Accident

by Mihail Sebastian

  “Bravo! Very good,” he heard Nora shouting from behind him. He didn’t have time to reply to her, nor to recover his breath. Ahead of him were several metres of straight downhill after which, ominously, there was another turn, this time to the right. He made his turn a little less slowly, a little less raggedly, than the first time.

  He felt himself coming out of the curve at greater speed. Let’s not go overboard, he thought. He clutched the poles’ handgrips, determined to resist. He let his weight fall on both skis and opened his snowplow wider. He went into the next turn with all the resistance he could muster. His arms, his knees, his ankles, strained to stop, to brake, his onward motion. The skis stalled for a moment in the middle of the turn, as if they had been locked into place, but then they pulled out of it and, in a moment of release, set off downhill.

  His speed increased. Paul opened his snowplow wider. The tips of his skis almost knocked against each other, while their back ends slid apart until they spanned the breadth of the track. Yet he felt the wind beating more sharply against his cheeks. He didn’t understand what was going on. The snowplow no longer helped him at all. It was like a leaking brake that no longer transmitted the driver’s commands. The curves became more and more frequent, and even faster. He came out of the turns now in a kind of automatic twisting of his body. Paul felt himself jerked now to the right, now to the left. At each new curve he had the impression that he was about to be hurled onto the packed snow of the trail, but at the last moment an unexpected strength would lift him out of the fall and set him upright again on his skis. Not a single thought was in his head: his whole being was in a tumult, overridden, as if by a shout, by the will to stay on his feet.

  In front of him, at a distance he couldn’t judge – was it far away? close up? – a tree branch heaved into sight, blocking his path. He crouched down on his skis, closed his eyes and plunged forward without paying attention, even in that same second, to whether he had struck it, whether he had fallen. His skis dashed ahead now – as though on their own, detached from his body – into a new curve that pitched him to the right, but by a miracle in that instant the trail came out of the woods and widened into a great expanse of white. He didn’t realize what was happening. He had the feeling that he was flying over a level surface. The wind, which until now had been gusting violently into his face, seemed to subside. The edges of his skis no longer cut obliquely into the snow, but rather settled, as if floating, with the length of their undersides flat against the snow.

  Once again Paul tried to recover his lost movements. To his amazement, his skis responded to him. The snowplow opened with ease, and, during a final turn to the right, the two skis had stopped, unresisting, one alongside the other.

  “We’re in Ruia,” Nora shouted from far away.

  She came towards him, swinging easily on her skis, as though she were skating.

  “It went really well, Paul. If we keep going like that all the way down, we’ll reach Braşov in daylight.”

  “If we keep going like that all the way down, I’ll end up flat on the trail, hanging from a tree or falling over a precipice.”

  Nora thought he was joking. He tried to explain to her the sensation of nothingness from which he had just emerged. He felt as though he were on the outer edges of human life.

  “Well, the trail back is very short,” Nora laughed. “Do you know how long it took us to get here from up there? Four minutes.”

  He couldn’t believe it. As in those fleeting dreams that make us traverse the entire space of a life in a few seconds, Paul had the feeling that he was going around and around in an endless race.

  “I assure you that you’re exaggerating, Paul. Everything went really well. I followed you the whole time. Your turns were steady, your speed was under control. A little fast sometimes, but under control.”

  “Under whose control? I felt like I was in a whirlpool, a chaos. I couldn’t see anything.”

  “Because the light was too strong. Skiing is an enormous light; you said it yourself. Your eyes have to get used to it.”

  They didn’t have much time to spend in Ruia. They hadn’t foreseen this break. Before leaving, however, they took a look in the direction of the broad clearing, which they had just crossed without observing it. Gripped on all sides by woods, Ruia, with its pristine snows, was as white as a frozen alpine lake.

  Gunther’s map showed the trail winding more from here on. The little blue-and-white signs sprang up at regular intervals, spaced at equal distances, like coloured windows cut into the bark of the fir trees. The trail descended in a gentle slope devoid of sudden changes of direction. The curves were wide and visible from far away. Paul waited for them with the same attentive concentration. He threw his whole body into braking his speed, as though a single movement had passed through him from his shoulders to his ankles. Then, in the instant in which the skis slipped out of the braking posture, he had a sudden sensation of release.

  Now and then he dared to close his eyes. Only for a few seconds. He felt weightless, without memory, without a past ...

  Sometimes Nora went first. He saw her heading away at high speed with her knees barely bent, her poles held behind her and lifted a short distance above the snow like two oars frozen for a second in midair. He would find her farther down the trail, waiting for him. They didn’t speak to each other. He would pass close to her with a salute or a look. They understood one another very well with their eyes. Both knew that there were no words for what they wished to say to each other.

  They made a brief stop at the point indicated by Gunther on the map, more to check their itinerary than to rest. On their left they passed a trail marked with red rectangles that went to Poiana, while on the right, a bit farther along, a trail marked with a red cross inside a blue square ran downhill towards Timişul-de-Jos. Not one of these trails had the gentle, restful slope of their trail. It unfurled before them, white between the pine trees, with barely perceptible undulations.

