Horizon (12 page)

Then Lennox saw them too. Eight women and three men, five young boys and four girls. Today the men had given up their leather breeches and white wool stockings for tight black trousers tucked into high leather boots. The high white plumes on their slouched hats were held proudly. The women wore wide black skirts and bright aprons. They had thrown heavy shawls over their white silk blouses as a protection against the morning air. Their hats were broad brimmed, with the tight,
rounded crown cut off flatly on top. Their hair was braided and twisted round their heads. Most of them were very fair. Lennox saw the gleam of pale gold under the black felt hats. They walked barefoot, with their white stockings and polished shoes carried carefully over the muddy paths. They would bathe their feet in some stream at the edge of the village, draw on their stockings and shoes, and then advance sedately towards the church. They would look as if they had just stepped out of their cottages, instead of having walked for ten miles through the night.

One of the boys let out a yodel as he saw the waiting Kasals. From across the fields came the
Juch-hé
” call from another group. Higher up on the hillside there was a further burst of calls. It was the peasant way of contact and answer over mountain spaces. It was infectious. Even the birds had started to sing in a sudden frenzy of excitement. Lennox was tempted to lean out of the window, cup his hands round his mouth, and join in.

But there was a knock, and he turned away from the window to open his bedroom door. Frau Schichtl, along with her brother and son, entered in full regalia. Lennox, in his grey flannel nightshirt, swept them a low bow. “Most elegant,” he said.

Frau Schichtl’s face coloured, and she looked pleased. She smoothed her red silk embroidered apron over the wide black skirt, adjusted the fringed scarf crossed over her breast, pulled the edge of her black lace mittens more closely to her elbow, straightened the strange-crowned hat. She smiled self-consciously. Then suddenly she laughed and said, “If only you could see yourself, Peter.”

Lennox looked down at his bare calves, and was inclined to
agree. Then he looked at the elaborate costumes and thought that remark could cut both ways. He smiled blandly.

Johann said, “Pity you’ve got to stay here. After mass and the procession the fun begins. Pity you couldn’t come down for the dance tonight.” He spun his hat, with its soft white feather, round on his hand. His gay clothes had affected his spirits. His high boots beat out a brief sole and heel rhythm. His face had lost the angry look it had kept last night after his uncle had talked to him about the Mussner girl. He patted his black velvet waistcoat with its pattern of red embroidered flowers, and pretended to polish the silver buttons. “Not a bad fit, either,” he admitted, proudly surveying his father’s clothes. “Well, we had better start. Mass is at half past six. Time’s shifting.”

“You know where to find breakfast,” Frau Schichtl said, “I left the table ready for you last night. I wish you could come.” She looked at her brother.

Paul Mahlknecht shook his head. He had adopted a new character with the traditional clothes: he was no longer the man from Bozen. He was a man of the Tyrol, as quiet and imperturbable as the mountains which brooded over the meadows. In this costume he was keeping faith with his father and grandfather and the fathers before them. This was the symbol of his fight. This was the outward sign of his inner loyalties. The man who wore these clothes so confidently, so proudly, was a man who would never become either an Italian or a German.

Lennox was thankful he had resisted making that crack about fancy dress which had almost rolled off the tip of his tongue. He was now ashamed that he had even thought about
it. He glanced nervously at Mahlknecht’s sombre face, and worried about mind-reading.

But Mahlknecht was saying, “I’ll return here before the evening begins. We can talk together then.” Frau Schichtl and Johann were beginning to descend the stairs.

Lennox said quickly, “Do you think I could take a short walk this afternoon through the woods? Everyone will be down at the village. And if Germans watch this house—well, they already know that a disabled soldier lives here.”

Mahlknecht nodded thoughtfully. He hadn’t missed the urgency in Lennox’s voice. “A walk would do you good,” he said. “But don’t go far away. I’d rather not spend this evening looking for a man lost on a mountainside. I’d rather finish our talk. I shall have to leave here soon, you know.”

“And what about the men you are expecting?”

“They should have arrived yesterday or the day before. Weather permitting, they should have arrived then.”

“Parachuting in?”

Mahlknecht nodded. “I’ll give you instructions tonight about identifying them, in case they come when I am away from the Schlern.”

