Skis and sticks over one shoulder, hat pulled down, measured pace, two by two along the road, the clunk of steel-tipped boots, some use a ski-stick like a walking-stick, after half an hour they leave the road, a path already flattened in the snow, overlaid by a few centimetres of fresh frosted powder, the bracing air in the chest, the trachea, Lena is chatting to one of the young French girls, Lilstein is just behind her with an Englishman, the hardest part for me is to stay in contact with London, the Englishman is as tall as Lilstein, thick lips, hair already receding though he’s not yet forty, it’s Maynes, he makes a point of seeking Lilstein out, the path winds up gently towards the first col, they are making towards Davos, the guide has a sing-song voice, ‘not so fast’, ‘not so fast’, he stops two men who have gone on ahead, ‘halt!’, he tells them to go to the back, puts Lena and Lilstein at the front, with himself just behind them, it’s the first time Lilstein has ever wanted to kiss a mountain guide, he tells the guide our English friends are not best pleased, a woman has been put at the head of the group.
‘The theatre is a tough business to be in, Monsieur Goffard,’ says the young woman. ‘You shouldn’t speak ill of it.’
Max decides that she looks like her mother, the same modulation, low and categorical, in the young woman’s voice. She adds:
‘I prefer Monsieur Moncel even if he’s unfair about what I act in, with his Figaro reviews.’
‘Oh, he’s turned over a new leaf,’ says Max, ‘you were there for The Cherry Orchard, last year? Or when he went to see The Days of the Commune? When the curtain comes down, the audience gives the Berliner Ensemble a standing ovation, La Weigel comes down off the stage, imagine, she’s there in the stalls, with Aragon, Elsa, the leading communists, the left-wing intellectuals. In the centre aisle a silence settles from the back, a man walks forward slowly, on the arm of a friend, a woman, he goes up to La Wiegel, it’s Moncel greeting Brecht’s widow! And everyone smiles at him, that too was a great spectacle.’
The guide tells Lilstein:
‘Fräulein Hotspur, excuse me, Fräulein Hellström, is very much at home in these mountains, she knows this route very well, she’s already done it several times.’
‘Was that a long time ago, Madame Hellström?’
‘You can call me Lena, Michael, if you call me Lena and not Madame I’ll teach you to put your questions more graciously, yes, I’ve been on a good number of these cross-country treks, here, with our guide, before the war, before ’14, now don’t go repeating that even though it doesn’t really matter, look!’
She points to a mountain top just beginning to turn pink, the Rikshorn.
‘You see those little clouds, they say the old man’s smoking his pipe, fine weather, with a small risk of becoming unsettled, in the mountains a small risk can turn into something big, unleash equinoctial fury. Maybe this wasn’t the right day for a jaunt.’
They come across the tracks of weasel or stoat, a bend every three hundred metres or so, what’s after the col? Another col, it’s a theorem of a mountain, every col is followed by another and higher col, one of the French girls shouts:
‘My sunglasses! I’ve forgotten my sunglasses!’
The guide smiles, pulls another pair out of his anorak, holds them out to her, that’s his job, to think of everything, especially think for people who forget their sunglasses, he’d lined up his charges outside the hotel, the list out loud, gloves, hat, biscuits, flask, sunglasses, he himself carries a bag which must weigh all of twenty kilos, plus two spare ski tips and a rope slung over the top; the French girl had said yes without checking if she really had her sunglasses; Lena has even thought to bring a sort of small pad which she inserts between her shoulder and the skis, the going is becoming harder now, it’s not long before people aren’t talking, throats burning, time to adjust, the guide repeats ‘not so fast’, Lilstein has a tendency to go faster, Lena puts one hand on his arm, squeezes his biceps:
‘You must do what the grown-ups tell you.’
Lilstein does not care at all for the remark.
‘Hans didn’t like Lorenzaccio one bit,’ says Max, ‘not the play, Hans said here you find it exaggerated but for a German it’ll do, he added: “What I don’t understand is why it should be such a success here in the heart of Paris in front of all these people, how long is it? Hardly six, seven years since the Occupation ended, great left-wing actor, left-wing director, people’s theatre, civic theatre to use your word, and what’s the play about? A tyrant protected by a German garrison, have I got it wrong? The Duke has a stronger libido than Pétain but that’s what it is, a tyrant who has the backing of the Church and is protected by a German garrison, and on the other side the people resisting them talk too much or behave without thinking, incompetents, think about it, Max, three hours of incompetent resistance, the stuff of cock-ups or cowardice, and it’s barely half a dozen years that France has been free, and the audience cheers, power wielded by bastards, resistance mounted by morons, the only character to carry out a plan to the end is the effeminate one who’s so handy with a knife, and the regime which follows is presented as being rotten to the core, as rotten as the one before, it orders students to be fired on, and everyone applauds, the right, the left, the moderates in between, the activists, the wait-and-sees, the collaborators, the resisters, everybody anxious to get their snout in the trough, Max, I don’t like this method of being in agreement!”’
Lilstein has quickened his pace, deliberately, right, so she’s put her hand on my arm but that’s no reason for saying I have to do what the grown-ups say, she said it so she could put her hand on my arm, or else she put her hand on my arm so that she could say it, and then she smiles, it’s true that it’s only at me that she smiles like that. A hand once again on Lilstein’s arm, just a little muttered tsk tsk, she’s not talking about grown-ups now, she’s not saying anything, so agreeable, headache’s gone. She adds:
‘You’ll get a telling off.’
They’ve been going for an hour and a half already, heartbeat normal, Waltenberg looks very small down in the valley below, all that can be made out is the bulk of the Waldhaus and the annexe, a few street lights outside the hotel, a wisp of hair has escaped from under Lena’s hat, flutters on the nape of her neck, I would like to be that wisp of hair.
Then the halt, a col from where at last they can see another valley, about eight in the morning, no village, they are right on top of the col, they can see both valleys, day is breaking in earnest now, it is still very cold, thermos and flacket of schnapps do the rounds.
The guide points to another col, much higher, the sealskins, everyone ski-shod, one behind the other, one of the men branches off, starts climbing splay-footed, the guide says no, you wouldn’t last half an hour, he puts Lena at the head, Fräulein Hotspur, sorry, Hellström, will set the pace, Lilstein is just behind Lena, from time to time the guide says ‘halt!’ He moves up to the front, ropes up, gives the other end to three men, he moves across the slope stamping with his skis as he goes, once a small layer breaks away, just one, the guide doesn’t even fall over, Lena gives Lilstein a running commentary and points to a number of clouds which are beginning to come together.