The Accident

XI

TWO DAYS LATER, NORA LOOKED FOR the red-haired Saxon from the SKV chalet at the Touring Club. She was determined to talk to him and ask him about the “Grodeck mystery.”

But the man was nowhere to be found. There were dozens of skiers on the hill — many more even than the day before — and it would have been difficult to make out the man with the eyes of a badger among the crowd. She didn’t even know his name.

“When we’re going back for lunch, we should make a detour to the Saxons’ chalet. We might find him there.”

“Let’s do it!” Paul accepted.

“But you should realize that it’s not easy. To get there, we’ll have to go down a very fast slope, and the trail is full of people. You’ll run into somebody at every step. I’m only taking you with me if you work hard all morning.”

Paul greeted this fierceness with amenability. I’m going to learn, I’m going to learn, he murmured in his thoughts. He found huge, childish ambitions inside himself. He wished he could amaze Nora, disarm her, surpass her. His snowplow was going very well, especially at slow speeds. Yet at higher speeds it was impossible for him to lift his skis out of their path. He had a clenching sensation in his ankle. He looked with an odd, powerless fascination in the direction of his ski boots, he realized that he was locked into a descent that was accelerating at every second, and yet he was powerless to transmit to his skis the simple pressure that would have made them skid to the right or the left and reduce his speed.

“We have to learn the turns,” Nora said. “Let’s start with the simplest one: the snowplow turn. It’ll be good enough for our lunchtime route. This afternoon or tomorrow, we’ll try something harder.”

Paul found even this one exceedingly hard. The theoretical explanation was always simple (“Let your weight fall on one ski, loosen the other one and the turn happens automatically”), but when he had to apply the elementary things she taught him, he came up against unexpected, and for him, incomprehensible, obstacles. He worked all morning under Nora’s inspection, repeating incessantly the same turns to the right and the left. It was a rigorous, meticulous training, devoid of grace or glory. Where was his heroic enthusiasm of the day before? Where was his cry of freedom, his explosion of ecstacy?

Nora put an acerbic halt to his most timid expressions of delight. “That’s not it. Go back and do it again.”

She obliged him to start the same movements dozens of times. She gave her orders in a dry, curt, persistent voice. Like a fanatical army officer, Paul thought spitefully, though he had decided to accept all of her comments without rebelling.

“In position! That’s not it. Do it again.”

He gave her a furtive look. She was serious, attentive, severe. Nothing in her manner recalled the warm, sensual and slightly sad woman who had slept all night in his arms. There, on the ski hill, this vision even struck him as impossible. It was a troubling, dreamy, idle vision that he had to banish from his mind.

This girl in the blue jacket, with her confident movements and firm voice, was a wise person.

Paul stopped in the middle of an exercise he had started, approached Nora and clapped her on the shoulders in a boyish way.

“What’s going on?” she asked, surprised.

“Nothing. I just wanted to tell you that you’re a good comrade.”

Nora remained a little puzzled, since the unexpectedness of his gesture did not fit with the seriousness of her thoughts. At last she replied with simplicity: “I know.”

Paul fell countless times on the way to SKV chalet. Nothing that he had learned on the hill served him now. Things that he had succeeded in doing perfectly correctly up at the Touring Club now became impossible again.

Groups of skiers were coming down from the summit along the same narrow trail marked with yellow triangles. He heard shrieks behind him, far off in the distance, and because he couldn’t get out of their way in time, he threw himself into the snow at the edge of the trail, and let them pass. He reached the SKV chalet white from head to foot, exhausted by too many falls, yet delighted that he had completed the trail.

“Don’t say anything to me, Nora. I know, I know: I made thousands of mistakes. I promise you I won’t make them next time.”

The man with the eyes of a badger was in the yard in front of the chalet with an axe in his hand. He was splitting large oak logs for firewood.

“Aren’t you staying with Gunther any more?” he asked, catching sight of them.

“Of course,” Paul replied. “But we’ve come here to warm up. Why don’t you come inside with us and drink a glass of mulled wine?”

The three of them entered the chalet, the same chalet that had initially struck them as being so hostile. Even the man with the eyes of a badger was friendlier now.

“So how’s our painter doing?” he asked.

“What painter?”

“Gunther.”

“He’s a painter?”

