by Peter Watson
In fact, it looked like the whole place was empty, and so, not for the first time that day, I felt both relieved and disappointed. Quickly, I went downstairs and outside to call Allie.
The light was failing rapidly now, and it was clouding over, so while she was negotiating the final slope and taking off her skis, I fished out a couple of hurricane lamps which I had noticed in the kitchen and went to meet her on the porch.
“Welcome,” I said, making a mock bow and holding open the door. “No Nazis tonight. We have the hut all to ourselves. If I light a fire, will you cook?”
Allie cocked her head to one side, as if considering whether the deal was a fair exchange. Then, with a smile, she leaned forward and gave me the briefest of kisses on my cheek. Her lips were as warm as those rivulets of water had been cold.
The hut had a clever, if primitive, system whereby the fire in the living room backed on to the kitchen, giving off heat in both directions and warming a water tank above, which I had to fill if we wanted a bath. It did not prove easy to light the fire, but a previous traveler had observed the mountain code well and there was plenty of kindling. Allie had brought pasta—vermicelli because it was light and lacked bulk—plus tomato puree and some sausage which she could cut up and mix with the puree for sauce. We also had fruit, chocolate and coffee. Sadly, no wine.
We both worked hard. It had been a tiring day and we knew that as soon as we stopped our bones would refuse to move again.
After some coaxing, the logs caught and soon the chill began to leave the room. The water tank, too, began to warm up. Allie went upstairs to change and I lay on one of the sofas, relaxing. There were books and magazines on the rack near the hearth, unbelievably out of date, but not necessarily less interesting for all that. I could hear Allie upstairs, moving around, readying the beds, and I dozed off.
The next thing I knew she was standing over me, with her hair pinned up and dressed in nothing but a towel.
“Wake up. I need help with the water.” She handed me a magazine that I had dropped as I had fallen asleep.
I ran her bath, filling the room with steam. She disappeared into it and I could hear her splashing and making contented noises. While she let the water swirl around her bones I began to slice the sausage. I soaked the puree in a little salted water and put it in a saucepan with the sausage. I laid the table and put the apples and the chocolate in a wicker bowl at the center. By the time Allie emerged from the tub, her hair shampooed and her skin rubbed raw, everything was ready to go. She was, I think, pleased that I had not been completely idle and hugged my arm. “As soon as you are out of the bath, we will be ready to eat,” and she stroked the back of my hand with her finger.
Then it was my turn to sink into the tub. The water could have been hotter and, since Allie had already used it, cleaner. But at least it smelled of her and, before long, what was left of the heat began to penetrate to my marrow and muscles. I was looking forward to the evening, though it had been an unproductive day. Would tomorrow be as fruitless, I wondered? Had Maurice’s man in the Wachau already located von Zell?
Back in the living room, I found that the fire had been primed by Allie and was now billowing with flame, giving off light as well as heat. Its shadows, moving now rhythmically, now fitfully about the room, and the mingled smells of pasta, puree and sausage, all laid over the musty timber flavor of the hut itself, I can recall now as keenly as if it had all happened last week. The smells are what I remember best, but the shadows, too, are vivid, a warm red blanket all around.
We sat and, to begin with, ate in silence, both surprised, I think, at how ravenous we were. The pasta dwindled until there was none left and we wiped the plates dry. When I broke the silence it was to say, “Let’s rest before we have the fruit and chocolate. Otherwise, all these good things will be over too soon.” And I refilled our pale blue coffee cups.
Allie needed no persuading. She set her napkin down and leaned back in her chair. In the firelight her skin was a warm ivory, the shadows from the fire swooping across it like fingers of wind on a field of barley. I got to my feet and put more logs on the fire, then stood with my back to the flames. Stabs of soreness here and there in my muscles warned me that tomorrow’s skiing might not be straightforward.
