Christian Guay-Poliquin - The Weight of Snow

This is one of the best ways of keeping it, he tells me.

I nod and say nothing. Then look toward the chess game.

I don’t have time, he answers. I have to go down to the village.

He carefully places the cheeses wrapped in wax in a cloth sack. He gives me a can of baked beans with a slab of black bread, loads the stove, and gets dressed quickly.

I’ll see you later, he calls, putting on his snowshoes.

Then he hurries out of the room.

Outside, the snow is reaching hungrily for the earth.

It must be getting close to noon. At first the cold seemed to loosen its grip on the landscape, only to return with greater force. Meanwhile, snow keeps falling and nothing can stop it. The flakes are large and delicate. They look like they have been cut from paper.

In the stove the final embers are going out. I can feel the cold slipping under my window. The drafts have long icy hands and they move past me like shades that want to reach under my blankets.

Maria said I will be able to stand up soon. My left leg is still fragile, but with crutches I should be able to move around by myself. The next time she comes, I will go to the door to welcome her.

First I sit up straight, then slide to the edge of the bed. My legs hang uselessly. I think of my next move and contemplate the precipice before me. Gravity pulls me toward the floor. In the prison of their splints, my thighs and calves have turned to stone in their immobility. My muscles hang off my bones like flesh that even scavengers don’t want.

You are skinny and dried up. You weigh nothing at all. But you’ll figure out how to take a few steps. You’ll manage somehow, I tell myself out loud, you’re still alive, so you’ve got no choice. You have to walk.

I could go as far as the chair. Or the sofa. The chair is closer, but the crutches are behind the sofa. I could make it, even if I have to hop on my right leg instead of putting one foot in front of the other.

I just have to slide down from the bed and try to lean on the table. Nothing to it. Just make sure not to lose my balance. It would be stupid to burn myself on the stove.

At first all that seems insurmountable and I consider lying back down. But then I take a deep breath, tighten my splints, and slip down to the floor. Slowly. Very slowly, like with the icy water of a lake at the beginning of summer.

My toes touch the floor. I grab firmly onto the bedsheets but they slide with me. I feel my heart pumping. My legs stiffen and electric current travels through the marrow of my bones. The blood flows heavily through my veins, running a painful circuit from my feet to my head. There, now I’m standing. I can shuffle my feet across the floor. Sweat breaks out on my forehead. The table is close by. Just steady your body long enough to get to the next support. I take a chance and put a little more weight on my left leg. I reach for the table. I’m almost there. I stretch further. I contain the pain. It’s nothing, nothing to it. I steady myself. My hand is trembling as if I were trying to lift furniture with the sheer force of my thoughts. Suddenly I go numb. The chair stands kilometres away, behind the table. My sight is narrowed by thick black blotches. Then my knees let go.

The floor is dirty and cold. Dried mud, dust, pieces of bark, onion skins. The floorboards are grey beneath the chipped varnish. I don’t know how long I have been lying here. A few minutes. A few hours. It’s still light outside, but Matthias hasn’t come back.

I can’t stay like this, on the floor. I look around. I prop myself up on my elbows and crawl toward the sofa. My legs follow me like a long overcoat heavy with sludge. I make slow progress. I am sinking into the floor as I move. I keep watch over the door with the fearfulness of wild animals. The fear of being caught in a moment of vulnerability.

I don’t want Maria to see me like this.

I reach the foot of the sofa. I am out of breath and my elbows hurt. It’s hard, but I hoist myself up onto the threadbare cushions. I arrange my legs straight in front of me. Under the splint I see that the bandage on my left side is soaked with blood. I grab Matthias’s quilt and cover the bottom half of my body with it.

I am empty. As if part of me was still back on the floor. Maybe I should eat something, but now the can of baked beans is too far away.

I close my eyes a moment.

And then nothingness.

I am startled awake. It is dark. Matthias puts a sack on the table, shakes the snow off his shoulders, and lights the oil lamp.

When he looks around, he sees my bed is empty. His lower jaw tightens and a vein appears on his forehead. Then when he spots me lying on the sofa, he raises his eyes and walks over to me. He slips one arm around my back and the other behind my knees and carries me to my bed the way adults do with sleeping children. Or the dying. I try to hide my bloody bandage, but Matthias sees it right away. He says nothing, but he saw it. He pulls up my blankets and tells me to get some sleep, then disappears into the other side with a candle and the sack he put on the table.

I stare at the ceiling as if gazing down into an abyss. Pain is a bird of prey that holds me in its clutches.

I feel like I’ve taken one step forward. And two steps back.

Someone is standing on the front step. I sit up in bed. I look toward the sofa, then the rocking chair, but I don’t see Matthias. I hear the click of the doorknob and Maria is there on the threshold. She smiles and comes to me. The morning sun fills the room as if time had stopped. I push aside my blankets, unfasten the splints, and leap to my feet. Her eyes illuminate the room. I move toward her, take off her red coat, and slip a hand around her waist. We kiss. Her mouth is warm. Our foreheads touch and our bodies entwine. I lift her gently, she clings to me, then we lie on the kitchen table. Our clothes fall to the floor with no resistance. She takes my hands and presses them against her hips, and moves them across her body. I kiss her neck, her skin is soft and a little salty. I kneel between her legs, impatient, energetic, full of desire. Our eyes thirst for each other. I take her, she bends to me, and nothing exists outside of us.

When I awake a kettle is simmering on the woodstove. It smells of meat and boiled vegetables. When he sees my eyes are open, Matthias moves the stool over and sits down in front of me as if we were about to begin a game of chess. But he is here to change my dressing.

I hide my erection under the blankets. My dream is very near, yet very far away. My left leg is giving me serious pain.

He unwraps my bandage, cleans the dried blood, disinfects the wound, and wraps it up again with the butterfly bandages at hand.

You’re lucky, the splint held your bones in place, Matthias grumbles.

Outside, the sun strikes the snow full on. The sky is cutting and the barometer reaches for it. Before my window the icicles look threatening and the snow keeps piling up. It is like a mouth closing around us.

I am completely exhausted. I feel like I will never stand up again. If winter doesn’t get me, it will be something else. I can’t do anything. Outside of a little repartee, looking out the window, and waiting. That doesn’t give much to hang onto.

Matthias grabs the pair of crutches behind the sofa and orders me to get up.

Isn’t that what you wanted? Then you’ll have to build up your strength.

I consider the two pieces of wood stuck together with little metal brackets.

We’re going to do some exercises.

Matthias lifts me up by the armpits.