The ski jump competition ended. The trail was cleared for the last downhill race. The judges shouted their instructions through cardboard bullhorns that were audible from one side of the ski run to the other. The crowd returned to the rostrum. In a second, the entire ski run was vacant and strained silence muffled the noise of a moment earlier.
The two five-man teams, from the SKV and the Touring Club, were going to descend the slope beneath the mountain peak in a straight line that would end in front of the rostrum. The regulations called this Schuss, a dash. The distance wasn’t long, not even 600 metres, but the slope was precipitous and any kind of stop – snowplow, stem-christi or telemark – was forbidden. The scene surrounding the competition contributed to the generally emotional atmosphere: pennants waved in silence, accordions that had been playing the whole time now stopped at a sign from the judges. At the base of the cliffs below the peak of Postăvar, the two teams could be seen lined up like black spheres on the white snow.
The report of the starting pistol opened the competition.
In the first seconds all that could be seen was a cloud of snow that billowed like an avalanche as it rolled down the slope. Then, one after another, the racers broke out of the blur, a tiny distance separating each one from the next. They were impossible to recognize or follow. Fans of both teams fell silent with the same troubled intensity. It was like a game played in the dark: nobody knew who was leading, who was winning, who was losing.
A cry went up from the rostrum: one of the racers had fallen. He fell head-first, rolling over down the slope, with his skis jammed across each other. His team was lost. The rules eliminated from the competition any team all of whose members didn’t cross the finish line. People rushed across the rostrum to the judges’ table seeking explanations and asking questions: “Who? Who? Who?”
The man continued to roll down the slope while the other racers swept past close by him, heading downhill.
The arrival of the competitors took place amid a general uproar. Each team member who reached the finish line was mobbed by the crowd, who recognized him and called out his name. There were five from the SKV, but only four from the Touring Club ... The Touring Club was eliminated from the competition! But no! There were also five racers from the Touring Club. In the crush of people, they had counted wrong. All ten racers had completed the course. The results would be decided by the stopwatch.
Who, then, was the fallen racer? Who was that eleventh, unregistered competitor who now lay in the snow halfway down the run? The first-aid team headed towards the site of the accident. Nora could not prevent an absurd thought from entering her head.
“Please wait for me here,” she said to Gunther. “I’ll be right back.”
Paul had set out towards the mountain’s summit without any clear thought in his mind. He wanted only to get away from the Touring Club and that rowdy crowd. On the slope from Timiş the mountainside was silent and deserted. The forest took on the savagery of a forgotten time. He stood for a few moments on the frozen rocks of the summit, white like huge blocks of ice. The Timiş, Valley, invisible and covered by clouds, vibrated far below with the rustling sound of running water. The horizon was blotted out by the same dense mist, as though between walls of smoke.
He didn’t know how long he had been there. Minutes or hours flowed by him with a taste of slumber. He had dropped down a few steps to make a detour around some icy boulders that blocked the way to the Timiş slope, and had found among the pine trees a wide path set like a saddle on the neck of the mountain. His skis were gliding forward on their own at an easy pace, when suddenly they twisted violently to the right. In the same instant they stopped him with a reflexive shudder that made him feel a lunge in his chest, as though someone behind him had pulled a secret brake lever.
In front of him the almost vertical path opened like a clear drop, at the bottom of which he could see the rostrum of the Touring Club. Coloured pennants were flying over the ski run and as their shapes changed they exchanged incomprehensible waves. The sound of voices came from below, but then suddenly nothing was audible, as though the Touring Club chalet with its rostrum and people had vanished into the distance.
He set out downhill with his eyes open. If I want, I can still stop, he thought. For the first few seconds the skis were sliding with difficulty over the frozen snow. Yes, I can still stop. The weapon’s report broke the silence. Only then did he realize that he wasn’t alone. Silhouettes rushed past very close to him one after another, lifting the curtain of snow that covered everything. Finally it got lighter, a torrent of white solar light through which he himself passed luminously, like a lighted torch. His eyes remained wide open, but the sun was too strong to allow him to see anything.
The fall struck him like a deflection into flight. He had the violent sensation of being swept off his intended trajectory and hurled in another direction, like a ricocheting projectile ...
He was brought to the rostrum on a stretcher made out of pine bows.
“I think you don’t even think you have a fracture, but it’s better for us not to tire you out,” the young doctor said, taking seriously his role as the head of the first-aid team.
Paul had initially lost consciousness, but then he had opened his eyes, unaware of what was going on. Above him were several unfamiliar faces, including Nora’s: the severe, sad Nora at whom he would have liked to smile.
He had received a blow in the right eye, his lower lip was bleeding, his forehead and cheeks were raw with scratches.
“That’s not the important thing,” the doctor said. “If there’s no fracture, nor an internal hemorrhage, we’re home-free.”
Nothing was hurting. He just felt that he couldn’t get up. Nora was rubbing him with her handkerchief.
“It’s your turn to get me up out of the snow,” he said. “Now you don’t owe me anything: an accident for an accident.”
She bent over him even farther and whispered in his ear, so that no one would hear: “Why did you do that, Paul? Why?”