The man burst out laughing. He had an odd laugh, which wrinkled his whole face but left his eyes expressionless, like two tiny balls of glass. “That’s what he says: that he’s a painter.” Then he became serious for a moment and said, shaking his head: “That lad is the disgrace of the Grodeck family.”

“Do you know the family?” Nora asked.

“Who doesn’t know them? The Grodeck family!” He spoke these three words with solemnity, with respect, as though cowed by their importance: the Grodeck family. “Think carefully. It’s impossible not to have heard of them. Grodeck factories. Grodeck mills. Grodeck forests.” He was pensive for a moment, as though pondering it all. “Their fortune is huge.” He made this statement with boundless respect, with a sort of stunned terror. “I don’t know what’ll happen to the Grodeck family and all of their fortune if it ends up in Gunther’s hands. That lad’ll lay waste to it.”

“Is it his fortune?”

“Well, I don’t know the answer to that. No one does. When the Grodeck family wants to keep quiet, nobody gets a word out of them. Still, they say the fortune is coming to the boy. Look, when young Mrs. Grodeck died…”

“Gunther’s mother?”

“Yes.”

“She’s dead?”

“Yes. Last summer.”

Nora saw again in her mind the portrait on the bookshelf and remembered the boy’s intense stare. “Does she live here?” she had asked him. Now the question made her cringe. She would have liked to wipe it out of her memory and beg for forgiveness.

The man in front of her continued to tell his tale. It was obvious that the subject of the Grodecks fascinated him.

“When, as I was saying, young Mrs. Grodeck died, Gunther was in Munich. They say he was studying painting. They brought him home, but shortly after the funeral he left again. He fled. The family would have liked to keep him here and make an engineer out of him… The Grodeck family needs an engineer. A fortune like that doesn’t look after itself. But I’ll tell you, the boy’s crazy. He went up into the mountains to build the cabin you’re familiar with in the woods. From then on, nobody saw him. He didn’t receive visitors. That’s why I was so surprised when you told me you were staying there. I couldn’t believe it. If you’d known Old Grodeck…”

“Who’s Old Grodeck?”

“Gunther’s father.”

“Why do you call him ‘Old Grodeck’ and his wife ‘young Mrs. Grodeck?”

The question surprised him, and he became thoughtful for a moment. “You’re right. I’ve never thought about that. But they’ve always been called that in German. Der Alte Grodeck and Die Junge Frau Grodeck. I don’t know why. To tell you the truth, she wasn’t really very young and he wasn’t excessively old. They were first cousins who got hitched. All the Grodecks called her, ‘Miss.’ The fortune was hers, which is why people say it’s going to Gunther. For the time being, there’s no danger. As long as the lad’s a minor, Old Grodeck can do whatever he wants… After that it’s going to be more difficult, yes, after that…”

He blinked his small eyes and carefully rubbed his red beard.

“But what’s up with Hagen?” Nora asked, going straight to the point.

The man laughed again, with his odd laugh. “Did I say something was up with Hagen? Have you heard anything about him? Hah, lots of things have been said, but who’s to believe them…” He laughed fiendishly, the thick brows above his small eyes raised into a meaningful arch.

He took the axe, which he had propped up against the chair, and got up.

“I’m going to chop wood. I’ve talked plenty for today.”

From the SKV chalet a lateral trail opened through the woods towards the Glade of the Three Maidens, a smooth, even trail with benches along the edges like a path in a park. Snow had covered everything, burying the rocks and the benches. The wild, uncharted trail’s course through the pine trees could barely be discerned.

The slope was gentle, scarcely noticeable. Skiers headed out with a silky glide. There was no need either for braking or exertion. Nora and Paul descended at a short distance from one another, in silence. The curtain of clouds was falling lower on one side and the other, ashen, dense, stretching down to the ground like a wall. Braşov, Râşnov, all of the Burzenland, were on their right, covered in mist, vanishing into clouds.

In the morning they had left the cabin going north and now they had returned from the south. They almost didn’t recognize the cabin. Viewed from behind, it was bolstered by ramparts of snow, like a small fortress. Faffner barked, surprised to hear sounds coming from the deserted forest. Nora called out to him, and the dog recognized her. He came towards them, swimming through the snow, his muzzle poking up above the white drifts, struggling as though he were about to be submerged. Gunther, too, came out to meet them. He was pale and looked tired, but his eyes conserved a youthful twinkle that lighted up his whole face.

