“In fact, it would be difficult for me to tell you just how unusual your arrival here is… how unusual for the three of us, for Hagen, for Faffner, for me…”
He got up from the table, walked towards the window and stood there for a while with his forehead pressed against the glass, looking out into the night. His voice changing, he whispered, as if to himself, as though it were a spelclass="underline"
“Wanderer tritt still herein;
Schmerz versteinerte die Schwelle
Da erglanzt in reiner Helle
Auf dem Tische Brot und Wein”18
Then he let the silence grow deeper, after which Nora, still whispering, asked: “What’s that?”
“A poem. It was written a long time ago by a young Austrian who died in the war.19 It’s called Ein Winterabend… A Winter Evening…” And, turning towards them again, he asked: “Don’t you think it resembles this one?”
X
THE MORNING WAS CLOUDY, BUT THERE WAS NO FOG. It was snowing softly. The overnight snow had blotted out last night’s footprints and trails.
Paul found Nora outside, talking with Hagen. Faffner was lying at their feet. When he saw him, he slowly stood up, with the majestic indolence of a drowsy lion. Hagen spoke a word to him in an incomprehensible language and the dog lay down on the spot, with its muzzle in front of its paws.
“You slept for eleven hours,” Nora said to Paul.
“That’s all?” In reality he had the impression that he had slept several nights in a single night: a slumber as long as the winter.
Nora motioned to him to speak quietly. “Gunther’s sleeping.” She pointed to a small tower with a window, isolated from the rest of the cabin, where the boy’s room was located.
The cabin was built of stone and wooden beams, with green shutters and red roof tiles, but the two colours were dark: a green of dark pines and a burnt, extinguished red. Only the cretonne curtains brought a touch of light to the windows, with their patterns of bowls of flowers.
Their skis were ready for the trail. Hagen had looked for Nora’s skis in the woods as soon as daylight broke, and had found them far away, in a clearing, with the tips run up against a juniper tree. Her poles remained lost. Using a clasp knife, Hagen had made Nora new poles out of two branches of a pine tree, and had taken the trouble to attach two small loops of hazel fibre at the tops.
“By tomorrow I think you’ll be able to put them to use. Tomorrow I’m going to Braşov to do shopping and I’ll buy you some more.” Hagen still looked dark in the morning light. He wore the same cape of ashen fabric on his shoulders, with the hood hanging down his back.
He resembles a woodsman and a priest at the same time, Nora thought, not daring to look him in the eyes. He spoke quietly, heavily, with a certain awkwardness. His face was pale, framed by a prickly, badly groomed, black beard.
“It’s better if you put on your skis right here,” he said. “You won’t be able to move on foot. The snow’s too deep.”
On his skis, Paul felt as though he were on a narrow bridge, which he was crossing on tiptoe.
“Not like that, Paul,” Nora called out. “Press down on the skis with your full weight. Have faith in them.”
She came alongside him and grabbed him by the shoulders, hauling him downwards. “Let your weight fall on the heels and the soles. You shouldn’t be staggering.”
She showed him how to make his first progress across the snow, taking slow, step-by-step movements.
“We’re on even ground here. So sliding and falling are out of the question. Take it easy and above all place your feet firmly. First push the right ski ahead with the knee bent and the left leg stretched. Like that! Now, pull the left ski even with the other one… good…! And push forward on it… Perfect.”
“That’s all?”
“For the time being,” Nora said, laughing.
Yet Paul was puzzled. “What do I do with the poles?”
“You support yourself on them, but not too much. You help yourself more when you drag your back leg forward. Take a few steps as I’ve shown you, and check that your movements suit you in a natural way. Let’s go.”
Paul felt the teacher’s eyes on him. As long as I don’t make a mistake, he thought, looking straight at the tip of his right ski. He was like a pupil who was failing the class.
He set out slowly, paying careful attention. The snow was soft, spongy, and at first he had the impression that the skis were sinking, but then he felt them sliding noiselessly forward, meeting no resistence. Nora came behind him, checking his movements.
“Your arms are too far apart. Hold them closer to your body, almost stuck to it… Yes, that’s better, but now they’re too stiff… Move more freely, more simply…”
Hagen accompanied them for a while to show them the trail. Then, after leading them out of a small glade, he stopped.
“I’m turning around here. Pay attention to where you’re going so that you’ll know how to get back here. Gunther usually eats at one o’clock. If you’re late, he’ll have to wait for you.”
He stood there with Faffner and watched them for a few moments as they left.
“You know that man frightens me?” Nora asked Paul in a whisper.
“I know. It’s his dark cape.”
“No. The eyes. His blue eyes.” And then, after another silence, surprised by the resemblance that she had only just discovered, she added: “He almost has Gunther’s eyes. It’s the same blue.”
They both turned their heads. Hagen, unmoving, was in the same spot. With the dark cape on his shoulders he looked, from a distance, like the trunk of a burnt tree.
The ski run in front of the Touring Club chalet was full of people. Saxons from the SKV Club had also arrived in rowdy groups. On the biggest slope, which descended from immediately below the mountain’s summit, a military team was training for the competitions in Predeal. From a distance they looked like black stars that had fallen on a sky of snow. The entire landscape was undulating with huge white drifts that rose towards the sky and stopped short in movements that had frozen while in flux.
Nora and Paul stopped at the crest of the wave.
“Here you have to go down, Paul.”
“You think so?”
“I’m sure.”
Flustered, he glanced at the slope that opened in front of him. Right away it looked threatening. I’m going to fall, he said to himself. He would have liked to ask for a respite, an adjournment. Wasn’t this slope too hard for a beginner? Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to start with something simple? He raised his eyes towards Nora, but he didn’t dare say anything to her. In her face he read the pitilessness of the teacher who has asked a question and now expects a reply.
“Look here, Paul. You bend your knees like two bows. You understand? Like two bows.” She looked him straight in the eyes and pronounced the words syllable by syllable. “The poles facing backwards, as far back as possible. To make sure, put your hands on your hips. Like that. Head facing forward, shoulders forward, body bent… Bend a little farther… Like that… The skis next to each other, perfectly parallel… Now go…”
I still have time to stop, Paul thought. I still have time to stop on the spot, I still have time…
The skis set off slowly on their own. Then he suddenly had the sensation that they were no longer on his feet. A wave of snow came sturdily towards him. I’m falling! Something deafening, a thunder clap or a deep silence, covered everything.