Mihail Sebastian - The Accident

“I have some in my backpack. Up at the Touring Club chalet.”

“We’ll send someone to bring it.”

Nora remained doubtful for a moment, on the verge of accepting the offer; but then she refused it. “No, I can’t stay.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not alone. I left without saying that I was leaving. I have to go back. He may have realized that I’m missing, he may be looking for me…”

“Your husband?”

Nora looked at him, surprised by this word, which had never crossed her mind, and which now rendered any reply impossible. Can I tell this child, can I tell him that…?

He didn’t let her finish her thought.

“Please forgive my stupid question. But whoever it may be, he should come here.”

He had an unexpected self-assurance. He dealt with the uncomfortable moment with the discretion of an old man. Only a slight flush in his until-now pale face betrayed his adolescence. What grade is he in? Nora wondered. He wore a long-sleeved red pullover, and a woollen scarf, also red, but of a dark red that was almost black. His blond hair, cut short in the German style at the back and sides, fell over his forehead in front. He must look good in his school uniform .

In that moment the man with the lamp came in the door. Nora recognized him by his gigantic stature. In his arms he carried logs for the fire. He was dressed in a hunter’s sack coat, buttoned up to the neck like a minister’s vestments. His legs were garbed in high boots, while on his shoulders he wore a long cape of an ash-coloured fabric with the hood falling behind him. The blond boy spoke to him in a language Nora didn’t understand. The vowels were heavy and muted. It sounded like Dutch, or a Flemish dialect

… He laughed at this suggestion.

“O nein! Est is nur Sächsisch! Wir beide reden immer Sächsisch miteinander .” 16

But the man with the lamp understood Romanian, he even spoke it with a certain difficulty, although he pronounced it clearly. Nora explained to him where he would find her backpack and what he should say to the gentleman who was sleeping at the Touring Club in bed number 15.

I should write him a note , she thought. He may not want to come .

But the man with the ash-coloured cape had pulled on his hood and left. The sound of his boots outside remained audible.

“My name is Gunther Grodeck,” said the blond boy, who had remained alone. “I’m twenty-one years old. Or, to tell the truth, I haven’t turned twenty-one yet.” He fell silent for a moment, with an unexpected darkening of his mood, and whispered: “Unfortunately, not yet.” Then he shook himself out of this sadness and added abruptly, with bitterness, as though someone had threatened him: “But I will soon!”

Nora smiled. “When?”

“In March. At the end of March.”

“We should always be patient. What’s the hurry? Is it urgent?”

A translucent pallor crossed his face without, however, blurring the clarity of his eyes.

“You must be hungry,” he said, with an obvious desire to change the subject. “Please forgive me for not having asked you until now. I’ll go see what I can find.”

She would have liked to stop him (“No, I’m not hungry, I was hungry but it’s passed”), but he had stepped out of the room, leaving her alone.

It was a large room with white, illuminated walls and smokey black beams. On one wall was a red rug and two old carbines. The armchairs and the couch were made of a brightly coloured, flower-patterned cretonne and the curtains on the windows were of the same cretonne. It was a peasant home, with the big open fireplace looking as though it were the entrance to another room. The whole room resembled at once a hunter’s lodge and an entrance hall. On a shelf were a few books in German and a portrait of a woman drawn in pencil. The drawing was delicate and indistinct, as though it had been blurred by time.

Gunther, returning to the room, found Nora in front of the portrait.

“That’s Mama,” he said.

“Does she live here?”

The boy fell silent for a moment. Then, as though returning from distant thoughts, he said: “Nobody lives here but Hagen and me.”

“Hagen?” Nora asked, not knowing who he was talking about.

“Hagen is the man who let you in. The man with the black cape. You should be familiar with the name. Don’t you remember? From the The Ring of the Niebelung ? From The Götterdämmerung ? Dark Hagen!”

“That’s his name?”

“That’s the name I’ve given him. I think it suits him. Please don’t call him anything else. Here on the mountain everybody knows him by that name.”

“Here on the mountain…,” Nora repeated pensively. “Strictly speaking, I don’t where I am. I only knew of the two chalets on the whole mountain. No one’s ever spoken to me about this house.”

“Because hardly anybody knows about it. We built it this autumn. It wasn’t even ready for the first snowfall in November. Even now, we haven’t got everything ready. At night, in the dark, it’s not so evident, but in the morning you’ll see that many things are missing. We may finish it in the spring, if we still need it. Yes, maybe…”

A bitter expression came over his face again, like a threat addressed to someone who wasn’t present. Then his ironic smile brought some peace to his troubled child’s face.

“You should know that nobody comes in here. Faffner wouldn’t let them.”

“Faffner?”

“Faffner is my dog. You may have seen him outside just now. He’s a big sheep dog. I wonder why he didn’t attack you.”

“Does it seem wrong to you that he didn’t?”

“No. I have faith in him. In our family, in the Grodeck family, Faffner and I have the same dislikes. Faffner hates the people I hate.”

Beneath his childish pallor, there were short, intense outbursts of rage, which lasted only a second and then died out into a great sadness. “It’s been three whole days,” Gunther said, “in which I’ve neither heard a stranger’s voice nor seen a person I didn’t know.”

“Even so, you said that you’re not far from the Touring Club chalet.”

“Not far, but well hidden. Do you know Dreimädlerweise?”

“The Glade of the Three Maidens?”

“If you prefer… I call it by its Saxon name. That’s what I’m used to. Well, my chalet is a little above that, towards the north, the northwest.”

“It’s not possible!” Nora exclaimed.

“Why isn’t it possible?”

“Because I don’t understand anything any more… I thought I was on a completely different part of the mountain, on the other slope. When I left, I know I took the trail towards the summit, with the idea of looking for the trail that goes down to Timiş. I don’t understand how I ended up here.”

“By getting lost.”

Nora repeated his words. “Yes… By getting lost…”

Gunther took a pencil and a notepad and approached Nora. “It seems it’s not all clear to you yet. Here you go! Let’s say that the SKV chalet is here, the TCR chalet is here, Dreimädlerweise is here…”

His pencil drew a thin line on the paper. Nora followed his small improvised map with attention.

“Well, if we join these three points with a line we have a triangle, and sort of in the middle of this triangle, right here, is our cabin.”

Outside, beneath the window, the dog snarled.

“Hagen’s coming back,” Gunther said.

“Alone?” Nora asked, with a fear she could not hide.

“No. If he were alone, Faffner wouldn’t have woken up. There’s someone with him.”

They both listened in silence to the approaching footsteps. Gunther was leaning against the fireplace with his arms spread. He looked towards the door and, in a whispered voice that Nora remembered having already heard that night, said: