The Weight of Snow

by Christian Guay-Poliquin

  I did not tell Matthias what I discovered in the shed. He reveals none of his preparations, though he does describe the book he is reading, where the inhabitants of a village set in the middle of the jungle have been held prisoner by solitude for the last hundred years.

  Matthias blows out the candle and we settle in to sleep. We stare at the ceiling weakly lit by the shimmering glow of the embers. Then he tells me he would have liked to play a game of chess. I warn him that I would have beaten him. We laugh. And I say I would have gladly drunk another bottle of wine. Like that day on the lake.

  His voice is so low I can scarcely hear him when he says that was one of the best times all winter.

  In the fireplace the ashes have won over the embers. The darkness is complete, and the silence that settles over us is comfortable.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  I open my eyes when I hear the door close. Outside it is light, but the sun hasn’t risen yet. The fire has been lit and the coffee is ready. I go to the window with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Matthias is heading down the hill.

  Something isn’t right. Why would he go to the village this early? I’m confused. Then I see the note on the bedside table. I don’t bother reading it, I pull on my clothes and rush outside. When he hears me calling, he stops and looks back. I reach him, limping and out of breath.

  What’s with you?

  Where are you going?

  To the village – why?

  There’s still too much snow, I tell him.

  Matthias sighs, then looks me over. As if nothing ever happens the way he’d planned.

  Look at me, look around, he tells me, furious. I’m old, I was patient all winter, and now spring is here. I can’t wait anymore. I’ve waited too much as it is. The roads are passable, the snow is melting fast. Look, you can see the asphalt on the village streets.

  There’s still too much snow, I’m telling you, you’ll get stuck.

  I’ve got a car, gas, tires with chains, and food. I even have a gun.

  That’s not the point. Wait a few more days. Until it melts some more.

  I’m the one who’s melting. I can’t take it anymore. I took care of you, you’re fine now, so let me go. I need to get back to my wife, can’t you understand? I need to find her.

  I take a step closer, hoping to reason with him. Matthias backs away.

  Let me at least walk you to the village.

  No, he shouts. You’re going to turn around and leave me alone.

  I move closer to him.

  There’s too much snow, I insist, the roads will be blocked when you get to the mountains, you won’t even reach the villages on the coast.

  Just as I’m about to put my hand on his shoulder, he pushes me away and pulls out his gun.

  I freeze. His hand is trembling.

  Above our heads a flight of geese crosses the sky, squawking.

  You’re going to turn around, Matthias repeats. And you’re going to let me go.

  He moves away, backing off carefully, the gun still pointed at me. The sun is rising. The geese have passed. I can hear them, though they have disappeared from sight. Matthias turns and disappears, following the slope down to the village. I know he would not have fired, but I didn’t want to push things.

  FORTY-SIX

  Back at the house, I pace for a while. I drop onto the sofa and close my eyes, but sleep does not come. The smell of rotting fish hangs in the room. With all the humidity, the last bits have started to rot. I hurry outside to throw them away, then circle the house, looking for something to do. I stand in front of the fleshless body of the porch, which has become visible with the melting snow. Several times, I hear a car engine in the distance, down the hill.

  I make my way through the debris and icy snow. I can’t get all the way to the trap door to the cellar, but by lifting lengths of sheet metal and planks, I find several dented cans, a torn bag of noodles, and a few damp packets of powdered soup. Everything is in bad shape, and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to do anything with it.

  By using a plank as a lever, I manage to lift part of the collapsed roof. Carefully, I crawl on my belly through the opening I have made. It is like a cave, an underground chamber spared by the snow. I move forward, feeling my way, and come upon my slingshot and, a little further on, my spyglass. I slip on some wet paper. It is the map Joseph gave me. I take hold of it, move out of the wreckage again, and go back to the living room.

  The map is drying by the fire. It was damaged by water, but no information was lost. Over and over, with the tip of my index finger, I retrace the route that leads to my uncles’ hunting camp.

  The fire burns down. I throw on a few more planks, and the flames illuminate the room again. I gaze at the objects I brought back, relics like the tin cans, and next to them the strips of bark on the floor. I pick up the note Matthias left. Three lines of black ink.

  We survived the winter. I’ll never forget it. Now it’s time to leave. The next step can’t wait and you know it. Farewell.

  I put the scrap of paper in my pocket and suddenly feel very alone. Matthias is right. Winter is finishing up. There’s nothing more to do here.

  THIRTY-NINE

  I can’t sleep at night. I think of Matthias journeying toward the city with his supplies and his gun. I think of Joseph and Maria, happy somewhere, far from the village. And my aunts and uncles watching the fast-flowing river and playing cards. I think of the ATV waiting for me in the shed.

  I get up as soon as I spot the first glow of dawn through the window. I slip the spyglass, slingshot, Joseph’s map, and my meagre provisions into the pockets of my coat, then step outside, closing the door securely behind me.

  The next step can’t wait. It’s true. It’s my turn to leave.

  The sky is grey and smooth. Like a blanket draped over the landscape. The snow is heavy and sticky. With every step, I have to clean off my snowshoes with my poles to make any progress.