“I don’t know, Nora. I don’t remember.”
There was something radiant in his gaze, an expression of great calm.
“I’ve forgotten everything, absolutely everything. And here in the snow beneath your eyes, Nora, I’m a man without memories, a free man – you hear me? A free man ...”
XVI
OLD GRODECK ARRIVED AT THE CABIN THE MORNING AFTER Christmas. Nobody expected him, but even before his arrival, Faffner showed signs of uneasiness. He roamed about snarling and rooting around in the snow with his snout as though searching for an invisible trail of blood.
“That dog is ill,” Nora said, trying to quiet him down; but no one could get close to him.
Faffner threw himself on Old Grodeck as soon as he saw him. Until they came out of the cabin to help him, the man was sprawled in the snow howling in panic. He got up white with fear, his jacket torn across the right shoulder where the dog had sunk in his fangs. By a miracle, the wound wasn’t deep. It was his good fortune to be very heavily dressed and wearing a fur coat which it was difficult for the dog’s fangs to penetrate, but through which they had reached the skin, leaving a bloody ring like a red brand.
Faffner no longer recognized Hagen, Gunther or Paul. He writhed in their hands with a wild desperation. All three of them had to hold him down, wrestling with him, until Old Grodeck, led away by Nora, finally succeeded in entering the cabin.
They had no sooner released him than Faffner pounced at the door and the windows with a frantic howl of impotence.
“We can’t leave him like that,” Hagen said. “We’d better chain him up.”
They all entered the house, where for a moment they remained silent, listening with a clutch in their heart to the howls of the tortured being who seemed to be asking for their help.
Old Grodeck wasn’t actually old. He didn’t look more than fifty, and he wore those fifty years very lightly on his still-vigorous shoulders.
He recovered quickly from th
e fright he had received. He shook the snow off his clothes without looking embarrassed at what had happened. Faffner’s howls, which continued to sound outside as the dog strained against the chain, didn’t seem to bother him.
“I’ve always said that animal’s disturbed.”
His unusual entrance into the cabin made introductions difficult. He hadn’t said hello on arriving, nor had he offered anyone his hand – and now it was too late for these formalities, since they were all looking as though they were unaccustomed to them. He was dressed in city clothes and wore mourning, presumably for his wife. The black ribbon on his left arm had come loose during his fall, and now he adjusted it again with great care. It was a very proper form of mourning, that of a scrupulous man who knew his duties and respected them. A certain chilly dignity persisted in his bearing even now, after being mauled in his fight with the dog.
That morning Gunther was wearing his red sweater and a pair of light grey flannel slacks. Next to him, Old Grodeck’s black clothes were like a silent reprimand, as though he alone cherished the dead woman’s memory. He walked between the people and objects in the room with a cold gaze that asked no questions but disapproved of everything. He seemed to be waiting to be alone with his son in order to tell him what had brought him to the cabin, but Hagen, who usually found work he had to do outside, remained still this time, with a visible resolution not to move from the spot.
“Please stay here,” Gunther whispered to Nora and Paul, who were getting ready to leave.
Beneath his customary ironic smile was a challenging expression directed at the unexpected guest in black, but also a fear of remaining alone with him.
The silence became even more oppressive during lunch. Only Faffner’s intermittent barking outside was audible. Old Grodeck ate sparingly, yet seriously and with a kind of meticulous attention. Once in a long while he uttered a word or two about people who Gunther must know. The name Aunt Augusta recurred frequently in his conversation, spoken with reverence, as though referring to a higher authority. This Aunt Augusta must occupy a significant place in the Grodeck hierarchy. Yet Gunther made no reply of any sort, and Old Grodeck did not seem to expect one.
Hagen had not sat down at the table. His powerful silence defended from afar the more nervous, uncertain silence of the boy. He remained riveted to his spot next to the door without once allowing his gaze to stray from what was happening at the table. The old man seemed to have no problem in putting up with this leaden, strained silence. Leaning his immense shoulders over the table, he could have borne far heavier weights without feeling them. His mourning tie and black suit gave him a solemn, pensive air. As the end of the meal approached, he still hadn’t spoken a word. When he finished eating, he suddenly addressed Gunther: “I’ve come to ask if you want to return home.”
The boy didn’t reply at first. Such a direct question hadn’t been expected; nothing had prepared him for it. Then he replied curtly with an unflinching expression: “No.”
Old Grodeck accepted the reply, looking him in the face without a tremor. “I knew it. It was my duty to ask you, but I knew it.”
“In that case,” Gunther said, “you shouldn’t have tired yourself out coming all the way up here. I’m sorry you had to make such a long trip.”
“Anybody could make that trip. Whether you stay here or whether you leave, we have a few things to talk about. It might be better if the two of us talked about them alone.”
“I don’t have any secrets,” Gunther said, bewildered by the thought that he might be left alone and shooting a pleading glance in the direction of Nora, Paul and Hagen.
“They’re not secrets, they’re business issues ... I want to talk to you about the Bihor forest.”
