I have to get back to town, Matthias insists, my wife is there.
For a moment, I picture the arteries of the city, completely blocked by pile-ups of abandoned cars.
Yeah, I understand, Jean says, visibly irritated. Have you heard the latest news? he asks, wanting to change the subject.
Curious, Matthias and I wait for what will come next.
A few days ago, three people showed up in the village in the middle of the night. None of us knew them. They were starving and suffering from frostbite. We took them in and did our best for them. They told us they lived in a village on the coast. They were well organized there, but then looting started, and the situation fell apart fast. They had to escape. Their snowmobile broke down three days’ walk from here. There were four of them at the beginning, but one of them froze to death. Jude assigned them a house, but he wants us to keep an eye on them. He doesn’t trust them because they have an accent that’s not from here.
What else did they say? Matthias asks, intrigued. Do they know what’s happening elsewhere? Like in the city? Do they know if the electricity has come back anywhere?
They told us their story more than once when they showed up, but since then they haven’t been too talkative.
That’s normal, I put in.
Jean agrees, nodding his head.
In the meantime, he continues, in the village the supplies are starting to drop. Jude asked everyone to make an effort, and we agreed to tighten the rations. That doesn’t please everyone, but that’s the way it goes. And that shouldn’t stop people from doing like me and setting snares.
Jean gets to his feet and slings the rifle over his shoulder. Then he tells me again to rest up and get stronger.
You should know that there are some bad cases of the flu in the village. You live up here, but be careful all the same. We’re starting to run out of medicine, and that complicates things.
Jean heads for the door, and Matthias thanks him for the hares. My pleasure, Jean says. He’ll bring us more when he can. Then he takes a last look in my direction. He’ll come and get me once they have all the materials they need.
Don’t worry, Matthias answers for me, he’ll be on his feet.
ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FOUR
Matthias rolls up his sleeves and puts the hares on the counter.
I don’t know if I remember how to do this, he admits, turning them over. They are stiff with cold and rigor mortis. My father used to cook them in the lumber camps, way back when, but that was a long time ago.
I remember perfectly. My uncles used to ask me to fix the hares they caught. You have to delicately pull away the skin behind the shanks. Then you hold the back legs in one hand and pull on the fur that you’ve turned inside out.
While I peel potatoes, Matthias labours away, trying to pull off the skin completely, since the flesh is still frozen. Once that is done, he chops off the head with a hatchet, opens the belly, and empties the cavity. The guts smell strong. The smell of blood, and the forest after it has rained. Turning his head away, Matthias asks if I will be able to help them prepare the expedition.
We’ll see, I tell him, I certainly hope so. I’m even willing to do your exercises if they’ll help me recuperate faster.
I’m not talking about that. I mean the mechanic work, putting tracks on the minibus. Can you do that?
For ten years, I repaired dump trucks bigger than houses. Converting a minibus into a snowmobile, if I have the right parts, tools, and electricity, that shouldn’t be a problem. I can do more than peel potatoes, you know.
Matthias cuts the hares into pieces and puts everything into a big pot with oil and vegetables.
Anyway, you don’t really have the choice, he tells me suddenly. You owe us that, to me and everyone else. We saved your life. And it looks like I’m not the only one who wants to go to the city before the snow melts. So it works out perfect. I’ll be able to go back to my wife. Waiting for spring makes no sense, the snow isn’t going to stop falling, and at my age, you know, if a man has all the time he needs, it’s because there isn’t much left.
I think about that. Outside, the horizon has swallowed the sun. The sky is still clear, but the light is weakening.
As the meal cooks on the fire, we play a game of chess. Matthias wins, as usual. He is too satisfied to offer me a revenge match, and he retreats to his rocking chair with a book.
After a time I ask him what Jacques gave him in exchange for the cheese.
The question takes him by surprise. He drops his book onto his lap, then tells me Jacques let him choose whatever he wanted from the store’s inventory.
What did you take?
Matthias hesitates.
A weapon.
A weapon?
Yes, to defend myself, if ever …
You know how to use it?
Jacques showed me how.
I say nothing more and look out the window instead. In the sky, above the mountains, only a white line remains upon which the blue of night has come to rest.
A little later, when Matthias sets the dish on the table, an enticing smell fills the air. I get to my feet, leaning on my crutches, and make it to my chair without his help – or almost. I protest, but he insists on steadying me when I sit down. But that doesn’t matter.
The meat is nicely browned and swims in a thick sauce. Before serving, Matthias clasps his hands and closes his eyes. This time the ceremony lasts no more than a second, and then he quickly dips the spoon into the pot.
Be careful, he warns me, these things are full of little bones.
We dig into the meal. We pull away the meat from the bones with our hands, and the sauce drips everywhere and sticks to our beards.
If you want it to be tender and the flavours to really come out, you have to cook it a long time, he tells me, his mouth full.
