Accident

by Mihail Sebastian

  “I’m not going any farther. Let’s go in ... Let’s rest ...”

  There was a large dining room with wooden tables and many windows, an immense wood stove built into the wall around which ageless Saxon women, tall, blonde, possibly young, were crocheting. At one table chess was being played; at the other, cards. From an adjoining room came the sound of a game of Ping-Pong. Upstairs on the next floor someone was shouting at intervals the same name to no response: “Gertrude ... Gertrude ...” Next to the window, a few young boys were waxing their skis, as though polishing weapons. Outside on the deck hobnailed boots could be heard climbing or descending the stairs. Now and then the door opened, and at the appearance of the new arrival guffaws of laughter and shouts of recognition – “Hans!” “Willy!” “Otto!” – rang out.

  Nora and Paul’s entrance was greeted with a moment of silence, after which the dining room’s hubbub continued undisturbed and without taking them into account. Next to the wall, the small wooden grandfather clock showed five o’clock.

  Nora thought for a moment, trying to remember which five o’clock. Was it morning? Or evening? She came to believe that she had lost several hours in the woods and the clouds.

  Someone brought her a large white cup of tea.

  “You know, Paul, we should hurry up. We don’t want night to overtake us on the trail.”

  She showed him the map pinned to the wall: the trail up from Poiana was drawn with a thick, white line, meandering like a river.

  “You see? We’re at 1510 metres. The Touring Club chalet is at 1700. The hard part’s behind us.”

  Paul glanced incuriously at the map, which he didn’t understand very well.

  “Personally, it’s all the same to me. I’ll go wherever you want, as far as you want ...”

  Nora gave him a stealthy look from over her teacup. There were light lines on his forehead, which the snow had drawn more deeply. His ski mitts, which he had set on the table, looked like two big bear paws. There was something peaceful, conciliatory, in his eyes, as though in a dream. She seemed to hear him whispering once again: “Never leave here, never arrive anywhere again ...”

  It was pitch black when they reached the Touring Club chalet. They had done the final part of the trail with their pocket flashlights, guiding themselves more by the shouts they heard from the summit of the mountain than by the signs on the trees, which they could no longer see in the darkness.

  The only free places were in the dormitory room.

  “If you stay longer, then after the holidays we’ll be able to give you a room with two single beds,” said the man who was showing them around. They followed him in silent resignation.

  The “dormitory room” was a long lumber room of wooden beams. An acetylene gas lamp was burning in the middle of the room.

  “Is there no fireplace?” Nora asked with indifference.

  “Not here. If you want to warm up, come upstairs to the big room. Dinner is also served there. You’ll hear the bell when it rings.”

  The beds were lined up in two rows, as in a barracks. Chilly, threadbare beds covered in bed clothes of lumpy, ashen cloth.

  Nora took off her backpack and put it on the floor next to her bed.

  “Bed number 16,” she said, reading the number painted on the wall. Paul had lain down fully dressed, with his pack at the head of his bed rather than at the foot.

  “Do you want to wash?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to eat?”

  “No.”

  “Are you angry?”

  “I’m happy.”

  It’s not fair, she thought. Maybe he wants to see me complaining. Maybe he wants to get his revenge.

  As though he had guessed her thoughts, he caught hold of her hand and drew it towards him.

  “I’m not joking, Nora. I really am happy. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this bed, this exhaustion, this night. I want it to be a long night. Promise me it’s going to be a long night.”

  He spoke slowly, quietly, with his eyes wide open. Nora caressed his forehead.

  “Paul, I think you’ve got a fever.”

  She walked towards her bed and looked in her pack for the tube of aspirins, but then she had second thoughts. It’s better to let him sleep. He’s tired.

  The dormitory had a smell of damp boots, wet straw, rotten wood, but more penetrating than any of these – like a deep voice, covering all other sound – was a pungent smell of burnt acetylene.

  “Isn’t it possible to turn off that lamp?” she asked to no one in particular.

  A voice from the end of the room replied in a grumble: “It goes off at eleven o’clock.”

  Eleven o’clock, eleven o’clock. Nora repeated the words in her mind without understanding them. It seemed to her that this night didn’t have hours and that the eyes of those iced-up windows would never fill with daylight.