Until now he had been speaking in Romanian, but in that moment, before finishing his sentence, he started to speak German, as though in a kind of instinctive self-defence against the strangers in front of him. His speech took on a nervous haste that hadn’t been evident before. The calm he had shown until now was due in part to the fact that he had to choose his words with care when speaking Romanian.
They were talking about a railway line for logging that the Grodeck enterprises were building in their forest in Bihor. As unforeseen developments had occurred, which would prolong the project by another year, he sought from Gunther an agreement in principle that on reaching the age of majority the boy would not block the scheme’s unfolding evolution. The issue was important, and Old Grodeck presented it in detail, with figures, technical explanations, diagrams and blueprints, which he had brought with him and now spread over the table.
Gunther listened without a sign of approval, or even of understanding. A moment later he got to his feet.
“I can’t even give you an answer. For the time being, these matters don’t concern me. In March I’m going to go down to Braşov. I’ll see then what needs to be done.”
For the first time, Old Grodeck lost his patience. “I don’t have time to wait until March.”
“I’m surprised,” Gunther said. “A Grodeck always has time to wait. That’s the only thing I learned from all of you. Didn’t you wait twenty years until Mama died? You can wait a little longer for me.”
“Let’s not talk about this any more,” Old Grodeck said. “Whatever may have happened, your mama’s memory is sacred to us both. I have forgotten everything.”
“In that you’re generous,” Gunther laughed. “But I’ve forgotten nothing. You understand? Nothing at all.”
He had lost the ironic self-control he had shown until now. There were cold, blue flames in his eyes that burned with desperation in his childlike face. Old Grodeck tried to maintain his emotional balance beneath that burning gaze. If it hadn’t been for his guttural voice, altered by his barely concealed rage, as if he had unexpectedly become hoarse, nothing would have betrayed him. In this he was assisted by the rigid dignity of his black mourning clothes.
“There are certain things,” he said, “that a father cannot discuss with his son. And whatever else may be said, you are still my son.”
As he spoke the final words, he raised his head, looked towards Hagen and stared him in the eyes for the first time, confronting the stoney silence that the other man had conserved during the lunch. Then he addressed the boy again with the same guttural voice stifled by anger.
“I came here today to arrange business matters that can’t be delayed. You have to be reasonable and listen to me. I’m sure your mama, if she were alive, would agree with me.”
On hearing these words, Gunther broke into a harsh laugh. “I’d always wondered why you killed her. Now I finally know: so that she can say that you’re right. When you people kill someone you make it sound as though they were on your side. But even if Mama’s dead she’s still with me, and if you’ve come to take me away, you’ve come in vain. I’m not going to let you kill her a second time.”
He was exceptionally pale, and his exasperated laughter was full of tears. He suddenly left the room, slamming the door behind him. They could hear his steps fleeing up the stairs to the room in the tower.
Hagen left at almost the same time, heading after him. Grodeck remained alone with Nora and Paul. He adjusted his tie with great care, an activity that seemed to bring him a sort of peace, as if with this motion he had put his life in order and compensated for the harsh words that had been hurled at him in front of strangers.
“You mustn’t pay attention to Gunther’s talk,” he said. “He has a high-strung nature, and I made the mistake of bringing him up with too much freedom. In that regard, his late mother has part of the blame. She kept him too close to her coattails and made him into a spoiled child. I don’t know what you’ve been told about her, either here or in Braşov – I heard you spent the night in a house which she, too, had the possibly reprehensible recklessness to enter once in a while. I don’t know what you’ve been told, but I can assure you that my late wife was an utterly respectable woman and that no reproach can be made to her memory. But she
did have a high-strung nature, and that tendency had an influence on Gunther’s upbringing. I’m committed to telling you these things myself, especially since you had the misfortune to witness that scene a moment ago.”
He crossed the room with measured strides, stopped in front of various objects and stared at them with disapproval.
“The boy is ill,” Nora said. “Too much emotional strain could make him collapse. You could have left him in peace for a bit.”
“Ill!” Old Grodeck spoke the word with irritation and incredulity. “That’s another of the romantic ideas he’s inherited from his mother. If he’s really ill, why doesn’t he come home? Why does he stay in this wilderness, without a doctor, without medicine?”
“I think he feels good here. Hagen looks after him and brings him everything he needs.”
Old Grodeck frowned. “He isn’t called Hagen. He’s called Klaus Schmidt.”
“Here we call him Hagen.”
“Well, try to call him Schmidt,” he blustered. “I never could get used to my wife calling him that: Schmidt. It all could have happened differently ...”
He stopped in front of the portrait on the bookshelf and gazed at it intolerantly. The young woman’s smile seemed to disappear beneath the weight of his stare.
For whole hours after Old Grodeck’s departure from the cabin, Faffner continued to fret and root around. They unleashed him, but he kept tossing about as if he were tied up. At first he had headed off into the woods on the tracks of the man who had left, but after a while he returned, dejected. It was too late to find him again, and the tracks had vanished into the mist.
He didn’t want to eat anything, nor did he accept being stroked. In fact, he was ill; his eyes burned with fever, and whenever someone tried to lay a hand on him, pulling on his ear – a gesture that normally soothed him – the dog bawled in pain, as though he had been touched on a raw wound.
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