Native tools include slabs of smooth granite for food preparation, knives carved of bone, and a number of wooden bowls shaped from the wood of birch trees. Clothing is primitive and made from the skins of animals. I have not observed the use of woven fibers of any kind. This, too, I will endeavor to teach them.
Food storage is basic, with meat and vegetables being dried in the open air or cooled by snow. Water is stored in a cistern outside of the cave.
CONCLUSION: The iceman uses and values advanced tools. Once in possession of more sophisticated technologies, he has the intellectual capacity to understand and use them. They are not creative in tool development, but intelligent in deploying tools.
MATING RITUALS:
Sexual rituals are diverse and elaborate among the tribe of the iceman.
Sexual attraction is shown in numerous ways, most often by light physical contact, such as touching or patting. Bathing is a communal practice that may lead to sexual engagement. Oftentimes, mating rituals involve gifts such as food or clothing. I have, on occasion, heard females sing to attract a mate.
I have observed that sexual acts can be accompanied by aggression—punching, hair pulling, spitting, and choking. I have observed this behavior in young males in the weeks or months after finding a mate. There is a fevered recognition of attraction, a period of courtship, and a direct movement into sexual relations. All three stages are marked by an abundance of sexual desire, possessiveness, and so on. After fathering a child, this behavior abates and a male will find a new companion.
Sexual intercourse occurs without shame or privacy, often in full view of the other members of the tribe.
LIFESPAN:
The icemen don’t remember birth dates, and there is no acknowledgment of time passing among them, but the elder members of the tribe appear to be seven or eight decades old. Elders are valued for their knowledge. There are distinct funerary rights followed by all members of the community. The tribe buries their dead together. The burial site is located less than one kilometer from the village. Objects such as stone knives and furs are buried with the body. I observed six burials during my years in the village, five children and one elderly woman. There is elaborate and communal grieving over the dead. Upon seeing the tears and lamentations over the loss of life, I believe that the icemen are capable of the sentiments and deep feelings of human beings.
Twenty-Seven
Spring did not come gently to the mountains. May winds blew cold and fierce, slicing at the skin with the brutality of a blade. Freezing rain pounded the castle windows like fists, and temperatures fell below freezing at night, turning the rain to snow. But there were also moments of pristine clarity, when the sky was blue as far as I could see. Wild violets and tough, yellow-maned dandelions began to grow on the east lawn, giving the gray landscape patches of vibrant color. The white mulberry trees near the mausoleum began to bud, then blossom. One warm afternoon, the pond cracked open, leaving an island of ice floating at the center of dark water. Snow had begun to melt on the mountain as well. Water gushed through chiseled crags of the mountainside, streaming down in rivulets over the lawn. Sal had told me that the spring melt was essential to Montebianco Castle—the well filled from April to June, ensuring clean drinking water for the year—but the water came with such force that it seemed to me that we would all be swept away.
The day I saw an Iceman again, the sun had emerged for a full afternoon. Craving warmth and light, I left my rooms and walked the castle grounds, my running shoes squelching through the muddy grass, my feet soaked in cold, pure mountain water. I was just making my way from the greenhouse, a bouquet of pink dahlias in my hand, when Aki stepped out of the cove of spruce trees on the east lawn.
I stopped, startled.
Aki raised his hand, gesturing that I come closer. “Come,” he called to me. He held up the leather sack Vita had given them the night we had met. “Please.”
I walked to Aki, slipping behind the trees where the thick scent of pine needles and wet earth filled the air. With the pink dahlias in my hand, I squinted at Aki, taking him in. It had been a clear, moonless night when we met, the light so dim I had discerned only the most basic outline of his features. But it struck me then, upon seeing him that day in the sunlight, that he was beautiful, and that is how I would always think of him after. Beautiful, if such a word can be used to describe a man as rough as the mountains. He was taller than me by a full foot, broad-shouldered, his bare arms sinewy with strength, his white hair falling to his chest. His features were rough-hewn and craggy. His wide-set blue eyes met my gaze with cool intelligence. I understood the justice of the name Leopold had given them: Icemen. I felt certain that if I were to touch Aki, he would melt in my hands.
“I came for Vita,” he said, eyeing the pink dahlias, their spikes so bright and strange. “But her window is closed. She leaves it open when we can approach.”
I turned to look back at the northeast tower. Shutters blocked the windows. The windows had been closed since Vita fell sick.
“I need to see her,” Aki said.
“That isn’t possible,” I said, surprised to hear him speak my language. “But I’ll tell her you’re here, if you want.”
He furrowed his brow, looking at me intently, and it struck me that he wasn’t sure if he could trust me.
“Yes,” he said at last. “But no one else can know that I am here.”
“Of course not,” I said. “What do you want me to tell her?”
“We need more supplies. Antibiotics and bandages. Something for pain. A clean blanket. One of my people has been hurt. Hunting yesterday, he fell.” Aki flinched as if he himself were injured. “We need food, too. The winter has been long this year. Vita’s window has been closed for a long time.”
“The window is closed because Vita is sick.”
He looked alarmed. “Very sick?”