  Somebody brushed by close to her and an electric flashlight ambled past their beds and immediately went out.

  “New people, new people.”

  Now and then the door opened and another shadow entered or left. Shadows, only shadows, Nora thought. She didn’t succeed in making out a single face. Even the voices had something indistinct and monotonous about them, as if they had been a single voice speaking from different distances.

  Maybe I’ve been sleeping. In any case, for a while she had not smelt the odour of acetylene, and now she was smelling it again. The lamp sputtered slowly, with the feeble movement of a swing. It wasn’t yet eleven o’clock, since the lights were still on. The voices at the end of the room had fallen silent. They must have gone to eat, or else they’ve fallen asleep.

  She coughed. She felt the acetylene like a bitter powder, right down to the bottom of her throat. Everything smelled of acetylene: the blanket, the pillow, her clothes. She put the handkerchief over her mouth as a buffer, but the odour penetrated the fabric in a damp, acrid cloud.

  Dizzy, she got up from her spot and stumbled between the beds. She heard hobnailed boots clumping over the floorboards and thought: I shouldn’t make so much noise; but at each step she felt like she was falling and couldn’t stop herself. Next to the door, she groped for her skis and poles.

  Outside, she stood on the threshold for a few moments, her mind vacant. She felt the night air on her forehead and temples like a light snow.

  She put on her skis and set off slowly, not knowing where she was going. From the big chalet she heard voices, the sound of glasses, laughter. She passed beneath lighted windows, then finally turned towards the right, between the pine trees. The chalet’s dogs got out of her way, snarling as though about to bark. She caressed them on their furry coats and big ears in passing.

  Everything slipped away as though into a veil of slumber – both the voices and the lights.

  The skis slid roughly, rustling like dry leaves. Nora felt the snow’s resistence locking her knees. She had no idea how long she had been skiing. She had a scratch on her right temple that was bleeding. I must have run into something. But when? Where?

  Her flashlight, attached to the top pocket on the left side of her coat, was alight like a lighthouse. Over my heart, Nora thought. She couldn’t remember when she had turned it on, nor when she had clipped it to the buttons of her pocket. She followed the white streak of the snow through the trees. It seemed to her as if there were a tiny creature that was moving up ahead of her and urging her on. It capered like a squirrel. A white squirrel.

  At the turns, the edges of her skis scraped the frozen snow like the blade of a penknife. It was a piercing sound, like a short shout. I should stop. I should figure out where I’m going. She didn’t know where she was going; she just knew she didn’t want to turn around. She still felt that horrible acetylene lamp flickering behind her and waiting for “eleven o’clock,” which was never going to come.

  She stopped and tried to gather her thoughts. On the opposite slope of the mountain there should be a trail that descended towards Timiş. At this time
of night, Nora? Are you crazy?

  She seemed to remember having seen somewhere on the map or on a chart giving directions a trail marked in yellow and blue rhomboids ... She turned the flashlight towards the tree next to which she was standing and lighted it from bottom to top. Not a sign, not a single one ... Maybe I’m asleep, Nora thought. Maybe the sign I’m looking for is one I’m seeking in a dream. Yet she felt the rough bark of the trees beneath her frozen fingers. She had the impression of being on the outskirts of a dream that she was struggling to leave.

  Later she found herself again sliding on her skis – and she didn’t know whether this sliding was carrying her back into her slumber or restoring her to wakefulness. The white streak of light preceded her more rapidly than before, ever more swiftly. Her skis suddenly lost their heaviness and soared silently, unimpeded, over the snow. I should slow down, she thought, but her knees didn’t hear her. She was on an open slope that fell towards the shadows of pine trees, barely discernible in the darkness. If I don’t stop, I’m lost, Nora thought, but the voice seemed to come from another Nora, who had remained outside the dream and was observing from there, as though through a window, events that she could not understand. She tried to pull off to the right with a twisting movement, which never the less received no response: her shoulders and knees were like bells without a clapper. The skis, their points close together, pursued the white streak of light at a speed that lifted her off the snows. Nora closed her eyes and was hurled forward with her arms spread, her head landing in the snow. She sensed that in the final moment something had pushed her from behind. She turned a series of downhill somersaults with her skis lodged across each other. Snow scraped her forehead, her hands. The hot taste of blood dampened her lips.

