When the Night

by Cristina Comencini

I want this woman; she’s the only one I want. I need to find the strength to tell her.

  “Don’t leave me.”

  I pull away and kiss him lightly once more. A tender kiss, like the kisses I give Marco. My cheek touches his. He whispers into my ear, “Don’t leave the boy.”

  1

  I THINK BACK TO who I was fifteen years ago, when I came here for the first time, and I can barely recognize myself. It’s almost as if that woman—alone, on vacation with her first child—were not me at all. Peering out of the train, I sow my thoughts across the expanse of snow.

  MARCO IN HIS stroller. I push him around, under the mountains, at dawn. I’m cold; always, cold and tired. The cows in the field, his ice axe in the entryway, mud from his boots on the floor. Everything is jumbled together: feelings, fears, desire. I trudged up the mountain, and inside of myself.

  Many times I’ve thought of giving you the gift of these years, Manfred. Look at me now. And Marco; I think you’d like to see what he’s become. Always angry, with me, with his father; when he goes out you never know when he’ll be back. On the weekends, he sleeps like the dead. At one in the afternoon, I peer into his room to see if he’s breathing; when he was a baby, he never slept. He doesn’t talk much, and doesn’t appreciate a lot of talk. He studies hard, and he’s never happy.

  I have a daughter, Manfred, three years younger than Marco. When she was born, I didn’t want to listen to anyone. No advice, thank you very much. I breast-fed her for four months. Her name is Silvia, like Bianca’s daughter. I tried to give her the strength I didn’t have. She holds her own against her brother, and argues with me, but she’s more accommodating with her father. And she loves to dance.

  Many times, I’ve wondered what your daughter is like now. And the little ones? They must be more than twenty years old.

  I haven’t tried to keep in touch these fifteen years. I wrote you a letter, a week after I left. It came back to me. You mailed it back to me in another envelope with my address on it, so I would know you had read it. No comment, just like Marco. I don’t know anything about your life, but I’ve thought about you, dreamed about you, spoken to you.

  More than anything: desire. The first few years, it made me cry in bed. I felt a pain in my stomach, even on the morning Silvia was born, at the hospital. Come now, I thought, come through that door, I want you to see her. Once again I’ve become a mother.

  You didn’t come, you never did, but you were always there. The emptiness in my belly became a memory. No more pain; it kept me company.

  “A LONG TIME ago, almost fifteen years ago, I met a man. I feel like I knew him more than any other man in my life.” I told one of my sisters, the youngest. She had lost her husband in an accident, and was raising her children alone. She was inconsolable.

  “You had a lover?”

  “I wanted to make love to him, I won’t lie, but it never happened. He knows something about me that no one else knows. I never saw him again, but he never left me. He kicked me, picked me up, and returned Marco to me forever. I know what you’ll say; that’s why I’ve never told anyone. You’ll say: you never lived with him, shared a life, children. What do you know about him? Nothing; I don’t even know whether he can walk, or whether he’s with his wife or with another woman. But I know he’s alive.”

  She smiled sadly.

  “My husband is alive every morning when I wake up, and then he dies again a second later.”

  “That’s why I’m telling you. Presence and absence: sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between the two.”

  She hugged me and then ran off to take the children to school. Maybe it helped her, who knows.

  I SEE THE mountains. I’m afraid. Three more hours and I’ll be there. Maybe you’ve left, gone to Alaska. I’ve considered that possibility. But it’s enough to see the house and go up to the lodge. Do Bianca’s children run it now? Maybe they’re all gone, but I don’t think so. Hard to imagine that the Sanes could leave these rocks, the stream, the woods.

  THEY PARK THEIR cars every which way. It snows, and they don’t move them. You dig out the tires, spread gravel, but it’s pointless: they just don’t know how to maneuver in the snow.

  “Don’t rev the engine, softly now, don’t turn the wheel too sharply.”

  But they can’t do it. They come from the city, and they don’t know how to drive. They say, “Could you do it, please?”

  Can’t they see my leg? Don’t they know I can’t drive? They apologize.