I nodded. “I don’t think she will be able to bring you the things you need herself. But I can.”
Aki examined me, his eyes boring into me, and it seemed he was capable of seeing below the layers of skin and muscle, through the cage of my ribs and into my heart.
“You will be able to find us?” he asked.
I looked up the mountainside, imagining the village as Leopold had described it, nestled into a crevice of the mountain.
“Follow this path,” he said. He held back the branches of an enormous spruce tree to reveal a path beyond, worn deep into the stone of the mountain. “Straight up. I will wait for you.”
But before I could ask him how far I should climb, or where, exactly, he would wait, Aki slipped away. The branches of the spruce tree sprang back as he left, obscuring him in a crush of green needles.
There was no doubt that Vita’s strength had deteriorated since the last time I visited her rooms. She lay in bed, her skin glistening with fever. She was gaunt, little more than skin and bones, giving her the appearance, in the flickering firelight, of a cadaver. The heavy scent of perfume was gone. Now there was nothing but the smell of a life reducing to primary elements—sweat and urine and infection and sour breath. Vita would soon be gone.
Greta had been there recently—the fire burned strong in the fireplace. A full pitcher of water sat on her bedside table next to a bottle of pills.
“Vita.” I touched her hand and found her skin was cold and thin, dry as rice paper. “Vita, I need to speak with you.”
She opened her eyes and glanced at me. I regretted waking her, but Aki was waiting.
“Aki came back,” I said, holding up the leather sack.
“Already?” she asked, blinking her eyes, struggling to see.
“He says he needs more antibiotics and bandages.”
Vita struggled to sit up. I helped adjust her pillows, poured her a glass of water, and brought it to her mouth. “Someone was hurt?” she asked.
“One of them had an accident while hunting.”
“Who?”
I shook my head. “He didn’t say.”
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br /> She looked upset. “All of their supplies are in the pantry in the kitchen,” she said. “Bernadette manages them for me and reorders when we are low. If they require something we don’t have, a medication, for example, it can be ordered and dropped in. Just tell Bernadette.”
“Have you been to their village?”
“Many times. In fact, when I was younger, I spent weeks at a time living with them.”
“In their caves?” I asked, remembering Leopold’s field notes.
Vita smiled weakly. “They haven’t lived that way in my lifetime. They have stone houses now, well built and warmer than the caves. They build what they need—beds and furniture and so on. I have supplied them with what they cannot make—clothes, shoes, cookware, dishes, blankets, and so on. They know they can always come to me for help.”
“Aki was worried when I told him you were sick.”
“The Icemen need me to survive. If I die, they will most certainly suffer. There is a reason they are the last of their kind, you know. They cannot fend for themselves. That is why you are so important. You must help them when I’m gone.”
Vita pushed herself up in bed.
“They have a word for us in their language: kryschia. It means protector and educator. It began with Leopold. Every generation since Leopold has protected them except my father, Ambrose the coward. He not only stopped offering supplies—which is our duty—but he shot and killed one of them.”
I thought of the rope of hair in the trophy room, its thickness, its weight in my hands.
“Half of their population died during my father’s lifetime. When I came to understand who they were, and what my place was in their community, I vowed to never let that happen again. I have kept my promise, even when it was difficult. With medicines, warm clothing, seeds and simple technologies, I have helped them become stronger, better, capable of fighting the elements and illness. I have made them understand their position in relation to our kind—they know that they are different from every other human being on the planet, that they are alone in the world, but that they are human beings, rare and special treasures whose lives must be respected.” Vita met my eyes, to be sure I was listening. “The most valuable contribution I have provided has been security. I gave them the ability to protect themselves. The man you met, Aki, has a sister named Uma. At least, I believe Uma is his sister. There is no real family structure among them. After a child is weaned, it is given to the village, and they all raise it together. In any case, I found them together in the village, and I brought the two of them here when they were young. I taught them skills they could use to survive.”
“Is that why Aki speaks our language?”
She nodded. “They both do, Aki and Uma. I worked with them here in the northeast tower, teaching them to speak and to read. They learned very quickly. Uma, in particular, has tried to adapt to our ways. They have told me they shared their knowledge with the others, that Uma’s medical skills have been invaluable, but I have not been to the village in many years, so I am unable to verify how their abilities have benefited the tribe.”
I tried to imagine Vita with them in the village, but my mind kept going to the portrait of Leopold in the family gallery. His dark hair. His romantic expression and billowing silk cravat.
“How long has it been since you were there?”
“Nearly thirty years, now. It is a difficult climb, and I lost the strength to manage it decades ago. Aki and Uma still come regularly. They are like my own grandchildren, in many ways.” A look of embarrassment passed over her face. “That dead goat you discovered when you first arrived was a gift from me. They brought it back to the village.”
Vita gestured to the pitcher. I poured more water in her glass. As she drank, she glanced up at Eleanor’s portrait. “It must have frightened you, and for that I am sorry, but there was no other way. I could not very well have them here openly. The servants would leave. They would tell outsiders. My poor mother could never abide them. They terrified Eleanor, terrified her. She would have gladly let them die out. She had a heart of steel, my mother. She insisted that we keep their existence a secret, and I agreed with her on that point. Can you imagine if they had been discovered? They would have been put in cages and displayed like animals in a zoo. James Pringle came the closest to exposing us. He photographed one of the elders, a friend of my grandfather’s, and was planning to photograph the others, but Eleanor stopped him.”
