by Peter Stamm
The gravel track now turned through a wood up a steeply climbing valley. On either side of the path were enormous mossy boulders. Thomas had a stitch that wouldn’t go away, even though he kept stopping to get his breath back. The road ended at a half-wrecked croft, which had evidently not been in use for a long time. Even though it was early in the day, he decided to spend the night here. He didn’t know the area, and he was afraid that it might get cold higher up.
Above the former cowshed was a hayloft, where he made up a bed for himself. He spread the dusty leftover hay over the plank flooring and laid his dark green rain jacket over it. Then he emptied his rucksack and spread all his things out on the thin PVC. He felt like a child who had seen his presents on the eve of his birthday, satisfied but also a little disappointed, even at the fulfillment of all his wishes. It was the embarrassment of the possessor, who realizes that no object could satisfy or still his desires. He took out his penknife, opened and shut all the blades and tools, and attached it on a spring hook to the chain he had bought to carry it. Then he took out the calendar he had found in the jacket he had taken in the nightclub. He flicked through the pages reading the entries, names and times, a doctor’s appointment, a hairdresser’s. The name of one woman kept turning up, Brigitta. Thomas didn’t know any Brigitta, but even so she sounded familiar. He pictured a slightly older woman, not especially attractive but serious and good-hearted. He wondered about her relationship with the owner of the calendar, whether she guessed that he visited brothels, and what she would say if she knew. He thought of Milena from Romania, who was so utterly different from the way he had imagined prostitutes.
Thomas shooed away these thoughts. He read the calorie tables on the packaging of the food he had bought, and on an empty page of the calendar wrote them down and totted them up. If he kept his intake down, his food would last him for two weeks, though admittedly it would be a very monotonous diet. He should have bought some fresh fruit, or at the very least some vitamin pills. Even while he was still calculating, it began to rain. He heard the steady rustling sound and felt the cold that came with it. In one or two places it was coming through the old slate roof. He didn’t dare to make a fire and ate just a little of the food from his rucksack. Then he had to go out once briefly to fill his canteen at the stream. He came back to his hayloft shivering and wet. He took a swallow from the brandy bottle and lay down. The sound of the rain was soothing, the smell of old hay and grass and wet stone. He thought of Astrid and the children, no concrete memories or thoughts, not even scenes, just a vague feeling of their association: that warmed him.
It was their fourth breakfast without Thomas there. The children seemed to have adjusted to the new situation, asking no questions and seeming somehow less cowed than on the past few days. They even started to bicker again, which Astrid took to be a positive sign. She was feeling better too, not from habituation but because she knew that today the police would go looking for Thomas, and that they had every chance of finding him. The rain shouldn’t really be a problem, Patrick had told her last night; the dog could pick up a scent regardless, especially a fresh scent. She had given him her mobile number and asked him to keep her up-to-date.
All morning she got little bulletins from Patrick. We’re on the way, the dog has picked up the scent, we’ve found some old clothes we think are his. We’re in the Wägi valley. To distract herself, Astrid busied herself by making an album of the nicest holiday pictures, as in other years. The photo software offered various presentational ideas, and Astrid tried out a few, but the illusion of customizing only made the photographs themselves more anonymous. She ended up by choosing a neutral white background and arranged them as she had done previously with her albums, when she had still stuck down the photos by hand. She and Thomas took turns with the camera, and she was in some of the pictures, sometimes with the children, sometimes on her own. She, though, had only taken pictures of the kids, the landscape, a few highlights from Barcelona, where they had gone on a day trip. So that Thomas should appear at least once in the album, she put in the picture she had sent the police, even though it looked nothing like the others and stuck out among the holiday shots.
