To the Back of Beyond(32)

It was as though the hunters’ appearance had broken a spell, Thomas’s feeling of security was gone, and he understood how exposed he was up here. Even if the hunters didn’t find him, it could get cold again at any moment and start snowing, and the next lot of snow would probably stay there and not melt until springtime. That afternoon he took down the chimney and covered the opening in the roof with the piece of board. He closed the shutters and didn’t leave the hut without first peeking through the cracks to check that the coast was clear. In the evening, he packed his rucksack.



Astrid afterward could hardly remember the initial period of grieving. The episodes of it were so visceral and so detached from everything else that she was unable to incorporate them into a chronology of her life. Sadness was like a body of water, indivisible, and she kept falling into it. She was incapable of thinking, incapable of feeling, incapable of breath; she dissolved in the heaviness of this other element; nor did time itself have any significance, it seemed not to exist. Nothing could get through to her; her spirit was encapsulated in her body, which continued to function by itself. She looked after the children mechanically, almost without noticing them. Each time that she resurfaced and it was all over, as unexpectedly as it had begun, all that remained in her was a dull sense of exhaustion.

Everyone offered help and support, above all, everyone wanted to talk about it with her: her parents, Thomas’s parents, Manuela, friends, and neighbors. Astrid didn’t want to talk. She did what she had to do, what she was called upon to do. She talked to the minister, organized a funeral, sent out death announcements, replied to letters of condolence. She talked to the authorities, the bank, filled in forms, made calls, put Thomas’s affairs in order. She held on to these concrete tasks, the illusion that even a fatality could be settled, that processes existed that could restore order to chaos. And all the time she had the feeling of watching herself from outside, as though she were playing a part in someone’s movie that had nothing to do with her life.

The children’s grief was more insidious than Astrid’s, but thereby all the more profound, like an illness that over the years almost imperceptibly weakens and finally destroys the human body. The teachers had addressed their classes and asked them to show utmost consideration. Konrad’s classmates had given him a large sheet of paper on which each one of them had drawn a flower and sent him a good wish. Ella had come home with a number of brightly colored notes and had shown some of them to Astrid, awkward sympathy notes, written in glitter pen and plastered with weeping hearts and little stuck-down animal shapes. Ella had looked mutely at her mother, as though to ask what she should do. And they gave me some chocolate as well, said Ella. That’s okay, said Astrid, and put the cards back in their gaudy envelopes. They didn’t mean any harm by it.

With Christmas coming up, and Astrid in reasonable shape, all seemed well. The children drew up lists of Christmas wishes and made presents for their grandparents and godparents. Ella was rehearsing a part in the school nativity play, and Konrad helped Astrid bake cookies. Their disturbance showed itself in different ways, after the holidays were over, during the rain and chill of January and February. Ella read more than ever, and was quieter and quieter. She threw herself into her schoolwork as though her life depended on getting good grades and getting a place in the gymnasium. Meanwhile, Konrad, who had always been a good pupil, seemed to give up and became troublesome, often acting cheeky to his mother and sister, and his teacher.

Sometimes for hours or days on end, they were all one heart and one soul, for instance when they watched a film on TV on Friday evening, or visited the grandparents, when they went on a trip to the Ticino over Easter, to friends who had invited them repeatedly and had been put off time and time again. Then they were able to behave as though this was how it was supposed to be, and they enjoyed themselves. Astrid didn’t notice how many sweets the children ate, how long they played computer games, or what time they went to bed. So long as they were content.

On the advice of the school psychologist, she sent Konrad to a therapist. But it did little to change his behavior, and after a couple of sessions, he refused to go anymore. Only after he’d gone up a grade in the new school year and had a young woman teacher who had only just qualified did he calm down, and his performance started to improve. Joining a judo club and attending twice-weekly practice sessions seemed to help as well. But there was always a shadow hanging over Ella and Konrad, an indefinable air of sadness and reserve. Sometimes Astrid would come upon the children sitting vacantly in their rooms, lost in thoughts they either wouldn’t or couldn’t share with her.

Sometime that summer, as though Astrid’s family and friends had consulted with one another while her back was turned, she felt a growing impatience from her surroundings, some expectation that she settle down, think of herself, and begin to look for a new partner. As if it was her duty to forget Thomas and make a fresh start. Almost a year had passed since his death, she was only forty-four, a good-looking woman, and it would be better for the children too to have a father. They have one, said Astrid. No one seemed to understand that her relationship with Thomas wasn’t over just because he wasn’t around anymore.

Without having intended to, she was living a double life. She got through her day, packed the children off to school, kept the house tidy, cooked, gardened, helped Ella with her homework, which was harder now that she was in secondary school, and took Konrad to judo. She played with the children, chatted with the neighbors, went swimming most mornings when the kids were at school, to plow up and down a few lanes. But in bed at night, when she couldn’t sleep, she would think about Thomas and was perfectly sure he wasn’t dead. It was less a thought than a feeling. A thought was something she might have been able to oppose with facts, but this she couldn’t overturn. She didn’t want to either; it helped her more than grief, which made nothing better, explained nothing, was no help and no proof. Her nightly fantasies were no wish-fulfillment images either, invented by her to comfort herself. Thomas was gone, there was no doubting that, but he wasn’t dead. She saw him walking through deserted landscapes, seeking shelter under the jutting eaves of roofs, or in gas stations, or chapels. He was buying food in small general stores, sat in bars all by himself, spent the night in cheap pensions or haylofts. When he needed money, he did temporary work, helped a farmer with the harvest, worked on a chicken farm, did the dishes in a restaurant. After a few weeks he moved on, on foot, never mind the weather.