A barricade at the top of the stairs and enough supplies in the cellar to survive an atomic war. I couldn’t believe that Mrs Sanders had dragged all this into the house by herself. And why should she? Uncle Herman was never coming back and I hadn’t been here in ages. But what disturbed me most was that it looked as if that huge stockpile was there in preparation for something that was yet to happen. I turned round and went back from room to room. Jars and cans, neatly in rows, packets of sugar one behind the other, as if it had all been stocked by a diligent shop assistant. I couldn’t tell whether any portion of this enormous quantity of food had ever been touched. What I did see, when I got back to the stairs, was the old transistor radio I had brought along with me on one of my visits. It was lying behind the bottom step, half-covered with a spider’s web. I switched it on and heard the soft rustling of empty ether. I tucked it under my arm, blew out the candle, and went upstairs.
In the kitchen, I turned the aerial this way and that and twiddled the large dial until I picked up the sound of voices. It was the local station. I put the radio on the counter and listened to the babbling. After a minute or two there were a few bars of music and a bronzy male voice. ‘This is Radio East, on air twenty-four hours a day. We’re here for you. Give us a ring and tell us how you’re enjoying the storm!’ Then I heard a man and a woman, who took turns answering calls from people who were stranded or had something exciting to share with the listeners. A couple of people snowed in at a petrol station phoned to say they had been living on coffee machine coffee, soft drinks, and chocolate bars since the night before and longed desperately for bread and cheese. A police spokesman reported that entire villages were cut off from the outside world, columns of trucks were stranded and disbanded in the middle of nowhere. Everyone was advised against using their cars. Then came the weatherman from the airport. The snow would continue all day and possibly into the night, he said, and the temperature, for the time being, would remain at around fifteen degrees below zero. That night he expected local temperatures to drop to twenty-five below. I stood at the counter and looked out at the endless snow. We had to get wood.
In the horizonless white world that was forming outside, the blizzard snarled and shrieked. I stood knee-deep in the snow. The trees were white, the sky hidden behind a curtain of flakes so thick it was impossible to look up. The wind had blown drifts nearly three feet high against the wall of the verandah. Where the logs should have been, where they had always been, under the lean-to behind the kitchen, I found only the sawhorse and an empty brown wicker basket.
I went to the little gardener’s shed, to the right of the house. There was no wood, but I did find tools, an axe wrapped in burlap, a couple of rakes, a hoe and a shovel, a grindstone, and empty wooden crates that had once held flower bulbs. There were still a few onion-like skins at the bottom. I picked up the crates and the axe and went back out into the snow, towards the kitchen. I stopped briefly to take shelter on the verandah. There, blinded by the blizzard, I wondered what to do. Chop down a tree? How long did you have to wait before green wood was dry enough to burn? White whirlpools spun through the air, snow that had fallen was whipped back up and formed new drifts in other corners. I clasped the axe firmly under my arm and went inside.
In the kitchen I laid the axe down on the counter and looked at the cold gleam on the blade. I picked it up and slowly turned it around. Then I lit the candle again, tucked the axe under my arm, and went to find Nina.
‘I’m home …’
I opened the hunting room door a hand’s-breadth and peered in through the crack. There was no answer. I pushed the door open a bit further. ‘Daddy’s ho-ome …’
The hunting room was empty. The yellowy candlelight glided across the walls and bed. Where Nina had been sitting the covers were rumpled, but she herself was nowhere to be seen. I walked inside and laid my hand on the bed. Cold. She must have been gone for a while now. She had probably left after I’d gone down into the cellar.
Why had she left without saying anything? What could possibly make her want to sneak back through the icy wind to her car, through a forest she barely knew? I blew out the candle, put the axe on the bed, and went into the hall. In the doorway, with the wind blowing me straight in the face, I peered out at the snow-covered stairs. Not a footstep in sight. I pulled my coat tighter around me, closed the door, and walked down the path, to the forest.
For half an hour I plodded through the white storm. Although it was much less windy among the trees, Nina’s footsteps had vanished. It wasn’t until I had reached the spot where we had left the car that I saw the first sign of her presence. Under the white film of snow that covered the path glimmered the tracks of a car that had backed out, turned, and disappeared, skidding, towards the bottom of the hill.
On the way back my feet went numb. It was as if my shoes were full of cement. Each time I took a step I felt the dull thud of something coming down too hard. I had left Nina alone while I went to look for wood and make a fire, and God knows we needed it, but now, on my third trek through the snow, as my feet and calves got soaked for the third time, I was beginning to reach the point where one is no longer cold, but scared. If my toes, fingers or ears froze, I would lose them. There was no chance of me reaching civilization on foot. I had to warm up, fast.
The last stretch I began to run, half stumbling, nearly falling, towards the house. For a moment, on the great white lawn, I rose up out of myself. I saw a tiny figure, swathed in black, fighting its way through the whiteness. The house stood motionless in the whirlpool of snow and the little man in the depths ran and ran and ran.
IN THE LIBRARY, by the fire, we ate with our plates on our laps. The Pinot Gris was at perfect cellar temperature and fragrant as a meadow in summer. The sauerkraut was steaming hot, but we were so hungry we gobbled it down.
‘Sauerkraut with mustard sauce and apples,’ Nina said after a while. ‘This is the first time you’ve ever cooked for me.’
‘You could be right.’
She sipped her wine, squinting slightly. ‘It’s delicious. I didn’t know you had it in you.’
I bowed my head in gratitude. ‘When I was a boy I used to cook for the whole family. I didn’t think Sophie was any good at it.’
‘And was that true?’
‘Was she good at it, you mean? Oh, she was alright. She’d just lost interest over the years. If you have to cook every day of the week, it’s no fun anymore.’
‘But you cooked every day, too. You just said so.’
‘It was different for me. I cooked so I could think up fairy tales.’
Nina had put her plate down on one of Uncle Herman’s mobile bookcases and was holding the glass of wine in her hand. ‘I think it’s time you told me why we’re here,’ she said.
‘Why we’re here? You’re here because you gave me a ride and can’t get back. Though you certainly did your damnedest to escape. I’m here because …’
‘Not the old Uncle Herman story again. What’s going on here?’
‘I don’t know, Nina, I have no idea.’
‘Then let me ask you something else. What were you just doing with that cup of water? What were you saying?’
Before we sat down to eat I had filled a cup with water and poured it out over my hands, three splashes over my right hand, three over my left. ‘The blessing over washing the hands and eating,’ I said. ‘A Jewish ritual.’
‘Never heard of it. I didn’t know you were religious.’
‘Religious … I’m not religious. I’m a sceptic.’
She looked annoyed. ‘So what’re you saying? You pray but you don’t believe in God?’
‘The berakhah, the blessing,