—If I can just do this one thing, he thought, not necessarily finding her, but being part of the men who are in the search party, if I can just be one man among others so that I can know that I am a man again.…
—For if I am a man again, ultimately there is hope.
At last the trees thinned, parted, and he was out in the snow fields. He moved, as Pierre had suggested he do, slightly to the left, climbing upwards and to the left, upwards and to the left, going around great turrets and castles of snow that were only darker shadows in the snow-filled dark. Every once in a while he paused to listen, calling softly, “Gertrude.”
Once he slipped and fell and it was a moment before he could pick himself up, weighted down by the cumbersome overcoat and the bottle of Gertrude’s brandy in the right-hand pocket and the climbing things he had stuffed hastily in the left-hand pocket, pitons and hammer and rope and light as well as the crampons. He stood there, catching his breath, thinking,—No, no, it is Gertrude we are hunting for, not Courtney. You will spoil everything if you are inefficient enough to hurt yourself now.
—Typical, wouldn’t it be? Join the hunting party in a grand gesture and fall and break a leg and have to be rescued yourself. What a laugh. What a laugh they’d all get out of it, Kaarlo and Abe.
And then he realized that no, they wouldn’t laugh, Kaarlo and Abe; Abe and Kaarlo would not laugh at him, but their casual compassion would be far more cruel than Tommy O’Hara’s hilarity. Damn you, Courtney, no. It’s in the shadows of your mind that you’re only part of a man and when you aren’t whole it’s because you don’t want to be whole, it’s too damn difficult to be whole. But if you retreat again this time there’s no coming back to life again.
He fell. This time it was more difficult to get up and it seemed that the ultimate in happiness would be to lie there in the enveloping snow and become one with its shadowy nothingness. But he struggled to his knees and crawled across the snow, calling, “Gertrude! Gertrude! and then he was on his feet again, struggling on, up and to the left, up and to the left.
—It is not Gertrude I am hoping to find, he thought, it is Emily.
The mountain seemed to loom directly above him, to become one with the snow-filled sky that enclosed him, containing him in a small shell of solitude, isolating him so entirely that he was not one with the other searchers, but entirely alone with the edges of the shell clamped down tightly about him. He stood still for a moment, listening, but he could hear nothing but the wind, no call from anyone in the search party, no signal light, nothing. Below him the lights of the village were blotted out by the shell of clouds and only a faint sickly mauve tinge in the sky showed him where it lay, showed him that indeed it still existed. He paused again to catch his breath, then he struggled upwards, up and to the left.
“Gertrude!” he called softly, urgently. “Gertrude!”
At last it seemed to him that he heard an answering cry, below him, still further to the left, and he moved towards it, calling again, “Gertrude!” with a sudden burst of joy through him so that he moved easily, as though the wind had ceased beating against him, flapping his coat like the wings of an enormous bird, beating against his legs in an effort to drive him back down the mountain. Again he heard the faint cry and he moved towards it and then he was kneeling on the edge of a ridge off which he had almost fallen, and peering down at the shelf below on which was the twisted shadow that was Gertrude.
He flashed his signal to the others and got an answering light from far to the right above him. So they had been there after all, he had been one of them, he had not been alone on an alien mountain, he and Gertrude, the two lost souls never to be found.
On his hands and knees, moving cautiously so that he too should not dislodge the snow and topple with it over the ridge, he looked down the ten or twelve feet to where Gertrude lay.
“Gertrude,” he called urgently.
“Here,” she whispered.
He brushed away loose snow until he came to ice into which he could hammer a piton. In spite of his caution more snow fell away and tumbled down onto the ledge. Moving slowly, carefully, he tied his rope to the piton and climbed down beside her. The shelf, he realized with gratitude, was solid rock under the snow, and large enough for both of them. He knelt beside her. In the beam of his flashlight her eyes held a glazed look of pain and her lips were blue. He did not brash the snow off her legs because for the moment it afforded her some protection from the cold, and the ledge on which she lay, he realized immediately and with relief, was mercifully protected by the overhanging ridge from the wind. He took out the bottle of brandy, raised her head very gently, and let a little of it trickle between her lips. After a moment she was able to swallow.