  Now she really felt as though she had awakened from slumber. From slumber or from a faint. She saw herself sprawled on the street next to the sidewalk in the middle of a group of curious bystanders. She heard their voices and felt the stare of a man locked on her, a stare she knew. So everything, absolutely everything, was a dream ... So we return again to that tram accident, which still hasn’t ended ... So I still haven’t succeeded in getting up from there and walking away ...

  She lifted herself up on her elbow and looked around her. Images that had mingled in confusion for a moment, like a dream within a dream, melted together in the darkness. She didn’t a hear a voice, not a twitch. Nora searched for the flashlight she had lost when she fell, but she didn’t find it.

  If I had the flashlight, I’d go back to the chalet.

  She was powerless to find it. She was in a broad, open clearing shaped like a horseshoe. I came from up above, she thought, trying to remember the path. She would have had to pull herself, tree by tree, to the upper end of the clearing, and shout from there. Maybe it wasn’t too far, maybe they would hear her ... More than anything else, she realized that she couldn’t stay here. A kind of sweet languor was tugging her towards the snow, and she knew that this sleepiness was deceptive.

  Both of her skis remained attached to her hobnailed boots, but she had lost her poles in the fall. She pulled herself to her feet by grabbing a tree with her hands. Only then did she realize that she was right on the edge of the woods. A second later would have been too late. And yet, and yet, maybe it would have been a good death, with her temple crushed by a tree. Better than this night without end that stretched before her and which she no longer had the strength to get through.

  Let’s keep our eyes open, Nora, and let’s get going. As far as we can. To wherever we can get to.

  She felt nothing but the bleeding of the wound in her temple. It was the only sensation that persisted amid the heavy sleepiness against which she struggled: and yet I’m moving, I know very well that I’m moving, I realize that I’m moving. Her knees, her hands, occasionally collided with the trees, but they were blows that didn’t hurt, that left no marks. She no longer felt the skis on her legs. Maybe I’ve lost them; but she couldn’t imagine when.

  She seemed to hear, from somewhere, the barking of a dog. She had enough strength to smile. Don’t delude yourself, Nora. Don’t believe it, Nora.

  Yet there was light between the trees. Could I have reached the chalet? She didn’t recognize it. It was a small house, with only two lighted windows. A sheepdog, as big as a bear, was on the threshold.

  Why isn’t he running towards me? None of this can be real. He should be running towards me.

  Someone had come out of the house, hit the dog on the nape of the neck and, taking him by the ears, soothed now, came towards Nora. He had a lantern in his hands, which he held up in front of her face. He looked at her for a while. The light blinded her. Then he lowered the lamp and returned to the house without a word, without asking a question.

  “All this can’t be real,” Nora said. It was the same absurd dream, which still hadn’t ended.

  Voices were audible inside and then a great silence.

  The door opened again and, from the doorway, the man with the lamp signalled for her to enter.

  IX

  NORA STOOD IN THE DOORWAY for a few minutes, hesitating to go inside. It was lighted, it was warm. She lifted her hand to her throat to touch her woollen scarf and didn’t find it. I probably lost it on the trail.

  Next to the window was a table and a lamp with a round white glass cover. Someone was sitting in an armchair and watching her, while the man with the lantern stood in the shadows. He should have extinguished it, Nora thought, looking towards that still-burning light. On the table was a knife, a book with a yellowing cover and a clock showing an impossible time: ten minutes after nine. She looked at each object attentively.

  “That clock has stopped,” she said and pointed at it with her finger, without knowing to whom she was speaking.

  Then she went to pieces, realizing that she was going to pieces and still having time to think: I shouldn’t fall, I shouldn’t cry. She cried in a loud sob, with her head in her hands, her tears boiling, burning her frozen cheeks, her stiffened fingers.

  She heard steps approaching, voices that dwelt above her. Someone stroked her snow-laden hair. A youthful voice whispered half-chanted words as though they were a poem.

  “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 wo
rds 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.”