I knew this part of the story from my grandmother. That morning they slipped their warmest socks onto their feet and laced up their thin shoes. They ate a little, sitting quietly and looking into the precrepuscular dark, and packed the rations of food the innkeeper and his wife had given them. They crept down the stairs and out the door and walked to the meeting place the village priest had assigned them the previous day. With their guides, they began the ascent through the thinning woods. The ground was the color of breadcrumbs, covered in places with patches of snow, which lent some brightness to the leaden sky and the dirty-cobweb smudge of the bare deciduous trees, but as they moved upward, the pine trees sucked all the light into the depths of their dark green needles. Occasionally, they crossed a pasture, where the only cover was the tenuous protection of the dim dawn. It was steep going, breathless, an immense effort to lift one foot and plant it in front of the other, push with all their might, repeat. They looked up once, from a narrow glen, to see the reedy figures of German soldiers walking far above them, with mushroom-helmets and twig-like rifles, and the little group pressed down behind the rocks and held their breaths.
By the time they reached the tree line, the weak daylight was leaching out of the sky. Tiny snowflakes landed on their clothes. The guides pointed out the Col de Coux and went over the little map they had drawn, enumerating the things the travelers should remember: customhouse, barn, the smugglers supposedly waiting near the border to accompany adventurous refugees—for a fee—into Switzerland. Not much farther to go, the guides assured them. And while the bareness of the mountaintop made them more visible, there would be nightfall and snowfall to cover them. The walking would be a little easier. There was a round of hurried well-wishing, thank-yous, and clasped hands, and then Anna, Erna, and Armand were alone.
The snow, which had begun to fall with a rapid hush, blew around them like a cape as they trudged to the pass. Before long, they were pushing through waist-high drifts that slowly soaked through their shoes. The wet and cold crept through everything, through gaps in their clothing they hadn’t known existed. It softened the tops of Anna’s shoes so that they scarcely clung to their thin wood soles. Erna, an experienced mountaineer, kept them on the path. It was slow going, leg after leg, hard-pushing steps up, careful stumbles. Erna first, then Anna and Armand behind, sometimes one before the other, sometimes the other way around, the three of them groping their way with cold-blinded feet. The pass was not very far away for longer and longer, first fifteen minutes, then half an hour, an hour, another hour after that.
Suddenly, Anna fell. She landed sideways, in a snow-filled hollow in the ground. Like a nest. She peered up at the landscape, and it seemed to bend down all around her, like a mother toward a child. The snowflakes, if chilly, were soft on her face; all told, she thought to herself, she felt quite comfortable. The back of her mind asked the front of her mind how it was possible for everything to feel so agreeable, with her pack poking at her back through her wet clothes, and her arms and legs twisted around in a funny way. How was it, the back of the mind persisted, that she didn’t feel cold? She was reminding herself that damp wool was a very good insulator, thinking of sheep, and watching Armand and Erna standing over her, shouting at her. She struggled to listen. They were telling her to get up. In a minute, in a minute. She would get up. Soon. Not quite yet. I need a rest, she thought. It’s so restful, with the snow all around.
Anna’s face looked like a hasty assemblage of shadows to Armand as he bent over, tugged at her, watched her, shouted, thinking she looked so dark in all that white, so lost. The snow had already begun to accumulate on her body. Far off in his mind, questions began to ring, would they have to leave her, how would she die, would she suffer, tucked into the snow like a sleepy child. He stood over the little hummock and called to her. He tugged at her.
“She has to get up on her own,” Erna insisted. Gently, she pulled him away and then leaned her face down to her friend. “Anna,” she barked, like a cop talking to a loiterer, “get up.”
Anna looked up at her with a soft, silly smile.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Erna snapped. “You know you’ll die if you keep lying here.”
Armand twisted his hands. How long could this last? Still, he hung back. Erna’s sudden transformation was unsettling. Her normally clear, pleasant voice had been replaced by a raucous snarl.
Anna shook her head, still smiling. Erna leaned closer to Anna’s face. “Son of a bitch!” she bawled. She pulled back, then leaned in again. “Get out of that goddamn hole, you feebleminded cunt!” The smile disappeared from Anna’s lips. She whimpered.
Armand came closer to Erna and touched her arm. She brushed his hand away as a horse gets rid of a fly. Leaning as close as she could to her friend without losing her balance, she roared, “Motherfucker! You listen to me, Münster.” Anna lifted her head. “You lazy piss-ant! Good-for-nothing piece of shit! You whore—”
“Erna!” Anna pushed herself up on one arm, offended that her repose was being disturbed by this sudden change in ambience. What had gotten into her friend?
“I could give a sheep’s asshole,” her friend interrupted her. “Right now it is colder than a witch’s tit, and we have a motherfucking mountain to climb, and I will shit on my own parents’ graves if I’m going to watch you lie there in the snow like some old drunk.”
“Erna, stop it,” Anna murmured, struggling to sit. She had to make Erna stop. What was wrong with her?
Erna ignored her. “I will spit on my own grandmother. I would spit on your grandmother, if she weren’t too busy—” Clumsily, suddenly shivering, Anna got to her feet, and Erna grabbed her arm.
Armand choked up with relief. He rushed over to her.
“Let me go,” Anna said to Erna. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Get moving,” Erna urged.
Anna obeyed. It was hard. She couldn’t go very fast. She felt aged and tired.
“Keep moving,” Erna commanded, walking with her, pushing a little, brushing the snow off her briskly.
Anna stopped and looked around her, disoriented. “What happened?”
“You fell. You had to get up on your own. Now keep moving.”
“It was so comfortable,” Anna reflected, brushing a snowflake off her cheek. “I couldn’t imagine how it could be so comfortable, lying in that position.”
“Keep moving,” Erna repeated. “Don’t stop. Stomp your feet, and rub your hands together. You could have died.”
Anna looked back at where she had been lying and down at her bag in the snow. The awful realization flooded into her faster and heavier than the cold. She was overcome with remorse. “I’m sorry.” She felt two sharp stings on her cheek.
“Don’t cry. It’ll leave marks on your face.” Erna reached out and gave Anna’s arms a last rub. “Let’s just keep moving. It’s almost dark.”
Armand moved closer to the two women. He brushed snowflakes from Anna’s hair. “I’ll take your bag,” he offered. They started moving again.
“Where did you learn to curse like that?” Anna asked.
“Taxis. Viennese taxi drivers have the foulest mouths in the world.”
They walked in silence, five minutes, ten, twenty. The snow accumulated under the darkening trees, their feet speaking to themselves in the silent language of snow steps.