“If you’ve been ill, why are you going bareheaded in the cold?” Nora asked him. “Do you want me to scold you?”

“It’s not cold at all. But you can scold me. I like it. Nobody ever scolds me.”

His smile was luminous, childlike. Then it became dejected. He had these unexpected alterations of expression, from the greatest exuberance to silence.

“I have to ask your forgiveness for my behaviour. I’m acting like a badly brought-up host. But yesterday I couldn’t come downstairs. Thank you for staying here. I was uneasy all morning. I was afraid you’d left and that you weren’t coming back. I wanted to come after you, look for you, and ask you to come back. I don’t know where Hagen hid my skis… He always hides them on me… Without skis, in such deep snow, you’re stuck…”

He was dressed in a grey ski suit with large pockets. He’s too young for his clothes, Nora thought. She tried again to imagine him in a high-school uniform. It would have fit better with his childlike face, and the blond hair falling over his forehead that he kept brushing back with a gesture of boyish impatience.

“You’ll have to help me set the table,” he said. “Hagen is in Braşov. He went shopping. This evening you’ll have newspapers and cigarettes.”

“I’ll look after the table,” Nora said decisively. “You two behave yourselves and just stay where you are.”

She’s such a woman! Paul reflected. In a single instant, with adroitness and intimacy, she had become “the mistress of the house.” She seemed to know all these strange things, and acted as if they, too, were acquainted with her. She sliced bread with a domestic air, as though from familiar habit.

“Why didn’t you tell us that you were a painter?” Nora asked, as they were eating.

“Because I’m not.” The boy’s reply was almost a shout. A wave of blood rose into his pale forehead. His whole being trembled with rage, with resistance. Then, with the same change of expression, his face lighted up again in an ironic smile. “No, I’m not. I was. I wanted to be.”

There was silence. A heavy silence, that lasted for several long seconds, and which they didn’t know how to break.

Faffner arrived just in time to save them.

“Poor thing, he’s hungry. We have to give him food.”

In the afternoon, Nora remained alone with Gunther. Paul put on his skis and practised his turns close to the cabin. He took Faffner along to keep him company.

Gunther, in his armchair next to the fireplace, was scribbling on a notepad.

“I think I’ve made you angry,” Nora told him. “Please excuse me. They were silly questions that upset you and I didn’t even know why.”

The boy was calm. Without paying much attention, he was sketching a woman’s profile, which he left undefined. He started again in the other corner of the sheet. His smile was now devoid of sadness or irony. “I have to tell you something,” he said, “but promise me that you won’t be frightened.”

“I can’t promise, but I’ll try,” Nora joked.

“The other night when you arrived, do you know why I opened the door? Do you know why I let you in?” His voice was soft, almost a whisper. He asked the question with an intense look. “I thought you were Mama. You understand? Mama.”

He pointed to the portrait on the bookshelf without even turning his head in that direction. Nora came closer to him. She wanted to console him.

“I knew you wouldn’t be frightened. Do you believe in ghosts? I do. You see, since Mama’s death, I’ve been waiting for her. Sometimes I go to the window, sometimes I open the door… I wonder why she doesn’t come…”

“Maybe she’s here…” Nora said simply, without lowering her voice. She grasped that after hearing such things she must speak with familiarity and without mystery.

“Yes…” Gunther said. “In a certain way, she is here. Here with us: Hagen, Faffner, me… She loved all three of us… She’s here but I don’t see her. I’d like to see her, I feel I should be able to see her… I’ve told you that I believe in ghosts. I think about her long dresses, I think about her blonde hair, which she wore in an old-fashioned hairdo, even though she was so young…”

Nora walked towards the bookshelf and picked up the portrait. She observed it closely, with great attention. The lips were poorly drawn, the high, sad forehead resembled that of the boy, there was a light wave in the hair on her temples. In the corner was written in pencil: Mittwoch, den 5 Mai 1932.²⁰ Gunther.

“It was a very sunny day,” Gunther said. “I remember it very clearly. She was wearing a white dress, her first white dress of that summer. As a joke, I’d made a lot of meaningless sketches. I wanted to throw them out. She took them all and asked me to sign this one. She liked to see me drawing. She thought…she thought I had talent. She thought I was going to be a painter.”