I laugh at him and let him know I want him to serve me some more. He leans over the pot and licks his fingers. Suddenly he freezes and lets out a strange rattle. I look up. His eyes are enormous as if he had seen a ghost. He stands up, knocking over his chair, and grabs at his throat. His eyes dart wildly around the room. His mouth opens but makes no sound. He pounds his chest with both hands. Big drops of saliva pool on his lower lip. The veins of his neck swell. I try to go to his side, leaning on my right leg and hanging onto the table. His face is turning blue. His pupils dilate and go black. I try to get his attention as I move closer. He is moving in all directions at once. I yell at him to stop. He doesn’t seem to hear me. His hands open and close as if he were trying to grasp something. He hits his chest, but his movements are incoherent. I know there’s a manoeuvre you’re supposed to do, you have to stand behind the person and squeeze his stomach. But I’m still so weak, I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it.
Stand in front of me, I tell him, panicking. Matthias, look at me! Stay put! Stop moving!
I punch him as hard as I can in the stomach. He takes the blow, bends in two, but nothing happens. When he straightens up again, I throw a second punch, harder this time. I can feel my knuckles push into his skinny stomach and reach his diaphragm. A small bone flies from his mouth like a bullet and he falls to the floor, gasping for breath.
For the next two or three seconds, total silence. Then he starts breathing noisily, choking, vomiting, his whole body shaking.
I feel enormous relief, then realize I am standing on my own feet, pointing skyward like a rocket, for the first time. Meanwhile, at my feet, Matthias is like an old steam locomotive, labouring and coughing.
ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT
Snow crystals sketch out the slender contours of the trees. The flakes descend in straight lines, falling in tight formation, both light and heavy. The snow has climbed to the bottom of my window and is pressing against the glass. It is like water rising in a room from which there is no escape.
With my spyglass, I saw
that an animal had come close to the house. Nothing very big. A fox. Maybe a lynx. Some animal come to devour the remains of the hares that Matthias threw outside yesterday evening after recuperating from his misadventure. The tracks are fresh, but soon the snow will cover them. Through the trees I can make out houses, but with all the snow they seem to be shrinking with each passing day. Settling into the earth. I spy on the village for a while. But nothing is moving. Maria is not going from house to house to look after people, Joseph is not carrying out his repairs, and no one seems to be coming to get me.
When he awoke at dawn, Matthias was back on his feet as if nothing had happened. He did his exercises, washed the dishes, and made black bread. But a shadow had fallen over his face.
We started a chess game more than an hour ago and it is still not finished. When it is his move, he evaluates every possibility at length. He reminds me of a weakened fighter who no longer trusts his instincts.
The room is quiet. The purring of the woodstove is the only sound. I question the lines in the palms of my hands, knowing very well that nothing and no one can help us predict our fate. Next to my bed, the chessboard holds its breath. Even if he is not in top shape, Matthias will end up checkmating me and winning the match. That is the only certainty I have.
ONE HUNDRED FORTY-SEVEN
Over the last few days, I have felt my body adjust to its new reality. My arms are growing stronger. My shoulders have straightened. When I remove my splints, my legs bend with greater ease. Only the wound on my left leg has not completely healed. The pain is slowly lessening, but the discomfort and numbness remain.
Still, with my crutches, I can change positions, I can lean and lift and swing my body. Like a wounded bird, I find a way to move. Not for long but long enough. Even if I sway and nearly topple, I can urinate on my own. When I am feeling strong, I execute a few round trips across the room.
We are still playing chess. Matthias says nothing. I have to stop myself from shouting: I have just checkmated him. His king is prisoner between my bishop and my knight. There is no escape.
When he realizes it, he looks up. He smiles a moment, then his face shuts down like a door being slammed. He puts away the game, sets his rocking chair by the stove, and packs snow into the kettle to melt.
I look toward the window. The sky is impatient. The barometer is pointing down. A few snowflakes float in the air, as if waiting for reinforcements before the attack.
Matthias sighs.
I’ve got nothing more to do here, he says. You might be getting better with each passing day, but I’m sinking lower. My wife is waiting, I know, I can feel it. She’s waiting for me and I can’t do anything about it, just look after you and watch the snow fall.
He takes the water off the stove, but when he lifts the kettle, one of the handles comes off and the whole thing falls to the floor in a cloud of steam. When the fog blows away, Matthias appears like a giant lighthouse above the reefs. A lighthouse, giant but no longer useful. For a moment, his face contorts and his fists clench as if he were trying to contain himself. Then he kicks the kettle as hard as he can and it goes flying noisily into the far corner of the room.
It’s nothing, he tells me, even before I can react, it’s nothing.
One of his thighs is soaked and still steaming. He goes out the door, pulls down his pants, and applies a snow compress to the burn. When he comes back into the porch, he asks me to help bandage his thigh.
As I grab my crutches and move to the table, he explains in great detail how to go about it.
It’s all right, I tell him, I know how to wrap a bandage, I’ve watched you change mine often enough.
He was lucky. The burn looks superficial. The skin is red and oozing, but there is no blister, not yet. It must be sensitive, but in a couple weeks there won’t even be a scar.
