Читать книгу The Weight of Snow - Christian Guay-Poliquin - Страница 21

I awake. The sun is high in the sky and the blanket of snow lustrous with cold. Blinding. I slept poorly last night, my legs hurt, pain seized my bones. I could not close my eyes.

Kneeling in front of the plastic basin, Matthias is doing the washing. He rubs our clothes hard with detergent and hangs them on the line above the stove.

He gets on my nerves. Not only is he indefatigable, he is surprisingly agile. He leans over, straightens, and pivots as if his age were a simple disguise. When he drops something, he often catches it before it hits the floor. He is flexible and energetic. Slow at times, but always flexible and energetic.

Often he works without a word, though sometimes he talks too much. When he changes my bandages, when he stokes the fire, when he stirs the soup, when he washes the dishes, he chatters, he chats, he recites. I never answer. After all, he is only thinking out loud.

He was brought up in a world buried under work and days, he often says. Just before the great wars. The streets of his village were unpaved. The houses were bursting with children who wore hand-me-down boots with holes. Life in its entirety revolved around hard work and a few prayers.

Those were different days, he goes on, I would slip away from the family uproar and go to watch the blacksmith across the way hammer the metal and talk to the horses. If I really concentrate, I can still hear his raspy voice and smell the scent of burnt hoof, the fire, the iron. That was the only place where I could believe in something else. As if every animal newly shod could carry me somewhere far away. My parents died young and with them died their way of being, I took over the house and little by little the past fell silent. The flame had gone out in the heart of the forge. The newspapers shouted news of the future and fresh promises hurried to seduce us. A few kilometres distant, we could see the bony structure of the city rising. Dreams came from all directions in scrolls of smoke, there was talk of lighting the streets, digging tunnels, sending up buildings higher than steeples. My children were born, the fields fell prey to pavement, the church disappeared behind office towers. The family dwelling was lost in the corridors of intersections, fast lanes, and billboards. Everywhere you looked, cranes were harassing the horizon, a thick odour of asphalt weighed upon the roofs, in the streets the belly of the city was being opened up and sewn back again. From my balcony I heard the song of sirens. Sometimes I saw flashing lights speed by, other times not. The misfortunes were distant and anonymous. Then the children left and the house became very big and very empty. The rooms echoed with the ticking of clocks. My wife and I were alone to contemplate the endless construction sites, the sweaty foreheads of the workers, the rattling of steam shovels that lifted their arms like docile, powerful beasts. I remember the dust that floated in the beams of sunlight. When the grandchildren came to the house it was a blessing. My wife glowed with happiness. Even after fifty years of life together, I never grew tired of her beauty, her charm, her grace. But time is a thief. My wife started clinging ever tighter to the things she knew. Her memory wavered and her voice trailed off in the labyrinth of her words. She maintained an irritated, confused silence. Her movements became abrupt. Hesitation filled her eyes. I didn’t know who, of the two of us, truly recognized the other. Then one day she fell in the bathroom. I felt the end was near. The phone, waiting for the ambulance. They took her a few blocks away, to a building of elevators and corridors. I visited her every day. Her eyes soon lost their colour, and nothing seemed to bother her anymore. She started smiling again, and showed no intention of returning from her enchanted island. She knew I would be there every day, by her side. With age and fatigue, the chronology of life blurred. We distrust our memories more than we do our forgetfulness. I needed time off. I needed fresh air. I left for a week in my old car. Drive, see the landscape. See the landscape, and drive. Take a long trip, then return and see my wife, my head clear. A few days later, my car broke down in the middle of the forest. I walked to the village in search of a mechanic. Then the electricity went off. At first I thought the neighbour lady would come and get me. That was what she said when I talked to her on the phone. All right, I’ll get on the road tonight, I’ll be there tomorrow. A few days later, she still had not shown up. The phone lines stopped working. I kept waiting. I didn’t understand, she had always been a trustworthy person. I was desperate, I tried to steal a pickup truck, but didn’t know how to go about it. In any case, all the gas had been siphoned off and people kept a jealous watch over their supplies. There was no way out. I decided to settle in here. Then one night the trap snapped shut. They brought me a feverish, crippled young man. That man was you.

Matthias is still bent over the basin, surrounded by a heap of clothes and a bucket of water. On the line above his head, the pants, shirts, socks, and underwear look like carefully sorted rags.

My wife is waiting for me, he explains, and he stops scrubbing. She is waiting for my visit. She waits every day. I promised her. I have to get back to town. I have to get back to her side. I have no choice. I promised. I promised never to abandon her. I promised to die with her.

Matthias’s voice wavers. He will burst into tears at any moment.

Look, he says, pulling a photo from his pocket, that’s her.

I don’t know how to react. I pick up my spyglass and scan the empty landscape. The snow gauge shows the same amount as yesterday.