Patrick’s last text message from the Wägi had come just before eleven. It was a long time until his next communication. Astrid had cooked lunch, the children had come home, they had eaten together, and Ella and Konrad had gone back to school. Gradually Astrid began to feel uneasy and was beginning to wonder whether she should call Patrick, when at two o’clock her cell phone rang. Patrick said they had followed the scent right up the Wägi to the dam and along the side of the reservoir, they had walked more than twelve miles. Now they were in an abandoned upland farm above the lake, where Thomas had presumably spent the night. Only the dog was exhausted and unable to go on. Twenty kilometers was a huge distance even for a highly trained animal. Isn’t there another dog you could use? asked Astrid. Or couldn’t he rest, and then carry on? There was a brief silence, then Patrick said his boss said they had invested enough time and trouble in this case. There was no serious suggestion that the missing man was in any danger. On the contrary. Astrid said nothing, and after a further pause Patrick said there weren’t that many trails that led on from there. He could have got across into the Klön valley, but that would mean backtracking for a long way, which he wouldn’t want to do. The likeliest thing is that he walked over the Pragel Pass into the Muota valley. If he set off this morning, he could already be there. He said he had alerted his colleagues in Schwyz Canton to the ongoing search, and that was about all he could do. So what happens now? Astrid asked finally. We’re heading back, said Patrick, sounding bashful. Astrid cut the line without thanking him or saying goodbye.
She left the phone on the dining-room table, went up to the bedroom, and lay down on the bed. It was as though the conversation had taken time to have its full effect, like a medication that first had to be absorbed into the bloodstream and then distributed throughout the body. After she had lain there perfectly still for a quarter of an hour, she finally started to cry violently and uncontrollably. Even when she heard the front door and Ella’s surly hello, she couldn’t stop. Mama, where are you? called Ella. Shortly afterward she came to the bedroom. Astrid turned away from her onto her front, and, still crying, buried her face in the pillow.
She must have fallen asleep like that. When she woke up, Ella was standing in the doorway, with the policeman next to her and Konrad behind them. The children were talking softly to her: Mama, are you awake? Mama, what’s the matter? How are you feeling? Ella touched her. Konrad lay down on the bed and pressed himself against her. His small, warm body. But Astrid couldn’t stand to be touched; she turned away again and didn’t say a word. Come on, kids, she heard Patrick saying quietly, and then footsteps, and then later Patrick’s calming voice and the voices of the children from the living room. The light in the room was beginning to go when she got up. Without turning on the light, she stopped and listened by the open bedroom door. A childhood memory of being ill and delirious, somewhere between sleeping and waking. The TV was going, the wacky voices of cartoon figures. She sneaked into the bathroom and washed her face in cold water. Then she went back to bed.
There was a ring at the door. The bedroom was almost completely dark, what little light there was came from the streetlamp outside. Astrid heard the cheerful voice of Manuela in the hall, and the glee of the children, because each of the few times she came to see them, she brought useless presents. How Patrick could have presumed to call Thomas’s sister, with whom Astrid had never gotten along. Presumably her name was the only one that occurred to the kids. Who could look after them and mind their mother? Didn’t she have any girlfriends? Any relations? Someone who lived locally, if possible?
There was a knock on the bedroom door. Patrick came in and stood sheepishly next to Astrid’s bed. I need to go now, he said, but your sister-in-law’s come. She said she could stay the night and look after you and the children until you’re feeling better.
He said he was sorry they hadn’t managed to find Thomas. Astrid shook her head and thanked him for his help. Don’t tell her I’m still awake, she whispered. I just told her the bare minimum, he said. He stood there a moment longer, and then went away.
Later on, Astrid could hear the voices of Manuela and the children. All of them seemed to be making an effort to keep it down. Astrid heard steps on the stairs, the toilet flush, a softly sung lullaby, then laughing and whispering and another round of steps on the stairs. She shut her eyes. Just after, she sensed the door opening and shutting—it happened in complete silence, but she could feel the change in the space, which seemed to expand and then contract again.
