When the Night (20 page)

In my fantasy, I go back, to see how he’s doing and whether he is able to walk. I bring him a photo of the kids, we talk. After all, we spoke so little back then. I take a train by myself, without telling him I’m coming. I book a hotel and call him from there. We see each other. I’m older, and so is he, and so we are finally able to transform our desire into words.

I SIT UP, open the suitcase, and pull out a few things. Tomorrow I’ll go up to the lodge and see Bianca and Albert. Then, when I’m ready, I’ll see him as well.

I WALK BETWEEN the tables, looking for Luna. A few of the newer guests notice my limp; the others know already.

“Good evening, Manfred. The snow was stupendous today.”

“I’m so glad.”

“What will the weather be like tomorrow?”

They ask me every night.

“Cloudy, but it won’t snow.”

I’m guessing, but I’m usually right.

Luna stands at a table, talking to a group of guests. She’s good at talking to people; they are drawn to her, and they come back. I wouldn’t get far with the hotel on my own, but after all she was the one who wanted the place. I wait for her to finish. She describes the ski runs, where to go for the ski pass, how to rent skis. How can she stand to say the same things over and over, and always with a smile? She was a teacher; every year she repeated the same lessons to a new group of children. She sees me.

“Manfred.”

She has a few small wrinkles around her eyes, and a few extra pounds. I love this woman.

“I’m going to the town meeting. Do you need me?”

“No. Isn’t it true that it snows less and less?” She turns toward the group at the table. “We have to put snow machines on all the runs; there’s less snow, so we have to make it ourselves. It’s expensive, but what can you do?”

Another conversation begins, this time about global warming. I walk away. It’s been fifteen, twenty years since the glacier
started to melt, and now they notice, because the tourists can’t ski as they would like. I go to the meeting at the town hall. I listen but don’t talk; Albert is there, and he is much better informed than I am. After all, I was only a guide, I used to walk on that glacier as a kid.

I pick up my cane. At night my leg aches. As I get older it will get worse. I need to keep the other leg strong. I put on my jacket, the one Luna bought for me. I don’t talk, and I don’t buy. Maybe it’s the same disease?

It has snowed suddenly, out of season; during the Christmas holidays we had nothing. The town is all white like when we were kids, when we came down for Christmas mass. People would stare. And whisper, “Those are the Sane kids.”

We looked straight ahead at the priest. We didn’t need them. And here we are, going to the town meeting.

The Sane boys have wives, kids, hotels.

Even Stefan found a wife, a Slav, good-looking. They have a son. He thought he was so clever, but now he has a wife who bosses him around. She doesn’t shop for him, or cook. She has him wrapped around her little finger. Go figure. Stefan is like a child who wants his sweets. We ask him why, and he always says the same thing: “She’s the only one I can’t lead by the nose.”

Perhaps. But the truth is that she does as she pleases and he is at her beck and call. There’s ice on the road; tomorrow we’ll have to break it up again. I’ve gone from mountain guide to car parker, very impressive. The town is quiet. Clara is right to want to leave; when you’re young you can do anything, you’re stronger than any obstacle. You can run up the
mountain without breaking a sweat; now I look at it through the window before falling asleep, like when I was a kid and I used to stare up at the Gigante. But back then you felt like a giant.

WHEN BIANCA PICKED up the phone I had to explain who I was.

“Marina, of course. How many years has it been?”

“Fifteen.”

“We’ve changed everything up here at the lodge. It’s all different now, except for the mountains, of course. They haven’t changed.” She laughs. “How is your baby boy?”

“He’s big now, and I have a daughter as well. And yours?”

“Silvia is here. Gabriel and Christian are down in town. They’re ski instructors now. Come up and see us, we’d love to have you.”

Children are running in the sitting room of the hotel. Mothers talk, and I can hear snippets of their conversations. “I don’t want to put him to bed too early, or he’ll wake me at the crack of dawn.”

This is my first trip on my own. I’ve imagined it for a long time. Mario was surprised.

“ALONE? ARE YOU sure?”

“You have work, and the kids have school. Just for a week.”

“Why do you want to go there? You never wanted to before.”

I am not afraid he’ll understand; he has no memory of that month. There are no photos in the album.

“I was alone. It was difficult. Marco never slept, and he hurt himself. I didn’t think I was going to make it.”

He stares at me, but he knows I have trouble expressing myself. “So then why do you want to go there?”

“For that reason. Because it was hard.”

He smiles. “You want to return to your old battleground.”

HE HAS NO idea how close he is to the truth.

I go to bed at ten. In the elevator I pass a father holding a bottle of milk; he’s going to warm it up in the kitchen. I open the door to my room and turn on the light. Standing there in that room with the neatly made bed, the little curtains, the darkness outside, it all comes back. It never went away. Where was it hiding all this time? I feel light-headed. On the bed, as I clutch my knees to my chin, I feel the pain, but I can’t cry.