According to the information I had translated in Turin from Mostri delle Alpi, James Pringle had died in an avalanche while taking photographs in the mountains. I wondered what Eleanor had arranged to stop him.
“And Giovanni?” I asked. “Did he know about them?”
“They are why he left,” Vita said, her voice so low I could hardly make her out. “We had terrible arguments about them. My son was very attached to me, you see. He was unhappy that they occupied so much of my life—I spent a lot of time with them when I was younger. He became so jealous that he began to tell outrageous stories about them.”
“I’ve heard those stories,” I said, and a shiver ran through me as I remembered Nonna Sophia’s wide, terrified eyes, her warnings about Nevenero and the Montebianco family.
“Oh, I am sure you have,” Vita said. “Giovanni said they were savages and that they were committing atrocities. And when I disagreed, he left.”
I clenched and unclenched my hands in my lap, as if I were grasping at a fraying rope. “Was it true that they committed atrocities?”
“Of course not,” Vita said, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. “It was that village girl Marta who gave him that idea. I admit, I have thought often of Greta’s child . . .”
“Joseph,” I said.
“Joseph saw Aki one afternoon when he came to the castle to see me. The boy was quite affected by the encounter. But Aki would never do something like that without my knowledge. I’m sure that the child was taken by his father.”
“You don’t think there is even a small possibility that they are responsible?”
Vita turned back to me, her manner chilling. “I will not deny that there is something primitive in them,” she said. “I know because I feel it, that wildness in my blood. It is something I have learned to . . . overcome. You read Eleanor’s memoir. You know what I am capable of doing. My strength was quite a wonder, once. It was a gift I never understood fully until it left me. I am certain that this strength was passed down from the Icemen. Giovanni and Guillaume inherited it from me. And you, I would guess, have inherited it, too.”
A fit of coughing overtook Vita. She sank into her pillows, her face sallow, her eyes filled with pain.
I stood to go. “You need to rest. I’ll get the supplies from Bernadette and bring them to Aki.”
“Wait,” she said, grasping my hand and pulling me back into my seat. “There is something else. Something I must ask of you before you go to them. A request.”
I sat at her side, feeling wary. What could I possibly do that she had not done already?
“As you know, Leopold lived among the Icemen for a number of years and returned with a child, my grandfather Vittorio. It was a secret, how Vittorio came to be born, even among the family. My father told Eleanor the truth because of the undeniable physical resemblance I have to them. What was not known to Eleanor, or to anyone else, were the details of Leopold’s relationship with my grandmother. Her name was Zyana. In his field notebook, Leopold describes Zyana at length, the birth of my grandfather Vittorio, and their life together. What was unknown to everyone, even to Eleanor, was that Leopold and Zyana had a second child. A girl.” Vita’s eyes bore into me as she spoke. “Leopold left her behind, abandoned her, with the Icemen.”
“But why would he do that?” I asked, feeling, for reasons I did not understand, deeply disturbed by the idea.
“It could have been that the girl had inherited her mother’s traits and looked more like them. By all accounts, Vittorio appeared to be more or less normal and could pass
for one of us. He was blond and pale and exceptionally strong, like the Icemen, but he displayed nothing that would frighten people.” A look passed over Vita’s features as she spoke, and I wondered if she felt the pain of her own childhood. “There is also the unfortunate reality that girls were of little value to the Montebiancos back then. If Leopold had to make a choice between his two children, he would have surely taken his son. In any case, the daughter’s fate has plagued me for years. I assume that she, like so many of the tribe, died young. And even if Leopold’s daughter did not die in childhood, there is no guarantee she lived long enough to have children. Or that these children had children. It is very likely that Leopold’s descendants did not survive.” Vita smiled, her glittering eyes and ravaged features giving her the look of an ancient creature, one who has survived a great battle. “But on the other hand, it is also possible that they did. That is what you must find out.”
“But you went to the village,” I said. “Why didn’t you look then?”
“I did look,” she said. “I found nothing definitive. That doesn’t prove that Leopold’s descendants do not exist. The Icemen tell stories about their origins, but they have no system for keeping information, and so nothing has ever been recorded. They think of life and death differently than we do, not as a beginning and ending, but as a contribution and repayment to a life source. Death is a passage, one that is painful, but merely a movement to another realm. You will see, when you meet them, that their perceptions are very different from ours. They do not know how to classify or distinguish categories in the ways we do. For example, when I showed Aki the mulberry trees by the mausoleum and a citrus tree from the greenhouse, he used the same word for both, which means, roughly, “plant.” It is the same with human beings. When I ask if there is someone among them who is different, who has different features, perhaps, or maybe even a pigmentation to the skin that is different from theirs, they don’t understand my question. They are a tribe, with all its strengths and all its flaws.”
The Ancestor Page 24
