They preferred his words to the priest’s. Voter Luis knew about the torments of life at high altitudes and the cruel tongue of the Wehen, whereas the priest clung to a Gospel these tough, weary men could not understand.
The Gospel spoke of dates and deserts, camels and fishermen. How could it provide answers when their questions were all about ice and forests?
Voter Luis seldom went down to the village. He liked the solitude of the mountains. That was where his will and his duty lay, he would say. Then he would add, with a smile, “Leave? Why would I do that? The reward for escape is always the desert. It’s written in the Bible. Moses teaches us as much.” Voter Luis was a wise man.
Simon Keller, his first child, was born on 11 January 1911. A significant date, Voter Luis had noted, as specific as a verse in Genesis.
Young Simon adored his father. Voter Luis was tall as an ash tree and just as strong. He often laughed, and he knew the names of all the plants and animals.
Whenever Voter Luis would take him down to the village with him, to buy tobacco, coffee and whatever else he was unable to produce himself, young Simon would burst with pride, seeing how people recognised and greeted his father. Voter Luis was always happy to stop and talk to them. He would impart advice, suggesting remedies for sick calves and newborn babies with runny noses. Other Bau’rn would often walk for hours to come and knock on the maso door and ask for his help. Voter Luis never refused anyone.
Ein guter Mensch. A good person.
Before these expeditions, his mother would make Simon put on a nice dark suit with a waistcoat, a shirt collar as white as snow and a velvet bow which, even though it tickled his chin, made him feel like a real adult, a worthy son to Voter Luis.
Mutti would say goodbye with a kiss and a pat on the cheek and remind him of his obligations. To bow his head to men and remove his hat when meeting a lady. Not to speak unless spoken to. To cross himself at the wayside shrines. To carry Voter Luis’ Bible in the knapsack she herself had sewn for him. It was heavy, but it was also his most important task.
With the Bible weighing him down on his left side, Simon would become a giant.
Voter Luis owned hundreds of Bibles. All copied by hand. Some by him, others inherited from past generations of Voter. It was a Keller tradition.
The Keller Bibles were kept in the cellar of the Stube. Young Simon was not allowed down there. He longed to see this collection of wisdom, but Mutti said the cellar steps were too steep for a child and there were too many insects that could sting him and cause painful infections. Voter Luis regularly assured him that the day would come when he, too, would be able to go down to the cellar and admire the collection of Keller Bibles (“to drink from the wisdom of past Voter and take care of it” were his exact words), but first he had to grow as strong as his father.
Until he did, he would not be allowed into the cellar. He would have to wait. Everything in its own time.
Thus it was written.
Copying the Bible by hand helped wisdom grow in the heart. Like sowing a seed and waiting patiently for it to yield fruit.
Taking care of the Word did not only mean copying it – that would be nothing but a dry exercise in calligraphy – but also meditating and noting down the germs of thoughts that the verses triggered in your mind, in order to pass them on to future generations.
Every Voter had added reflections, altered verses, rewritten entire passages based on his own thoughts and experiences. So the Keller Bibles were full of sayings, meditations and marginal notes that made them thicker and heavier. Each of them, like those that Voter Luis would study in the evening after dinner, sitting there absorbed, pipe held tightly between his teeth, was divided into several volumes.
Simon could not wait to receive his first Bible from the hands of Voter Luis. He could already picture himself sitting at the table in the Stube, with the ink and the inkwell, elbow to elbow with his father, just as he had seen his grandfather, Opa Josef, do (although these were faded memories because Voter Luis’ Voter had died young).
Opa Josef had also been a wise man. And a highly respected one. A man of faith, naturally.
The day finally came soon after the announcement that the war was over and that the mountain men were no longer subjects of the Emperor in Vienna, but of the King in Turin. Simon was eight years old, it was late March and the days were growing longer and lighter. It was the day his sister Elisabeth was born.