  “I’m afraid of falling asleep on my skis,” he told Nora before heading out again.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know how to describe it. I feel myself soaring. It’s a kind of bliss.”

  They reached Crucur at four o’clock. More sprawling than Ruia, the clearing looked wilder, more abandoned. It might also have been an effect of the light, which was beginning to weaken. The fir trees in Ruia had been green: a vivid green. Here their green had begun to shade towards black.

  The lead-grey mist sometimes faded away with evening, which wasn’t far away.

  They went into the forest ranger’s cabin to ask about the weather. The door was open, but they didn’t find anyone inside. It seemed to be more a mirage than a house. Only a few extinguished coals in the fireplace – who knew how long they’d been there? – showed that human steps had once passed this way.

  “I wouldn’t want dusk to overtake us on the trail,” Nora said.

  They opened the map, measuring the length of the trail that remained before them. The itinerary Gunther had established for them made long detours and went to Braşov, by way of the foot of Tâmpa Hill.

  “It’s too much. We should try something else.”

  From Crucur a trail blazed with yellow-and-blue signs set out downhill to the right through the woods. It wasn’t, properly speaking, a trail: more a path, likely the route to a natural spring now vanished beneath the snow.

  “Are you ready for adventure, Paul?”

  “Ready.”

  In response, she set out ahead of him, shouting now and then to tell him that the trail was clear and that he could follow. His poor old snowplow collapsed at the point of departure. His skis skidded incessantly. There was no way to collect himself, to stop the skid. For a distance of several hundred metres the trail wound between the pine trees with tight, unexpected curves. Paul didn’t succeed in taking a single curve on his feet. At each one he was hurled into the snow, falling, rolling over. At regular intervals he heard Nora’s shout and replied to h
er.

  “Are you coming?”

  “I’m coming.”

  In fact, he was coming. He couldn’t do anything else but keep coming. Sometimes he got snagged on a pine tree or a rock, but the skis carried him forward.

  “It’s been hellish,” he told Nora, when he finally caught up with her. His forehead and cheeks were scratched, his breath shook with effort. “It’s been hellish,” he repeated, “but we’re moving faster.” He knew there was no room to choose or turn back. They were in the middle of the forest and, whatever the price, they had to get out of there. Dusk was nipping at their heels.

  Now the trail ran straight downhill without any detours, cutting crossways through the forest. The slope was much steeper than it had been until now, but at least there were no violent changes of direction. The rustling of the skis on the snow became progressively harsher as, at sunset, an icy crust formed on the surface. They stopped at the junction of two trails where a board put up by the Touring Club, half covered in snow, pointed out to the left a path marked with yellow crosses in red squares: To Poiana.

  “If you want,” Nora suggested, “we can take it to Poiana. There we can pick up the caterpillar to take us to Braşov.”

  “And if it’s not there?”

  “Then there’s nothing we can do.”

  Paul thought for an instant, then rejected this idea. “No, Nora, we’ve started a game. I want to play it to the end. I want to enter Braşov on skis. On my skis.” He wasn’t even joking. He was grim and intent. “Shall we go?”

  One could say that only there did their run truly begin. They travelled at a short distance from each other, crouched over their skis with their foreheads thrust forward, their shoulders slightly raised, as though they were on the verge of spreading their wings. Their ski boots danced on the snow in small leaps and lifted the powder, which the wind flung in their eyes. Nora continued to maintain the lead, bareheaded, with her hair tossed about around her temples. Now and then she shot a quick glance in his direction to check that he was following her. Their eyes met for a second, or even less. Paul leaned ever farther forward, bent his knees ever more deeply. There were moguls that shook him, as though they were going to fling him over backwards. He received the impact in his chest and crouched lower over his skis.

  He didn’t know how long they had been following this trail nor how much more lay ahead of them. He had fallen a number of times, but each time he got up immediately and set off again, feeling that if he delayed he would no longer have the courage to get up. The light of the cloudy dusk dwindled without a glimmer. The fir trees were wrapped in their evening mist, as though in smoke.

  Up ahead, Nora shouted something. It sounded like a cry for help, but he didn’t hear it clearly: it seemed to reach him from a great distance.

  Paul hurled himself to the right and slid through the snow for a few seconds. He hit his elbow and knees, but somehow managed to bring himself to a halt. He got up, dizzy, staggering on his skis. “What happened?”

  Nora pointed between the pine bows in the direction of nearby lights. “We’ve arrived. We’re at the edge of Braşov.”

  On the streets of the town they stopped in front of shop windows, they ran into pedestrians, they watched buses, cars and sleds passing in front of them, they read cinema billboards, they listened to the shouts of newsboys selling the evening newspapers – and yet they didn’t come to their senses, ambling along confused and deaf. The silence of the woods lingered in him like the extended note of an organ.

