The foursome stepped out into a chilly autumn night. The sky was crystal clear, the moon still high and to the south, casting a thin light across the western flank of the Groppera. Pino led them down the cart track at first, just to get them away from the gas lamp outside the school. Then he had them stop so their eyes could fully adjust.
“We speak in whispers from here on out,” Pino said in a hushed voice, and pointed up at the mountain. “There are places where noises echo a long way up there, so we want to be timid, quiet as a mouse, you know?”
He saw them nod. Luigi lit a match for a cigarette.
Pino got upset, then realized he had to take control. He took a big step toward the smoker and hissed, “Put that out. Any flame can be seen for hundreds of meters, more through binoculars.”
“I need to smoke,” Luigi said. “It calms me.”
“Not until I tell you to. Or you go back and find another guide, and I take them alone.”
Luigi took one last puff, dropped the butt, and crushed it. “Lead on,” he said in disgust.
Pino told them to rely on their peripheral vision as he led them in the low light across the plateau to the north, hugging the base of the slope until it petered out to a path about fifty centimeters wide that cut laterally across several steep faces. He uncoiled the rope and tied four waist loops in it with gaps of three meters between each loop.
“Even with the rope, I want you to keep your right hand on the wall, or on any bush that grows out of it,” Pino said. “If you feel something to grip, like a little sapling, test it before you commit to its holding your weight. Better yet, put your hands and feet where I do. I know it’s dark, but you’ll get the idea of what I’m doing by my silhouette.”
“I’ll follow you,” Ricardo said. “Maria, you’re right behind me.”
“Are you sure?” Maria said. “Pino?”
“Ricardo, you can do more for your wife from the back, with Maria walking third, and Luigi right behind me.”
That annoyed Ricardo. He raised his voice, “But I—”
“It’s safer for her and for all of us if the strongest are at either end of the rope,” Pino insisted. “Or do you know more about these mountains and climbing than I do?”
“Do what he says,” Maria said. “Strongest at the back and front.”
Pino could tell Ricardo was in a quandary, irritated at being ordered around by a seventeen-year-old, and yet flattered at being called the strongest.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be the anchor.”
“Perfetto,” Pino said after they’d climbed into the waist loops.
He put his gloved right hand on the rock wall and set off. Though the way was wide enough in most places for a normal gait, he imagined the path fifteen centimeters narrower to his left and moved tight to the wall. The worst thing that could happen was for one of them to pitch off the low side of the trail. They might get lucky, and the weight of the other three might be enough to hold them all on the mountainside. Or they might get unlucky, and a second person would go, and then a third. The slope below them was nearly forty degrees. Sharp rock and alpine brush would chew them up if they all started to tumble.
He led them at a cat’s pace, slinking along, careful, easy, and sure. They moved with little incident for almost an hour, until they were roughly above the village of Madesimo, when Luigi started to hack and to spit. Pino was forced to stop.
“Signore,” he whispered. “I know you can’t help it, but cough into the inside of your elbow if you have to. The village is right there below us, and we can’t take the chance of being heard by the wrong ears.”
The cigar trader whispered, “How much farther?”
“The distance doesn’t matter. Just think about your next step.”
Five hundred meters farther on, the slopes they crossed became less sheer and the trail more moderate.
“Is that the worst of it?” Luigi asked.
“That was the best of it,” Pino said.
“What?” Maria cried in soft alarm.
“I’m joking,” Pino said. “That was the worst of it.”
By dawn, they were climbing up through the alpine meadows high above Madesimo. The mountain grass that had reminded Pino of Anna’s hair was seedless now, and dying. Pino looked around behind him and across the valley at the rugged massif rising on the other side. He wondered if there could be German soldiers over there up this high, watching the Groppera through binoculars. Pino thought it unlikely, but he led the three of them off to the side of the meadows where they could climb in the shadows of trees until those gave way to rock and sparse juniper that offered little concealment.
“We’ll need to move faster now,” he said. “With the sun behind the peak, there are shadows up in the bowl that will help us. But the sun will be on us soon enough.”
Heading into the bowl at the bottom of the north cirque, Ricardo and Maria kept pace with Pino. Luigi, the smoker, lagged behind, sweat pouring off his face, his chest heaving for thin air. Pino had to go back for him twice as they negotiated fields of glacially cast boulders and stuck to the ancient path to the back wall of the bowl.
Pino and the young couple rested and waited for the cigar trader, who was coughing, spitting, and moving at a snail’s pace. He reeked of fresh tobacco smoke when he lay down on a flat-topped rock by Pino and moaned.
Pino got out sweet tea, dried meat, and bread from his pack. Luigi devoured his meal. So did the young couple. Pino waited until they were done, then ate and drank smaller portions. He’d save some to eat on the way back.
“Where now?” Luigi asked, as if he’d only just become aware of his surroundings.
Pino gestured at the goat trail that cut a sharp series of steep zigzags up the wall.
The man’s chin retreated. “I can’t climb that.”
“Sure you can,” Pino said. “Just do what I do.”
Luigi threw up his hands. “No. I can’t. I won’t. You just leave me here. Death is coming for me sooner than later, no matter what I do to stop it.”
For a moment, Pino didn’t know what to do. Then he said, “Who says you’re going to die?”
“The Nazis,” the smoker said, hacking, and then gesturing up at the path. “And this way says that God wants me to die sooner than later. But I will not go up there and fall and bounce over rocks in my last moments. I will sit and smoke and wait for death to come for me here. This spot will do.”
“No, you’re going with us,” Pino said.
“I’m staying,” Luigi said forcefully.
Pino swallowed, said, “Father Re told me to get you to Val di Lei. He’s not going to like my leaving you, so you’re coming. With me.”