“It would be better if you were here to welcome them yourself.”

“They will see me later. Besides they will want to talk to you.” Mahlknecht grinned suddenly. “Just to make sure that your colonel and I haven’t brought them here on a wild goose chase. You can tell them just what you think of us.”

“I wonder why they didn’t send someone before this,” Lennox said, half angrily. “Devil of a way they’ve kept us hanging on.”

“There was no need to have anyone here in the winter in addition to you,” Mahlknecht reminded him. “They did a much cleverer thing. They sent men to talk to me in Bozen. That was all that was needed while winter lasted.”

Yes, that’s right: I was good enough as an outpost up here in the winter months when nothing happened, Lennox thought. But as soon as action starts and some real fun begins then out goes the poor bloody infantry and in comes the professional officer.

Frau Schichtl’s voice called from downstairs, “We are all waiting, Paul.”

“Coming.” Mahlknecht descended the staircase. Half-way down he called softly, “You’ll have your freedom soon, Peter. You can start your own plans again.”

Then his light footsteps were crossing the sitting-room, and the door closed softly. Lennox could imagine the smile on Mahlknecht’s lips.

He closed his bedroom door, locking it automatically.

He deserved that last remark. He deserved the smile—if it had been there. He had wanted his freedom. He was getting it.

He walked back to the window. The group outside the Kasals’ house had grown. They were waiting for Mahlknecht and his family. He watched the movement in the crowd—the white-plumed hats, the spreading black skirts, the tall men and women with their erect heads, the smooth golden hair of the laughing children. The older people walked first, the men leading the way. At the end of the procession he saw Johann. His hat was now jauntily set on his slicked hair. He was talking to Katharina Kasal, walking beside him with that long, effortless step which seemed natural to the women of this district. At the
point in the winding road where it swerved behind a group of trees the Kasal girl halted. She turned and looked towards the Schichtl house. Then she went on.

Lennox drew back from the window. He had been leaning out, like a fool. He hadn’t thought anyone would turn round to look this way. They were all so intent on their festival. He wondered if she had really seen him. What on earth had made her do that?

He peeled off the nightshirt and began the morning’s usual stretch and bend. That was how he got exercise. Stretch and bend, and bend and stretch. Suddenly he remembered he was going to have real exercise today. Mahlknecht had given him the permission which Frau Schichtl had never been able to give. He could walk outside. He could taste free air. He wouldn’t wait until this afternoon, either. He kicked the nightshirt aside, and poured the water out of the jug into the basin on his small bedroom table. The water held the night’s cold air, but at least he hadn’t to break the ice on it now before he could wash or shave.

He dressed quickly, remembering to take the grey woollen jacket which Frau Schichtl had found for him in her late husband’s clothes chest. It would be cold outside until the sun was really high. He ran downstairs, and stopped to pick up a slab of bread for his pocket. He opened the back door and looked at the high peaks with the sun rising up behind them. He took a deep breath of the cold, crisp air. It tasted differently down here. It couldn’t be the same air which came into his room upstairs. It didn’t seem the same air at all, with his feet free on this grass.

In the pine wood behind the house there was a narrow path hidden behind three tall trees clumped together. He had looked
at it bitterly on every one of those rare nights in which he had walked to the edge of the wood. Now he stood hesitating, wondering if the path was still there, wondering if he had imagined it. He began walking slowly towards the three trees. He saw the beginning of the path. Suddenly he started to run.

Lennox explored the wood thoroughly. He found that its boundaries were very simple. On its west was the road which led past the Schichtl and Kasal houses. On its east was a steep hillside and, above that, the series of precipices which formed the mountain’s peak. From the north edge of the wood he could see sloping meadowland, a twisting road, scattered houses, distant villages gathered round church spires, and a sea of mountains as background to all this. From the south edge, there was the road curving down to Hinterwald. But the village itself was hidden by trees. Only the church, with its onion-shaped spire, and a few chalets were to be seen. Beyond the trees of Hinterwald were falling and rising fields, and then more mountains. There were mountains everywhere.

