The Silent Land

18

Zoe opened her eyes to a white expanse. She felt the silk and honey of warmth in her veins. An odour of disinfectant. A brightly illuminated room. The white expanse was that of cotton sheets and a pillowcase.

There was a nurse looking at her. They blinked at each other. The nurse walked away quickly and returned within seconds with another woman, this one in a doctor’s white coat.

The woman bent over her. ‘Zoe?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘You know what happened?’ She spoke with a strong French accent.

‘Avalanche.’

‘Yes.’

‘My husband?’

The doctor sat on the bed and took her hand. ‘We didn’t find him yet. We only got you just in time. I’m so sorry.’

Zoe tilted back her head and opened her mouth in a silent wail and let the bitter salt tears flow over her face. The doctor waited patiently for the sobbing and convulsions to subside. But they didn’t. She said some words to the nurse in French and the nurse produced a medical syringe which she handed to the doctor.

‘No,’ Zoe said, ‘no. I don’t want to go back to sleep. I don’t want that.’

The doctor nodded. She put the syringe into a dish. ‘As you wish. If you want it, you tell me.’

Zoe looked around her at the room. Both the doctor and the nurse stared at her, as if they were waiting for her to say something.

‘You might not think this,’ the doctor said, ‘but you have been very lucky. Very lucky. You were at the door of death. Do you know that you are pregnant?’

Zoe nodded.

‘The baby seems to be fine,’ the doctor said. ‘We’ll watch that.’

Zoe felt choked. Huge sobs were trying to fight their way out of her, but she pushed them down.

‘How do you feel? I mean, physically?’

Zoe shook her head. Her grief was physical.

‘Apart from a few bruises I didn’t find anything,’ the doctor said. ‘This bloodshot in your eyes will go after a while. It’s from the pressure of the snow, weighing on you.’

She struggled to speak. ‘Can I see?’

The doctor asked the nurse to find her a mirror.

Zoe held up the mirror. The whites of her eyes had indeed been turned all red. It was the way Jake had looked.

‘It will pass. You just need to rest. You have a lot of things to think about.’ The doctor stood up. ‘Look, there’s a man outside. He’s the one who found you. He dug you out of the snow. He would like to speak with you and he’s been waiting outside since you were brought in. But if you’re not up to it I can send him away. He can come back later.’

‘No, please let him come in.’

The doctor nodded to the nurse, who went out of the room. After a few minutes she returned with an elderly gentleman, his leathery, tanned face wreathed with lines. His grey hair was shaved close to his skull. He had a miraculously thin and close-trimmed moustache. There was a smile on his lips but his eyes glittered with sympathy for her grief, like sunlight on frost.

It was perfectly natural that Zoe should hold out her arms to embrace the stranger who had saved her. The doctor drew back so that he could lean across the bed and accept her embrace. ‘Vous bénisse! Vous bénisse!’ he said.

He reeked of tobacco.

‘Thank you thank you thank you.’

He stood back and spoke to her in French, not appearing to care if Zoe could understand. The doctor translated. ‘He says you are the third person he has dug out of the snow, but you were the one he had the least hope for.’

‘Can you ask him how long I was under the snow?’

‘He says maybe twenty minutes, maybe more. Your holiday rep had seen you go up early and she was able to give the rescue team your number. They were nearby and they got there very fast. But all the others were looking in the wrong place. He says he listened to the snow.’

‘Listened?’

‘That’s what he said. He said his colleagues were using thermal sensor equipment but they were wrong. He went to a different place and found you. He said they quickly got hold of your phone number and tried to call. He says he heard your phone ringing under the snow. But it kept stopping and he was praying to let it ring.’

‘Laissez sonner.’

‘Oui. Laissez sonner,’ said the old man.

She knew his voice. But it wasn’t possible that, buried under snow, she could have answered her phone.

Then he handed her a card. It was wet, almost disintegrating, and it was the size of a large playing card. On one side was a picture of a Christmas tree, decorated with gifts. She had seen it before. But this time there were no words on the card.

‘What’s this?’

The man spoke and the doctor translated. ‘He said it was in your fist.’

The man spoke again to the doctor, flicking at his own large ears and smiling at Zoe. ‘He says he’s always had good hearing. His friends joke about it. And he said he heard tiny movements under the snow. A tiny scratching. Then he knew you were there, and he called the rest of them. And they all came.’

‘What did he…?’ she tried.

‘He doesn’t trust the new ways. He said he even gave you cognac when he found you, though it’s forbidden now.’

‘I remember the taste of the cognac.’

The doctor translated and the old man’s eyebrows danced. He spoke in animated fashion. Then the man became sombre and turned to look at the doctor.

‘Now he says he doesn’t want to look at you while he apologises for not finding the other one.’

Despite this, the old man turned and nodded at her.

‘Please tell him that he did save another one. He did.’

The doctor explained something to the old man. He stepped over to the bed and tenderly he reached out a weathered hand and placed it on the cotton covers above her belly. He let his hand rest there for a moment and again the reek of his tobacco was strong.

‘He’s very happy,’ the doctor said. ‘He’s a coffin-maker in the village, and he says he’s glad to be involved with life instead of death.’

Zoe felt the tears welling up. The man wished her luck and took his leave.

Once more the doctor offered her something that would help her to sleep. Zoe refused it. There would be a great deal to think about in the coming days, and a lot to do. She lay back with her hand resting on her midriff. She wondered if Jake had made a deal in some dark place; a trade wherein he had not abandoned her at all, but had saved her; and if such a thing were possible.

She heard a light grazing on the window and she looked up to see huge, gentle six-pointed flakes from a picture book blown by a breeze onto the glass. It was snowing again.