But would he really have done it? And if he had tried to make a run for it, would the soldier really have shot him? He would have shot him without a doubt. He had his orders, after all.
But what was that dirty green khaki canvas tent doing there anyway? What was that peasant from somewhere in the distant Hortobágy, from the Hungarian steppe, doing there in that mountain landscape, pointing a gun at the town? They had obviously posted sentinels at all the exits from the town. So quickly have the prison walls closed in on us, thought Ernst. But only on us? The war had reached the border. Wasn’t the soldier’s rifle pointed threateningly at all the town’s citizens? Wouldn’t anybody at all be ordered to halt?
Just yesterday, the prison was a big as the whole country. You couldn’t enter or leave unsupervised. Now, the town was a prison, surrounded by invisible walls and guarded by soldiers. And tomorrow? What would tomorrow bring? The streets and then the houses would become prisons. And the walls would close in more and more narrowly, and every person would be a prison unto himself. And a prison guard unto himself…
That evening Ernst arrived at the house of Ionu, Son of the Trustworthy One, over Argriș Hill. He had travelled by hidden paths, he had climbed the hills by steep shortcuts, untrodden by Sunday excursionists, whom you saw strolling along the winding paths, pausing from time to time to admire the landscape from the foot of Solovan Hill or sitting in a circle on the grass in the glades, peacefully eating sandwiches, drinking steaming coffee from thermos flasks, and avidly inhaling the pure air, as if performing a ritual. A sacred ritual: the inhalation of pure mountain air.
Ernst emerged from the fir trees and on the smooth, gentle slope of the hill saw the house of Ionu Stan, known as Son of the Trustworthy One. The house was made of oak beams and had a tapering shingle roof, blackened by age and wood smoke. The house did not have a chimney, and in winter, the smoke from the stove rose into the attic and seeped out through the shingles. The whole roof used to smoke, like a huge tobacco pipe, laid on a snow-white tablecloth.
But it was not winter now and no smoke seeped through the roof. In the dusk all the surroundings were deep green, apart from the house, blackened by time and soot, and the narrow path that led to it, which was clayey yellow in the fading light.
Suddenly, a large sheepdog, with a round, stocky body covered in thick white fur, rushed furiously from the yard towards the approaching stranger. Ernst did not take fright. He sat down on the ground and there he remained, motionless. The dog circled him a few times and then stopped in front of him, growling contentedly. Ernst knew the dog. And the dog knew him. A few years previously, when he had approached the house for the first time, the dog had rushed out furiously, like a white cannonball. That time he had taken fright. He had been about to run away or to defend himself with his mountaineer’s cane. But Ionu Son of the Trustworthy One had shouted to him from the porch, telling him to sit down on the grass where he was and not to move. Ernst had sat down on the ground and waited, stock-still. The dog had circled him a few times, looking at him with its small red eyes. Ernst had then slowly stood up and the dog had escorted him at a distance of a few paces into its master’s yard.
5
Back then things always took the same course when he stopped off at Agriș Hill on a day trip. He would sit down with his fellow wayfarers on the bench on the veranda to drink a jug of fresh milk, to sample a slice of new cheese, and to chat with Ionu, who, although he lived up in the mountains, without a radio, without newspapers, was surprisingly well informed about what went on in the rest of the country and in foreign parts.
Back then it was pleasant, the days were serene, and he used to be greeted with: ‘Welcome, young sir!’ and on leaving they would bid him: ‘Farewell, young sir!’ It was tranquil and pleasing aromas wafted on the pure air.
But now it was completely different. He had arrived in the house of Ionu Stan, Son of the Trustworthy One, as a kind of clandestine tenant, on an unlimited stay, paying for his board and lodgings. Disguised to look like one of them, although he was not one of them, but rather a young sir from town, dressed in peasant’s frieze trousers and hemp smock, with rustic moccasins and a straw hat adorned with an ostrich feather, garb he wore quite awkwardly.
They all felt embarrassed. Ernst tried to strike up a conversation with Ionu:
‘It was hot today.’
‘Hot.’
‘But the weather is getting cooler.’
‘It’s getting cooler.’
The host’s three children, the eldest daughter, Eudochia, who was old enough to marry, and the two younger ones, Andilina, who was fourteen, and Ionuț, the little lad of six, gazed at the familiar stranger, who had visited their house many times but who now had come dressed in peasant garb. He would have to give them an explanation… In the meantime, it had grown dark and Ileana, the forester’s wife, a strong woman a head taller than her husband, had lit the oil lamp. The flames sputtered, casting shadows over the whitewashed walls of the house, they roared high, like monsters, and then docilely quieted down, while the wick desperately sucked in air. The lamp began to crackle, the flame settled, casting a yellow light on their faces.
Ileana had completed four years of schooling there in the mountains, at the primary school in the hamlet of Sihei, at the foot of Agriș Hill, after which she had lived for a few years in the town, in the house of Father Ion Bîrcea. The priest’s wife, Adriana, in order to help her husband and increase his rather modest income, had set up a carpet-weaving workshop in their yard. Ileana and other girls from the country worked on traditional Maramureș carpets in the workshop. A clever, playful woman, with a certain amount of town education and with the wisdom instilled in her at home, Ileana was the first to find the right tone to dissipate the awkwardness:
‘In these parts, young sir, we call to each other from the neighbouring hilltops by name, like this: Gheo–, Pa–, Ste– . How should we call you? Er–?’
They all laughed and the ice melted.
‘You oughtn’t to call me at all!’ said Ernst gravely. ‘You know very well that I’m here, but in fact I’m not here… ’
Ileana took the cauldron from the large stove, which occupied around a quarter of the room.
‘Take a seat at the table, young sir.’
The cauldron of maize porridge crackled and smoked. They all sat down around the table. None of the dishes from the great Sacher Restaurant in central Vienna was as tasty as that maize porridge and whey.
No doubt about it: clothes don’t make the man, but rather they conceal him. He was still a young sir from the town. True, his face was sunburned, but his hands were those of a town dweller, with slender, nervous fingers. All of a sudden, Ileana, the forester’s wife, burst out laughing. She looked intently at the hands of their new lodger. It was only now that Ernst noticed that he had forgotten to take off his gold signet ring, embossed with his monogram. A peasant with a gold signet ring? Such a thing was unheard of in the mountains of Maramureș, even