Robert Seethaler - A Whole Life

‘I don’t know,’ he said, and slowly shook his head, over and over again. ‘I simply don’t know.’

On the return journey Egger sat in the same seat he had picked for his departure from the valley. The driver had helped him on to the bus and accompanied him all the way to the back without asking for the return fare, or indeed saying anything at all. Although Egger didn’t fall asleep this time, the journey seemed shorter to him. He felt better now: his heartbeat slowed, and when the bus dipped into the blue shadow of the mountains for the first time, the shivering stopped as well. He looked out of the window, not really knowing what he should think or feel. It was so long since he’d been away that he’d forgotten what it felt like to come home.

When they reached the stop in the village, he nodded farewell to the driver. He wanted to get home as quickly as possible, but when he had left the last houses behind, and all that lay ahead was the stair-like ascent to his hut, he succumbed to a sudden impulse and turned left onto a steep, little-used path that wound around a nameless, moss-green pond before snaking all the way up to the Glöcknerspitze. For a while he followed the path along a row of wire fences the municipality had erected to protect the village from avalanches; then he stepped through a narrow crevice, secured by iron bars driven deep into the rock, and finally crossed the Karwiesen meadow in its shady hollow. The grass was damp and gleaming, and a smell of decay rose up from the earth. Egger moved fast: walking came naturally to him, he had forgotten his tiredness and barely felt the cold. He had the sense that with every step he left behind him something of the loneliness and despair that had gripped him down on that unfamiliar square. He heard the blood rushing in his ears and felt the cool wind, which dried the sweat on his forehead. He had reached the lowest point of the hollow when he saw a barely perceptible movement in the air. A little white something, dancing directly in front of his eyes. A second later, another. The next moment the air was filled with innumerable tiny scraps of cloud, floating slowly down and sinking to the ground. At first Egger thought they were blossoms the wind had blown in from somewhere, but it was September already and nothing blossomed any more at this time of year, certainly not this high up. And then he realized it was snowing. The snow fell thicker and thicker from the sky, settling on the rocks and the lush green meadows. Egger walked on. He paid close attention to his footsteps, taking care not to slip, and every few metres he wiped the snowflakes from his lashes and eyebrows with the back of his hand. As he did so a memory rose up in him, a fleeting recollection of something very long ago, little more than a blurred image. ‘Not just yet,’ he said, quietly; and winter settled over the valley.

© Urban Zintel

ROBERT SEETHALER is an Austrian living in Berlin and is the author of four previous novels, including The Tobacconist , which was a German bestseller with more than 200,000 copies in print. He also works as an actor, most recently in Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth.