The Weight of Snow

by Christian Guay-Poliquin

  Like your father?

  Yes, like my father.

  And since the blackout, do you still consider yourself a mechanic?

  I hold my breath a moment, and look at my hands, then my legs. With the accident and the power outage, all the time I spent underneath vehicles, my hands in oil and iron filings, is just a vague memory.

  As he carefully ties off the thread, Matthias states that for him nothing has changed. He earned his living doing all sorts of things, and he has been married fifty-seven years.

  I’ve always managed to get by. One more winter is not going to make a difference.

  On those words, he sticks himself with the needle. He jumps to his feet, goes to the window, and changes the subject.

  We’re going to have snow, he predicts, I can feel it.

  For the moment, the sky is completely clear. I look out at the barometer and see the little branch pointing up, no hesitation there.

  With his lips, Matthias sucks off the blood that blossoms like a pearl on his fingertip. I wonder if he understands what is happening. What is becoming of us. What awaits us. Maybe he has not grasped the magnitude of the blackout.

  Unless I’m the one who’s completely lost his grip.

  EIGHTY-EIGHT

  Matthias was wrong, it didn’t snow. Soon it will be a week since we saw our last cloud. During the day, sunlight fills the porch, and at night, stars pierce the sky. Only the blowing snow gives the impression that the white blanket has thickened in places.

  We play chess and talk about this and that. The winter, food, my legs. Our conversations are sporadic since our games require all our attention. I still have not managed to beat him, but I am beginning to learn his tactics, his reflexes, his habits, and he knows it. He has stopped leaving anything to chance. He makes minute calculations before moving the slightest pawn. As if a reversal of fortune were something inconceivable.

  It is my move when suddenly someone knocks on the door. Matthias jumps to his feet and orders me not to touch anything.

  A man is standing in the doorway overflowing with light. Jonas. I have not seen him for over ten years, but I recognize him the moment he sets foot in the room. When I worked at my father’s garage, we used to see him going by on his bike. He always looked drunk, though he never touched a drop. He whistled and sang as he zigzagged along on his bicycle. Every day, in his innocence, he rummaged through roadside ditches and garbage cans in search of empty beer bottles. Often we saw him along the road, gathering up bottles and talking to himself out loud. From a distance, it looked as if he were having it out with the horizon.

  He is wearing snow pants patched at the knees, a turquoise coat, a fur cap, and a long yellow scarf. And he is holding a pair of crutches. He comes in and leans them against the wall. He sits down on the stool, breathing hard. His cheeks are red with effort and cold.

  It’s not easy, it’s hard getting anywhere with all this snow, he says, stumbling over his words. With snowshoes on my feet, I’m always afraid I’ll fall down and not be able to get up. I needed, it took me an hour to get here, maybe more.

  Matthias seems surprised by this unexpected visit, but Jonas does not give it any thought. He watches me, his face split by a big smile.

  I remember when you were no higher than that. When you came up to here. You used to run through the village with the kids your age. You tried to scare me. Scare me when I was out hunting empties.

  Jonas has gotten older, but has not really changed. He moves the same way, hesitant but abrupt. The same overstated enthusiasm. The same luminous emptiness in his eyes. It’s true, he practically doesn’t have a hair on his head anymore, or a tooth in his mouth, but the way he speaks is just as fast. Sometimes his words pile up and fall over each other. As if he were in a hurry to speak his piece, in case it changed before he could get it out.

  I didn’t know it was you they found underneath the car wreck last summer. Had I known. Had I known I would have come and visited. To tell you I’m sorry about your father. Yes, sorry. He wasn’t doing very well. In the village people said all kinds of things about him. People are like that. I should, I should know. I remember him well, I used to go see him at the garage all the time, I used to sit in a corner and talk to him as he worked. You left the village and you didn’t come back. Lots of water, that’s a lot of water under the bridge now. My poor mother died too. But she was luckier, she went before the blackout happened.