  “It’s all right. Try again. Not too much gas, easy now.”

  They can’t do it, and I have to call Simon and the cook and ask them to push.

  I’d like to hurl insults at them, but I can’t. They are our customers. Luna has taught me to be nice.

  “We have to pay the mortgage.”

  The mortgage has changed my life. She agrees: “You’ve improved, Manfred, you’re almost normal now.”

  What choice do I have?

  “The hotel is doing better than your brother’s lodge, or than Stefan’s business. You should be happy!”

  We do it for Clara, who is studying in the city, and for Simon, who will take over the business when we’re old. Or tired. I’m already tired. I try to get out as often as possible, to do repairs, shovel snow, discuss plans and bills. I look up at the three-story hotel which was once my house.

  Once a week I hike up the mountain on my own. I walk slowly, with a cane, without being seen. I keep the good leg fit. It’s even stronger now, the muscles are hardened and it works for two; my customers don’t even notice my bad leg.

  I leave the shovel next to the garage; I’ll do the rest later, when everyone is on the ski slopes.

  I brush off the shoes by the door. When my father died, we took back the rug. Luna put it here in the entryway, next to the bench. Every time I come in, I think of him. Simon is on the phone with his girlfriend, who lives in the city. I torment him a bit about her; I don’t want them to get married too soon.

  “Where is your mother?”

  He points toward the kitchen and says into the phone, “Hold on a minute.”

  “Room 10 called. The shower is acting up.”

  “I’ll go look. Get off the phone.”

  “OK, Pop.”

  He swallows his words; he must be imitating something from TV. It doesn’t bother me.

  “Manfred, do you realize you’ve only said three words all day? I’m not exaggerating; exactly three.”

  I talk less and less; maybe it’s some sort of disease. Or maybe I have nothing to say. I wonder if there is anything left to add, but I can’t think of anything.

  Up on the mountain, when I sit down to eat a sandwich and have a beer, in silence, I would like to have someone to talk to. Once I screamed, just to hear my own voice, and then I started to laugh. I felt like I was trying to call someone.

  I don’t feel like talking. Luna has too much work to do to complain or feel lonely. The kids know what I’m like, but I make an effort, especially with Clara, when she comes home for the holidays.

  “Do you enjoy school?”

  “Of course.” Clara is brusque, not like when she was a kid and she tried to keep me happy so I wouldn’t get mad. “I don’t want to live here, and I don’t want to look after the hotel.”

  “You’re right. You should do what you want to do.”

  My acquiescence irritates her; she likes to do battle, like me. She looks like me too. But I don’t want to fight. Maybe all that rage died, along with this leg that I drag behind me. Luna is right: since the accident, I’ve changed.

  I go up the stairs to Room 10, on the third floor, and knock on the door. They’ve gone out. The bed is unmade, clothes on the chairs. I go into the bathroom to fix the shower. I need to change the washer, so I take the shower apart and leave it on the basin; as I turn, I catch my reflection in the mirror. You’ve aged, Manfred. The news of the day is: the shower in Room 10 is leaking. The rooms are completely different now; the architect has created s
howers, bedrooms, hallways, added doors, knocked down walls, built partitions. The house is unrecognizable.

  “HAVE YOU BEEN here before?”

  “Once, a long time ago.”

  The young woman leads the way. “The town hasn’t changed much.”

  “I noticed. The pastry shop is still in the same spot, and so is the bakery and the butcher’s. Fifteen years ago I rented an apartment on the road that leads up to the large meadow.”

  She opens the door. The room is small, and the windows look down on the piazza. I put down my suitcase, open the curtain, and see the tables and the band. It’s the day of the town fair.

  “Is the room all right?”

  I turn around. “Yes, it’s lovely. The place I rented back then belonged to Manfred Sane.”

  “He runs a hotel now.”

  Maybe she means someone else. In small towns, sometimes several people have the same name.

  “His brother used to run the lodge up at the pass.”

  “Albert. He still does.”