Allie got up to move away from the heat of the fire; the side of her face nearest the hearth had a reddish flush to it, which she massaged. One of the hurricane lamps was nearby on a table and, taking it with her, she walked to the door and out into the night. No sooner had she disappeared, however, than she called back, “Oh, Walter, please come and look. It has started snowing!”
I followed her outside. She had hung the lamp from a hook on one of the beams that supported the porch so that it threw light for twenty or thirty meters, enough to spotlight thousands of thick tussocks of snow settling.
“This could slow us down tomorrow, if it goes on for long.”
“Walter!” Her voice rustled with exasperation, disappointment and reproach. “How can you be so unromantic: It’s bewitching.” And she stepped forward, from under the porch and into the blizzard. For a few moments she stood there, with her arms outstretched and her face turned up, being snowed on. In no time her hair, her eyebrows, her arms were encrusted.
Then she turned and came back in. Mounting the steps to the porch, she stopped in front of me and put her wet, flake-covered arms around my shoulders. In the light of the hurricane I could see the snow melting on her lashes and the lobes of her ears. Drops from spent flakes were caught in the down of her cheeks and glistened in the yellow light. Her forehead, her chin, her neck were all soaking.
I kissed her. Her lips—wet from melted snow—were cold, cold as the mountain. I put my arms around her. When she had reached up to embrace me, her shirt had pulled out of her trousers and my hand brushed the skin of her waist.
She kissed me back, her mouth slightly open, promising. “In the mountains,” she whispered, “people get up with the sun.” She kissed me again. Her lips were drier now, and warming. “So they go to bed early too.”
Behind Allie I could see the snow getting thicker, the flakes falling faster. Despite what she said, about me being unromantic, I couldn’t help but worry that the search would be spoiled the next day by the snow. I didn’t want to spend any longer in the mountains than I needed to. Still, there was nothing to be gained that night from worrying.
“I have a suggestion.”
“Mmnnnm?”
“It’s already nine o’clock—quite late really, for up here. Why don’t we eat our fruit and chocolate in bed?”
She dropped her arms to my waist and squeezed. “You’d better make sure the fire is safe. I’ll look after the apples and things.”
I took down the hurricane, inspecting the snow for the last time, and made sure that none of the logs could roll out of the hearth or do any damage. I then followed Allie upstairs, carrying the hurricane with me. I was amused to find, when I got there, that she had made up only one bed. When she had puttered around up here, earlier in the evening, she must have already been certain that we would sleep together. I’m not sure why but the knowledge gave me a pleasurable smack of anticipation.
“You must get into bed first,” she whimpered, as I set down the lamp, “and warm it up for me. I hate cold beds. I’ll sit here and drink my coffee.”
I did as I was told. Undressed, and watched by Allie in an open, appraising way, I dived under the quilt cover, kicking and thrashing with my legs to warm the linen as quickly as possible. She laughed.
Once the chill had been taken off, I lay still and gave her a mock salute. I reached for my pipe and began to fill it with tobacco.
Now it was Allie’s turn. The first thing she did was to blow out the hurricane—very unfair, I thought. As my eyes became adjusted to the glow, I could see that the room was bathed not so much in light proper but a soft red wash that had somehow percolated upstairs from the remains of the log fire below. I could see Allie getting undressed in silhouet
te, in shadow. Dark and still darker shades of red. It was not unlike looking through those infrared night-scopes that the Army was to invent just after the war.
There are three things I remember about Allie on that red night, three things besides the fact that she had let down her long hair and that her skin, in the fire glow, seemed to be more a liquid, a cream or a lacquer of some kind, rather than skin itself, so shifting were its shadows. One thing I remember noticing were her breasts. It was not so much that they were large, though they were certainly not small. It was more that, at twenty-six (or whatever age she really was), her breasts seemed full, as if they were ripe and just waiting to feed a child. The thought crossed my mind, with a sudden painful jab, that Allie would be one of those European women whose bodies seem to give up after they have had children, to expand and settle. To age before their time. The second thing I noticed was that Allie slipped into bed alongside me not entirely naked. She still had on a pair of silk, lace panties, so feminine but so old-fashioned that they can only have been her mother’s. In the glow from the embers they looked almost black.