  Matthias puts the soup on the stove. I search for something to say. My father, his poor mother, the blackout. That’s how it is, nothing to be done.

  It’s nice of you to come, I end up telling him.

  Pretty Maria told me you were here, he says. She gave me a pair of crutches for you. Look. She asked me to bring them for you. They’re real crutches. Real wood crutches. I wanted to bring them before, but yesterday a kid from the village came back from the forest with his face all bloody. Jacob. He was crying and nobody could understand a thing, not a word of what he was saying.

  Jonas blinks his eyes hard a few times, then swallows his spit and goes back to his story.

  When it happened he was bleeding a lot. They cleaned off his face, but there was nothing, nothing anyone could do. People started to panic. I wasn’t doing anything, so they asked me to go for help. So that’s what I did. Maria wasn’t at home. José opened the door. I told him everything and he went right away. I kept on looking, because Maria is the one who takes care of hurt people usually. But she wasn’t anywhere. So I knocked at Joseph’s place. He came to the door half-naked, like he’d just gotten out of bed. I told him everything that happened. I was just finishing my story when pretty Maria came up behind him, buttoning her shirt in a hurry. She thanked me, got her coat, and went right out. I stood there a moment in the doorway with Joseph. It was cold, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He looked me in the eye and made me promise not to say a word. I promised because it looked very, very important.

  From the corner of my eye, I spot Matthias smiling, as if he had won a bet.

  When I found Jacob again, Maria and José were fixing his wounds. In the meantime, he told what happened. He captured an ermine by trapping it in a hollow log. When he bent over to look at it, it leapt at his face. Those little beasts are nasty. You have to take care. Especially if they feel trapped. They’re completely white with a pink muzzle. They’re pretty, but nasty. Jacob got his cheek and his eyebrow cut up. Nothing, nothing too bad. But what a morning! That’s why, that’s why I didn’t come and bring you the crutches yesterday. Because of Jacob. And the ermine.

  Matthias hands a bowl of soup to Jonas, who accepts it gladly.

  Two days from now, there’s going to be a dance in the village, Jonas announces between two gulps. Jude is organizing it in the church basement. With generators and everything. He says there’s going to be beer and a hot meal. He’s been talking about it forever, and everyone, everyone is invited. I’ll be there, you can count on that. For the hot meal and the empties. Nobody wants to buy them from me anymore, but I put them aside. One day, one day I’ll go get the deposit and that’ll give me some money. A lot of money.

  Jonas empties his bowl noisily by drinking directly from it, then he sets it down on the table with a look of satisfaction.

  It’s going to snow pretty soon, he claims. The clouds, the clouds are like horse tails. It’s cold, but you can feel the humidity in the air. And the wind is going to blow for the next few days, that’s for sure. But you’re all right here. With the sun and the stove, you’re better off, much better than on the other side, right?

  Matthias nods as Jonas gets up, puts his coat, his fur cap, and scarf back on.

  I’ve got to go back down to the village. I promised, I promised to help out in the stable this afternoon. We’re going to get the hay out of the loft. That’s a lot of snowshoeing for one day and I don’t like walking with these things on my feet. But that’s all r
ight, I’m happy to see you, see you again. After all, this place is your place. And the crutches, the crutches that pretty Maria found for you, they’re right there. You know, I remember when you were yay-high. You ran through the village with the other kids your age. You tried to scare me. But it never worked. No, never. Maybe you heard me from the distance, but I saw you coming. I always saw you coming.

  Thanks for the crutches, I can’t wait to use them.

  I remember, I always saw you coming, Jonas says one last time, and closes the door behind him.

  We hear him continuing his conversation as he moves off. Through the window, I watch him head down toward the village with his gesticulations and his patchwork clothes. Matthias goes back to his spot in the rocking chair and stares intently at the chessboard.

