Whenever she stopped, she was surprised by the noise of her breathing and the frantic beating of her heart in the silence of the mountains. She swallowed a mouthful of bread, let a little snow melt in her mouth, and went on again. Her secret hope was to find shelter before nightfall, but the sun was already sinking behind the mountain peaks in the west, and she hadn’t yet seen any sign of a human dwelling.
At last the slope became less steep. She couldn’t be far from the plains now. Since it was slowly growing darker, and a sharp chill was penetrating her sweater, Helen put on Pastor’s sheepskin jacket and quickened her pace. She didn’t like the idea of sleeping outside. Luckily some rocks soon appeared ahead of her, and then came the green grass of the plains. She took off her snowshoes and tied them to her knapsack by their straps. A path went downhill past a wood of silver birch trees. She followed it, and she hadn’t gone five hundred yards before a small stone cottage appeared to her right on the far side of a meadow.
The cottage was certainly very old, but it looked well maintained. A thin plume of white smoke rose from the chimney. A giant pig was squelching around in the mud of its enclosure, two huge, dirty ears flapping against its sides. Helen had never seen such an enormous pig. It must weigh almost two tons. She went up to the wooden door and knocked, waited in vain for someone to answer the door, and knocked again. She thought briefly of Goldilocks: Would there be three bowls of porridge on the table? And three chairs? And three beds? The enormous pig was watching her from a distance, with unearthly grunts emerging from its throat.
“Anyone there?” called Helen.
She walked all around the cottage, but she couldn’t see a sleigh or any kind of cart, only stocks of firewood under a lean-to. Back on the other side again, she tapped at the window panes.
“Anyone there?”
She put her face against the glass. The room inside was lost in the dim light, but in the faint glow of the fire in the stove she saw someone sitting on a chair, both legs propped on a foot warmer.
“Please, sir!” called Helen, and the man raised his eyes and saw her. “Please, may I come in?”
She decided that the vague movement of the man’s head meant yes and opened the door. The room had a low ceiling. Its entire furnishings were a cupboard, a table, a clock, and two benches standing on the trodden-earth floor. Helen went over to the stove.
“Excuse me, sir, but I saw the smoke and . . .”
The man was even older than she’d thought. Or perhaps he was sick. Deep wrinkles lined his tired face; the last of his scant white hair lay over his forehead like a funny little comma. He was keeping his hands warm under the blanket that covered his knees.
“I’ve come down from the mountain refuge,” Helen ventured. “The refuge — you know, in the mountains?”
The old man didn’t seem to understand. He was watching her without alarm but without any real curiosity either. His large ears stood out from his bald head.
“Do you live alone here?” She took a closer look around the room and saw a second wicker chair drawn up close to the stove. “Do you live alone here?” she repeated, raising her voice and pointing to the chair. “Is there anyone else here with you?”
She was already resigning herself to further silence when he opened his mouth and, in a hoarse voice, uttered a short and totally incomprehensible sentence, something like, “Sjo ce adji?”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked.
He repeated the same words, but raising his voice and sounding annoyed.
“I’m afraid I don’t speak your language,” Helen apologized. “I . . .”
He brought a thin arm out from under the blanket and pointed his shaking hand at her. “Bjoy? Gjirl?”
“Oh, I see!” said Helen, laughing. “A girl! I’m a girl!”
With her short hair, her square face, and wearing Pastor’s jacket, she could indeed have passed for a boy. As soon as the old man knew that she was a girl, he seemed better disposed to her. He signaled to her to draw up the other chair and sit down. But that was as far as communication went, and they sat there face-to-face, now and then exchanging rather awkward smiles. Helen was just wondering how the evening was going to turn out when the door opened and a little old woman wearing a head scarf came in. She closed the door after her, quickly hung up her coat on a nail, and stopped dead in the middle of the room when she saw the visitor, who had risen from her chair. However, after the old man had said something in his own language, she walked toward Helen at once with her arms spread wide, “Hugo’s fiancée!”
“No, I’m not Hugo’s fiancée,” replied Helen, glad to find someone who could understand her at last. “I got lost in the mountains, and —”
“Oh, I see,” said the old lady, obviously disappointed, but she hugged Helen warmly all the same. Her cold cheeks felt soft as silk. “And you’re lost?”
“That’s right. I’ve come from the refuge up in the mountains. You know it?”
“Yes, yes, I know the refuge.”
“My friend’s up there, he’s injured — badly injured — do you understand? It’s his leg. I came down to find help, he needs medical attention.”
As she told her story, the old man was trying to talk to his wife too, and the poor woman didn’t know which of them to listen to.
“He thinks you’re Hugo’s fiancée,” she told Helen at last. “Stubborn as a mule, he is! Just tell him Hugo’s well and then he’ll leave us in peace!”
“Hugo’s well,” Helen told the old man, smiling and articulating clearly. “He’s very well.”
“Ah,” he said, satisfied, and then he was quiet.
The old lady gave Helen a conspiratorial wink, as if to say, Now we can talk sensibly.
“As I was telling you, my friend’s in the mountain refuge,” Helen tried again. “He’s badly injured. I need to find a sleigh to go and get him down, or a doctor to go up and treat him.”
“Oh, is there a doctor in the mountain refuge?”
“No! No, there isn’t a doctor in the refuge! My friend’s all alone up there. He’s injured. Do you know a doctor?”
“Well, my son . . .”
“Your son’s a doctor?”
The expression on the old woman’s face suddenly changed. She looked at Helen in astonishment. “My son’s a doctor, is he? My youngest son?”
Oh, my God, Helen thought, what on earth have I landed in? But she persisted all the same. “Yes, you just told me your son is a doctor. Didn’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. . . . Would you like a little soup?”
For the first time, Helen noticed a cast-iron pan heating up on the stove. Steam was escaping from under the lid. Why not take advantage of the offer? Night had fallen now, and she would have to eat and sleep somewhere.
The little old lady lit an oil lamp hanging from a beam in the ceiling and took a large bowl out of the table drawer. “I’ll see to my man first. He shakes too much to feed himself. He’s not quite right in the head, you know. He hasn’t spoken anything but his mother tongue for some time. Oh, it’s so sad, my dear. You should have seen him when he was young!”
Helen watched her feeding her husband the soup, standing close to him. It was touching to see her patience and the delicacy of her gestures. Then she and Helen sat down at the table for their own meal. Sadly, the soup wasn’t as good as Helen had hoped. She could hardly swallow the lukewarm pieces of potato and turnip floating in a broth that tasted of nothing much.
“Is there anyone else living near here?” she asked. “Other houses?”