As her skin touched the sheets Allie let out an involuntary sob. “Walter! It’s freezing.” And she pressed herself against me for warmth.
I reached across her to the table at the side of the bed and set down my pipe. As I brought back my hand she caught it in hers and pressed it to her cheek.
“Your hand is warm, though.” And slowly she guided my fingers across her shoulder, up over the swollen circumference of her breasts, down into the recess of her waist, over her hip to the silk on her thigh. And she shivered.
The third thing I remember that red night was the soap Allie smelled of. It wasn’t expensive, and was a little too sweet for today’s taste, probably. But I can recall it as vividly as ever. It had the tang of gentian, the spring flower of the mountains.
5
The next day was uneventful, until evening. The blizzard had blown out during the night, without doing too much damage to our plans, and the sun was back, as if it had never been away. Allie was right, we awoke with the sun. We made love a second time—slower now, shier, perhaps because we could see each other’s faces. Allie’s skin was different in the morning, too, pale in comparison to how it had been the night before, and showing all its blemishes—scars, birthmarks, vaccinations. It was another reason, I think, why she was shy. I didn’t mind, far from it: I have always found shy women far more erotic. And I think she was flattered as it ended: although I had lived in America for six years by then, I still broke into German.
We visited two huts in the morning and saw no one. The first hut was cold but the second had been slept in the previous night; the embers were warm. I also noticed in that hut a fresh newspaper lying by the kindling. It was dated only a few days before and it was a local paper, from Worms, in Germany.
“Von Zell’s mother lives in Worms,” I told Allie. “That’s where he came from originally.”
The only other thing that needs mentioning occurred around 3:30 in the afternoon. Just then the sun had disappeared behind a raft of cloud and, for a while, it grew rather cold. I thought it odd how, in the mountains, the noise level changed, or appeared to change, with the weather. When the sun was out, and you could see birds, black against the sky, you were unconscious of the deep silence around you. Yet, once the cloud had covered the sun and there was nothing to look up for, your skis immediately seemed to slither over the snow with a more deliberate, a louder swish and this only emphasized the cold, white quiet at 1,000 meters.
We were immersed in this white-gray light when Allie, who was about a hundred meters in front of me, suddenly pulled up. “What is it?” I said, coming alongside some moments later.
She did not reply and I followed her gaze, across and down the slope, toward some large black boulders drenched in water as the snow on them had melted earlier in the day. Just beyond was a blotchy, black-red stain on the snow. Blood.
I took out my pistol and went over. Allie followed, although I asked her not to. Close up, the blood was redder-looking; it had not been there very long.
“It’s not human,” I said. “Look!” I pointed to some hoof marks and then to some scratches on the bark of nearby trees. “There was probably a deer trap here. Then someone came along and shot the poor thing.” I had stepped out of my skis and stooped down to examine the snow around the blood. I looked up at Allie. “Whether or not it’s von Zell, it looks as though we have found someone who is living up here. Whoever it is must be in hiding—and that could make him dangerous. Keep very close from now on.” Stepping back into my skis, I said, as forcefully as I could, “Tell me when we get close to the next hut; then we’ll go even more carefully.” I didn’t say so to Allie, but I was anxious that we reach the hut in full daylight. If we were to arrive at dusk or in the dark our reception might be, as Maurice would say, “sticky.” I skied on now as fast as I could push myself, even though some of my muscles had other ideas.
For three quarters of an hour I even managed to keep up with Allie. She was surprised, I think, at the reserves of strength I could draw upon when I really needed to. And, in fact, I was slightly ahead of her at the point when she suddenly called out. We were in a kind of dip, a saucer-shaped hollow with some young trees growing safely out of the wind.
