Читать книгу The Horn Of The Hare - Günther Bach - Страница 7

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The road lost itself in the snow behind the last houses. Up-slope, the wind had blown the snow over the side of the steep cut and buried the sweetbrier under an impassable snowdrift. Blue shadows lay in the only track which led up the hill to the only house standing at its top. The track then went on in a gradual curve toward the woods. The white surface was undisturbed all around the house. A high drift of loose snow blocked the threshold, and the windows looked cold and black in the clear light of day. A gust of wind drove a swirling, glistening banner of powder snow from the peak of the roof. The leafless birch twigs rustled as they rubbed together. A crow flew over the narrow strip of woods along the steep shore. A glance back over the village revealed white banners of smoke rising vertically above the roofs and then fading just above the scattered groups of trees. Further away in the background, the noon ship to Stralslund trailed a white wake behind it on the bay. And the light was cold which played across the surface of the bay.

It was the end of March, but it seemed as if winter had come back once more.

At this time of year it was hard not to attract notice in the village. During the summer, visitors arrived daily in their hundreds to wander over the hill, to crowd around the small number of cafes and bars, to buy cheap souvenirs in the stalls and souvenir shops, and to swim at the beach. You could remain unnoticed in the crowd.

But now?

The exposed position of the house meant that no one could approach it without being seen. It was impossible to get to it unobserved. Up to now, everything had seemed clear and simple. Just take the path behind the village at nightfall, go past the old smithy and between the woods and the hill, and then come back between the hedges of bearberry and seabuckthorn.

You would be out of sight of the village.

But now there was snow on the ground and it would betray every footstep. If the snow stayed on the ground, I had made the trip for nothing. Four days – a long weekend – that was all the time I had to find out what had happened.