I’m here. Come to me.

I breathe in, stand up. Stop this. It’s a fantasy I’ve been nurturing for fifteen years. Everybody has one, but it’s time to stop.

I undress. I’m thin. After the second baby my breasts are smaller but still shapely. I rub lotion into my still-smooth skin. My face is thinner. He’ll find me less attractive, but of course he’ll be worse off, older. He already had wrinkles on his face; who knows, perhaps he can’t even walk. Bianca will tell me.

I’m wearing a new, blue nightgown. I smooth my short hair behind my ears. My hair used to be long; the sink in the lodge was too small to wash it in.

Now they’ve renovated the rooms, and I look younger with short hair.

THEY’VE FIGURED OUT how to talk and talk without really saying anything. Let’s just buy the snow machines and shut up. We all want them, so what is there to discuss? I’m leaving. After all, Albert is here. “I’m sick of this. I’m leaving.”

“Are you coming up tonight?”

“Are you crazy? The hotel is full. Luna can’t handle it by herself. I need to shovel snow and help the tourists dig out their cars.”

He laughs. He has a mustache now, just like our father.

“You’re crazy, Manfred.”

“What? I’m just saying she needs my help.”

I get up, trying to avoid being seen. He calls me back.

“Manfred?”

“Yes?”

“Did you see that the woman from the accident is here?”

“Who?”

“The woman who called the police the night you fell.”

I’m frozen, still bent forward. “Are you serious?”

“She’s staying in town and coming up to the lodge tomorrow. She called Bianca.”

“No, I didn’t know. Ciao.”

“Ciao.”

I leave the meeting room. In the hallway more people are discussing the snow machines. I zip up my jacket and walk to the piazza, away from home. My leg hurts. It’s best not to stand still in the cold.

What should I think?

I remember when I was in the hospital, when Luna told me that her husband had come to pick her up.

I told her to leave.

And when I returned her letter to her.

You did the right thing, Manfred. You’re not like that American; you would never take away someone else’s wife.

In the letter she thanked me, but underneath she wrote: I kissed you, and I want to kiss you again. She would raise her fist at me again if I said it, because it’s the truth.

Perhaps I shouldn’t think about it at all, forget about it as I have all these years. Except that one time.

WE CONVERTED THE house into a hotel and launched it with a party. Half the town was there, and of course my brothers, father, and nieces and nephews. We were also celebrating the fact that I was walking again. The rehabilitation was long and hard, and I had a lot of help from Luna and the kids.

We ate and danced. Not me, of course, but I’ve never danced, even before, and now at least I had a good excuse. Stefan danced with Luna; he always had a thing for her, but then he likes every woman. I imagined her in Luna’s place in Stefan’s arms. I felt a surge of anger, for letting her go, for throwing her back into her husband’s arms. I felt like a fool. Luna stopped dancing and came over; she was happy, and she kissed me. My previous thoughts disappeared, washed away by a wave of shame.

I dream about her at night. I’m buried in the snow. She kisses me, as she did at the hospital. I feel the heat of her mouth
in mine, but I can’t pull myself away. The Snow Queen; she warms you up and then leaves you.

SHE’S ON VACATION with her husband. Maybe the boy is here as well. How old is the boy? Seventeen, eighteen? A young man. They’ve come to spend a week in the mountains.

That’s the way to think about it, Manfred.

T
HE LODGE IS covered in snow; I can’t see the rocks. It looks different. I climb out of the snowcat. A young man drives. He says to me, “I’ve been working for them for a few years. There are a lot of visitors, and they can’t manage on their own.”

“And Silvia?”

I think I see him blush.

“She works with her mother.”

We are surrounded by snow, loosened by the snowplows. The guide drives steadily up an unmarked path, through the blank, white landscape. I have only been down it once, at night, in summertime. Marco was in my arms, and there were other people too. This time I’m alone. I don’t remember his face as he slept. Now, I take pictures of them so I won’t forget their faces as children. But I have no pictures from that month. I remember how I held him in my arms, his eyes closed, his head
against my shoulder. His hair has grown over the spot where they shaved his head, and the scar. I wonder what, if anything, he remembers of that month.

A CONVERSATION WITH him at the table.

“You were always moving, and sometimes you would fall and hurt yourself.”

“It’s your fault, Mamma, you didn’t pay attention!”

I’m silent. What does he know? My silence worries him.

“Come on, Mamma, I’m kidding!”

“No, you’re right. I was distracted. Your father used to scold me. And you were always moving! Silvia was calmer.”

“I tested your patience, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“That way you couldn’t forget me.”

He laughs. He sounds like Manfred. One time I mentioned his name, to create a connection between them: “Our landlord was a mountain guide. He drove us to the hospital. He found me hiding behind a door, because I didn’t have the strength to look at you.”

He listens and imagines his mother, all alone, unable to take care of him.

“Good thing he was there.”