul?

Manfred, I can be a good mother; even Bianca thinks so, but I want to share this terrible, crushing feeling with you, the love and hatred I feel for this child that I made.

IT’S PITCH DARK, without a sliver of a moon. I don’t even have my contact lenses, but I know every stone of this road. This may be the last time I come up here; I won’t return to the lodge. The moraine, the crucifix, the stream. How did the two of them come down the mountain, my mother and the man who took her away? I’ve asked myself many times, but I’ve never known.

They hold hands in the night; maybe she cries, or maybe she doesn’t think at all, and he is there to support her. Can a man be everything to a woman? Can he make her forget that her children will wake up without her? It must be so, because that is what happened to us. We used to run here with my brothers, and play hide-and-seek in the trees.

“Albert, Stefan, where are you?”

This descent, and ascent, hides the secret I’ve been seeking for years. They’ve forgotten, but I can’t.

I should at least have brought a flashlight. I can hear the sound of water; soon I’ll be crossing the stream. There are four rocks placed close together to form a bridge. It’s easy to cross there. Every spring we make sure the rocks are still there, that the current hasn’t carried them away.

Everything began when that woman arrived here. The fights with my brothers, my father’s silence. She wormed her way into my head, she and her child. I can’t stop thinking about them; it’s unfinished business.

I want to run down the mountain, go home, and smash her against a wall.

Do you think you’ve gotten the better of me? I have you in the palm of my hand. You know what you’ve done.

Now she thinks she’s stronger than me. She talks to me as one does to a frightened child.

The sound of water is farther now. It happens sometimes, when it rains or after the first snowfall. I went off without thinking, my belly full of rage. I grabbed the ice axe without a word to anyone. But I should have taken a flashlight; that way, at least from close up, I could see.

I walked down too quickly, and now the stream is far away.

Once you’re on the moraine, never wander from the path, and don’t lose sight of the stream. If you go the wrong way, you come up to the crevasses.

All the kids in town know it. I should head back up. I can’t see the mountaintops or the lights in the valley. I’ll stay here till dawn, or I’ll wait for the lights of the jeep on its return. I should be able to see it from here. But where am I? They passed me; maybe she was with them. Albert didn’t stop.

I hear a dry sound nearby. Is it a goat, a bird, a hare? We used to be able to recognize each sound: the whistling of a woodchuck, the peep of a marten.

I’ve experienced this silence many times. But I was never alone; I always knew whom I would find at either end. My father or my brothers at the lodge; Luna and the kids in town. Now there’s no one, neither up above where I was born nor down below where I live. I wouldn’t know whom to turn to. I stand up. It’s cold; I can’t wait here till dawn. I walk toward the right, along the ridge, without descending, listening for the bubbling of water. I take small steps, testing the terrain. The rocks are loose; I pick one up in my hand, but it tells me nothing. I don’t know where I am.

I’m not afraid of dying on the mountain. If they don’t find you, even better: no coffin, no tomb. Your body breathes until the end, decomposing slowly. I speed up. I can hear the stream now; I’m going in the right direction.

A thud. What just fell? A rock moves, my foot slides, carrying the rest of my body with it. I can feel the tip of the ice axe against my side, then something pulls it away. I roll, trying to grab onto something, but nothing holds steady, everything pulls away. I can feel objects against my back, chest, shoulders, legs. Something stops me. All around me, things continue to slide. I hear soft thuds, then the patter of rocks, and then silence. Everything hurts. I close my eyes. My face is covered in dirt, but I can’t clean it off. I go inside, deep down; once upon a time it was like this. A light shines, a fire.

“Warm your hands, children, but don’t get too close, or you’ll get burned.”

IT’S ONE O’CLOCK and it’s cold out. No noise on the stairs; Manfred still hasn’t arrived. I can see the dark street through the window; his car is not there. Maybe he went to the city or he’s drinking in town.

Why didn’t he come with us? He went down alone, and he didn’t turn around when we passed him. He must have left his car at the gondola station. At night it’s closed. It takes a long time to go the whole way on foot. How long? Two hours from the lodge to the top of the gondola. And from there to the valley? It took us half an hour in the jeep, so it must be at least two hours on foot, or maybe one. He’s fast and he knows the path by heart.