  I reach the house by the lake. There are no fresh tracks. I am the only one who knows the secrets of this place. With one snowshoe I push aside the snow and ice from the shed doors. A padlock keeps the latch shut, but it is not locked. When I open the doors, the ATV is there, waiting under its tarp.

  I sort through the piles of objects and tools in the shed and put everything useful in a box and strap it to the front of the ATV. A sleeping bag, a hammer, a short saw, a retractable knife, rope, and the tarp. All sorts of things. Among the treasures is an old pack of cigarettes. There are six left. I finish the job: I tie the gas cans on the back, on the luggage carrier, and I walk down to the lake with a cigarette in my mouth.

  The ice is covered by a good layer of water. The lake is about to break up. Its surface is grey and featureless. Like the sky. I can’t tell where the lake begins and the shoreline ends.

  I move a little closer and light my cigarette.

  The mountains rise up around the lake and close one upon the other. I squint and make out a path that leads into the back country. A white line on a white background. That must be the way to go. There is always a lot of snow in the woods at the end of winter. If I bog down, I can use the ATV’s winch to get unstuck. Those machines are made to get through anything.

  My cigarette is very good, and I smoke it down to the filter. I throw the butt toward the lake and turn around to head back to the shed. But when I move, the snow gives way beneath my feet and I’m up to my thighs in water. My boots and clothes are soaked in a matter of seconds. I try to get free, but I have nothing to hold onto, and the ice breaks when I put any weight on it. I finally manage to drag myself back onto the snow by stretching out full length. But once I start crawling, the surface opens up again and I fall back into the icy water. By the time I reach the shore, I am frozen stiff. It’s not easy finding my feet. My clothes weigh a tonne and I have lost my sense of direction. I have lost my coordination, too, an
d I have to concentrate to put one foot in front of the other. I stop in front of the shed. I am trembling, my teeth are chattering, and I am afraid I’m going to pass out with every breath. I need dry clothes. Now. Right now.

  I move toward the house. My heart is pounding, but it is barely delivering any blood to my limbs. I throw myself against the door. It is locked. It looks like the downstairs windows have been boarded up from inside. The ones upstairs are out of reach. Cold is taking hold of me a little more firmly with each second. I can’t open and close my hands anymore.

  I check the door and try to take a deep breath. Use my shoulder. My hip. My feet. The frame splinters, and the door finally gives way. I fall forward inside the house and pull off my clothes as fast as possible, struggling on the floor. The scars on my legs are deep blue. I run upstairs, shivering, open the first chest of drawers I see, and throw on all the clothes I can.

  The socks, long johns, pants, wool sweater – they’re all a little small for me but that doesn’t matter. I sit on the edge of the bed and rub my legs for as long as I can.

  When my limbs thaw out, I explore the room. I go to the closet in hopes of finding a pair of boots. When I open the door, my heart stops. Beneath the clothes on hangers is a shadow curled up on itself. It is motionless. I bend over. It is a woman. She is thin and old. Her white hair is shiny, her skin diaphanous, her eyes wide open. In a panic I exit the room and go down the stairs, making as little noise as possible, as if I had disturbed the repose of a very tired person.

  Everything is impeccable in her kitchen. The floor is clean, the dishes are stacked in the cupboards, and an immaculate oil lamp stands proudly in the centre of the table. Home-made preserves are carefully lined up in the pantry along with baskets of garlic, onions, and potatoes. Only the cold and the dead plants on the windowsill betray the harmony of the room.

  For a moment I wonder why I didn’t come here earlier. Matthias and I would have had something to eat, and the lady might have been freed from her loneliness.

  In the vestibule I come upon a lumberjack shirt and rain boots. They will have to do. I pick supplies at random, gather up my wet clothes, and go out, trying to close the smashed-in door as best I can. Then, slowly, very slowly, I go back, regretting that I have to put off my departure. But as I walk away, I am not thinking so much of my aunts and uncles in their hunting camp but of the distress of the old woman in her closet.

  THIRTY-THREE

  When I make it back to the house at the end of the afternoon, the birds are pecking away at the rotten fish. I stop to watch them, then go into the living room. And here I thought I would never set foot in this place again. I try stoking the fire, but there is no more wood, and I don’t have the strength to attack the kitchen walls. Nor to go outside and gather wet branches.

  At one spot in the room are the books we piled up when we burned the shelves. The books where Matthias poached his stories. I lean over and grab a few of them, the first ones I get to. I go back to the fireplace and, without hesitation, throw one onto the embers. The cover catches almost immediately. The corners roll up and the cardboard bends in the flames. The first pages bunch into each other. The book opens like an accordion. The heat is intense, but soon the book is no more than a shapeless, orange-and-black mass. Like a fragile, burning stone. I throw another book on, and the flames leap higher, spiralling up the chimney, and bright light fills the room. I take off all my clothes to enjoy the heat of the books and eat a few pickled beets from the old woman’s house. As I watch the pages burn, I wonder where Matthias might be about now. Further than I’ve gotten, that’s for sure.