“The hut is about a kilometer away.” There was probably no need for Allie to whisper but she did so in any case. “We go over that ridge, out of this hollow here, then across another ridge, higher still; then we descend through many trees, and there’s the hut.”
“Very well,” I said. “I’ve been thinking. We are safest as a couple. We shall pretend we are on our honeymoon and don’t know each other at all well yet. We shall say that we live in Vienna now but that your father has a house in Berchtesgaden, which is where we started out from, as is true. If von Zell is there, act as if you are mildly surprised, but introduce me. Say we met about six months ago, after he moved out. That you are moving to Vienna after our honeymoon and will look for a job. I will pretend to have a new job at the university, teaching English. I’ve been to Vienna a couple of times so I can say something sensible.” Another thought occurred to me. “We should approach the hut talking. We are just married, happily married, and chattering away. A couple of innocents enjoying the mountains, not sneaking up on anyone. Okay?”
“If we are married, why haven’t I got a wedding ring?”
“You have your mother’s—she is dead now and your father decided to give it to you only on the day before our wedding. It’s in Berchtesgaden, at a jeweler’s, having the size changed. It’ll be there when we get down again.”
The last kilometer was downhill mostly and, all the way, Allie and I talked gaily. I told Allie about my family—telling her the truth except that I moved them from Heidelberg to Linz. I told her about my brother, how we had never been close, about my mother, how she hated being separated from her sons during the war and how she was now trapped in East Germany, in Leipzig, and how I was trying to get her out. Allie played her part well, asking questions—did I have photographs? was my mother pretty?—exactly the way a newlywed might.
The hut came into view and immediately I noticed that there was smoke rising from the chimney. We would not be alone tonight. We skied right up to the front of the building and shouted. While we were taking off our skis, still talking, the door opened and a man came out.
“Good evening,” I said, smiling in what I hoped was an easy, friendly way. “We just made it before the light goes.”
The man was tall, with vivid gray hair, lank and bushy. He was thin but looked strong, sinewy, with a long chin and a mouth wide as the Mississippi. He didn’t smile.
He didn’t say anything at that point, either, so I collected the skis and spoke again to Allie. “I’ll put these away, darling. You go and get warm.”
Allie—bless her—was superb. She stood in front of the man, with her hand held out. “Alessandra Stempel—oh, sorry, I mean Wolff. We’ve only been mar
ried a few days. This is our honeymoon.”
The man had no choice but to take her hand and now he had to say something. “Reimer,” he said, nodding to me. “Eric Reimer.” He stood aside and followed Allie back into the hut.
I packed the skis away at the end of the hut where there was a shed especially for the purpose. I couldn’t help but notice that the shed was full—Herr Reimer was not alone. I judged it best to leave my gun in the knapsack. I would try to keep that near me, just in case, but I didn’t foresee any real danger, not just yet. I took the bag off my back and went along the porch and into the hut.
I shook hands with Reimer and inspected the room. As Allie had predicted, it was bigger than the previous night’s and I calculated that at least six, and perhaps eight, bedrooms opened off the gallery upstairs.
“Are you here alone, Herr Reimer?” I asked.
“No.” He paused. “There are others.”
“Yes.” I nodded, stepping forward to stand by the fire. “I noticed the skis in the shed just now.” If I was just a little bit sharp, that could do no harm. “Where is everybody?”
“Collecting wood, two of them. One is in the kitchen, another upstairs, resting.”
“There are five of you?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been up here in the mountains?”
“Nearly two weeks. We are going home soon.”
“You are German?” I said. “Your accent is not Austrian, I think.”
He hesitated again and I realized with a start that I had been acting quite naturally like the interrogator I was. “Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t meaning to be inquisitive. I’m from Vienna and we are naturally nosy. Come on, Allie,” I called across the room, changing course into safer waters. “Let’s find a room and relax a bit. We can fix supper later.”