When Mutti had gone into labour, Voter Luis took him aside and gave him his first Bible (its blank pages rustling with promise like spring flowers) and told him that the time had come for him to prove he was a worthy son of the Kellers.
Simon heard his mother moaning and groaning for a whole night and a day. Voter Luis’ herbs and all his efforts could do little to soothe the pain. It was not an easy birth. Once the screams and the weeping ceased, his father presented him with the new arrival. She was a sweet, pink little thing with light skin and thick dark hair like her mother. She looked tiny in Voter Luis’ hands.
Simon had never seen anything more beautiful. And he had never seen Voter Luis look so worried.
“She’s like a princess,” Simon said, eyes open wide.
Voter Luis burst out laughing, that same laugh that would make women in the village (even those who wore a wedding ring) turn to look at him with a gleam in their eyes. “You’re right,” he said. “She’s as beautiful as a princess. We’ll call her Elisabeth. Elisabeth Keller.”
Then he showed him two little bells, each attached to a ribbon, and tied one around Simon’s wrist and the other around the baby’s ankle.
“She’s your sister and you must always take care of her,” he said. “Will you do that?”
Simon felt his chest swell with pride. He raised his bell and made it jingle.
The baby waved her arms and legs. Her little bell rang. And this made him feel as tall and strong as an ash tree.
He stroked her forehead and began to sing.
30
“Little Lissy, sweet Lissy,” Keller whispered, taking out the key. “Little Lissy, sweet Lissy . . .” He opened the little door and put the silver bowl down.
And there was Lissy, huge, entirely black except for the crest of bristles and the stripes under her eyes, lying on her side in the straw, in her favourite corner. By the light of the oil lamp, her eyes shone like blades.
“Sweet Lissy, little Lissy, good Lissy . . .”
Lissy got up and came towards him. The bell jingled.
Keller giggled. “Are you hungry, sweet Lissy?”
Lissy took another step forward. She stopped a metre from him, shaking her corkscrew tail. He showed her the contents of the bowl. She bowed her head, her nostrils quivering and oozing mucus, a thread of saliva dripping from her snout as black as night, her fangs shining in the light of the oil lamp. She stood motionless.
“Eat, Lissy, little Lissy . . .”
But instead of diving into the bowl with her snout, she carried on trembling, resisting the smell of food. Keller looked at her, struggling to understand.
“What’s the matter, sweet Lissy?”
Lissy was hungry. That much was obvious. Keller saw the signs of her voraciousness not just in the saliva dripping to the floor, but also in the trembling of her legs and ears. Still, Lissy kept staring at him. She was hungry, the slop was there, ready for her, and yet she wouldn’t budge a centimetre. She was just looking at him. Simon had never seen a pig resist the impulse to eat for so long. Especially Lissy. Because Lissy was hungry. Lissy was always hungry.
And yet she was not eating.
Why not?
Keller tapped the silver bowl. Once again, Lissy waved her tail, annoyed by the noise, but did not lower her snout or stop staring at him. Keller stepped back, closed the little door, took out the bell from his waistcoat and rang it.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Only then did Lissy put her snout into the bowl.
Keller smiled. He switched out the light, lef
t the pigsty and stood gazing at the mountain peaks to the east. What a miracle dawn was! Waiting for the sun’s first rays to come to rest on his face, he closed his eyes, lost in meditation.
He allowed the minutes to flow and the light and warmth to relax his muscles and dispel his worries. He thought about the young woman in the carcass of the Mercedes, and about Lissy. Lissy was the seventh-born. An important number. The Lord had created the world and all its creatures in six days. On the seventh, He had rested. Then, when the world was still young, He had flooded it with waters, and so the ancients had come all the way up here. They had been brave enough to build a maso at such altitude. They had shown so much wisdom in doing so. Over the centuries, the maso had never betrayed the Kellers. Because the Kellers . . .
Keller opened his eyes wide. Cursing himself, he went back into the Stube.
