The Mountain

by Massimo Donati

  She checked the printout and stuffed it in her handbag. She was suddenly in a hurry.

  She waved goodbye to the girl at the desk and headed for the door. Then she turned back.

  ‘Did you forget something?’ the girl asked.

  ‘I wanted to thank you.’

  ‘No problem. Just doing my job.’

  She smiled with a certain satisfaction. Then she asked, ‘Will we be seeing you back here at the archive?’

  Elena looked at her fondly. ‘I don’t think so. I’m sorry.’

  The girl was disappointed. ‘You found everything.’

  Elena nodded.

  ‘So what did you need those old articles for?’

  Elena thought about this for a moment, and then smiled sadly. ‘To find my partner again. He got lost.’

  The secretary looked at her in surprise.

  ‘Good luck.’

  The twists and turns in the road seemed to go on forever, as the sun began to reach the highest peaks, plunging the floor of the valley into shadow. When the fir trees at the entrance to the little valley of Madonna del Bosco began to appear, it seemed to her like an eternity had passed. She took a deep breath to release the tension. She hated driving in the mountains.

  She pulled up outside the entrance to the hotel where Roberto was staying. Slammed the door and left the car right there, not caring whether it was in anybody’s way. She went inside.

  There was no one at reception. She went to the bar. Apart from the barman the place was deserted.

  ‘Do you know the tall, distinguished man who’s been staying here for the past few days?’

  He was impassive. ‘Almost all our customers are tall and distinguished.’

  ‘Roberto Beltrami. He was leaving today. I just need to know if he’s already gone.’

  The man came around to the other side of the bar, suddenly attentive and engaged. ‘He’d already checked out, but then he met somebody.’

  ‘Do you know who?’

  ‘A local guy. Delivers the mail. Maybe they knew each other. He left the hotel and hasn’t been back. It’s been about two hours.’

  ‘So he’s left.’

  The man shook his head, and pointed to the corner of the bar. ‘Without his luggage?’

  Elena looked at him in alarm. ‘Did he take the car?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Can you check?’

  It was still in the car park.

  Elena left the hotel. It would be dark soon. She went to her car but was uncertain what to do. She sat in the driver’s seat.

  She whispered to herself, ‘Where are you?’

  She rested her arms on the steering wheel and leaned over it. She sat there immobile for a few minutes. Then suddenly she came back to life, leapt out of the car and went back into the bar.

  ‘Can you show me the track that leads to Black Peak?’

  The circle of light splashed through the trees and onto the ground, moving slowly. The barman had insisted on lending her a professional torch; it was lucky she had accepted. She refused to let him accompany her, though. She looked at him and said simply, ‘I need to go alone.’

  It had been many years since she’d hiked up a track, and this was her first time in the dark. She had to hurry.

  In the darkness, every step, every noise, seemed to signal danger. As she walked, she lit up the ground a few steps ahead of her. Every so often, when the track got harder, she would stop, curse, and then start up again.

  She was already tired and wet through. The track, which had been easy to begin with, was now rising steeply, and there was a high risk of getting lost down side tracks.

  In the woods, Elena shone the torch around diligently in search of markers on rocks or trees which she could follow, but she couldn’t always find them.

  Suddenly, after a number of false leads, she stopped.

  She was exhausted, and cold.

  But then, stubbornly, she resumed her climb.

  She finally emerged from the woods. Up ahead there were only low bushes. The track was easier to make out here, and she was able to go faster. She realised she was almost running. She slowed down.

  An hour had gone by when she placed one of her feet at an odd angle and twisted her ankle. A shooting pain. She crouched down on the grass. She tried to set off again at once but it was hurting.

  She cried out.

  She turned off the torch and waited for the pain to subside. It was only then that she realised there was a full moon and the sky had cleared, and so there was more light with the torch turned off. It had rained not long before, just a few drops, but now the wind had blown everything away.

  The track shone white through the alpine meadows, and the outline of the mountains was clear.

  She started out again.

  In the moonlight, everything seemed calmer and more restrained. She was now making good speed and felt strangely serene, though the pain in her ankle had not completely gone away.

  She sped up along this flat area, though the track passed along a precipice. On the inside there were some low rocks and trees. When she had almost passed the cliff she stopped to look down into a vast darkness that seemed determined to take a bite out of the mountain.

  She retraced her steps.

  She thought with horror that perhaps Roberto had gone up there to throw himself off. She sat on a rock. Perhaps Roberto was already at the bottom of the ravine. Perhaps she had got it all wrong: she should have called emergency.

  After a few minutes, she snapped out of her confusion and fear. She turned on the torch and explored the track in reverse. She found nothing apart from a few recent footprints in the mud, but she couldn’t be sure they were her partner’s. But when she returned to the rock she had been sitting on, she noticed a rusted empty vase. The soil alongside had been disturbed. As though somebody had recently pulled up a stone. Roberto was climbing up to Black Peak. Her hope was rekindled.

  She reached a grassy plain. Too close: Black Peak must be higher up. She kept going but immediately realised that from up there she could see, in the indistinct darkness below, the wide, shiny expanse of the valley floor. Lake Garda was spectacular tonight. She had reached Black Peak.