We passed him on the mountain at ten o’clock, halfway to his destination. He should be here, but the car is gone. Everything in town closes at ten, or even earlier. Where is he? It’s none of my business; maybe he’s with a woman. He must need to make love from time to time.

I get undressed. Marco has been sleeping well since we were up at the lodge; let’s hope it lasts. I sit on the bed and put on my nightgown. On the dresser, I can see the photo with my sisters; I take it wherever I go, ever since I was a little girl. I don’t know why. When I was with them, I felt less strange. I’m glad I’m not at the beach now; I needed to face the darkness inside me. It couldn’t last. It would have happened again, but Manfred came in, took the child, and he doesn’t believe the lies I told him. How many lies I’ve told. Mario would have believed me, for the sake of not knowing. It’s better that it happened here.

I pick up my book and look for the bookmark, but I can’t find it. I flip through the pages and turn it upside down. Where is Mario’s letter? I use it to mark the page. I don’t read much; I fall asleep quickly at night. I turn it over again and flip through the pages. I sit down. Who took it? Marco. It must be somewhere, under the bed or on the dresser. I move the photograph and pick up my notebook. I leaf through the pages. I see the letter tucked into the notebook before the last page. Who put it there? He did. He came in when the carpenter came to fix the door, dug around, and read it. My eyes scan the letter.

I look at the clock, get up, return to the kitchen, peer out of the window. The car is still not there. He came into my
apartment, went through my things. Strangely it does not make me upset, only sorry that the place was such a mess. What he already thought, he is now sure of. That I’m worthless as a woman and as a mother.

Why hasn’t he come back?

Once again, I go over the path he must have taken. After walking for three hours at night, you don’t go out on the town in your car. I’ve always seen the car parked in front of the house, since my arrival. It seems strange that on this particular night, after walking down the mountain, he should decide to go out. I sit at the table. Maybe I should call the police, tell someone. They’ll take me for a fool for thinking that a mountain guide could get lost on the mountain in his own backyard.

Why didn’t he accompany the tourists he had led up the mountain? When the headlights illuminated his neck, he didn’t turn around. If I call the police, they’ll think something strange is afoot. They won’t believe me; they’ll think I’m crazy. If Manfred told them what he saw that night, they’ll think he was telling the truth. I won’t call.

He was here, in every room, searching, looking, digging. I wish at least I had emptied the tub and washed the breakfast dishes. No one has ever hounded me as he has; he’s on my trail and he won’t let go. Neither will I. I’m calling the police; I don’t care if they think I’m crazy.

THE SNOW QUEEN. The chapel, and its altar with empty vases, the benches, the heater that no one ever turns on. Everything is out of focus. I’ve carried the injured and the dead here,
in summer and in winter. Now it’s my turn. We keep dead bodies here while we wait for them to be identified. I’m alone. No one has come yet to claim me.

I remember lights, torches, searchlights, hands pulling me upward, the rods of the stretcher digging into my flesh. Then the air, and the sky coming closer; the feeling of being lifted onto something, rising in the air, screaming with each lurching movement. Nothing comes out of my mouth. I don’t hear words, just screams, dogs panting, and the vortex of the helicopter blades above everything. Then the pain stops—perhaps I’m dead—and they carry me to the chapel.

I try to move my head, but I can’t. Something is holding my neck in place. Blurry faces. I don’t recognize them. They speak quietly. How gentle they all are. I’d like to tell them: I’m shortsighted, come closer.

But the faces disappear, and then I’m moving again. I close my eyes; better to look inside of myself, and focus on the fire. Where am I?

A bonfire at night. My mother holds me and says, “Warm yourselves! But don’t go too close, or you’ll get burned.”

We warm our hands at the fire, and I put my hands in hers; she squeezes them. I’m warm, inside and out.

SITTING ON A bench in the park, I watch them play. Marco and Bianca’s children. All the adults are in the hospital, where he is being operated on. His wife and children are on their way.

I called the police. I stammered, not knowing quite what to say.

“I’m not sure, and I’m probably mistaken. We passed him on the way down, but he hasn’t arrived yet. I don’t have the number of the lodge, but it might be a good idea to call his brother.”

I leave my number, hang up, and wonder whether I’ve made a fool of myself. I think of how he’ll laugh when he finds out. I climb into bed but I can’t sleep. The phone doesn’t ring. I turn off the light. I make fun of myself, as I always do when I feel that I’ve done something dumb, to comfort myself.