On these four sides of the wood Lennox had rested and stared at the views. They were incredible. He had often admired rows of savage mountains, but in this country they were
strangely combined with smiling meadows and wide stretches of wooded slopes. The scattered chalets, the small neat villages, gave a comforting feeling. Mountains alone dominated and threatened. But here pleasant houses and a picturesque church and a comfortable inn would welcome you at the end of a lonely walk. This would be a country worth exploring. A man could find peace here.

Now it was almost midday, and he ate his piece of bread, and slowly drank a mouthful of water from a clear icy stream. He settled himself on a rock sheltered by the last fringe of trees on the high east side of this wood. The wood covered a steep incline from the mountain’s stony base to the Schichtl house, so that he could sit here and watch the pines drop away in front of him and look at the far mountains to the west. Over there was the Brenner railway in its deep valley, and beyond it the western mountains, and beyond them the Swiss Alps. He thought, at this moment I don’t believe I have ever been happier in my life. He remembered suddenly that he should be amazed, and yet he wasn’t. He looked at his scarred right hand. “Get well, blast you,” he said. “You’ve got to paint. Now you’ve found something to paint.” He was grinning like an idiot. “You’re drunk,” he told himself. “Drunk with this feeling of being free. Drunk with all this peace and beauty. You’re drunk.”

Certainly he felt wonderful. Those two Germans neatly handled yesterday, the successful meeting last night, Mahlknecht’s plans no longer hopeless, but fitting nicely into the latest news from the Allied front in Italy—all these contributed to this sense of jubilation. And he could laugh at himself again. This view of mountains and unlimited space put everything into proper perspective.

He rose, somewhat stiffly, carrying his jacket jauntily over one shoulder, and began the descent to the house. He was hungry, and thought with pleasure of the remains of some cold meat in the larder. He would reheat some of Frau Schichtl’s excellent soup. There was rich milk from the Kasal farm, and white bread baked only yesterday. He remembered the sour, stale food of the prison camps, and the meal he was going to prepare seemed an epicure’s delight. Then, after a leisurely dinner with some of the German-published newspapers, which Mahlknecht had brought from Bozen, to provide amusement on the side, he would—He halted his thoughts with his stride. He stopped close to a tree. Standing quite still, he listened intently. He heard nothing. Yet he sensed movement. Someone was coming quietly towards him. He drew quickly behind the tree, and prayed that its cover was adequate.

Then he saw the wide-skirted black dress and its bright silk apron. Above the gay scarf, with its tapering ends crossed demurely over her breast, was the face of the Kasal girl. She was looking puzzled, as if she had heard him and was now wondering where he had gone. She hesitated, and then stopped. There was something so pathetic in her sudden dejection, in her hesitation as her eyes anxiously searched the path ahead of her, that Lennox stepped forward into the open. She flinched at that, and her hand went quickly to her heart. But she didn’t cry out. And then she was smiling, and all the worry was gone from her eyes. They were very blue. Her hair, so smoothly parted and brushed back from the high forehead and with its long, thick plaits circling her head, was very fair. The colour in her cheeks had been deepened by her haste. She came forward to where he stood, walking with that easy step of hers. She was broad-shouldered
and tall, taller than he had imagined, and her body was well shaped and strong. Good bones, he observed with a professional eye, and a face moulded in excellent proportions. It was a calm face, and a strong face, and a face still so filled with hope and belief that Lennox felt sorry for her. She wouldn’t look so trusting as that in ten years’ time. She’d learn that the world wasn’t so big and beautiful by then.

She said in her quiet voice, “Uncle Paul sent me.” He stopped thinking about the girl. He was suddenly alert.

“Yes?” he asked.

“He will not be back here tonight. Two friends have arrived.”

Peter Lennox watched her face: it was evident that she knew the message was important, but he was equally sure she didn’t know the reason of its importance.

“Where is Johann?” he asked.

“He’s with Uncle Paul. They want you to bring them their everyday clothes. You’ll find them on the chairs in their room. Bundle them up tightly—everything you see there. I’ll go to our house and change my dress. I can’t travel quickly in this.” She looked down at the silk apron, at the silver buttons on the black silk bodice, at the wide skirt banded at the hem with embroidery. She was smiling at the very idea. She suddenly noticed the look, half puzzled, half anxious on Lennox’s face. “I shall lead you to Johann and Uncle Paul,” she said. “They are only about three miles away from here. But they are a difficult three miles.”