When the Night (23 page)

If I look into his eyes, I’ll know whether I’m still inside of him. Halfway down, the other gondola appears in the fog, traveling upward in the snow. Another box, just like mine, struggling to rise as I descend. One above, one below. Never in the same place, except at the moment of crossing. I think of him; I mustn’t forget why I’m here. It’s too easy to forget, to tell oneself that life is something else, that love and desire are just dreams.

I’ve always been the same, even as a little girl, just like my uncle, as my father used to say. The uncle who sang the song with my name. I’ve stopped following advice; forget the wise path, do what you want, suffer, discover things on your own.

Suddenly I see him in the other gondola, standing in the window. He’s staring at me with his eyes and mouth open wide, like the boy in the drawing. “Manfred!” I yell.

The young man turns around. I don’t care what he thinks, I need to know.

“It was Manfred, wasn’t it? Where is he going?”

“He’s going up to see his brother.”

I think to myself: he’s coming to see me, you fool.

After a moment he adds, “There’s too much wind. After this run we’re shutting down the gondola.”

He was coming to see me. Now what? They’re shutting down the gondola. He’s up there, I’m down here. Separated again.

“MARINA!”

What a fool; she can’t hear me. She saw me. We looked at each other. Her hair is short.

“Who was that, Uncle? The woman who saved you?”

I turn toward my nephew. Christian leans against the opposite wall in his red ski instructor’s jacket. He has Bianca’s face and Albert’s light-colored eyes. We’re alone with the lift operator.

“How do you know?”

“Silvia told me. She was up at the lodge.”

I think to myself: why is she coming down?

“Is she here with her family?” I ask.

“No, I don’t think so. She’s on her own. She had a little boy; I remember him. They spent a few days with us.”

She’s here on her own, without her husband. Calm down, Manfred, she didn’t come for you.

Christian stares at me. What a strange boy he is. He is Albert’s firstborn. When he was little he didn’t talk much and followed his father around everywhere. Nowadays, after he finishes work he goes straight up to the lodge. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, or so his father seems to think. He says Christian reminds him of me.

“Where’s your brother?”

“It’s Saturday; he’s out with his friends.”

“And you?”

He turns toward the gondola operator with a worried look, but he isn’t listening, he’s looking out at the snow. The wind whistles loudly around us.

“Are you shutting down?” I ask.

He nods.

She’s at the bottom and can’t come back up. I’m at the top and can’t get back down. I can’t make it down on foot with my leg. I could ask Albert to take me down with the snowcat. Why did she go into town? Where is she headed? Be calm, Manfred, think.

“Do you mind not being able to drive, Uncle?”

“No. I only miss not being able to walk like I did before.”

“Why don’t you have a car custom-made?”

Kids have no imagination.

“I hate cars.”

She came here on her own, traveled up to the lodge, and came back down just when I decided to visit. Maybe she was planning to return, but she doesn’t know that the gondola will
close. And now what? She’ll take the bus into town and spend the night. We looked at each other, and she made a sign with her hand. She waved; what else could she do? She called out my name; I couldn’t hear her voice, but I saw it. I need to go back down and find her; I can’t stand it. Don’t run after her, Manfred, remember your father. Gustav didn’t run after his wife when she left him.

IT’S NIGHTTIME, TWO days before his death. We are alone; it’s my turn to stay with him. I fall asleep on the chair next to the bed. When I wake up, he’s staring at me. His once-strong voice is a whisper: “Manfred, go to sleep.”

“I was sleeping.”

“Go to bed.”

“I’m fine. Why don’t you sleep?”

He stares at me in silence, then says, “Things with your mother didn’t go the way you think, Manfred.”

I want to get up, but he gestures for me to sit. I must obey him, like when I was a boy. He’s dying.

“She couldn’t stop thinking about that man. She told me, in tears, and asked me to help her. She didn’t want to leave us. I told her to get out, and that if she stayed, I wouldn’t want her around anyway.”

He pauses. He can barely speak, his breathing is labored. “Never run after a woman.”

When he stops, I think to myself, You coward, she asked you to help her and you didn’t keep her from going.

Then I’m ashamed for thinking it, and I say, “You were right.”

He falls asleep. I look at my father, the man who took my mother from me.

I MUSTN’T GO down and look for her. She’s alone and free. She left her husband, her son is grown up, and she’s going around making trouble. She cut her hair. Why did she come here?

We’ve almost arrived. The gondola operator looks over at me.

“We’re going to shut down for the day and drive back. Do you want a ride in the jeep? You can’t walk down in this weather.”

The wheels reach the track. Never run after a woman.

“No, I’m going up to the lodge with Christian.”

WALKING TO THE café through the snow is hard going. In no time I’m covered in snow and my face is frozen. There are some skiers inside, drinking and warming up. But no one is out, just a few daredevils. Just him and me. I sit down. I know why he went up to the lodge. I can see his frightened eyes as they see me through the glass, silent words.

It’s you, you’ve come back, it’s been an eternity, where have you been, wait for me.

I sit down at a table. Fine, stare at me. I’m alone, I have no skis; I came here looking for a man.

“Would you like something to drink?”

The girl has an innocent face. I was like her once. I wore flowery dresses, an apron, and I pushed Marco around in his stroller, by myself. I passed the days, one after the other, without knowing where they were leading me.

I order a cappuccino; she cleans the table.

“How long until the bus leaves?”

“Half an hour.”

How long should I wait? What if he doesn’t come? What would Marco and Silvia think if they saw me? “That’s not our mother sitting there waiting for a man.”

And how about Mario? He has never known that I might leave him, that for me none of this was natural. That I still want to dance, to flee, to inflict pain. I’m not betraying them; I never made a promise to them. But I made a promise to him.