31
It had stopped snowing. The sky was clear. Seeing it that morning, Marlene felt relieved. The world was still there. It had not vanished. Along with the relief, though, came the worry, the anxiety, the fear. Because, yes, the world was still there.
But so were the sapphires and the kobolds. Yes, the kobolds. She now understood why, faced with the open safe, she’d thought about kobolds. Kobold, like . . .
Wegener.
Wegener and his unquenchable thirst for power, from which she had fled.
She had wasted these days, avoiding the most urgent question of them all: What to do?
Simon Keller had promised to take her to the village. He had said there was a bus stop. Did she have enough money to buy her ticket home? Yes, of course. Please don’t worry. It’ll be alright.
A bus, of course.
But where to?
Unable to find an answer to this question, Marlene had started tidying up the Stube. The mess bothered her. She also felt guilty for having laughed (even for a second) at the Bau’r’s solitude. In a way, she owed him this much.
She swept the floor and dusted with a frenzy that would have scared her if she’d been able to see herself from the outside. It was the same nervous energy Mamma had had when she was no longer Mamma.
Fortunately, she was not even aware of it.
When she had finished her work, she filled the espresso pot with coffee and, when she heard Simon Keller’s heavy footsteps on the steps, put it on the ring. Keller came in and hung his heavy greatcoat on the hook, next to the rifle.
She could tell at a glance that something was wrong. Keller looked upset. Marlene did not ask him why. She waited for the coffee to gurgle, then poured it into the chipped cups.
Keller sipped his coffee with an absent expression, then thanked her politely, as he always did, but his words lacked warmth. His anxious eyes kept darting from one side of the Stube to the other, unable to settle.
Marlene could not keep quiet any longer. “Is everything alright, Simon Keller?” she asked.
“Yes, everything’s fine,” he replied. Then he thought about it and shook his head. “Actually, no. There’s a job to be done before we leave. It can’t be put off. There’s too much snow on the roof, and it needs to be shovelled off. The maso can withstand a lot, but it needs to be taken care of, otherwise . . . And it’s going to take time. An hour or two. Too long.” Keller massaged his chin. “I could show you how to get to the village by yourself, but it’s a long way and it’s dangerous. Six hours on foot. Maybe even seven, with all this snow.”
Marlene tried to reassure him. “Then we’ll leave tomorrow.”
Keller shook his head firmly. “Absolutely not. No. You have a home to get back to. There are people concerned about you. It would be unfair to keep them worrying any longer just to—”
“It would be unfair for you to postpone your duties in order to help me. One more day won’t make a difference.”
Unless Wegener had discovered something. Unless his men were already on their way up to the maso to kill them both. Marlene was under no illusions. Herr Wegener’s henchmen would not take pity on Simon Keller. They would kill him and set the maso on fire. She knew Herr Wegener and had seen what he was capable of when he was angry.
For the first time, Marlene realised that she was endangering the man who had saved her life.
“The maso has protected your family for centuries,” she said, forcing a smile, “and for centuries—”
“—the Kellers have taken care of the maso,” Keller said flatly, finishing her sentence.
“So there’s nothing more to say. Just give me a minute to take off this apron and put my jacket on.”
Keller looked at her, not understanding.
“I’m going to give you a hand,” she said.
“No, it’s a dangerous job,” he said, getting to his feet.
Without waiting for her, he put on his greatcoat and went out. He propped the ladder against the outer wall of the maso, fixing it firmly in the icy snow and testing its steadiness, then climbed up to the roof, as agile as a stone marten.
Fifteen metres from the ground.
He had barely had time to look around, his shovel over his shoulder, and decide where to begin when a voice directly behind him made him jump.
It was Marlene, up on the roof with him. She was wearing her padded jacket and a woollen hat Keller had found in a cupboard and brandishing a sorghum broom. “My father used this. Not a shovel.”
“You’re stubborn.”