  He went in to buy their concert tickets, chose their seats, received his change, asked questions, replied – all in an absent, mechanical way.

  “What’s wrong with you, Paul? Don’t you want to wake up?”

  “Of course, but I can’t.”

  Braşov, with its evening lights, its streets thronged with people, its glowing shop windows, its whole Christmas Eve bustle, was unreal to him.

  “You know how I feel, Nora? Like a wolf that’s come down from the woods to the edge of town ... And now I don’t dare go any farther.”

  There wasn’t a single free spot at the Coroana. The hotel was full, while in the lobby people who had come in on the last train waited without hope, their baggage not yet unpacked. They left their skis there and went to ask at the smaller hotels and holiday villas in the vicinity.

  “You’re wasting your time,” someone told them. “There’s not a bed to be had in the whole city. People are sleeping wherever they can: in restaurants, in cafés, at the train station ...”

  Braşov had the appearance of a town taken over by a training camp. Entire regiments of skiers seemed to have occupied the citadel. Blue peaked caps were everywhere.

  “Did so many people come here to listen to the Christmas Oratory?” Nora said in surprise, laughing.

  Above all, people had come for the skiing competitions at Predeal, which started in two days’ time. The teams of competitors, who until now had been training in the mountains throughout the region were beginning to gather down in the town

  On the boulevard, across the street from the post office, the municipal train, with its stubby railway engine and little yellow carriages looked like a toy stuck in the snow. The engine’s whistling, calling late passengers, could be heard from far away. Many people were going to look for shelter for the night in Dârste, Cernatu and Satu-Lung.

  “If we don’t find anything anywhere else,” Nora said, “and if there’s still time before the concert, it might not be a bad idea for us to go to Satu-Lung too, on the last run.”

  “No, not Satu-Lung,” Paul refused.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too far ... It’s too late.” For a moment he considered telling her frankly: There are too many memories there that I don’t want to get close to. Then he realized that this wasn’t even true. It seemed to him that he could stare those memories, which felt healed now, straight in the eyes, without danger or apprehension. No, that train was not going in the direction of his past ...

  “The line’s blocked on the other side of Dârste,” someone shouted from the window of a carriage.

  Yes, it’s blocked, Paul repeated in his mind. It seemed to him as though there really were broken connections in his memory, blocked lines, roads that had closed forever. With an effort, the train set itself in motion with a noise of frozen old fetters. The engine fought to break out of the ice, to push through the snow.

  The passengers were singing out the windows, waving their ski caps, shouting, greeting those who were staying behind with exaggerated gestures. At the back of the train, a few skiers were straining with mock effort to push it out of the snow.

  “Skiing turns everyone into a child,” Paul said.

  It wasn’t only skiing. It was that whole Christmas Eve, with its holiday mood, its deep snows, its vacation bustle.

  Hagen had told the truth. The address he had given them was far away, while the house really did look very old. The wooden door in a grey wall, locked with large iron bars like the door of a fortress, was deaf to all of their knocking. One might have thought that no one had come here since time immemorial.

  Frau Adelle Bund was not home, or did not wish to reply.

  All along the street astonished faces appeared at the windows, not knowing what was going on. From across the street the neighbours’ little girl asked them who they were looking for.

  “Doesn’t anybody live here?” Paul asked.

  “Of course, but ...”

  The little girl didn’t finish her reply and sped home, probably in order to spread the news about the incredible goings-on that were happening at number 26.

  Yet the door had opened at last, although only half-way. On the threshold an old woman dressed in black prevented them from entering with a bitter glare that right from the start said: No! Paul offered her Hagen’s envelope, and she opened it, continuing to oblige them to stay outside, facing the door. From time to time she raised a suspicious glare in their direction, as though she were comparing
them with what was written in the letter.

  “It would be better if you found somewhere else to sleep,” she said in conclusion, never the less deciding to receive them indoors.

  They went forward, entering first an interior courtyard lined with several shuttered windows, then a long, dark corridor. The house felt uninhabited. Neither a noise nor a whisper could be heard anywhere. The woman stopped in front of a door and tried a few keys in the darkness until she succeeded in opening it. It was a small, frozen room with rustic furniture covered in dust. When was the last time they opened the windows in here, Nora wondered.

  Frau Adelle Bund seemed to understand the visitor’s thoughts. “I have to air it out and make a fire. I didn’t know you were coming. Nobody comes here.”

  The shutters, like the front door, were closed with iron bars.

  “We’ll leave our backpacks and go,” Nora said. “If you give us the key to the front door, you won’t have to wait up for us. We’ll be coming back late.”

  She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, to find herself outdoors again, on the other side of these chilly walls.

  The Black Church was full of light.

  “The Grodeck clan is gathering,” Nora said.

  She saw them coming in from all corners of the town in family groups, sombre, silent, in heavy fur overcoats, moving with measured strides. They entered without haste and greeted each other without joy, making ceremonious salutations. On arrival they scattered to the left and the right, moving towards seats that must have been theirs, always the same, for years and years.