  I look at the barometer that seems to be pointing downward despite the clear skies. I think of the dance that will take place the day after tomorrow. I envy Jonas for being able to attend. If only I could walk, I would go too. I wouldn’t dance until I’d had more than enough to drink, but before that I’d see a few familiar faces, I’d find out a little more about what was happening in the village, and I’d talk about things with Maria and try to make her laugh.

  Go ahead, it’s your turn, Matthias says impatiently. Go ahead and play, and get it over with.

  NINETY-SIX

  It has been snowing for two days. The mountains that curve above the village and the line of the forest have disappeared from sight. The snow hurries to reach the earth and the immensity of the landscape has narrowed down to the four walls of this room.

  Matthias is sitting in the rocking chair, absorbed in a book that he found on the other side. The afternoon will pass this way. He turns a page from time to time, and I watch the landscape swallow us up in slow motion. The wind rises as night falls. Squalls shake the trees and sweep past the porch. Jonas had it right. First snow, then wind.

  Later, Matthias puts down his book and goes over to the stove. He stirs the soup and stares down at the bottom of the kettle.

  Stories always repeat, he says after a time. We wanted to escape the fate that was assigned us and here we are, swallowed up by life’s course. Gulped down by a whale. Far from the surface, we hope it will spit us back up on the shore. We are in the belly of winter, in its very entrails. In this warm darkness, we know we can’t escape what will befall us.

  Night has fallen. The snow keeps falling, but it has taken on shadows. Strange, but a weak glow illuminates the bottom edge of the sky. As if they had lit a streetlamp in the village. I observe the yellowish ring with my spyglass. A vague halo through the crests of the trees, and snowflakes harried by the wind.

  Matthias lights the oil lamp and serves the soup.

  As I empty my bowl, I realize that the light in the sky has become brighter. The village streets seem illuminated. We can hear the church bells. They must be celebrating the dance. I would have loved to be there and believe, if only for a few hours, that life is normal again.

  ONE HUNDRED NINE

  The snow and the wind dropped off suddenly this morning. Like an animal that, for no apparent reason, gives up one prey to hunt another. Dense and heavy, the silence surprised us, since we still feared the gusts would tear off the roof and suck us up into emptiness.

  When we look out the window, it is like gazing on the open sea. On all sides, the wind has sculpted giant waves of snow that froze just as they were about to wash over us.

  With calmer weather, Matthias decides to take a look outside. In the endless tunnel of my spyglass, I watch him disappear across the snow hardened by the cold. His form grows fainter as he reaches the forest. He is like one of the Three Kings moving toward his star.

  There are three tin cans on the counter. Open and empty. I take out my slingshot and a few iron pellets. I extend my arm, aim, and pull back the rubber band. When I let it go, the pellet cuts through the air with a whistling sound, misses its target, bounces off the wall, and ends up buried in the pile of logs by the stove. I start over. This time, I make sure my wrist is lined up straight with my arm. I close one eye and fire. One of the tin cans rattles to the floor. Not the one I was aiming for. But I still have some pellets.

  Matthias returns from his walk with an armful of wood.

  When you see the house from a distance, he says, taking off his coat, you realize how much snow is piled up on the roof. It’s absolutely crazy.

  As he kneels down in front of the stove, he spots the tin cans upended on the floor. He looks in my direction. I display my slingshot. He smiles and sets up the metal targets on the counter again.

  Go ahead, he challenges me, show me what you can do.

  ONE HUNDRED NINE

  Dawn has broken. The sun has not yet risen, but the sky is bright. The snow glitters. We are drinking coffee. Even if it tastes very much like yesterday’s version, we hold onto our cups jealously and savour it, one sip at a time.

  The porch is adapting to the cold. The wood structure has stiffened. The foundations clench their teeth. Sometimes, sharp tinkling noises echo between the beams: roofing nails yielding under pressure. The village chimneys give off generous amounts of smoke. Under every roof people are awakened by the icy caress of winter and they hurry to get the fire going again. Birch bark produces white smoke that rises straight through the still air. Like marble columns holding up the sky. As if we were living in a cathedral.

