I went outside to look at the far mountains in sunlight. Then turned towards our own, the Grenon, which covered the sky on the other side. I wanted to climb to its top and see what Barma looked like from up there. It had been looming above me every day for two months, but I had not thought of doing this until now: I think that my legs themselves were fostering the desire in me, together with the heat of summer. They were restless again, having regained their strength, and the summer was drawing me towards the heights.
Bruno came down from the roof where he was working on a painstaking job. A layer of lead needed to be fixed between the rock face and the roof, so that the water draining down on rainy days would not find its way into the house. The lining needed to be molded one piece at a time with a hammer, so that it would follow and adhere to every hollow and protrusion. The lead was soft, and with careful work it looked in the end almost as if it had been soldered to the rock, or as if it were one of its own dark veins. In this way the roof and the rock became a single surface.
I asked Bruno about the path leading to the Grenon, and he pointed to a track that went up from the lake along the slope. It disappeared in a thicket of alder, crossed a swampy area, and reappeared further on between flounces of new grass. Behind there, he said, what looked like a ridge actually hid another basin, and another lake smaller than our own. From the lake onwards it was all scree. There wasn’t really a path to follow when climbing it, perhaps just a few piled stones indicating the way, or some track used by chamois. But in any case, he said, pointing to a notch in the crest of the summit where a residual snowfield stood out, by keeping my eye fixed on that snow I couldn’t go wrong.
“I’d like to take a trip up there,” I said. “On Saturday or Sunday maybe if it’s sunny.”
“Why not go now,” he said. “I can do this on my own.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. Take a day off. Go on, go.”
The lake higher up was different from ours. The last few Swiss pines and larch trees, the last clumps of willow and alder gradually disappeared from the slope, and beyond the ridge the rarefied air of the mountain already blew. The lake was only a greenish pool surrounded by meager grazing and expanses of blueberries. Twenty or so unattended goats were huddled near a ruin and ignored my presence, or almost. The path ended there, amongst the false trails made by the passage of cattle, where the threadbare grass gave way to slabs of scree. I could see clearly the snowfield up above, and I remembered my father’s rules: I imagined a straight line between myself and the snow and took it. I could hear his voice in my ears, saying: straight, go up this way.
It had been a long time since I had walked above the treeline. I had never done so alone—but must have learned well, as I still felt at ease moving across the scree. I would see a pile of stones up ahead and make directly for it, moving from stone to stone, instinctively choosing the largest and most stable and avoiding the unstable ones. I felt a kind of give from the rocks, which did not absorb your step like earth or grass but returned some of the force to your legs, enhancing your momentum. So as soon as I had placed a foot on a stone and pushed my weight forwards and upwards the other foot began to move forwards too, and I soon found myself running and leaping across the scree, almost ceding control to my legs and letting them do the work for me. I felt that I could trust them, and that I could not go wrong. I remembered the joy that my father showed as soon as we had left behind the Alpine meadows and entered into the world of rock. The same joy that I felt now, coursing through my own body.
When I reached the small snowfield I was breathing heavily from the run. I stopped to touch that August snow. It was icy and granular, so hard that you needed to scrape it with your nails, and I gathered together a handful to wipe over my forehead and neck to cool myself down. I sucked on it until I felt my lips sting, then climbed across the last section of scree up to the crest. Now the view opened up for me on the other side of the Grenon, the side that was in the sun, where beneath my feet after a section of rock a long meadow sloped gently down to a group of huts, and to grazing dotted by cattle. It seemed as if I had suddenly descended a thousand meters, or had found myself in another season. In front of me the full light of summer and the sound of the lively cattle; behind me, when I looked back, a shadowy, sombre autumn of damp rock and patches of snow. From up here the two lakes were twinned by the perspective. I looked for the house that Bruno and I were building, but perhaps I was too high up—or perhaps it was too well blended-in to be distinguished from the mountain that supplied the material from which it was made.
The piles of stone markers continued beneath the ridge, along a good ledge. But I felt like climbing, and seeing no great difficulties ahead of me decided to reach the summit this way. For the first time in years I placed my hand on the rock, selected footholds, and heaved myself up. Although it was an easy climb, the old maneuvers demanded my complete concentration. I had to think again about exactly where to place each hand and foot, using balance rather than force, trying to stay light. I soon lost all sense of time. I was oblivious to the surrounding mountains, and to the two contrasting worlds that plummeted beneath me: only the rock face directly in front of me existed, only my feet and my hands. Until I reached a point at which it was impossible to climb further, and only then did I realize that I was at the summit.
Now what? I thought. There was a mound of stones on the crest. Beyond this rudimentary monument Monte Rosa had appeared, its glaciers outlined against the sky. Perhaps I should have had a beer with me with which to celebrate, but feeling neither exultation nor relief I decided to stay only as long as it would take to smoke a cigarette, bid farewell to my father’s mountain, and then head back down.
I still knew how to recognize each one of the peaks. I observed them while smoking, from east to west, and remembered all of their names. I wondered how high I’d reached, and thinking that I must have passed the three thousand meter mark without any adverse effects on my stomach, I began to look around for any marker giving the altitude. I saw that jammed into a mound of stones there was a metal box. I knew immediately what would be inside. I opened the lid and found a notebook inside a plastic bag, which had not wholly succeeded in protecting it. Its ruled pages had the texture of paper that had dried after getting wet. There were also a couple of pens inside, with which those rare climbers to this point had left a thought, or sometimes just a name and date. The last entry had been made over a week ago. I leafed through its pages and saw that no more than ten people a year had climbed this barren mountain, which cast its shadow over my house and which I already thought of as mine, and that its record of these climbers therefore went back over many years. I read many names, and hardly impressive comments. It seemed to be the case that after so much exertion nobody could find the words with which to express what they felt: those who tried left only some poetic or “spiritual” banality. I leafed backwards through the notebook somewhat irritated by humankind, and did not know what I was looking for until I found it: two lines, from 1997. I recognized the handwriting. And the spirit behind the words. He had written: Climbed up from Grana in 3 hours and 58 minutes. Still in great shape! Giovanni Guasti.