  She kept going for a hundred metres or so until, at the last moment, she saw him in front of her.

  She had found him.

  A surge of joy. Love for Roberto mingled with relief at having found him.

  She calmed down and held back. Motionless, she watched him from a few metres away. He hadn’t noticed her.

  He was sitting on the edge of the precipice, his legs dangling over the void. He only needed to push himself forward a little and he would go over. He had something alongside him. Silently, she began to approach.

  When she was just behind him she whispered, ‘Roberto, I’m here.’

  So softly it could easily have been the rustle of the grass. Roberto turned slowly and stared at her, bewildered.

  She sat down next to him and waited for him to speak first. A few minutes passed.

  ‘We never made it this far.’ His voice was weak and shaky, as though he were just beginning to speak again after a long time.

  Elena leaned in towards him, but felt him stiffen. She did not insist.

  ‘You stopped at the precipice. Where Dino fell.’

  Roberto said simply: ‘I pushed him.’

  They sat for a long time in silence, looking at the lake.

  ‘Ever since we returned home that morning I’ve tried…we all tried to pretend nothing had happened. We looked for some kind of excuse that would justify what I did. We couldn’t find one. So I convinced myself that I had nothing to do with the tragedy. That the child who fell into the ravine never existed. My father tried as well. But it wasn’t possible. We couldn’t do it.’

  Roberto looked at the photograph for a moment. Dino in his football jumper smiling in that faded image, like a rough sketch.

  ‘He couldn’t forget. Because he was the boy’s father.’
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  Elena nodded and closed her eyes for a moment.

  ‘After his death, he was never the same man as before. We used to pretend, both of us. But I would look at him and know. And he could tell that I understood everything. That’s why we hated each other. But my hatred was stronger. Because I also hated him for having eliminated every trace. Every trace of that child from our lives.’

  ‘He protected you from everything, Roberto.’

  ‘I hated him because he saved me. And because he could no longer love me like he did before. That much was clear. He had decided to protect me but he didn’t have the strength to relieve me of his suffering.’

  ‘It was a suffering greater than you could imagine, or understand.’

  ‘He hid it from me. Right until the end. He shouldn’t have.’

  ‘He looked for you.’

  ‘It was too late.’

  ‘But in the end, he came up with a way of sending you here.’

  ‘His own overbearing, cowardly way—leaving me with the burden of settling his business. Of closing everything off. He knew it was impossible; this was just an opportunity to make me pay yet again.’

  They looked at each other. In her partner’s wan face, Elena could see the rage: unyielding and formed now into a cold, sterile resentment from which there was no escape.

  ‘I think he did it to give you a chance. Because he knew that you were—you still are—unhappy.’

  Roberto wasn’t surprised by this. Elena placed one hand on his side. When it met his body she felt an unexpected quiver, and a sense of relief. As though to really get to the bottom of things she had needed to know that the dark shadow speaking to her had a body, it truly existed. He did not move.

  Then Elena said: ‘And there was an even bigger reason. He and Rosa loved each other. Had done for many years.’

  ‘I don’t think that was love.’

  ‘They loved each other, and you know it. You know because you looked at those videos a thousand times, image after image. You were looking through your father’s eyes for the answer you already knew. All that love between them was still right there. In those videos from the trips to the mountains. Through those eyes.’

  Roberto shook his head and muttered something, but she didn’t give him time to go on.

  ‘Afterwards, it became impossible for them to love each other. Because Rosa practically went mad. Over their son. Carlo didn’t abandon her, but they could no longer be together. It must have been terrible.’

  Elena thought of the two of them, and their pain, but Roberto continued to shake his head, and whisper, ‘No, that’s not how it is,’ and then his rage, jolted by those words, burst out: ‘That’s not how it is! You’re wrong.’

  It was a shout, but under his breath.

  Elena was silent, frozen by her partner’s reaction. But she was keen to get to the bottom of things. ‘The painting,’ she said. ‘Your mother wanted it as a last gift. After that summer, four months before she died.’

  Roberto turned towards her, surprised.

  ‘Why are you talking about the painting?’

  Elena was silent for a moment, unsure whether to continue.

  ‘I found a note. From your father to your mother. I think it went with the painting.’

  ‘That painting is the last sign of love between my father and my mother.’

  ‘That’s true. It is. But she knew all about Rosa. They were loyal to each other. She had suffered and perhaps she was still suffering. And so, knowing that she was going to die, your mother wanted to leave a message for Carlo. And for you.’

  She turned to look into his eyes while he stared off into the distance, in the darkness.

  ‘One last sad joke. A prophecy of your lives.’

  He shook his head slightly.

  ‘Those are your mother’s words. It’s written on the note. And besides, you know better than me: isn’t that the way it is? Men walking on cracked ice, and birds about to end up in a trap…it’s a perfect allegory. Not of love, but of the fragility of life. Her life, Dino’s, Rosa’s. Your mother didn’t go peacefully. She didn’t want to die. And she was furious about what life had offered her. The painting is her last howl. The opposite of absolution.’

