HERR DOKTOR HERMANN’S QUESTION IS strange not because of its intimacy—certainly they have touched on intimate subjects before—but because of its specificity. How do you feel about your husband? he should have asked instead. By inserting the word love inside the query, he’s compromised the honesty of her answer.
Elfriede stares at the bridge made by his long, latticed fingers, and his face just above, which seems a little flushed, though today’s weather is far from warm. “Why do you ask?” she says.
“Because it is important for me to know, as your doctor. As your doctor, I must know these vital details, Elfriede, so we may progress in your treatment.”
Dr. Hermann’s fingernails are small and shallow, almost as if the tips of the digits had been chopped off at some uniform length, or else cut short at his creation. Elfriede thinks of her son’s tiny fingernails, like fragments of seashells, and how she used to gaze on them in awe and also fear, unable to understand how such delicate ornamentation could have come from her. From Gerhard and his bear paws.
“Of course I love my husband,” she says.
Dr. Hermann considers. “You say ‘of course,’ Elfriede. Why do you say ‘of course’? Is it necessary for a wife to love her husband?”
“A wife would be a beast if she didn’t love a man such as my husband. She would be unworthy of life.”
Herr Doktor’s hands spring apart. He turns to his notebook, lifts the pen lying in the crease, and writes something down. When he looks up again, his cheeks are even more flushed than before, and the tip of his nose.
“Are you a beast, Elfriede?” he asks. “Are you unworthy of life?”
Elfriede rises from her chair. Because the weather’s blustery, they’re indoors, inside Dr. Hermann’s private office, equipped with comfortable armchairs and a sofa. On the wall opposite Elfriede hangs a painting of the Ringstrasse in Vienna, where the large, baroque houses remind her of Schloss Kleist.
“Excuse me,” she says. “I’m going to get a little air.”
ACTUALLY, THERE’S NO SUCH THING as a little air in a place like this, a monastery arranged on the slope of a mountain so as to be far from mankind and nearer to God. You walked outside and encountered huge mouthfuls of it, you had to gulp to keep pace, to save yourself from drowning, and sometimes there was so much air you turned your back on the wind and made your way along with your shoulders hunched against this onslaught.
Today’s such a day, a day that doesn’t know it’s supposed to be August instead of October. You can actually see the wind as it hurtles between the peaks, dragging along thick shreds of clouds, and you feel it as an ocean current. Cold and forceful it strikes you, sharp and wet at the same time, turning your cheeks and your fingers numb, any skin you dare to lay bare. Elfriede, wearing a thick, belted cardigan but no coat, no jacket of any kind, relishes the hardship. She trudges along the path that leads downward toward the trees, a trail she knows well, every rock, every kink of landscape. The heads of the wildflowers huddle low to shield themselves, like Elfriede herself. The surrounding peaks are invisible inside this mass of howling clouds. No, forget the surrounding peaks, even her own mountain is lost to sight, the slope disappears before her, and she walks on faith alone, curling her fingers inside her sleeves to keep them warm.
Then the first trees flash between the streams of mist. Grow larger, more certain, more plentiful. Elfriede quickens her stride. She reaches the stubby pines at the vanguard, and a hundred or so yards later she’s enveloped by them, like stepping into a cathedral. The wind dies to a breeze. She finds a fallen log and sits in relief. Leans her head back against a thin, hardy trunk. She loves the smell of wood and rot and moss. She closes her eyes and dreams of her baby, whose features are blurred, but whose heart she feels clamoring inside her chest, whether she wants it there or not.
Though the trees muffle the howling of the gale, the forest is not silent. The branches rustle, the wind whines between the pine needles. Certain of her own solitude, Elfriede doesn’t hear the sound of footsteps as they approach, only the voice that greets her, an instant after she senses the vibration of another human being.
“Frau von Kleist?” a man inquires, in a slight, courteous English accent.
TWO WEEKS HAVE PASSED SINCE Elfriede encountered the Englishman in the infirmary garden. To be precise, sixteen days and a few hours, but who’s counting? Her eyes fly open, she startles upward from the log. She beholds him, a pumpkin-headed skeleton belted into a thick Norfolk jacket, wool trousers, leather gaiters. A hunting cap covers his wide skull, his stubbly ginger hair. There should be a pipe sticking from his mouth, a shotgun nestled in the crook of his elbow to complete the picture, but mercifully no.
“You shouldn’t be out in such weather,” she exclaims.
“Probably not. Yet here I am. You might say the mountains called me. Do you mind awfully if I sit down? Still a bit short-winded, I’m afraid.”
“No, of course not.”
He doesn’t move, just stands there smiling inquisitively, and Elfriede realizes that he won’t sit until she does. A gentleman. So she drops back onto her log. Mr. Thorpe finds a boulder. Beneath the collar of his jacket, he wears a scarf of bulky wool. Elfriede drops her gaze to the ground before her, which is cushioned in old brown pine needles.
“You shouldn’t be out,” she says again.
“Do you know, that’s exactly what the orderly told me.”
“You should have listened to the orderly.”
“Oh, I’m used to this sort of weather. I spent my summers in Scotland, with my mother and her sisters. Frightful, most of the time. Of course, when it was fine, there was no lovelier place in the world. Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Smoke?”
He was already drawing a silver case from his jacket pocket. “You’re about to tell me I shouldn’t be smoking, either.”
“But it’s true. You’ve had pneumonia.”
“You’re