  Over the years I’ve imagined him here, or on the mountain, or traveling, alone, with his wife, or with someone else, but I never imagined him running a hotel.

  “Does he actually run the hotel?”

  “Yes, with his wife and son.”

  With his wife; I should have guessed. Marina, that’s not what you wanted. You just wanted to see him again, that’s all.

  In the doorway the girl asks, “Are you staying one night?”

  “Yes, I’d like to go up to the lodge tomorrow. Is it open? Can I stay there?”

  “Yes, of course. If you’d like, I can call. They’ll come pick you up with the snowcat at the gondola station.”

  I sit down on the bed. “I’ll think about it and let you know at dinnertime.”

  I’m alone now. The house has become a hotel, and he runs it, like his brother, with his wife. You’ve lived with your husband for fifteen years; you have a daughter, a new house, you’ve traveled a bit.

  I lie down on the bed. I should unpack; dinner is early up here. I close my eyes. There was a reason why I returned, a fantasy I had entertained all these years.

  IN BED AT night, the light on my side is off. Mario reads.

  Nighttime, darkness, cold. I hurt my baby boy when he was very little. He doesn’t remember, or maybe some part of him, deep inside, still does. Manfred is the only one who knows, and yet he is the one who entrusted me with the boy. That is why I was able to raise him, and why Mario is still with me.

  In my fantasy, I go back, to see how he’s doing and whether he is able to walk. I bring him a photo of the kids, we talk. After all, we spoke so little back then. I take a train by myself, without telling him I’m coming. I book a hotel and call him from there. We see each other. I’m older, and so is he, and so we are finally able to transform our desire into words.

  I SIT UP, open the suitcase, and pull out a few things. Tomorrow I’ll go up to the lodge and see Bianca and Albert. Then, when I’m ready, I’ll see him as well.

  I WALK BETWEEN the tables, looking for Luna. A few of the newer guests notice my limp; the others know already.

  “Good evening, Manfred. The snow was stupendous today.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  “What will the weather be like tomorrow?”

  They ask me every night.

  “Cloudy, but it won’t snow.”

  I’m guessing, but I’m usually right.

  Luna stands at a table, talking to a group of guests. She’s good at talking to people; they are drawn to her, and they come back. I wouldn’t get far with the hotel on my own, but after all she was the one who wanted the place. I wait for her to finish. She describes the ski runs, where to go for the ski pass, how to rent skis. How can she stand to say the same things over and over, and always with a smile? She was a teacher; every year she repeated the same lessons to a new group of children. She sees me.

  “Manfred.”

  She has a few small wrinkles around her eyes, and a few extra pounds. I love this woman.

  “I’m going to the town meeting. Do you need me?”

  “No. Isn’t it true that it snows less and less?” She turns toward the group at the table. “We have to put snow machines on all the runs; there’s less snow, so we have to make it ourselves. It’s expensive, but what can you do?”

  Another conversation begins, this time about global warming. I walk away. It’s been fifteen, twenty years since the glacier started to melt, and now they notice, because the tourists can’t ski as they would like. I go to the meeting at the town hall. I listen but don’t talk; Albert is there, and he is much better informed than I am. After all, I was only a guide, I used to walk on that glacier as a kid.

  I pick up my cane. At night my leg aches. As I get older it will get worse. I need to keep the other leg strong. I put on my jacket, the one Luna bought for me. I don’t talk, and I don’t buy. Maybe it’s the same disease?

  It has snowed suddenly, out of season; during the Christmas holidays we had nothing. The town is all white like when we were kids, when we came down for Christmas mass. People would stare. And whisper, “Those are the Sane kids.”

  We looked straight ahead at the priest. We didn’t need them. And here we are, going to the town meeting.

  The Sane boys have wives, kids, hotels.

  Even Stefan found a wife, a Slav, good-looking. They have a son. He thought he was so clever, but now he has a wife who bosses him around. She doesn’t shop for him, or cook. She has him wrapped around her little finger. Go figure. Stefan is like a child who wants his sweets. We ask him why, and he always says the same thing: “She’s the only one I can’t lead by the nose.”