  Roberto looked away and tried to blink back his tears.

  ‘The painting is the last sign of love between my father and my mother. There’s nothing more to know about it. I left home so I didn’t have to see how it had all been lost. What’s wrong with defending what little I had left?’

  Elena swallowed, pained by Roberto’s lucidity, his measured hostility. Intending to bring things back to a state of reality, and end the conversation, she said hastily: ‘There’s something else you don’t know about that day. It’s about Leo.’

  ‘What do you know about Leo that I don’t?’

  ‘We looked back over the home movies. Ada and I…The original 8 mm films. Including the one from ’81. That last summer.’

  Roberto, listening attentively to Elena’s words, did not move.

  ‘Do you remember the trip to Laghetto Azzurro? Your father recording your football match, and then the film runs out…At the end Carlo and Rosa exchange a few words.’

  Roberto looked at her with a mixture of incredulity and irony.

  ‘There’s no audio. There’s just background music over the top.’

  ‘There was audio in the original films. Maybe no one has ever listened back over it. I checked: the technicians at audio-video stores used to automatically add music to DVDs, always the same music for everybody. Because usually there was no audio recording. And perhaps that suited your father. But that’s not what’s important.’

  Elena cleared her throat.

  ‘Leo knew about the two of them, Roberto. And he’d recently found out about Dino. He’d learnt from Rosa whose son the boy was.’

  Roberto’s face contracted. He was speechless for a moment.

  ‘And he knew about the hike up to Black Peak.’

  ‘That’s not possible, Roberto.’

  ‘He knew because when he was at the police station he went crazy trying to find a way to come and get us. The officer who took him into custody said that.’

  ‘But who could have…’

  They were silent.

  ‘Dino. That morning Mattia had to prepare the things we needed to take with us on the hike. Dino must have seen him and called Leo. They were constantly talking on the phone. I turned up, in the early afternoon, but by that point he must already have told on us.’

  ‘But then why did Dino insist on going along with you? He was only going to get mixed up in it himself that way…’

  In the damp, icy mountain air, the question went unanswered until Roberto drew the only possible conclusion. ‘Leo told him to come with us.’

  Roberto blinked, his face like a closed fist. ‘To get his revenge. And to get rid of me! He planned to come straight after us. The two of us, with a seven-year-old boy! Then Leo was going to make a massive fuss. My bad influence on Mattia…and all those stories. All he needed to know was what time we left: he called their house over and over until nobody answered. It was only five minutes by motorbike from his workshop to the top of the track. But then the police turned up.’

  They sat silently for several more minutes. Roberto shook his head again. Then Elena tried to console him: ‘It was a tragic accident.’

  Roberto spoke slowly and deliberately, with resignation in his voice. ‘That doesn’t change things.’

  ‘It’s the truth about your family, and about what happened, Roberto. Isn’t that what you came here looking for?’

  ‘You’re wrong about that. The truth is no longer important.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s no longer important. It’s of no use to anybody anymore… It’s one version of the story, like any other. And I’m not chasing another excuse. That’s not what I’m looking for.’

  Elena immediately understood what it was that he was looking for and she asked coldly, ‘You w
ant to find out about Mattia. Isn’t that right?’

  Roberto leaned in towards her. ‘Do you know where Mattia is?’

  Elena shook her head. An almost childish look of disappointment crossed his face, which had for just a moment appeared hopeful before falling back into his earlier apathy.

  ‘I don’t know where he can be. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Nobody does. I think he probably moved away years ago.’

  Then Elena began rummaging around in her handbag.

  ‘I found some articles. In an archive in Rovereto.’

  Roberto let her go on, not taking much interest.

  ‘A local journalist followed the whole affair. In all the articles quoting people and the results of the investigations, you’re not mentioned once. Not even once.’

  ‘My father paid everybody off. Including Leo. He got him out of trouble.’

  ‘But what about Mattia? He couldn’t have paid him off.’

  Roberto looked at Elena expectantly.

  ‘I found an interview with him. From twenty-four years ago.’

  She opened her bag and pulled out an article from among those she had printed.

  ‘It’s from 1989. Mattia was about twenty. The journalist from the earlier years decided to return to the story and she managed to track him down. And there’s this bit…where the interviewer asks him…’

  She quickly scanned through it for the right section.

  ‘She asks him: It’s said that you had a friend with you. A lot of people say that. And Mattia replies: That’s untrue. There was nobody else. We were alone: just my brother and me. But even if there had been someone else with us, that wouldn’t change a thing. It can’t be blamed on the mountains, or on bad luck. We weren’t supposed to be there. Dino shouldn’t have been with me. He was too little for that kind of climb. And it’s my fault, because I let him come along. Mine and nobody else’s. I can never forget that. Or ever forgive myself.’

  Elena folded the page and put it back in her bag.

  ‘And you know what? I looked hard but I didn’t find anything. You’re never mentioned. Because Mattia never said you were with him. Never.’

  ‘I didn’t know. I was already in Switzerland.’