“I botched it,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean it to be this way.”
“Don’t talk, Gertrude,” he said. “Kaarlo and Clément will be here with the stretcher almost immediately and everything will be all right.”
“Let me have some more brandy,” she whispered. He gave her more and she said, “I think I’ve broken my leg.”
“Yes,” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be all right. I promise you.” He spoke with the gentle conviction he used with his children and almost imperceptibly she relaxed. He gave her some more brandy and although her eyes were still glazed a little of the blue left her lips.
“I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble,” she said. “it was for Kaarlo and Emily.” Then she shut her eyes tightly so that the lids were wrinkled with pain and whispered. “Oh, no! I shouldn’t have said that!”
“Shouldn’t have said what?” he asked, though he knew he should discourage her from talking.
“About Kaarlo and Emily. Or did you know anyhow? I was going to walk until I was really ill, until there was no choice. And then I was going to Clément and the sanatorium and then they would have been free of me hanging like a millstone about their necks.”
“Don’t talk, Gertrude,” he said automatically, but then he asked, “Who would have been free?”
“Kaarlo and Emily.”
“Free for what?”
“Free for each other … to love each other.…”
“Kaarlo and Emily—” he repeated.
“They love each other … I’m so sorry, Court … I’m so damnably sorry.…” she said with an effort of strength.
“No, Gertrude,” he said. “No! You’re entirely wrong! How could you ever think such fantastic nonsense?”
“Is it—so fantastic?” she gasped.
“Of course it is. I know Emily. And Kaarlo. Don’t you know Kaarlo any better than that?” He gave her more brandy, looking down in appalled silence at her pinched white face, still not quite able to credit what she had told him. He remembered, as he knelt there looking at her in the beam of his flashlight and letting the brandy trickle into her mouth, how he had once picked up a sparrow from one of the paths in the park. He had held it in his strong, living hands, trying to warm life back into its chill body; he had taken it home and tried giving it brandy from an eye dropper; for a moment it had pecked feebly against the tensile skin of his palm; for a moment it had turned its small bright head and looked up at him with Gertrude’s stark pleading. Then its eyes had glazed over and its gentle body had turned stiff in his hands.
He looked down at Gertrude and he knew he could bear no longer the pain in her eyes, the pain that had nothing to do with her broken leg.
So this must be the ultimate humiliation, must it?—the utmost plunge into the chasm of despair, the descent to the final depth of degradation, before he could climb up and stand on his feet again, a man among men. And was it for Gertrude that he must do this, Gertrude who might not even be trustworthy? Finding Gertrude had been nothing, a fluke, a lucky accident. Saying what he now had to say was the act of courage which he had been dreading but which he knew to be necessary, and he knew that it must take place here in the shelter of the overhanding cliff of snow on Gertrude’s small ledge of safety.
; “Gertrude,” he said. “Emily doesn’t love Kaarlo. I know.”
“How do you know?” she demanded. “Are you as sure of her as all that?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure of her at all. But as far as Emily and Kaarlo are concerned I know. I know Emily doesn’t love Kaarlo. Not in that way.”
“But how … how can you know?”
God, why was it to Gertrude that it had to be said? Of all people, to Gertrude?
He knelt there by her on the ledge and gave her more brandy and then he said, “Because Emily is in love with Abe Fielding.”
A frantic look flickered across her face. “Abe?” she whispered.
“Abe.” The lights approached; the others were coming; but it had been said.
“But how do you—how do you know?”
His voice was as dry as his mouth and lips. “Believe me, Gertrude. I know.”
“Abe—” she whispered again.
“Abe,” he repeated, the word each time like a sword. “Not Kaarlo. Never Kaarlo, Kaarlo loves only you.”
