“My son . . .” said the old woman.
“Your son the doctor?”
At this moment the old man in his chair repeated a question, several times. Helen caught the name Hugo.
“What’s he saying?”
“He wants to know how many children you and Hugo have. He’s rambling — wait a minute.”
She answered volubly in her husband’s language, and then stifled her laughter in the dishtowel she was still holding.
“What did you say?”
“I said you had seven, all boys, and two of them twins into the bargain! He’ll leave us in peace while he thinks that over!”
Sure enough, the old man nodded and immersed himself in his own thoughts again. Helen repressed her desire to laugh. This little old lady, so lively and so confused at the same time, was full of surprises.
“You were telling me your son lives here. Your son the doctor.”
“Oh, the doctor? Does he live here too?”
“Yes, your son . . .”
“Ah yes, my son. He’ll be coming tomorrow morning. Would you like a glass of wine, my dear?”
“What time will your son be here? Because my friend is injured up there in the mountain refuge.”
“Yes, yes, didn’t you say it’s his leg?”
“That’s right. His leg is injured. Will your son the doctor be able to help him? Do you think he’ll be able to treat him?”
The old woman trotted over to the door at the back of the room and opened it. A flight of steps led up to the second floor and another went down to the cellar. She picked up a half-full bottle of wine from the first step and took two glasses out of the cupboard.
“I don’t drink wine,” said Helen. Her impatience was getting her down. “I’d rather have —”
“Ah, you should have seen him when he was young!” the old lady interrupted her, filling the glasses. “Sixteen and a half, I was, working in the café. He was a woodcutter. We happened to pass them in a clearing, my friend Franciska and me. A dozen foreign workmen. They’d stopped for their break; they were bare-chested, playing boules with round stones. There was a lot of talking and laughter. He was better-looking than the others. Much better-looking. He had his stone in one hand and a piece of cheese in the other. His shoulders were shining with sweat. ‘Ooh,’ said Franciska, ‘did you see that one? Such a handsome man!’ What a laugh we had! And I made sure I passed that way alone over the next few days. One day he came up to me and we told each other our names. He was even better-looking up close than from a distance. And another time we agreed in sign language to meet that evening.”
Helen turned her head and looked at the old man’s liver-spotted skull, wrinkled neck, and thin shoulders as he dozed by the stove. In spite of her own impatience, she felt touched.
“And . . . so you got together?”
“Yes, that we did. Try keeping a boy and a girl apart! I waited for him behind my father’s workshop. I’d prettied myself up on the sly. Lipstick and everything. When I saw him come around the corner of the street and walk toward me I was bowled right over! He was wearing a white shirt, with an open collar showing his chest, and as for the crease in his trousers — oh, what a crease! Ironed in! And there he was, sleeping in a hut in the middle of the woods, but it didn’t keep him from looking elegant. Eighteen years old, he was, and there was I, sixteen and a half . . .”
“What a memory you have!”
“No, no, I forget everything these days, but not that. Come along, let’s drink to our health, my dear.”
They clinked glasses. The wine was rough as it went down Helen’s throat, and she found it hard to swallow the first mouthful.
“So then you had children?” she went on, a little ashamed of bringing the conversation back to what really interested her.
“Children, oh yes. We had . . . we had four. No, five.”
“And now the youngest is a doctor? Is that right?”
“I don’t remember . . . Oh, you must forgive me. I’m like him; I forget so much these days. Come along, time for bed. We sleep down here, in the little room next door, and you can have the room upstairs. Just take a candle from the drawer before you go up, dear.”
She went over to her husband, whispered something to him, and helped him to his feet. They both crossed the room, moving very slowly. Helen watched them pass her as she drank her wine. It was already going to her head. When the door of the little room next door had closed behind the two old people, she rose and went to sit by the stove to absorb a little warmth. It was sure to be cold upstairs. She was about to go up when the old lady came back in her nightdress, with a nightcap on her head.
“Look, dear.”
The photo in the wooden frame showed the head and shoulders of a young man wearing a tie. He had a black, neatly shaped beard, and he wore a peculiar flat cap on his head as he looked confidently into the lens.
“My son! Read what it says on the back.”
On the cardboard at the back of the frame someone had carefully written a date — it was thirty years ago — with the new graduate’s first name, Josef, and his qualification: doctor of medicine.
“Your son! That’s your son who’s coming tomorrow?”
“Yes, he comes every Tuesday. Good night, dear.”
Helen swiftly counted days. She and Milos had run away from school on Friday evening; two nights had passed since then. Maybe the old lady was right.
Although she was so tired, she found it hard to get to sleep. The bedroom was cold, the bed sagged, and the enormous eiderdown slipped to the floor at the slightest movement. She was haunted by her mental picture of Milos losing blood in the mountain refuge. She didn’t drop off until the small hours of the morning, lulled by the giant pig’s deep grunting. It shook the windowpanes.
The doctor arrived at ten in the morning in a muddy, high-built car, which was backfiring noisily. He was a dark-eyed man of about fifty. With his gray hair, bald patch, and shaggy beard, he didn’t look much like the photograph of his younger self. Helen ran over the meadow toward him before he even had time to get out of the car. It was a relief to talk to someone who could understand her!
“We’ll go on around the mountain in the car,” he said. “Then two hours on foot from a place I know will get us to the refuge.”
“You mean we’ll be up there by this evening?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Do you have your medical bag with you? Will you be able to treat him?”
“I have everything I’ll need. I’ll just leave my parents their provisions and then we’ll start.”
Helen could have kissed him. Her good-byes to the two old people were quickly said.
“Come back and see us soon!” said the old lady. “We enjoy a visit.”
“Gjirl!” the old man informed his son, pointing to Helen. And he embarked on a long and incomprehensible torrent of words in which the name of Hugo came up several times.
“What’s he saying?” asked Helen.
“He says you’re very young to have had seven sons with Hugo. I wonder how on earth he took such an idea into his head.”
“Who is this Hugo, anyway?” asked Helen, smiling.
“My son,” said the doctor. “He’ll be twelve in November.”
Then he put a toboggan into the trunk of the car and turned the starting handle. The pig gave them one last grunt by way of good-bye and they set off, with the old lady waving her dirty dishtowel from the doorstep.
The road went uphill along a gentle slope, but there were so many rocks that it was a bumpy ride. The car jolted along, and Helen had to hold on to the door handle beside her seat to keep from being thrown up into the air. Talking through the roar of the engine wasn’t easy.
“What were you doing up at the refuge at this time of year?” shouted the doctor.
“A walking trip!” Helen replied, surprised to find how much easier it was to shout a lie than tell one in a normal voice.
“The snow took you by surprise?”