For the first time since Thomas had set off, he woke rested and full of pep. The rain had stopped, but the sun hadn’t yet peeped around the tall mountain sides, and the air felt damp and cold. In the morning light, the clear gray and green planes of the landscape looked almost painted. After breakfasting on bread and dried fruit, Thomas packed his things and set off. The path was even steeper now than it had been the day before, and Thomas soon lapsed into the slow swaying gait he had gotten used to in the mountains and could keep up for hour after hour. The wood came to an end and vegetation grew scarcer. The meadows were full of thistles, the edge of the path was sown with rampion and snow gentians, and tiny ferns sprouted from splits in the rock. All the way he could hear the rushing of the stream, but once the path turned past a big boulder, it was suddenly perfectly quiet. Thomas could hear nothing but the scraping of his soles on the gravelly ground and his breathing, which had adapted to his stride pattern. He felt suddenly present as never before; it was as though he had no past and no future. There was only this day and this path on which he was slowly making his way up the mountain. Once, a marmot whistled, and Thomas stopped and scanned the mountainside like a huntsman, but he could see no sign of the animal.
On reaching the level of the pass, he sat down on a rock and took off his shoes and socks to rub his feet a little. He had sweated during the climb, now he froze in the cold wind and pulled on his jacket, which he had worn tied around his waist. He ate bread and dried beef and a few squares of chocolate.
Ahead of him, the land fell away in a wide valley, pointing first south then curving to the west. Beyond loomed a massive dome of rock, a flat ridge that looked utterly ill at ease among the snowy peaks and bare as though it came from another world. In the sunlight splitting the clouds the formation took on a silvery glitter, almost white, which intensified his sense that heaven was closer than earth. Thomas felt a strange excitement as he set off.
He had to go down a long way and lost a lot of altitude. Grazing cattle had left deep holes in the claggy soil, which had filled with water, a tangle of seeming paths that led nowhere. To Thomas’s right the valley was edged by a long line of rock, the grass under the cliff face was littered with scree, and from time to time he could hear the dry clack of a falling stone.
Thomas had seen the highland croft from a long way off. On the pastures around the hut and shed there were goats grazing, a few horses, and a couple of donkeys. As he got closer, he saw an old woman, who was sitting on a wooden bench on a knoll, looking across at the silvery rock formation with a telescope. He was afraid he might give her a start, so he hailed her from a long way off, but she reacted perfectly calmly, as though she had spotted him long ago and was only waiting for him to get there. She set down the telescope on the bench at her side, and with a friendly voice returned his greeting. He asked her about the rock. Our summer grazing is over there. Is there even grass up there? asked Thomas. The old woman nodded. Yes, behind the rock. But the karst is full of holes and splits. They were now both looking over at the gray rock. Almost every year a sheep or cow falls to its death, said the woman. This summer we’ve been lucky so far, with no accidents. And please God it’ll stay that way. She said her family were on their way down from the alp tomorrow. They had originally meant to stay a week longer, but the forecast was for snow. They talked about the rainy summer and that the local weatherman had predicted a cold winter. The content of the conversation seemed not really to be the point, it was just about breaking the silence in this solitary landscape. Finally, Thomas took his leave. The old woman thanked him, he didn’t know what for, and picked up her telescope again.
Before long, a narrow pass road appeared below Thomas that wound its way up the mountain. It was a single-lane road, but every few minutes a sports car would come roaring up, sometimes whole convoys of vehicles. The wailing of the over-gunned motors tore the silence; the noise came and went as the cars zipped around one corner and disappeared around the next.
There was a small chapel at the pass and in front of it a tall flagpole with a Swiss flag. The other side of a flat meadow Thomas saw a few buildings, a longish cow barn, and a dwelling house. Presumably there was an inn there as well, maybe even somewhere to stay the night, at any rate there were a few cars parked. It was late afternoon, the sky had clouded over, and it felt chilly, so he decided he would stay the night here.
