‘I think Herman’s little plan worked.’
She squinted again and peered through the windscreen. This far away from town they didn’t sand the roads, or at least, not any more. The road that, a few miles back, had wound through the whiteness like a black river, was now nothing more than an indentation in a landscape that had been stripped of all distinguishing features.
‘What little plan?’
I told her. That one of the terms of Herman’s will, a biography of him in exchange for the house, had been his final attempt to lure me away from the domain of the fairy tale. That he had always thought my work was a waste of talent and, all my life, had tried to change me. ‘And now, after fifty years, he’s actually done it. I can’t get away with some fake biography. But I can’t see myself writing a real one either. The Life and Works of Herman Hollander … No. Somehow or other I have to tell everything. From Great-Great-Grand-Uncle Chaim up until this very moment. Like that story about the English explorer who finds himself in an Indian tribe in the Amazon. Never seen a white man. He and his travelling companions receive a royal welcome and that night around the fire the tribal sorcerer tells them the history of his people, from the moment the gods created the first Indian out of a crocodile, up until the moment that three white-skinned, red-headed Englishmen walked into the village.’
‘The Creation of the World, and everything that goes with it. By Nathan Hollander.’
‘Something like that.’
Nina sighed.
We had reached the end of a long, sluggish dip in the road and were now moving slowly upward, up the Mountain that wasn’t a mountain. Conifers, heavy with snow, jostled along the narrow path. Now and then the car skidded and Nina had to shift down to get it back on course. The woods grew denser, the road narrower, until all that remained was a path that bore like a tunnel through the thick hedge of tall white firs. It twisted left to right and the car glided right to left. I looked sideways and, in a flash, saw ghosts among the trees. They were hurrying along with us to the top. Uncle Chaim, Magnus, Herman, Manny, Zeno. They dashed through the thick white forest like a pack of wolves. The road curled once more, the car wriggled, groaning, into a curve. It was as if we were driving so slowly because we were laden down with history, as if my family was indeed running along the edge of the wood, while the weight of their stories hung from the rear bumper.
‘Shit.’
With a thud, the car veered into a snowdrift. The engine screeched and died. The snow scurried around us and the windscreen wipers stuck out through the layer of down that was forming on the glass. Nina opened the door and looked outside. Then she turned to me in amusement. ‘We’re stuck.’
I rolled down my window a little and tried to inspect our surroundings through the veils sweeping by. ‘It’s not even supposed to snow this hard around here.’
‘Yes, but when it does you get an instant seventeenth-century winter landscape.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘The only thing we can do,’ said Nina. ‘Walk.’
‘Don’t you think you’ll be able to get us out?’
‘I can try, but it doesn’t look hopeful.’
‘I’ll push.’
I got out. Nina started the car, put it into reverse, and slowly released the clutch. I leaned against the bonnet. The wheels churned through the snow, the car glided slowly backwards. When she had manoeuvred it to the middle of the path, about thirty feet back, I went around to her door and leaned over. Nina rolled down her window and began laughing. ‘You look incredible.’
‘We’d better walk the rest of the way,’ I said. ‘It’ll take hours to get past that bank and I think it’ll only get worse higher up the Mountain.’
‘What do we do with your luggage?’
‘I can manage, it’s just one bag.’
She got out of the car. I took my suitcase out of the boot, and then got out the tow rope. I tied one end around Nina’s waist, the other around my own. She arched her left eyebrow, but said nothing.
It snowed. It snowed it snowed it snowed. When we looked back after sixty feet or so, we could hardly see the car anymore. In a few hours’ time it would be a barely visible bulge in a high white bank.
From where we were stranded the path went up and to the left. It was only recognizable as a path because it was fringed with trees. I had no idea exactly where we were or how much farther we had to walk. We waded through the knee-deep snow, hampered by our long coats and slippery shoes and the shrieking snowstorm. Now and then I felt Nina tug on the rope and I turned round and waited until she signalled for us to move on.
After half an hour’s walking the path disappeared. In a whirling white vortex of snow, half visible, fast asleep behind the shuttered library and hunting room windows, stood the house.
‘Well, here we are …’ said Nina, her shoulders hunched in the snow-covered coat.
The storm seemed to have subsided, slow fat flakes were falling, creamy tufts of white that floated down with such ease, they seemed to be saying: No need for us to hurry, there are so many of us, we have all the time in the world. I looked at the house and felt something stirring inside.
Even though the snow lay thick upon my shoulders and was falling so steadily that it nearly robbed me of the view, my thoughts slipped readily into the lake of memories that encircled this place, and instead of white, white, and more white, I saw the long wooden table that had been set out in the garden when we spent our last summer here all together: the tablecloths hanging down in the tall grass, wine bottles here and there, half-empty, half-full, the flowers Zoe had strewn among the dishes and bread baskets, the gentle confusion of empty chairs around the table. At the back of the garden Zelda and Sophie, our mother, were playing badminton, Zeno lay asleep on the garden seat, smiling like a buddha, and Zoe and Alexander – I think it was still Alexander in those days – walked hand in hand in the soft twilight at the edge of the lawn, where the woods began. Bumblebees buzzed above the wine glasses, way, way up in the sky swallows were chasing thrips, and the smell of resin and dry wood wafted down from the treetops.
‘I’ll tell you what you’re thinking,’ said Uncle Herman. He blew out a grey-blue cloud of cigar smoke, a Romeo y Julietta, so fragrant it made my head swim. ‘You’re thinking, if only things could always be this way.’
We were sitting side by side on the red-tiled verandah, a table with ice bucket and bottle between us.
‘If only things could always be this way, that’s what you’re thinking. You’re such a sentimental bastard. A little sun, some wine, the family in the garden, and you think: Une dimanche à la campagne. I know you.’ He puffed at his cigar. ‘Where’s Mrs Sanders?’
I turned around and looked inside. ‘No idea.’
‘Are you planning to stay and work here?’
A pretzel-shaped smoke ring floated off and didn’t dissolve until it was very far away from us.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If it’s all right with you.’
‘You didn’t get the key for nothing.
