“Wanderer tritt still herein;
Schmerz, versteinerte die Schwelle”
She stifled her crying for a moment in order to hear better and to understand, but the tears, held back for an instant, burst forth as though she were falling again.
Two powerful arms lifted her to her feet. Someone pulled an armchair towards the fireplace.
As though through a mist, she discerned big logs reduced to embers burning silently in the mouth of the fireplace. Confident, attentive hands pulled off her snow-dampened coat and slid a heavy, velvety jacket — a hunting jacket — which smelled vaguely of tobacco, over her shoulders.
Nora opened her eyes. At her feet a young man watched her in silence as though he had been looking at her for a long time.
“Sie haben wahrscheinlich den Weg verloren. Wohin waren Sie denn unterwegs? Von wo kommen sie?”15
Nora didn’t reply. The young man had wide blue eyes, a high, sad forehead, illuminated by the light of the fire and a slightly ironic smile. He’s a child, she thought, and turned her head to look for someone else in this strange house, someone of whom she could ask forgiveness for all that had happened. But there was no one, not even the man with the lamp.
“Don’t be afraid. You’ve found shelter here. You need to rest. If you want, you can sleep.”
This time he spoke in Romanian, with a Saxon accent, but without haste, with a kind of ponderousness that separated the syllables one from another.
He stood up. Now that he was beyond the range of the flickering of the fire, his forehead was pale, but his eyes became cheerful in their childlike blueness. Nora remembered that from the doorway she had seen a clock, but she couldn’t recall where to look for it.
“What time is it?”
“Nine-thirty.”
She repeated the words without understanding them. Nine-thirty… What sort of nine-thirty…? Her troubled gaze was awaiting a reply, asking for help.
He leaned towards her again and looked her in the eyes, speak-ing slowly and shaking her shoulders gently, as though he wished to awake her from a dream.
“It’s nine-thirty in the evening. You understand? Today is Thursday, December 20, 1934, it’s night, and it’s nine-thirty.”
Nora lifted her hands to her temples as if to gather her thoughts. “It’s unbelievable. I had the impression that I’d lost whole hours. I thought it must be very late, that the night must be almost over…”
She halted with a dizzy, puzzled motion… The youth was still listening to her. Nora continued with some difficulty, in a voice she herself didn’t recognize. “I came from the Touring Club chalet. There are a lot of people there. I went out for some exercise, some fresh air, to be alone… When I tried to return, I couldn’t find the trail. My skis slipped, I fell. I had a flashlight with me, but it broke or maybe I lost it… After that, I don’t know what happened. I kept going and going…”
She was silent for a moment, then asked, with a certain uneasiness: “Is it far away?”
“What?”
“The Touring Club chalet.”
“A few hundred metres.”
“Could someone accompany me back there, or show me the trail?”
“Naturally, but don’t you think it would be better to stay here? At least until tomorrow morning?”
Nora read a certain anxiety in his stare, although his relaxed, ironic smile persisted. My God, the state I must be in!
“I don’t wish to upset you, but I think you need rest. There’s a free room upstairs. I’ve told them to light the fire.”
Nora ran her right hand slowly across her face, her cheeks. “Do you have a mirror?”
“I said I didn’t wish to upset you and now I’ve upset you. It’s nothing serious. A scratch on your right temple and another one here, on your forehead. There’s a little blood. Let’s find some cotton wool and rubbing alcohol.”
“I have some in my backpack. Up at the Touring Club chalet.”
“We’ll send someone to bring it.”
Nora remained doubtful for a moment, on the verge of accepting the offer; but then she refused it. “No, I can’t stay.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not alone. I left without saying that I was leaving. I have to go back. He may have realized that I’m missing, he may be looking for me…”
“Your husband?”
Nora looked at him, surprised by this word, which had never crossed her mind, and which now rendered any reply impossible. Can I tell this child, can I tell him that…?
He didn’t let her finish her thought.
“Please forgive my stupid question. But whoever it may be, he should come here.”
He had an unexpected self-assurance. He dealt with the uncomfortable moment with the discretion of an old man. Only a slight flush in his until-now pale face betrayed his adolescence. What grade is he in? Nora wondered. He wore a long-sleeved red pullover, and a woollen scarf, also red, but of a dark red that was almost black. His blond hair, cut short in the German style at the back and sides, fell over his forehead in front. He must look good in his school uniform.
In that moment the man with the lamp came in the door. Nora recognized him by his gigantic stature. In his arms he carried logs for the fire. He was dressed in a hunter’s sack coat, buttoned up to the neck like a minister’s vestments. His legs were garbed in high boots, while on his shoulders he wore a long cape of an ash-coloured fabric with the hood falling behind him. The blond boy spoke to him in a language Nora didn’t understand. The vowels were heavy and muted. It sounded like Dutch, or a Flemish dialect
… He laughed at this suggestion.
“O nein! Est is nur Sächsisch! Wir beide reden immer Sächsisch miteinander.”16
But the man with the lamp understood Romanian, he even spoke it with a certain difficulty, although he pronounced it clearly. Nora explained to him where he would find her backpack and what he should say to the gentleman who was sleeping at the Touring Club in bed number 15.
I should write him a note, she thought. He may not want to come.
But the man with the ash-coloured cape had pulled on his hood and left. The sound of his boots outside remained audible.
“My name is Gunther Grodeck,” said the blond boy, who had remained alone. “I’m twenty-one years old. Or, to tell the truth, I haven’t turned twenty-one yet.” He fell silent for a moment, with an unexpected darkening of his mood, and whispered: “Unfortunately, not yet.” Then he shook himself out of this sadness and added abruptly, with bitterness, as though someone had threatened him: “But I will soon!”
Nora smiled. “When?”
“In March. At the end of March.”
“We should always be patient. What’s the hurry? Is it urgent?”
A translucent pallor crossed his face without, however, blurring the clarity of his eyes.
“You must be hungry,” he said, with an obvious desire to change the subject. “Please forgive me for not having asked you until now. I’ll go see what I can find.”
She would have liked to stop him (“No, I’m not hungry, I was hungry but it’s passed”), but he had stepped out of the room, leaving her alone.
It was a large room with white, illuminated walls and smokey black beams. On one wall was a red rug and two old carbines. The armchairs and the couch were made of a brightly coloured, flower-patterned cretonne and the curtains on the windows were of the same cretonne. It was a peasant home, with the big open fireplace looking as though it were the entrance to another room. The whole room resembled at once a hunter’s lodge and an entrance hall. On a shelf were a few books in German and a portrait of a woman drawn in pencil. The drawing was delicate and indistinct, as though it had been blurred by time.