A Whole Life (13 page)

‘Where exactly is it you want to go?’ the man asked. Old Egger just stood there, desperately searching for the answer.

‘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.

‘Robert Seethaler’s quietly mesmerizing novel – elemental in both tone and subject – shows what joy and nobility can be found in a life of hardship, patience and bereavement. It is at once heart-rending and heart-warming.
A Whole Life
, for all its gentleness, is a very powerful book’

J
IM
C
RACE

‘Against the backdrop of a literary world that often seems crowded with novels yelling “Look at me!”, it’s refreshing to read a story marked by quiet, concentrated attention . . . What is perhaps most remarkable about this remarkable novel is the way that it continually weaves past, present and future into a single fabric . . . Deeply moving’

Sunday Times

‘The solitude and remoteness of the mountains inspire remarkable, contemplative passages . . . The book’s prose has a directness and detail that helps to set off the moments of genuine wisdom and restrained poetry, all of which makes Charlotte Collins’s translation a great triumph. It is at this point that you realize why the novella should be doing so well in Germany, and why it is so urgent for the rest of us: it can guide its readers to make the best of their lives, however they turn out’

Sunday Telegraph

‘Robert Seethaler’s novel is, like its hero, short on words, but in its 150 pages manages to do exactly what it says on the tin: embrace a whole life . . . It’s an unremarked existence, told in simple prose, of a simple man that magically captures the universal in all our lives. A slim masterpiece’

Daily Mail

‘Seethaler shows that for even the most ordinary people, life is an extraordinary adventure – and he does so tenderly and memorably’

Mail on Sunday

Robert Seethaler was born in Vienna
in 1966 and is the author of four previous
novels.
A Whole Life
is a top-ten bestseller
in Germany, where it has brought him
huge acclaim.

First published 2015 by Picador
First published in paperback 2015 by Picador

This electronic edition published 2015 by Picador

an imprint of Pan Macmillan

20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

Associated companies throughout the world

www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-4472-8391-1

Copyright © Hanser Berlin im Carl Hanser Verlag München 2014

Translation copyright © Macmillan Publishers International Limited 2015

Cover Images © Shutterstock, Rucksack Man © INTERFOTO/Alamy

Design by Matthew Garrett, Picador Art Department

Author photo © Urban Zintel.

The right of Robert Seethaler to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Originally published in German 2014 as
Ein ganzes Leben
by Hanser Berlin, an imprint of Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich.

Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third party websites referred to in or on this book.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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