A forester named Hobel happened to be passing not far away, and it was he, alerted by our cries, who pulled the boy out of the river some minutes later with the help of a long pole. The kid’s face was as white as cream. Even his lips had turned white. His eyes were closed, and he was smiling. Some of us thought he was dead for sure. Nevertheless, he was put under blankets and his skin rubbed with alcohol, and several hours later he came to. Life returned to his veins and blood ran into his cheeks. The first thing he asked for was his afternoon snack, but in the asking, he stumbled over every word, as if the cold, flowing river had frozen his mouth and his tongue had remained enclosed and half dead under a caparison of ice. He received his nickname that day, and thereafter no one ever called him anything other than Zungfrost.
When I reached the landing, I could hear voices coming from the council room. My heart started beating a bit faster. I took a deep breath, uncovered my head, and knocked at the door before entering.
The council room is huge. I’d even say it’s too big for the little that goes on in it. It’s something out of another era, from a time when a community’s riches were measured in proportion to its public buildings. The ceiling’s improbably high. The walls, which have been simply whitewashed, are covered with ancient maps, framed parchments whereon texts written in sloping, complex scripts record laws, leases, and duties dating back to the time when the village was dependent upon the lords of Molensheim, before the Emperor, by a charter of 1756, accorded it its freedom and declared it released from all servitude. On all these documents, wax seals hang from shriveled ribbons.
Ordinarily the members of the village council sit on either side of the mayor at a large table, facing several rows of benches set out to accommodate the citizens who come to hear the council’s deliberations. That evening the table was there, but the benches had been shoved into a corner of the room and piled atop one another in monumental disorder. The only objects in front of the big table were a single chair and a tiny desk.
“Come on in, Brodeck, we’re not going to eat you …” That was Orschwir, addressing me from his central place at the table. His words elicited from the others a bit of muffled laughter, apparently an expression of their self-assurance and complicity. There were two of them. On the mayor’s left, Lawyer Knopf stuffed tobacco into his pipe while looking at me over the smudged lenses of his spectacles. The chair on Orschwir’s right was empty, but Göbbler occupied the next seat over. He leaned toward me and turned his head; because his eyes betrayed him more and more with each passing day, he’d apparently decided to try to see people and things with his ears instead. My blood ran cold at the sight of him.
“Are you going to sit down or not?” Orschwir said. The warmth in his voice sounded forced. “You’re among friends, Bro-deck. Make yourself at home. You have nothing to fear.”
I was on the point of asking the mayor the reason for my neighbor’s presence, and for Lawyer Knopf’s as well; Knopf may have been one of the village notables, but he wasn’t even a member of the council. Why were he and Göbbler there and nobody else? Why precisely those two? What offices did they hold? What were their functions? What qualified them to sit behind the big table?
My brain was boiling with all these questions when I heard the door open behind me. A broad smile lit up Orschwir’s face. “Come in, please,” he said respectfully, addressing the newcomer, whom I couldn’t yet see. “You haven’t missed anything. We were just about to get started.”
Halting steps, punctuated by the taps of a cane, resounded in the room. The new arrival was approaching, but I still couldn’t see him. The sounds at my back came closer. I didn’t want to turn around. He paused a few paces from me, and then I heard him say, “Hello, Brodeck.” I’d heard that voice tell me hello hundreds and hundreds of times. My heart stopped beating; I closed my eyes; my hands felt damp. A bitter taste flooded my mouth. The steps behind me began again, elegantly slow. Then there was the sound of a chair scraping the floor, followed by silence. I opened my eyes again. Ernst-Peter Limmat, my old schoolmaster, was sitting in the chair on Orschwir’s right, looking at me.
“Have you lost your tongue, Brodeck? Come on! We’re all here! Read us what you’ve written so far.”
As he spoke these words, Orschwir rubbed his hands together, the way he rubbed them after concluding a shrewd business deal. It wasn’t my tongue that had gone missing. That wasn’t what I’d lost all of a sudden. It was something else: another portion, perhaps, of faith and hope.
My dear old teacher Limmat, what were you doing there, sitting behind that table like a judge in a tribunal? So you knew, too, didn’t you?
XVIII
—
he faces. Their faces. Was this another of those agonizing dreams, like the ones that used to seize me at night in the camp and fling me into a world where nothing was familiar? Where am I? Will this all come to an end some day? Is this Hell? What wrong have I done? Tell me, Amelia. Why is this happening? Because I left you? Yes, it’s true: I left you. I wasn’t there. My darling, forgive me, please forgive me. You know they took me away. You know there was nothing I could do. Speak to me. Tell me what I am. Tell me you love me. Stop that humming, I beg you, stop it. Stop droning that tune. It breaks my head and my heart. Open your lips and let words come out. I can hear everything now. I can understand everything. I’m so tired. I’m so insignificant, and there’s no light in my life without you. I’m dust, and I know it. I’m futile.
I’ve drunk a little too much this evening. It’s the middle of the night. I’m not afraid of anything anymore. I must write everything down. They could be coming. I’m waiting for them. Yes, I’m waiting for them.
In the council room, I read the few pages — ten at the most — on which I’d recorded witnesses’ statements and reconstructed events. I kept my eyes on the lines, never looking up at my audience of four, who sat there and listened. I kept slipping off the chair, whose seat was tilted forward, and the desk was so small that my legs barely fit under it. My position was distinctly uncomfortable, but that’s what they wanted: they wanted me to be ill at ease in that vast room, in that trial-like setting.
I read in a lifeless, absent voice. I hadn’t yet recovered from the surprise — and the bitter disappointment — of encountering my former schoolmaster there. My eyes and mouth read, but my thoughts were elsewhere. Many memories of him came to my mind, some of them very old: my first day of school, when I stepped inside the door and saw his eyes turn toward me, big eyes of a glacial blue, the blue of deep crevasses; and the times — how I’d loved them! — when he had me stay after school and helped me progress in my studies, helped me make up for the time I’d lost, coaching me with patience and kindness. His voice grew less solemn during those sessions. We were alone together, and he spoke to me gently, corrected my mistakes without anger, encouraged me. I remember back then, when I was still a little boy and I’d lie awake at night trying to evoke my father’s face, I would often catch myself giving him the schoolmaster’s features, and I also remember that the image was pleasant and comforting.