“Don’t leave the boy.”

The girl brings my cappuccino.

“How long does it take to get back down from the lodge?”

“The gondola is closed.”

“What if someone wants to come down?”

“They’d have to take a snowcat or a jeep.”

“How long would it take?”

In this weather, an hour.

I’ll wait for him until the last bus.

THE HEADLIGHTS OF Albert’s snowcat come closer, disappear around each bend, and reappear. We wait for him in the cold, uncle and nephew, at the corner of the broken-down wall of the gondola station. I hear my father’s voice: “Battle on!”

HE USED TO pick us up here, after school. Stefan would fall asleep inside the bunker, even though it is open and just
as cold inside as outside. But inside you feel the wind less. It was evening, and the gondola was closed, like today. I liked to imagine a running battle, shooting, dead bodies. The four of us fighting against the rest of the country, the school, and the outside world into which my mother had disappeared. In my mind’s eye, we crouched by the embrasures, with our rifles and grenades at the ready, holding back the hordes that advanced toward us, the enemy. Stefan was a fallen soldier, and Albert and I guarded him. The general came down the mountain to save us. We would bury Stefan up at the lodge, with full military honors.

Fallen in defense of the Land of the Sanes against the invaders.

I used to dream of an enemy that never came; our mother and the American were far away.

MAYBE SHE WENT down to see friends in the valley. She’ll take the bus into town.

Christian puts on his cap and claps his hands together for warmth. I tell him, “After school, your grandfather used to come and pick us up here.”

He looks over at me. “Dad told me.”

We all tell our children the same stories, as if trying to attach them to these rocks. Clara was right to leave.

“What are you going to do at the lodge on a Saturday?”

I want to provoke him. He shrugs.

“I want to relax. Every day I take the kids out to ski with their parents. I can’t stand to hear them.”

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

He stares at me; he didn’t expect this question from me. For several minutes he says nothing.

“She left me.”

His parents don’t know.

“A girl from the town?”

He pauses again, unsure of whether it is a good idea to discuss such matters with me. But he wants to talk.

“No. She used to bring her kid to me for lessons.”

“Was she married?”

He nods. I don’t know what to say.

“How old was she?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

He hangs his head and leans against the wall with his eyes closed.

“Where did the two of you meet?”

He looks like he’s about to cry. “I would wait at the bar, and she would call me when her son was asleep.”

He would down his last drink, pay, and run to his rendezvous. How he misses her! How I miss her. I feel a dull pain, like the one I felt back in the days of the wars of the Sanes against the world. Then the kiss on the hospital bed, the saliva. Leaning against the walls of our childhood, covered in snow like two soldiers, we dream of the warmth of bodies embracing after a long wait.

The beams of the snowcat come closer, cutting through the snow. I turn toward the gondola station. The jeep is still there.

THE WINDOWS OF the bar are misty; I rub a circle with my glove. The ski runs are deserted and the mountain is bathed in mist; the bus is about to leave for town, and then there will only be one more. Two more runs before the bar closes. The young girl with the innocent look told me. She took the cup and placed the coins in her apron pocket.

“Are you waiting for someone?”

“No.” Then I change my mind. “Yes.” I blush.

Will there be another bus tonight?

She glances over quickly. “One more, then there’s only the jeep for the gondola operators, which takes us down.”

I look at the three men at the bar; they drink and laugh with the other waitress. The girl looks over as well.

“They never leave until we throw them out; it’s the same every Saturday.”

The last bus, with three drunkards. Manfred has no intention of coming down. Why should he? He’s probably with his brother.

I peer through the circle in the window. A few snow-covered skiers remove their skis and climb onto the bus. I should go with them; in half an hour I’ll be in town. I’ll go back to the hotel where I slept the first night. Tomorrow I can return to the lodge and pick up my suitcase. Just like last time, but in reverse: then, we left our clothes down in the town and we had nothing to change into.

That night I thought about him before falling asleep, filled with desire and the fear of being discovered. The next day he saw me standing in the window, my hair wrapped in a towel. Over the years, I had forgotten the details, but now they are coming back, one by one.

We drove down the mountain in the jeep as the baby slept. Manfred didn’t come with us. His car never appeared. I peered out of the window and traced his path down the mountain, over and over. Up and down, and how long would it take, and where is he, and why hasn’t he come? Like now. Finally, I called the police. I couldn’t sleep; I can’t sleep now.

We’re on the same path, Manfred, you on one side, and me on the other. There’s no reason for him to come down but one: he knows I’m here, he saw me.

The bus departs, passes me by, and disappears in the mist. The three drunks are singing now. A final prayer.

Manfred, come down; don’t leave me here with them, don’t leave me alone like you have all these years.

I SAY TO Christian: “I’m going to my woman. It’s Saturday night; I want to be with her. Tell your father.”

He nods. “Say hello to Simon.”

He thinks I mean Luna; it’s better that way. I’d like to say something to comfort him; his eyes are still moist. But there’s no time. The snowcat comes closer. I don’t want to meet Albert, and the gondola operator is walking toward the jeep with the technician. I try to run with my bad leg; the young Manfred runs next to me, his heavy boots, always a size too big, beating against the ice. My ears used to stick out under my hat, and my mother would blow on them to warm them. I stop next to the jeep, my hand on the door handle. I don’t care who they are or where they’re going, but I want a spot in the jeep.

“I’m coming with you.”

They peer at me. “We have to load up the others, at the bar.”

“Don’t worry; I’ll get out and take the bus.”

As I sit in the backseat, images go through my mind. I press my hands together to keep from going mad. The two men in the front ask questions, talk. I close my eyes so they’ll leave me alone. The technician says to the other one, “Poor Manfred.”