  Once he has finished his lengthy contemplation, Matthias gulps down the rest of his coffee, turns away from the window, and begins his exercises. He balances on one leg, one arm stretched toward the ceiling, the other flat on his stomach. He rolls his shoulders and loosens his muscles, then squats down and straightens several times. I watch him go through his paces and tell myself that though my body is regenerating a little more each day, he is the one with new blood in his veins.

  Suddenly the door swings open and Joseph appears on the threshold in a great cloud of steam. With his smoking nostrils and his loaded sled, he looks like a draft horse, shining with labour. His beard is frosted over and icicles hang from his moustache. He frees himself from his harness, sits down, takes off his mittens, and blows on his hands. He tries to take off his coat but his fingers are paralyzed by the biting cold and he cannot work his zipper.

  Matthias heats up oatmeal and begins unloading the wood Joseph has brought us.

  ONE HUNDRED NINE

  You know, Joseph tells us, Jude organized a dance last week. He started up the generators. Everyone was there. You could hear the music everywhere in the village. It was a party, just perfect. Like in a dream. People were eating and dancing. When the church bells rang in the middle of the night, they thought it was a joke. But someone cut the music and said there was a chimney fire in a house next door. When we got there, it was too late. The wind rose and whipped up the flames and the roof caught. Smoke came whirling out of the windows. The church bells were still ringing away, but we couldn’t hear them because of the wind. We waited and watched the fire. The gusts of wind pushed the heat into our faces. The flames wrapped around the gables and the beams. The sky was orange above our heads, as if the streets were lit the way they used to be. The snow was melting and streams of water were rushing past our feet. We were sure the house would burn to the ground. But the flames decided to devour part of the roof and the upstairs. As if they were toying with us. The next day, the house was still smoking, but there was nothing more to see. Just the charred rafters that were still hissing.

  What about the people? Matthias asks, glancing up at the spot where the stove’s chimney climbs up past the ceiling.

  At first, Joseph tells him, we were afraid for them. But luckily there was no one in the house when the fire broke out. In the days afterward, we found them new lodgings. But when they went back to recover their things, everything they owned was black and stunk of smoke. You know that kind of sticky, greasy smoke. Since then we’ve swept most o
f the chimneys in the village. With how cold it’s been these last days, people are burning whatever they can. Sometimes they lose control and the stoves overheat.

  Joseph pauses, then runs his hand slowly over his forehead and his eyes.

  During the last snowstorm, someone stole Jude’s snowmobile. At first José accused me but, you know, that made no sense. Later they realized that Jérémie had disappeared with his nine-year-old son. Everybody wanted to hunt them down, but the snow had covered their tracks long before. They tried comforting Jérémie’s wife instead, but she was inconsolable. José gave her some sleeping pills. All I hope is that Jérémie took enough gas to get somewhere. No one wants to imagine how Jude will react if he ever sets foot here again.

  Matthias offers Joseph a bowl of oatmeal, which he gladly accepts.

  And then, he continues, a number of people have fallen sick lately. Some got better on their own, you know, but others can’t seem to find their way back to health. Including Judith who took over schooling the children after Jean refused to do it anymore. Maria does what she can to help them, but she’s not a magician.

  Joseph shovels the food into his mouth. A few oat flakes stick to his moustache.

  You’re better off here, he concludes. Away from all that.

  Matthias interrupts to ask him if he managed to get any milk. Joseph smiles.

  Yes, I went to the stable this morning. While everyone was still in bed. The stable’s not heated, and I’m always surprised how comfortable it is in there. You know cows produce the heat they need. I could have stretched out and finished my night’s sleep. But Jonas was sleeping on the hay bales. He woke up as I was milking a cow. He was surprised to see me, but I told him to act like I wasn’t there, and he went back to sleep.

  Matthias peers into the sacks of food and takes out two large containers of milk. He opens one and samples it.