by Justin Go
Grasping in the darkness, Ashley claws the ice from his boots and wedges his feet inside. He sucks his breath in horror. The boots are frozen stiff. He tugs the laces into gangly knots, then struggles to unfasten the icy canvas tapes cinching the tent’s flap. He works the ties with cramped white fingers. Finally the flap opens, a jet of snow whirling into the tent. Ashley crawls out into the maelstrom.
The mountainside is howling. The wind shrieks and punches Ashley and he does not rise from all fours, crawling across a slope of icy scree under a purple-black sky. He follows the outline of the thrashing guyline to its source. The line had been rigged to a pair of huge stones weighing hundreds of pounds. The stones have shifted. Ashley clumsily refastens the cord and doubles it back around more stones, stamping his feet as he works with numb fingers. Twice he drops the line and has to fish it from the snow by feeling alone. His toes feel pressed against blocks of ice. The simple task drags on in slow agony.
Ashley knots the line and crawls back to the tent. It takes some time to get inside, for Price has retied the tapes to keep out the snow. At last Ashley ducks into the shelter and collapses onto his sleeping bag, gasping. The cold air sears his lungs.
—Get into that bag, Price yells. You’ll freeze.
Price shakes Ashley and tries to pull the sleeping bag over him, but Ashley does not move. It is ten minutes before Price gets Ashley into the eiderdown.
—How are your hands?
—No feeling at all.
Price kneads at Ashley’s hands for some time, struggling to restore circulation before frostbite sets in. Ashley’s fingers remain numb. Price beats at the flesh desperately and Ashley turns his face in agony, groaning and biting his tongue. He knows that Price’s hands cannot be in much better shape. He does not ask.
It is an hour before they lie still in their bags again. Ashley knows he is too chilled to recover any warmth tonight and they are only going farther up the mountain in the morning. He thinks he does not sleep. The night passes between fits of delirium and chilling lucidity, his coughing fits marking the only certain intervals. He is so cold that he burrows his face into the soaked flannel lining of his bag, but the thin air suffocates him and he comes out gasping. Ashley turns onto his side and stares at the icy canvas.
The war has been over for four months. Ashley has been in London for three days. He gives his uniforms to his tailor as scrap and buys three new suits, two in flannel and one in Cheviot tweed. After years of being clasped by a stiff tunic and trousers, the garments feel impossibly soft. On a dismal Sunday afternoon, without invitation, he takes a taxi to the house on Cavendish Square and claps the knocker. He announces himself to a maid. The father comes to the door.
—You say you knew my daughter?
—I did know her.
—What was your name again?
—Walsingham. Ashley Walsingham.
—I’m sorry. I’ve never heard of you.
Ashley takes a cardboard folio from his coat pocket. He opens it to reveal the portrait.
—Where did you get that?
—She gave it to me. Look at the inscription on the back.
—That’s quite all right.
The father’s eyes dart around the other houses of the square. He looks back at Ashley.
—You’ll understand our daughter’s absence is hard enough without strangers coming here. I don’t say you’re here to profit from it, but in any case I’m sure there’s nothing I can do for you.
The father shuts the door. Ashley claps the knocker again, but only the maid comes and Ashley quarrels with her pointlessly for several minutes. The maid slams the door. Ashley bangs the knocker again, wondering if he could knock down the door with his shoulder if he ran hard at it. He stands on the porch for another minute, flushed with anger. He returns the picture to his pocket and walks back across the square.
The next week he receives a brief letter from Eleanor suggesting they meet at the Lyon’s Corner House on Coventry Street. Ashley goes to the barber beforehand for a fresh shave. He expects the meeting to be some kind of warning, but when he enters the vast dining room and sees Eleanor stand and wave from the table in the far corner, he knows at once that he was wrong. Eleanor forces a smile as he approaches. She looks on the point of tears. They sit down.
—I’ve ordered tea, Eleanor says distractedly. I don’t suppose you’re hungry, Mr. Walsingham? If you wish something to eat, they’ve quite a menu—
—Tea will be lovely.
—I’ve never been in this Lyon’s before. It’s not so bad, really.
—Not at all.
They fall silent. Ashley watches her across the table and thinks how beautiful she is. She has the same eyes as her sister. The pot of tea arrives and Ashley pours out two cups. He does not drink from his.
—I’m so glad you’re well, Eleanor says. I’ve thought of you often. Of course, Imogen hardly spoke of anything else—
—She’s alive, isn’t she?
—Yes.
—But not in England.
—No.
—Where is she?
Eleanor folds her hands in her lap and looks away.
—I can’t say.
—Then why meet me at all?
—I was at the house when you called. I heard Papa talking to you at the door and it made me sick. I thought you deserved more. I know you do.
—Won’t you tell me where she is?
—That’s not my choice. It’s hers. She’d have told you herself if she wished you to know.
—Then it was her decision to go away. Not your father’s?
—I don’t know, Eleanor sighs. It was Imogen’s decision to stay away.
—But why all the secrecy? Why not simply go abroad like anyone else?