“And you no longer want to be one?”

“I can’t.”

“Even so, if she believed… Maybe you should, in her memory…”

Gunther got up from the armchair, barely restraining a fresh outburst of anger.

Again Nora had tugged on gnarled ropes, knocked at locked doors.

The rapidity with which this blond boy could pass from one expression to another, from one mood to another, was amazing. One moment his nerves were choking him, the next he rediscovered his glowing ironic smile. “Do you know what a cardiogram is?”

Nora hadn’t understood the question and didn’t know to reply. “Wait and see,” Gunther said.

He opened a drawer, hunted through notebooks and sketch pads and pulled out a small scroll of paper, which he unfurled in front of her. It was a thick, glossy paper of photograph quality, containing black rectangles crossed by two thin lines that went up and down in zigzags at tight angles. It looked like the inscription of seismograph readings, such as she remembered having seen in geology books at school. “You see those white lines? They’re heartbeats.”

He was still smiling. He spoke calmly and without discomfort. After a moment’s silence, he added: “The beating of my heart.”

Nora thought of his pallor, his nervous trembling, the sudden changes of light and shadow on his childlike face. She tried to take this lightly, not to insist, to brush it off. “You’re joking, Gunther.”

He replied with laughter, a laugh in which nothing was forced, nothing constrained.

“Of course it’s a joke. Much more than a joke: a farce. It’s the most terrible farce I could play on the Grodeck family.” He seemed to find the thought sincerely amusing. “Look, a painter in the Grodeck family would have been shameful. A cardiac patient in the Grodeck family is a scandal. This is the first time this has happened since there have been Grodecks on the earth. Their hearts have always beaten strongly. Their hearts have been true.” The word amused him. He noticed it and took pleasure in repeating it. “Yes, yes, true hearts. Hearts that have beaten like clocks. Never too fast, never too slow. Hearts that beat for one century, two centuries, three centuries and don’t ask anybody anything. Grodeck hearts are guaranteed. Solid and discreet. Nobody hears them.”

He unfurled the cardiogram again and showed her the two white lines that went up and down. He followed their delicate course, their rhythmic fall, with his finger. “You see, here the angles are tight and even. But when you look more closely, you can see that sometimes the line darts up and then it drops a little lower down. It’s not a lot. A tenth of a millimetre, maybe not even that… But it’s enough. Enough to be audible.”

All at once he lifted his head from the cardiogram and stared fixedly at Nora. “Don’t you hear it? I do. Especially in the evening, especially at night. It’s like a little hidden motor. In the middle of the night, when everything’s still, I feel like it’s audible all over the house. A Grodeck heart that’s audible… It’s unbelievable. The Grodeck fortune has been made with everything you can name, but not with the heart…”

He rolled up the scroll as it had been before and placed it carefully back in the drawer. Then he returned to the fireplace and leaned there with his arms at his sides, a posture that helped him breathe.

Nora sensed that the boy expected neither compassion nor support. He was very calm, and his blue eyes resembled lights. “What are you thinking of doing?” she asked.

“I want to turn twenty-one.”

“You’ll do it,” Nora said.

He was shaken by the soft conviction of her words. Suddenly, his gaze became intense, pleading, full of doubts and uneasiness. “Do you think so? Tell me, do you really think so?”

“I’m certain, Gunther. Absolutely certain.”

Hagen returned late, in the dark. All three of them waited for him, taking turns looking out the window in the tower for his lantern to appear in the distance through the woods. Faffner had disappeared while it was still daylight, heading off down the valley.

“He feels him coming,” Gunther said. “Whenever he returns from Braşov the dog goes down to Ruia and waits for him there. One evening, Hagen took a different route and returned by way of Wolf’s Precipice. Faffner spent the whole night in Ruia, howling…”

Now they saw the two of them coming through the deep snow: the man and the dog. Hagen dragged the flat wooden sleigh, full of packages, behind him. They opened them all around the table, curious to discover what lay inside. They were objects that smelled of the city, of winter display windows, of holidays. Gunther regarded them with boyish pleasure, he weighed them in his hand, and observed them under the light. He liked best the coloured glass balls, red candles and sparklers for the Christmas tree.

Faffner circled the table, smelling the objects, sniffing them.

Only Hagen’s brow remained dark…

That man knows, Nora thought.