“Oh, Jesus,” she whispered. “Oh, Jesus God. Then this was—” She moved one hand feebly. “No,” she whispered. “It still had to be done.”
At the first hut Clément, looking with his flashlight at Gertrude, had them carry her in and put the stretcher down on one of the bunks.
“Clément, I—” she started to whisper.
But he said sternly, “You are not to say a word, Gertrude. Not a word until I give you permission.” To Kaarlo he said, softly, turned away from her so that she would not hear, “I must massage her heart. If I can do this and not start a hemorrhage—if we can get her down to the sanatorium—then she will perhaps have a chance. The leg is nothing.” To Abe he said. “Go down to the sanatorium and tell them to make ready for us. Speak to Sister Mercanton personally.” Then he knelt on the floor beside the bunk on which Gertrude lay.
“Emily—” she whispered.
“You will see Emily as soon as you get safely to bed at the hospital,” he promised, “but if you are to get to the hospital at all you must try not to talk now.” His fingers massaged with strength and caution, firmness and gentleness, and under their touch her heartbeats gradually gained in strength and rhythm.
“We’ll take her on down now,” he said, and gave a brief, reassuring nod to Kaarlo. “All right for the moment.” Then to Gertrude, “I shall have to set your leg without an anaesthetic. I will give you a hypodermic that will help the pain a little, but there will be pain. However it will not last long and I know that you are not afraid of that kind of pain. What you must remember is to keep absolutely still.” She answered him with her eyes, not even nodding. “Good girl,” he said.
They carried the stretcher slowly, keeping an even rhythm, taking infinite care not to jolt Gertrude. Clément walked beside her so that when she opened her eyes she saw him by her side, and she knew that Kaarlo was at the head of the stretcher. She still felt incredibly light, disembodied, but no longer as though she were skating over a thin film of ice. The ice had broken and she had fallen through but she had not drowned.
When they reached the hospital, Emily, Courtney, and Abe were waiting, not speaking, not sitting in the comfortable chairs, the three of them simply standing here.
“Please wait if it’s at all possible,” Clément said to Emily before disappearing with Kaarlo into the hospital with Gertrude. “She has been asking for you.”
They continued to stand there until Abe said, “That was pretty terrific work, Court. If Gertrude comes through this it’ll be thanks to you.”
Courtney shook his head. “Any one of us could have found her or not have found her. It was looking for a needle in a haystack. Simply a matter of luck.”
“Pretty good work anyhow,” Abe said. “I didn’t realize you were in the search party.”
“I went in late.” Courtney turned away from Abe, towards Emily. “I’m going home now. The children shouldn’t be left alone any longer, and we promised to let them know right away. I’ll wait for you to eat, Emily. I believe your son’s at our place, Fielding. Shall I send him up to the hotel?”
“Please,” Abe said. “Tell him I’ll be there right away.”
“Right.” Without saying good-bye, without looking at either of them again, he left.
“Emily,” Abe started, and then shook his head. “No. Not here. Not now … Did you go to the Splendide?”
“No.”
A nurse pushed through the glass doors then, saying, “Mrs. Bowen?”
“Yes.”
“Good, you’re still here. Will you wait?”
“Yes,” Emily said again.
“Perhaps you’d like to come upstairs. The floor sitting rooms are a little less formal.”
“Thank you,” Emily said. Yes, I would.” She followed the nurse out of the lounge, away from Abe.
Gertrude lay flat on the high bed, her hair pushed damply from her face, staring at the ceiling, the ceiling pure and white and undefiled, a ceiling that could not disturb feverish patients with phantom pictures imagined in the cracks or stains, as Gertrude had been disturbed by faces in the dark beams of the ceiling at the chalet, or as Courtney at the villa was obsessed by the spider dangling of the light fixtures. Her eyes were still dark with pain and fever but some of the glazed look had left them. Kaarlo stood by the bed and smiled at Emily and his eyes had the same look of pain as Gertrude’s, as though he had somehow managed to take some of her pain upon himself.
