Nora was above him, silent, waiting for him to wake up. Laughing, Paul asked her: “Now you’re going to scold me, right?”
“No.” She flung herself down in the snow alongside him and took a friendly grip on his arm. “Listen, Paul. There are two great dangers in skiing: believing that it’s too hard and believing that it’s too easy. Skiing is neither as hard as you thought it was yesterday, nor as easy as you think it is today. What you’re doing isn’t even an act of courage: it’s madness. Skiing doesn’t mean skidding blindly down the valley. You have to be in control of your speed. To be able to stop when you want to. To be able to turn when you want to. If you want to commit suicide, just tell me. I know other methods that work better.”
She spoke in her level, teacher’s voice. Paul listened to her submissively.
“Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”
“You have to listen to me. It’s indispensable that you listen to me. I want to make a good skier of you. It’s possible that your whole life from now on will depend on this…”
It didn’t strike him as exaggerated to hear her talking like this. In fact, if skiing was this enormous light which in truth he had experienced for only a few seconds, then maybe his whole life could begin again. “Shall we go back to the snowplow?” he asked, resigned.
“Yes, let’s go back. And we’re not going to stop until we know it. Once, ten times, a hundred times. Do you promise?”
“I swear.”
They came back to the cabin late, in the dark. Hagen was waiting for them in front of the house with a lamp that he was swinging between the pine trees in order to show them the trail from a distance. Faffner greeted them with friendly growls.
Inside the house it was warm, the fire was burning and tall flames filled the fireplace. A smell of tea and tobacco gave the warmth a sleepy, aromatic air.
“Where’s Gunther?” Nora asked.
Hagen did not reply to the question, but he passed Nora a piece of paper. “Gunther sent you this.”
Nora unfolded the sheet and read: Hagen said that you asked about me. I thank you. I’m sorry I won’t be able to come downstairs tonight, either. Please stay here. I’m happy that you’re here. I think that tomorrow I’ll be able to see you.
Nora, lifting her head, directed an enquiring gaze at Hagen. “Is he ill?”
“He’s not ill. He’s tired.”
It was obvious that he didn’t want to say anything more. Nora regarded him with a certain fear. Why did I stay here alone with him? Paul had gone upstairs to change out of his ski clothes, which were damp with melting snow. She heard him moving around in the upstairs room. A stupid but reassuring thought passed through her mind: If I scream, he’ll hear me.
Hagen pulled his cape over his shoulders and remained standing in his heavy black jacket. He has such blue eyes and yet he’s so dark! Nora thought. She was next to the bookshelf, in front of the same delicate portrait of a woman that she had also looked at last night.
“Is that Gunther’s mother?”
“Yes. That’s young Mrs. Grodeck.”
She has Gunther’s eyes, but not his gaze, Nora thought to herself, remembering the expression of tenderness with which the boy had looked at this portrait.
“Doesn’t she come here?”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Grodeck. Young Mrs. Grodeck, as you call her.”
Hagen did not reply. The question appeared to trouble him. “I’m going to see what Gunther is doing,” he said suddenly. “He may need me.”
Nora walked to the window and remained there for a while, plunged in thought. She didn’t even hear Paul when he came down the stairs and approached her. She gave a frightened shudder as he put his hand on her shoulder.
“What’s the matter, Nora? What’s happened?”
“You startled me. I didn’t realize it was you.”
“Who else could it be?”
“No one, of course. But there are so many strange things in this house.”
“What sorts of strange things?”
“I don’t really know. The boy in the tower who doesn’t come down and whom we’re forbidden to see. The man in the dark cape who refuses to answer questions. The portrait nobody’s allowed to ask about…”
Outside, the dog, hearing voices, came through the snow until he was beneath the window and stood up with his paws against the wall, looking at them through the glass with his good, watery eyes. Nora opened the door for him. “Come in, Faffner. Come inside. Maybe you can tell us what’s going on here.”
Sleepy, the dog allowed his bearlike fur and his big muzzle to be stroked. Next to his half-torn right ear, he had a scar that reached his neck. “You’re like a man who’s suffering,” Nora told him, and pulled him towards her armchair, close to the fireplace.
With Faffner next to her, she felt protected without knowing against what. She would have liked to stay in the armchair for hours on end…
The evening meal lasted a long time. Only the two of them ate, served by Hagen, in silence that was interrupted only by the tinkling of the plates and a few of the dog’s growls from in front of the fireplace.
“If you go to bed,” Hagen told them, “there’s no need to put out the small lamp on the bookshelf. It usually stays on all night.”
They heard him closing the shutters on the windows and the doors.
Is it that late? Nora wondered. Do we really have to go to bed?
A discomfort came over her. She remembered that even Paul was a stranger, or at most a friend. Their night of lovemaking, their only night of lovemaking, had been a coincidence, a misunderstanding, a forgotten event to which she did not wish to return. Since their departure she had been united with him, with the best possible goodwill, by a sporting pact, a pact between buddies, and she was determined to keep it that way. Last night they had slept side by side like two soldiers after a long march, felled by exhaustion. But now she was afraid of the coming night, which would find her awake, with her eyes open.
For the first time it struck her as wrong that they hadn’t stayed in the dormitory room at the Touring Club. There, at least, things would be clear, without danger, without temptation…
“It’s late, Nora,” Paul said, coming towards her. “Shall we go to bed?”
He posed the question with simplicity, without anxiety, without impatience. There was something assured in his manner, something conciliatory.
She didn’t know how to reply. She wasn’t hesitating, but neither could she find the word or gesture to match the situation.
“Let’s take things as they come,” he went on. “Let’s leave them to their own rhythm, all right?”
He enclosed her in his arms and kissed her slowly on the eyes, on the cheeks. His kisses were not passionate, but they were deep, warm kisses.
XI
TWO DAYS LATER, NORA LOOKED FOR the red-haired Saxon from the SKV chalet at the Touring Club. She was determined to talk to him and ask him about the “Grodeck mystery.”
But the man was nowhere to be found. There were dozens of skiers on the hill — many more even than the day before — and it would have been difficult to make out the man with the eyes of a badger among the crowd. She didn’t even know his name.