  Perhaps. But the truth is that she does as she pleases and he is at her beck and call. There’s ice on the road; tomorrow we’ll have to break it up again. I’ve gone from mountain guide to car parker, very impressive. The town is quiet. Clara is right to want to leave; when you’re young you can do anything, you’re stronger than any obstacle. You can run up the mountain without breaking a sweat; now I look at it through the window before falling asleep, like when I was a kid and I used to stare up at the Gigante. But back then you felt like a giant.

  WHEN BIANCA PICKED up the phone I had to explain who I was.

  “Marina, of course. How many years has it been?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “We’ve changed everything up here at the lodge. It’s all different now, except for the mountains, of course. They haven’t changed.” She laughs. “How is your baby boy?”

  “He’s big now, and I have a daughter as well. And yours?”

  “Silvia is here. Gabriel and Christian are down in town. They’re ski instructors now. Come up and see us, we’d love to have you.”

  Children are running in the sitting room of the hotel. Mothers talk, and I can hear snippets of their conversations. “I don’t want to put him to bed too early, or he’ll wake me at the crack of dawn.”

  This is my first trip on my own. I’ve imagined it for a long time. Mario was surprised.

  “ALONE? ARE YOU sure?”

  “You have work, and the kids have school. Just for a week.”

  “Why do you want to go there? You never wanted to before.”

  I am not afraid he’ll understand; he has no memory of that month. There are no photos in the album.

  “I was alone. It was difficult. Marco never slept, and he hurt himself. I didn’t think I was going to make it.”

  He stares at me, but he knows I have trouble expressing myself. “So then why do you want to go there?”

  “For that reason. Because it was hard.”

  He smiles. “You want to return to your old battleground.”

  HE HAS NO idea how close he is to the truth.

  I go to bed at ten. In the elevator I pass a father holding a bottle of milk; he’s going to warm it up in the kitchen. I open the door to my room and turn on the light. Standing there in that room with the neatly made bed, the little c
urtains, the darkness outside, it all comes back. It never went away. Where was it hiding all this time? I feel light-headed. On the bed, as I clutch my knees to my chin, I feel the pain, but I can’t cry.

  I’m here. Come to me.

  I breathe in, stand up. Stop this. It’s a fantasy I’ve been nurturing for fifteen years. Everybody has one, but it’s time to stop.

  I undress. I’m thin. After the second baby my breasts are smaller but still shapely. I rub lotion into my still-smooth skin. My face is thinner. He’ll find me less attractive, but of course he’ll be worse off, older. He already had wrinkles on his face; who knows, perhaps he can’t even walk. Bianca will tell me.

  I’m wearing a new, blue nightgown. I smooth my short hair behind my ears. My hair used to be long; the sink in the lodge was too small to wash it in.

  Now they’ve renovated the rooms, and I look younger with short hair.

  THEY’VE FIGURED OUT how to talk and talk without really saying anything. Let’s just buy the snow machines and shut up. We all want them, so what is there to discuss? I’m leaving. After all, Albert is here. “I’m sick of this. I’m leaving.”

  “Are you coming up tonight?”

  “Are you crazy? The hotel is full. Luna can’t handle it by herself. I need to shovel snow and help the tourists dig out their cars.”

  He laughs. He has a mustache now, just like our father.

  “You’re crazy, Manfred.”

  “What? I’m just saying she needs my help.”

  I get up, trying to avoid being seen. He calls me back.

  “Manfred?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you see that the woman from the accident is here?”

  “Who?”

  “The woman who called the police the night you fell.”

  I’m frozen, still bent forward. “Are you serious?”

  “She’s staying in town and coming up to the lodge tomorrow. She called Bianca.”

  “No, I didn’t know. Ciao.”

  “Ciao.”

  I leave the meeting room. In the hallway more people are discussing the snow machines. I zip up my jacket and walk to the piazza, away from home. My leg hurts. It’s best not to stand still in the cold.