Marlene did not reply. Her attention was drawn by the beauty of the surrounding mountains. Until now, her field of vision had been limited by the walls of the maso and the blinding whiteness of the blizzard. Now that the horizon was clear again, she reached out with her hand as if able to seize hold of the peaks, and breathed in air as pure as balm.
“It’s wonderful.”
Keller followed the direction of her gaze. “You’ve never asked me where we are,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but an observation.
Marlene shrugged. “Somewhere safe.”
Keller smiled, dispelling some of the darkness he had brought back from the pigsty. “Beautiful words.”
“Not as beautiful as this place.”
“Wasn’t your parents’ maso like this?”
“It was further down, in Venosta, on the side that gets less sun. From my bedroom window, I could see tree trunks. As a child, that’s all I would draw, trees and hens. My job was to feed the hens. Not too much, or the corn would run out and we’d have to kill them. We were very poor.”
Keller stuck the shovel in the snow, took out his pipe, filled it and lit it. “Once,” he said, “I saw an asp dancing in the moonlight and even thought I could hear it sing. Another time, I was following a white crow and found the carcass of an ibex with three horns and three eyes. But I’ve never seen a rich Bau’r.”
Marlene laughed. “You’re a wise man, Simon Keller.”
He puffed out a cloud of smoke and smiled slyly. “If I were as wise as Voter Luis, I would have tied you to a chair and forced you to stay in the Stube.”
“Didn’t Voter Luis ever tell you women are stubborn?”
Simon laughed, too. “Voter Luis took that as read. Women are stubborn and inquisitive, and you’re no exception. You don’t ask, but I’ll answer you.”
One by one, he pointed out all the mountains they could see from the roof of the maso, starting with the nearest ones and ending with the furthest summits. He knew the name of each one and uttered it with affection if it was connected to a memory, but also with reverence in the case of peaks that instilled fear.
Most of these names meant nothing to Marlene. She had never heard of them, although some (Rabenkopf, Valvelspitze, Weisskugel and Saldurspitze) reminded her of the map on the passenger seat of the car.
And she suddenly realised where she had made her mistake. She had driven into a minor valley that led nowhere except to the huge Alpine barrier of glaciers and permanent snowfields that separated Italy from Austria. It was a mistake that might have proved fatal if it hadn’t been for this man with his hard face and mel
ancholy expression, who called his pigs “kids” because they were all he had for company. The man who had made her liver dumplings and built her her own toilet.
The man whose life she was putting at risk just by being here.
While Keller was still busy listing the names of the mountain peaks, indicating them with the stem of his meerschaum pipe, Marlene went close to him and gave him a light kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you, Simon Keller. Truly, thank you.”
Keller stared at her, then turned his face away. His eyes were watery and he did not want her to see.
“I’ve never asked you anything, city girl,” he said after a long pause. “Asking questions means expecting answers, and Voter Luis used to say that answers can be as painful as a viper bite. So my question isn’t one you need to answer, alright? It’s just something I have to say.”
“Ask anything you like. I’m in your debt.”
“Are you in trouble, city girl?”
Marlene lowered her eyes. “I . . .”
He turned towards her, and that was when it happened.
Perhaps it was the sun. Perhaps their joint weight. Perhaps chance. Or fate.
The snow creaked and slid down by one centimetre. A compact sheet of snow at least one metre long.
Keller dropped his shovel and flailed with his arms. The sheet shifted another five centimetres.
Marlene let out a scream. She stepped back instinctively and almost lost her balance.
The sheet fell.
Marlene saw Keller roll his eyes in surprise and fear. She heard the sound of ice shattering, losing all friction.
A solid, terrible sound.
Keller reached out to her, uttering something that could have been a curse or a request for help, and Marlene desperately tried to grab hold of his hand.
She couldn’t.
One.
Two.
He fell.
32
Three days after giving birth, Mutti had developed a high fever. Four days later, she was as pale as the sheets she lay on. She did not even have the strength to feed Elisabeth. Voter Luis had to give the baby boiled cow’s milk.
Sanctuary Page 10