Eleanor takes a sip of tea.
—I suppose she wanted to start over. Perhaps she didn’t want you looking for her. But it wasn’t only you. You know Imogen can’t bear to do things normally. Papa’s tried to get her to come back many times. But she wanted a new life, and we hadn’t any choice but to go along. I can’t tell you everything—
—But you’ve already spoiled the ruse.
Eleanor shakes her head. She looks into her teacup.
—It’s gone on long enough. I don’t think it matters if I tell you she lives. You knew that already. And she’s never returning to England, that’s for certain. She’s so headstrong, and you’re the same, and it breaks my heart to hear you calling at the door. I thought if I didn’t see you, you might go on like this for years—
—I’ll go on until I see her.
—You mustn’t, Eleanor pleads, looking up at Ashley. Probably you could find her, if you looked hard enough. But what then? You’d have forced yourself upon her. She’s gone so far to be herself alone. I know it’s terribly cruel, but you must let her go.
She smiles a little. —It’s peculiar. Imogen said you were always jesting. But sitting before me now, you seem the gravest person I’ve ever met.
They both drink from their cups and Eleanor pours more tea. She hesitates, straightening her napkin on her lap.
—Perhaps I oughtn’t to have come, when I hadn’t anything good to tell you. All week I’ve thought how extraordinary it is that you should go on caring for Imogen for so long, having known each other such a short time. But it struck me this morning that those two facts may explain each other. For in a way, it’s been the same in our family. When I was younger I was convinced our parents loved Imogen more because she was so hard to love, because they could never quite have her for their own, not fully—
Eleanor sighs. —I’m sorry. Perhaps it’s better if I go now. I wish I had something kinder to tell you, but it’s simply not the case. You’ll understand this, Mr. Walsingham, and you’ll understand I can’t see you again.
She stands up and Ashley rises too. He comes close to her, speaking in a low whisper.
—What about the child?
—I’m sorry?
He leans into her ear, his wo
rds clear above the clatter of the tearoom.
—She was expecting, but she lost the child. She wrote me as much.
Eleanor shakes her head, her face coloring.
—I don’t know anything—
—What happened? Were you there?
—No. She never told me she was expecting. Perhaps she was mistaken—
—Rubbish. She came all way to the France to tell me.
Eleanor’s eyes flit across the dining room.
—I don’t know anything. She went mad when she heard you were killed. It was madness that took her to France. After that I didn’t see her. I’m sorry, I really must go—
—Please stay.
Ashley opens his palm toward the table, beckoning her to sit back down. Eleanor shakes her head. She looks at Ashley sympathetically.
—You don’t need me to tell you this. But I’ll say it anyway, if no one else will. You were both children, the two of you. Can’t you see that? Imogen was only a child then, and she isn’t any longer. You wouldn’t even know each other now. Naturally she cared for you and always will, in some way, and you for her. Only it’s in your past now, and her past too, and you can’t find that anywhere, however hard you look.
—I shan’t give up—
—You are giving something up, Eleanor says. You just don’t realize it.
THE SCHOLAR
It takes me three rides to get from Akureyri to the Eastfjords. I ride in unfamiliar cars along the shores of volcanic lakes, pillars of lava rising from their dark waters; I wait for an hour in a misty desert of black sand, the gravel road punctuated only by yellow mileposts.
My last ride is with a long-haired young man who tells me he waits tables for a living. There is a little girl in a child’s seat in the back. The highway winds through hills of green moss and brown turf. Twice we have to stop when the girl gets carsick from the twisting road. Finally the highway descends to a valley where the ring road meets a smaller road going east.
—I’m going south, the driver says, but you want to go on toward the sea. A little down the highway there’s a small hotel. I could put you there—
—Over here’s fine. It’ll be easier to get a ride by the intersection.
The driver looks at me with concern.
—Remember, he says, the hotel’s just around that bend.
I wait on the shoulder of the eastbound road, kicking stones to pass the time. The rains starts again and soon it’s blowing sideways into my hood. I pace the shoulder to stay warm, walking in circles on a twenty-yard strip of asphalt. I’m already wearing every garment I have, all layered in a carefully practiced system. Three T-shirts, two collared shirts and a jacket; two pairs of light pants; two ordinary pairs of socks and one thick wool pair; my parka, a scarf and a knit hat.
The raindrops turn into hail. I turn my back to the wind and the hailstones beat rhymically against my coat, like countless volleys of buckshot. I check my watch. Eighty minutes and still no cars. The hail’s rhythm quickens. There’s no sign of civilization except the thin band of asphalt.
I’ll lose the fortune tomorrow. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but it’s hard to ignore. I kick a black rock off the road, wondering if I’d already lost everything before I left California, if it was always understood that I’d end up shivering on this highway for no reason. Maybe Ashley never had a chance either, not with Imogen and not with the mountain. Maybe no matter what he did the ending was always the same, alone in a whiteout on the tallest mountain in the world. A man has a certain store of luck and when that runs out he’s finished. They knew that back then, and we haven’t gotten further in all the centuries since.
