Her flashlight, attached to the top pocket on the left side of her coat, was alight like a lighthouse. Over my heart, Nora thought. She couldn’t remember when she had turned it on, nor when she had clipped it to the buttons of her pocket. She followed the white streak of the snow through the trees. It seemed to her as if there were a tiny creature that was moving up ahead of her and urging her on. It capered like a squirrel. A white squirrel.
At the turns, the edges of her skis scraped the frozen snow like the blade of a penknife. It was a piercing sound, like a short shout. I should stop. I should figure out where I’m going. She didn’t know where she was going; she just knew she didn’t want to turn around. She still felt that horrible acetylene lamp flickering behind her and waiting for “eleven o’clock,” which was never going to come.
She stopped and tried to gather her thoughts. On the opposite slope of the mountain there should be a trail that descended towards Timiş. At this time of night, Nora? Are you crazy?
She seemed to remember having seen somewhere on the map or on a chart giving directions a trail marked in yellow and blue rhomboids… She turned the flashlight towards the tree next to which she was standing and lighted it from bottom to top. Not a sign, not a single one… Maybe I’m asleep, Nora thought. Maybe the sign I’m looking for is one I’m seeking in a dream. Yet she felt the rough bark of the trees beneath her frozen fingers. She had the impression of being on the outskirts of a dream that she was struggling to leave.
Later she found herself again sliding on her skis — and she didn’t know whether this sliding was carrying her back into her slumber or restoring her to wakefulness. The white streak of light preceded her more rapidly than before, ever more swiftly. Her skis suddenly lost their heaviness and soared silently, unimpeded, over the snow. I should slow down, she thought, but her knees didn’t hear her. She was on an open slope that fell towards the shadows of pine trees, barely discernible in the darkness. If I don’t stop, I’m lost, Nora thought, but the voice seemed to come from another Nora, who had remained outside the dream and was observing from there, as though through a window, events that she could not understand. She tried to pull off to the right with a twisting movement, which never the less received no response: her shoulders and knees were like bells without a clapper. The skis, their points close together, pursued the white streak of light at a speed that lifted her off the snows. Nora closed her eyes and was hurled forward with her arms spread, her head landing in the snow. She sensed that in the final moment something had pushed her from behind. She turned a series of downhill somersaults with her skis lodged across each other. Snow scraped her forehead, her hands. The hot taste of blood dampened her lips.
Now she really felt as though she had awakened from slumber. From slumber or from a faint. She saw herself sprawled on the street next to the sidewalk in the middle of a group of curious bystanders. She heard their voices and felt the stare of a man locked on her, a stare she knew. So everything, absolutely everything, was a dream… So we return again to that tram accident, which still hasn’t ended… So I still haven’t succeeded in getting up from there and walking away…
She lifted herself up on her elbow and looked around her. Images that had mingled in confusion for a moment, like a dream within a dream, melted together in the darkness. She didn’t a hear a voice, not a twitch. Nora searched for the flashlight she had lost when she fell, but she didn’t find it.
If I had the flashlight, I’d go back to the chalet.
She was powerless to find it. She was in a broad, open clearing shaped like a horseshoe. I came from up above, she thought, trying to remember the path. She would have had to pull herself, tree by tree, to the upper end of the clearing, and shout from there. Maybe it wasn’t too far, maybe they would hear her… More than anything else, she realized that she couldn’t stay here. A kind of sweet languor was tugging her towards the snow, and she knew that this sleepiness was deceptive.
Both of her skis remained attached to her hobnailed boots, but she had lost her poles in the fall. She pulled herself to her feet by grabbing a tree with her hands. Only then did she realize that she was right on the edge of the woods. A second later would have been too late. And yet, and yet, maybe it would have been a good death, with her temple crushed by a tree. Better than this night without end that stretched before her and which she no longer had the strength to get through.
Let’s keep our eyes open, Nora, and let’s get going. As far as we can. To wherever we can get to.
She felt nothing but the bleeding of the wound in her temple. It was the only sensation that persisted amid the heavy sleepiness against which she struggled: and yet I’m moving, I know very well that I’m moving, I realize that I’m moving. Her knees, her hands, occasionally collided with the trees, but they were blows that didn’t hurt, that left no marks. She no longer felt the skis on her legs. Maybe I’ve lost them; but she couldn’t imagine when.
She seemed to hear, from somewhere, the barking of a dog. She had enough strength to smile. Don’t delude yourself, Nora. Don’t believe it, Nora.
Yet there was light between the trees. Could I have reached the chalet? She didn’t recognize it. It was a small house, with only two lighted windows. A sheepdog, as big as a bear, was on the threshold.
Why isn’t he running towards me? None of this can be real. He should be running towards me.
Someone had come out of the house, hit the dog on the nape of the neck and, taking him by the ears, soothed now, came towards Nora. He had a lantern in his hands, which he held up in front of her face. He looked at her for a while. The light blinded her. Then he lowered the lamp and returned to the house without a word, without asking a question.
“All this can’t be real,” Nora said. It was the same absurd dream, which still hadn’t ended.
Voices were audible inside and then a great silence.
The door opened again and, from the doorway, the man with the lamp signalled for her to enter.
IX
NORA STOOD IN THE DOORWAY for a few minutes, hesitating to go inside. It was lighted, it was warm. She lifted her hand to her throat to touch her woollen scarf and didn’t find it. I probably lost it on the trail.
Next to the window was a table and a lamp with a round white glass cover. Someone was sitting in an armchair and watching her, while the man with the lantern stood in the shadows. He should have extinguished it, Nora thought, looking towards that still-burning light. On the table was a knife, a book with a yellowing cover and a clock showing an impossible time: ten minutes after nine. She looked at each object attentively.
“That clock has stopped,” she said and pointed at it with her finger, without knowing to whom she was speaking.
Then she went to pieces, realizing that she was going to pieces and still having time to think: I shouldn’t fall, I shouldn’t cry. She cried in a loud sob, with her head in her hands, her tears boiling, burning her frozen cheeks, her stiffened fingers.
She heard steps approaching, voices that dwelt above her. Someone stroked her snow-laden hair. A youthful voice whispered half-chanted words as though they were a poem.