Astrid woke up early and was unable to get back to sleep. The confusion of the previous night seemed covered over by a great clarity. Her forces seemed to all be pulling together, as if under a great threat. She knew what had to be done, without needing to think about it. She didn’t care about Thomas’s plans or objectives. Whatever he’d had in mind, she wasn’t about to let him go unopposed. She would bring him back. What was on the agenda now was just putting her plan into effect. When she heard Manuela and the kids getting up, she pretended to be asleep again. After the children had left the house, she got up. Manuela was just tidying up in the kitchen. When Astrid walked in, her sister-in-law silently hugged her, as though they were meeting at a funeral. Impatiently, Astrid endured the hug. I’m so sorry, said Manuela, once she’d finally let go of her. These things happen, Astrid said coolly. Manuela poured two cups of coffee and led the way into the living room. She was behaving as though it was her house, as though she was the host and Astrid had come around for a chat. On the sofa lay a woolen blanket, where Manuela had apparently been curled up.
It’s so unusual for Thomas, she said. I can’t imagine what got into him. Thank you for minding the kids, said Astrid. But of course, said Manuela, that’s what kinship is for. You’re not kin, thought Astrid. We’re pretty sure we know where Thomas is, she said. We, she thought, Patrick and I. The idea that Manuela might have talked to him about her upset her. It felt as though he had betrayed her. I want to drive to the Muota valley, it’s possible someone has seen him there. You can’t trust the police to do anything. Could you look after the kids just today? Manuela put on a long-suffering expression. Do you really think that’s a good idea? she asked, as though talking to an invalid. I feel perfectly fine, said Astrid. It’s the one lead we have. Maybe…she trailed off. You mustn’t imagine I’m on his side, just because I’m his sister, said Manuela, I think what he did is so out of character. Out of character is interesting, thought Astrid, that just means he would never do such a thing, it’s not in him, and it’s your fault for driving him away. She asked herself whether Manuela might know anything about Thomas’s whereabouts. The two siblings had always had a certain closeness which she had never understood, and which irked her. She herself had grown up as an only child, and couldn’t imagine what it was like to have a brother or sister. Of course Manuela was on Thomas’s side, even if she denied it. It drives me crazy to be sitting around when I know where he is, said Astrid. Did you have a fight? asked Manuela, still in her therapist’s voice. If you won’t look after the kids, I’ll ask the neighbor, said Astrid.
It was after nine o’clock before she was on the road. Her GPS informed her that the drive to the Muota valley would take two hours. Astrid drove the speed limit; shortly before eleven she left the autobahn. The country road took her uphill, and soon she was in a flat upland valley. Right at the end of the valley was the village, which seemed to consist of a single long street. She left the car outside a restaurant, to
ok the picture of Thomas out of her bag, and got out. What immediately struck her was the quiet that lay over the valley. All sounds seemed somehow muffled, and the people she asked about Thomas answered so quietly and hesitantly it was as though they were part of a crowd that happened to have witnessed some great spectacle and didn’t want to draw attention to themselves. Without the children and in this unfamiliar setting she found it easier to inquire after Thomas. Have you seen this man? He must have been through here last night? He was wearing hiking clothes. Probably unshaven. But even as she asked the handful of passersby, she sensed that Thomas hadn’t been through here. He would have tried to avoid the village and stick to the slopes on the opposite side where it was mostly cow pastures, with just the occasional farm and stall. The people were not unfriendly, but they were tight-lipped and unforthcoming, a few just shook their heads and walked on. A couple of schoolkids who spilled laughing out of the bus and then straightaway fell silent, as though their merriment was out of place here, asked if the man had committed a crime. Astrid had come up with a story, an explanation, but now, when put to it, she just said no, he’s my husband. The schoolchildren hadn’t seen Thomas either.
Astrid wasn’t at all hungry, but she went into the restaurant where she had parked her car. The room was empty except for the landlady sitting at one of the tables, watching a rerun of a talk show on television. When Astrid came in, she switched off the television and turned on the radio. A brass band played a medley of familiar pop tunes. By and by the tables filled with workmen and laborers in orange work clothes. Apart from the landlady, Astrid was the only woman in the place. She ordered the special, but the sight of the brimming plate took away her appetite, and she pecked around, eating barely half of it. When the landlady took her plate, she asked if she hadn’t enjoyed her meal.