I turn back to the road. A silver sedan is idling before me. The driver lowers the electric window. He wears wire-rimmed spectacles and he looks to be in his late thirties. He speaks softly in Icelandic, then in English.
—What are you doing out there?
I get into the car. As we accelerate, the driver fiddles with the heater’s controls on the dashboard.
—Warm enough?
—I am, thanks.
The ice on my shoulders melts damp circles into my coat. The driver shakes his head.
—What a time to be hitchhiking. I thought maybe you were a ghost standing out there. You’re from Germany?
—That’s just the coat. I’m from California.
—Sunny California, he murmurs. Why did you leave?
—I probably shouldn’t have.
—I would have stayed.
The driver directs the heater’s vents toward me.
—It’s early in the year for hail, he remarks. You have bad luck.
—I know.
The driver tells me he is a librarian at the university in Akureyri. He grew up in the Eastfjords and he is driving to his parents’ house north of Seyðisfjörður. We talk about books and I tell the librarian that I’m reading Njál’s Saga. He seems pleased by this, so I tell him a little bit about my research.
—Ísleifur, he repeats. I’ve never heard of him. But I don’t know anything about jewelry—
The librarian glances at me.
—One thing I don’t understand. Why would this Englishwoman have come here?
—That’s the problem. There isn’t any reason.
The librarian grins. —There’s always one reason to come to this country.
—What’s that?
—It’s far away from everything.
The librarian lowers the gear, the small engine whining as we climb a steep pass. He remarks that these hills have been inhabited for centuries, though little remains of most settlements but a few stones among the grass. We talk of the myriad stories of mankind both lost and recorded, and of the story that I’m after. The librarian supposes that for every story that is preserved, there must be a thousand others that vanish with the dead from all human memory.
—Imagine if your English couple hadn’t written letters, he says. Who would know they had ever existed?
We drive among hulking mountains, black and green ridges with patches of white snow. The librarian says that when he was a child an old woman went after stray sheep in these hills and lost her way. It happened on an autumn day, he says, when thick mists shrouded all landmarks from view. The old woman was a good walker. As dusk fell she wandered deeper into the mountains until she slipped on the rocks and fractured her leg. She could not walk. The nights were long and dark with freezing rain.
—Did she survive?
The librarian nods.
—She was wearing traditional clothing. Heavy wool. It keeps you warm even when wet.
It took the rescuers two days to find the old woman, he says, and when they reached her she spoke not of the vanished animals but of some rare dreams she had beheld, of a secret hidden between the hills and ridges. It was as if she had been lured by the promise of a prize, just as told in legends of the Nykur, a brook horse that tempts men onto its back only to gallop into swirling lakewater until they are drowned.
—The old woman, I say. She lived here when you were young?
The librarian shrugs. —I was in grammar school then. It must have been ’77 or ’78. But she was no Englishwoman, if that’s what you’re thinking. She was a Swede, she’d come here before the war—
—Can you turn the heater down?
The librarian ratchets the climate control from red to blue. I ask him when the old woman died, but he says that he isn’t certain, because she sold her farm and moved not long after the accident. The librarian repeats that she was Swedish and spoke Icelandic with a Swedish accent. Her husband had died long ago, he says, and she lived here with a caretaker from her own country.
—Can I put down the window for a minute?
—Of course.
I lower the window halfway, feeling the cold wind against my face. We crest the pass and I see the ocean in the distance, the water dark and glassy between the narrow fingers of the fjord. We go around the bend and the sea disappears again.
The lib
rarian looks at me.
—Are you carsick? Should I pull over?
—I’m fine. I’m just needed some air. Listen, did you ever meet this old woman?
—A few times. There were not many people living in this area. I can tell you she wasn’t English. I’m sure of it.
—You visited her house?
—Once. I only went to the doorstep.
The librarian explains that his father was a book collector and had bought a personal library at an estate sale. There were foreign books in this library, among these a few volumes in French. His father knew the old woman read French and sent the books over with his son.
A shiver passes through me. The sky begins to pitch downward.
—Can you pull over for a second?
The librarian nods and steps on the brake, stopping in the middle of the road. He switches the hazard lights on, though we’ve seen no cars since he picked me up. The triangular lamp on the dashboard blinks on and off. I get out and take a few steps off the road, but my foot catches on the lava and I fall, opening a small cut on my hand. I stand up, staring at the bright sliver of blood on my palm.
The librarian approaches cautiously.
—Are you all right?
—Yeah. I just need some air—
I try to calm down, taking slow and deep breaths, looking up at the clouds and trying to fix the position of the sky and ground. I turn back to the librarian.
—What did she look like?
—Sorry?
—The old woman. What did she look like?
—I don’t know. Silver hair. Blue eyes.
—Did she take the books?
The librarian shakes his head. He removes his eyeglasses and rubs the lenses with a tissue from his pocket.
—She sent them all back, except for a few. I was pretty annoyed. They were heavy and I had to carry them back.
—Which did she keep?