Gertrude managed half a grin, then whispered, “Emily … alone for a minute, Kaarlo, please.”
“Clément says you are not to talk, Gertrude,” he said gently.
“No.… Just a brief word … promise.”
Kaarlo went out into the hall and Emily stood by the bed, putting one hand lightly over Gertrude’s.
“Clément says … if I’m good … I might live. Think I’ll try to be good … for a change,” Gertrude whispered.
“That’s right, and you mustn’t talk now, Gertrude,” Emily said.
“I’ll stay now … here … sanatorium … till I get well.”
“Good for you.”
“Did it for Kaarlo,” Gertrude said, “for Kaarlo and you. But messed it up. Thought you and Kaarlo loved each other.”
“Kaarlo and I!” Emily cried in horror, forgetting to be cautious. “But why!”
“Little things … my own lousiness … driving him to it … and you’ve been different.…”
“Oh, no, Gert!” Emily cried. “I love Kaarlo, but not that way! Nor he me!”
“I know,” Gertrude said. “I know now.”
“But Gert, you mean that was why you—to let Kaarlo and me—?” But then this was all my fault, too, the whole thing—”
“No,” Gertrude whispered. “Could have just gone to Clément and said I’d come to the sanatorium—but no, not Gert de C. Had to do it with a big gesture, make a production of it.… Didn’t mean to come quite so close to ending myself.… Kaarlo …”
“Kaarlo,” Emily called, and he was back in the room immediately.
“I’d better go now,” she said. “Will you call me later tonight, after you’ve talked to Clément again? Or any time if you need me.” Then she bent down and kissed Gertrude’s forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow, old Gert de C,” she said gently. “Take care.”
When the children were finally quieted down and in bed Emily said, “I’m going out for a little while.”
“Isn’t it rather late?” Courtney asked.
“I won’t be long.”
He did not ask where she was going. She went into the hall and pulled on her ski boots.
—I should have known before this afternoon, she thought—before I couldn’t go into the casino. Thank God, it was then I knew, so that it was not what Courtney did, an outside thing, making up my mind for me instead of the other way round.
—So we reached our decisions simultaneously, and apart, and if I knew that Court was fighting a battle, did he, to
o, sense mine? Did it have anything to do with his coming back into life again? For he is here, I am no longer living with a marble image. And I will never know why. Court being Court I can never ask him why; we wrestled with our problems alone and we must live alone with the answers. And is it part of a marriage, part of being a human being, that we must always reach our decisions alone?
She groped for her ski jacket in the always dim light of the hall and pushed her arms into the sleeves and then stood there again, not zipping up the jacket, not moving.—I’m part of Courtney, she thought. I can’t shed him as the snakes used to shed their skins in the spring down by the orchard wall. I’m part of him and he of me forever, all the countless days we have shared, and the nights, the hours and minutes joining us inextricably together. We have had three children together. And if we managed to live again after Alice’s death we can surely survive Tommy O’Hara and Indiana and we can survive this. And if Abe takes a part of me away with him on the train to Bandol I have learned that one can live with a mutilation. I know that I will be happy again. Perhaps that is the most terrible and frightening thing of all, that I know that some day I will be happy again.
She went into the living room and put her hand on Courtney’s arm. “I think we’re going to be happy in Indiana,” she said. “I have a feeling.…”
He looked up at her and smiled, but said nothing.
“I won’t be long,” she said.
She climbed the familiar path to the hotel. Here were the doors she had gone through with Abe, the lobby where she had stood with him, the palms in the glazed pottery pots, the odor of heat and wax and expensive furs.…
“My dear Madame Bowen!” And she was borne down on by Madame Pedroti. “And it was Monsieur Bowen who found our dear, dear Gertrude! How proud you must be of him”
“Yes. Thank you.” Emily said.
A Winter's Love Page 31