  Suddenly I hear the door creak. Someone has entered the house. It is a reflex: I tie a blanket around my waist and pick up the poker. The footsteps come down the hallway. I hide against the wall. Maybe it is the ghost of the old woman coming to reclaim her beets. A figure stops in the doorway. I stand motionless, both hands gripping the poker. The intruder must be on his guard too. I hold my breath. Then Matthias walks into the room. When he spots me in the corner, he looks surprised. It must be what I’m wearing. We size each other up a moment, then he begins coughing uncontrollably.

  I lost control of the car, he explains, disoriented and still in a state of panic. In the curve before the big hill, a few kilometres past the village. I wasn’t going fast, but I skidded into the ditch. The snow … the snow took my car. I couldn’t do anything about it. I had to walk to get back here. It’s over now, everything is over.

  I hand him the jar of beets. He eats a few, his eyes empty.

  I left everything back there. His voice is trembling. My stuff, the supplies, the gas.

  You’re exhausted, I tell him, throwing a few books on the fire. You need to sleep. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.

  I’m afraid. I’m afraid of being stuck here, he sobs, lying down on the sofa.

  THIRTY

  It is cold in the living room this morning. Matthias is still asleep. His white hair is stuck to his forehead. His beard is dirty and his closed eyes are sunk deep in their sockets.

  As I stir the ashes to awaken the embers, I see there are bits of paper where a few words, a part of a sentence, are still legible. As if Matthias’s return had frozen the flames.

  I go out for some fresh air. It is snowing. The snowflakes are tiny, like confetti. I consider Matthias’s stubbornness, his misfortune, as I watch the birds pecking away at the remains of the fish. Some of them hop from piece to piece, others concentrate on a single prize, but all of them are agitated and on the alert. When I go inside to get my slingshot, they fly off in a disorderly cloud. And when I go back onto the porch, a few minutes later, they return, one by one.

  I wonder what it must be like to have lived as long as Matthias has. And shared your whole life with the same woman. Be afraid you might lose her. And die alone, by yourself. Like the old woman in the house by the lake.

  The harsh cry of blue jays stirs me from my thoughts. Several of the birds are perched on an electric wire. One of them spreads its wings, flies past the house, and lands on the snow, a few steps from the porch. It evaluates its chances with its piercing, intelligent eyes, then moves toward the fish, its head cocked. Slowly, I raise my arm, pull back the elastic, and aim. I let fly with a shot. The projectile whips past it, over its head, and disappears into the snow without a sound. The bird lifts its head, but does not move. I wait a little, then try another shot. This time, the bird topples over backward. When I go to pick it up, its wings are still quivering with the final reflexes of its nervous system. I take up position again and wait for another bird of its size to land in front of me, guided by its stomach and the light of spring.

  THIRTY

  Matthias wakes up as I am making our meal. He seems to be in better shape. Sleep has restored his energy. He sips at a glass of warm water, then takes out the one book he had brought along with him in his coat pocket.

  This book is precious, he tells me. I’ve read you a few passages from it.

  A good thing he carried it with him. Otherwise I would have thrown it in the fire with the other ones to cook our food.

  Listen, he begins, setting the book on his lap, and take heed. A man had two sons. One day, the youngest announced to his father that he was leaving. Fine, said the father, I will give you half of what I possess, for the other half will go to your brother. Not long after, having gathered together the fortune, the youngest son went off to a faraway country and dissipated everything in debauchery. When all was spent, he found himself empty-handed and was forced to feed the pigs that belonged to a rich land-owner. To quell his hunger, he was ready to dip into the animals’ feed, but that was forbidden. In desperation, he decided to run away. Though he no longer considered himself the worthy son of his father, he returned to his homeland. He approached the house, feeling ashamed and lost, and when his father saw him, he threw his arms around him. I am not worthy to be your son, the young man said. But the fa
ther ordered a fatted calf to be slaughtered and a great banquet to be held for his glorious return. Let us eat and make merry, he sang, for my son was dead and now he has returned to life, he was lost and now he is found. During the festivities the eldest son came back from the fields. He questioned the guests and learned that a fatted calf had been killed to celebrate his brother’s return. When he saw his father, the eldest flew into a rage. All these years I have worked for you without a word of complaint, he spoke, and you never as much as gave me a goat kid that I might feast with my friends. And now your youngest son returns after wasting half your fortune, and you kill a fatted calf. The father looked at his son. Then he answered in a soft voice. My son, you are always by my side and everything I have is yours. But we had to hold a feast and make merry because your brother was dead and now he has returned to life, he was lost and now he is found.

  I motion to Matthias to sit down. The meal is ready. He sits near the fireplace, stares at his plate, then looks up.

  What is this?

  It’s the feast.

  We begin to eat. The flesh is tough. We have to chew every mouthful at length.

  Matthias picks up a piece and holds it up, examining it.

  This meat’s like leather. What is it?

  Blue jay.

  Oh, he says, turning toward the books I have piled next to the fireplace.

  We finish our plates without further conversation.

  TWENTY-NINE

  After we eat I tell Matthias to get dressed and come with me.

  He doesn’t react.

  I insist.

  Come on, I need your help. Take everything you need, we won’t be coming back.