For lunch we eat hard-boiled eggs in silence, each in his own world. Later in the day, Matthias goes over to the other side and comes back with a toolbox. He sets it on the table next to the banged-up kettle and asks me to repair the handle that gave way. I pull the toolbox over and open it. The hinges creak softly. Inside the tools glitter. The wrenches, the hammer, the pliers, they shine like gold coins dug up from a royal tomb. He watches my reaction as if it were of the greatest importance.
You won’t be able to fix a dump truck with that, he says, pointing, or modify a minibus, but it’s enough to see whether you still like your trade. Maybe that’s what will save us. You won’t just be a cripple anymore, and I’ll be able to get back to town.
I say nothing. I go about fixing the handle of the kettle, completely convinced that, whatever we do, whichever way we choose, our actions and decisions will be meaningless.
ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-ONE
The day is bright. The sky has deepened. The wind died down.
Matthias is in the rocking chair. He has a book in his hand, but he hasn’t opened it. I practice balancing on my crutches. Suddenly there is the high-pitched whir of a motor. Matthias gets up and we both move to the window. A snowmobile is climbing the slope in our direction. A minute later the door swings open and Joseph steps inside with his arms loaded down with sacks and cartons. Matthias pulls on his coat to help him bring in the rest.
I would like to help too, but with my crutches all I can do is drag myself from one place to the other.
When they come back inside with the last of the provisions, Joseph declares that there is no use clearing the roof of snow. Matthias looks at him, surprised.
It’ll take me two days to shovel off all that, he explains, and I’d have to start all over anyway. I’d rather reinforce the ceiling beams, understand, the way they do in hunting camps before winter. That’s the best solution.
I notice two butterfly bandages above his eyebrow. Exactly like what I have on my left leg, but smaller.
I’ve got to find wood for the supports. And I’ll need help, Joseph says, pointing at me. You coming? It’ll do you good, I’m sure.
I pull myself onto my crutches. A wave of happiness flows over me.
Go ahead, take my coat and boots, Matthias offers as he opens one of the boxes of provisions.
Joseph is quick about getting me into Matthias’s clothes. Once he succeeds, he hands me my crutches and we go out.
It’s the first time I have been outside since the beginning of winter. The snow is dazzling.
And with that thought, I take my first step, and the tips of my crutches sink into the snow. I fall face first in front of the door. Joseph laughs at me a second, then leans over, grabs me with both arms, and sets me on the back of his yellow snowmobile.
Hang on tight, he tells me.
The motor roars to life. And we’re gone. I look behind and catch Matthias watching us move away before shutting the door. From this angle the other side of the house looks enormous compared to the porch buried in snow.
The cold air stings. It makes my eyelashes stick together and pinches my nostrils. It burns my lungs. We reach the line of the forest. It is more imposing than I imagined. We take a path that snakes between the trees. The way is completely virgin, smooth, and white. On each side, the spruce bend low with snow. When the path curves, Joseph accelerates so the snowmobile will not bog down and dig a trap for itself in the quicksand of snow. We come into a small clearing. I recognize this spot. Joseph slows down and stops the machine on a little rise where the wind has hardened the snow.
In front of us are targets nailed onto the tree trunks. We are at the shooting range at the foot of the mountain. A few kilometres from the village.
The winter silence is deafening.
Joseph pulls a bottle from his coat, takes a good hit, then hands the bottle to me.
You know, he says, turning to me, this is where our fathers and our uncles came to tune up their rifles every year, at the end of the summer. Us kids used to follow them, remember? They parked their vehicles
at the entrance, over there, and they walked here with their cases in their hands. They would open them up and fire at the targets. We weren’t very old back then. But I remember the sound of the rifle shots. They never drank here. It was a rule. No need for anything artificial at the moment of truth, they used to say.
I watch birds quarrelling over a spot on the branches of a pine tree.
Your uncles were completely right, Joseph states, gazing at the forest around us, it was the right thing to leave before the snow fell. Life in the village isn’t easy, you know. When those outsiders showed up, Jude insisted we go back to our watchman duties. I suppose you heard about that?
Yes, Jean told us.
Did he tell you that at first Jude refused to put them up more than one night? Even José didn’t want to give them medicine. We had to convince them that they weren’t criminals and that we had enough food for three more people.
We smoke a cigarette, sending thick spirals into the crystal air. The shooting range looks like a narrow lake caught in the snow’s embrace.
Jude is getting hard to figure out. Maybe everyone is. The snow weighs heavily on our little lives. He’s got a new project, I hear. With Jean, José, and some others, he wants to turn a minibus into a snowmobile. Do you realize? That’ll never work! Even if they manage to do it, how far will they get? That kind of machine burns way too much gas. They’ll empty the village supply and end up running out of gas a hundred kilometres further on. Then what’ll they do? Go looking for help? When they didn’t even want to help a few strangers who showed up here! They don’t understand the only thing they’ll find out there is frigid cold and the wind off the sea. Unless they head for the city and rob everyone they come across on the way there. I bet they’re going to come looking for you to help them install the tracks. You’re the only mechanic for miles around. I told them to get lost every time they brought up the subject, he mutters, lifting the bottle to his mouth.
The Weight of Snow Page 8
