Exiles (35 page)

He noticed, as the trail climbed, that the forest was changing from spruce to birch. In the lowlands he had walked in almost constant shade. But on the higher ground, where birch was predominant, the light began to cut through, at first in streaks that shot to the ground through breaks in the overhead leaves. Then, as he climbed and the growth became less thick and the trees themselves were sparsely foliated, the beams of light widened to patches and the forest opened to daylight. At higher altitudes, the birch trees looked withered, sick, their bark a dusty gray. On many, the trunks and branches were swollen into great, bulbous tumors that choked the life from the trees. The upper branches reached into the air, frail and brittle and black, like dead fingers.

Spiegel stopped to drink from his canteen. Though the light was weak, the sun was surprisingly hot. He had been hiking for several hours. He planned to push on to the first shelter, where he would spend the night. It was strange, he thought, that the views backward, toward the lake and Monika’s village and the Baltic and the highway to the south, had never materialized. On the lower ground, the thick forest had concealed the view, yet now that his field of vision had opened he had already crossed or rounded several promontories, so it was impossible to turn about and survey the course of his journey. Behind him, the trail seemed to curl off into a valley and then disappear into the bluish hills, like a ribbon of smoke vanishing in a windy sky. Ahead of him was a great expanse, a long, flint-strewn slope that tilted down toward a meadow and a rocky stream. In bad weather, a hiker might lose the trail as it crossed the open ground, but in the good light Spiegel could see the markings, small cairns of broken rock, that guided him along the field to the banks of the stream. Blue butterflies scribbled, like a child’s pencil across colored paper, just above the tips of grass as he followed the trail along the streambed. The only sound was the rush of the water along the rocks. The water looked clear. The rocks at the bottom were red like iron.

The trail crossed the stream on a bridge of rock and led Spiegel across a long flatland of spongy ground toward the base of a steep ascent, the first of the real mountains. Far ahead, Spiegel could see forms moving at the margin of the level ground. At first he thought he was seeing grazing cattle or even a pack of large dogs. He hesitated, concerned about approaching too suddenly and startling the animals. But he had no choice except to move forward, cautiously. As he neared the herd he could see what he had come upon: wild reindeer. He hadn’t known that they roamed the south face of the mountains. The trail took him right through the center of the herd. Some reindeer nuzzled their noses into the damp ground, foraging for lichen or berries. Others stared ahead, on the lookout. Despite the vast open space of the field, the reindeer huddled close together, almost flank to flank. Passing right next to them, Spiegel was tempted to scratch one behind the ears, as if it were a big dog, but he was worried about disease carried by Arctic ticks and he thought it would be safer to pass through the pack without attracting the attention of the leader. The reindeer seemed so docile, peaceful. But they were large and strong, each the size of a Great Dane. One kick with a cloven black hoof sharp as a stiletto could be crippling, and the herd, if it should panic, could easily knock him to the ground and drag him or stomp him, maybe not to death, though who would find him here if he were knocked unconscious and disabled? But the reindeer were oblivious. He passed through the herd like a jet passing through a cloud.

As the trail climbed, Spiegel looked down to the flats through an opening in the birch trees and saw the deer still grazing. He sensed that an army could have marched through the herd and the deer would not have broken the rhythm of their eternal ruminations. They live on a different plane from us, he thought, different even from most animals, which flee in fright at our approach. The deer were more like the climate itself, grandly indifferent to human presence.

The hike up the mountain put a strain on Spiegel’s legs, and he broke into a light sweat. He paused several times to rest and to drink. For the first time, he thought it might be good to stop. He wondered if he should eat his light supper or press on to the first shelter. He was hungry, but concerned that he would be too tired to continue if he paused for dinner. The weather was good; could he sleep by the trailside if he didn’t reach the hut? But he had heard about sudden Arctic storms, and he didn’t want to risk exposure. On the higher ground, the trees were too sparse to offer any protection, and the land was rocky and uneven. So he decided to continue to climb for as long as his strength held. In the unchanging light, he had no idea how long he had been hiking— several hours at least, but maybe more. It was possible that he had hiked into the evening or even into the night.

As Spiegel neared the treeline, the trail gradually hardened into rock, and Spiegel found that he was walking along a ridge of shale that spiraled up toward the summit. Above him, he could see long fingers of snow reaching down from the upper ledges. At the higher elevations, there was no sign of life. If the trail went up there, Spiegel could easily lose his footing on the crusts of ice or miss a marking that had been buried beneath a drift. He began to realize how ill-equipped he was for this excursion, what a fool he had been. Again, he thought of turning back and camping for the night by the valley stream. But he could see ahead that the trail wound to the north side of the mountain before making its ascent to the peak, so he decided to push on a little farther, to see the range from the northern perspective. He hoped that the trail might descend from the north slope, bypassing the barren summit with its treacherous spans of summer ice.

The trail rounded a column of rock and then was bisected by a swift stream, spring runoff from the heights. Spiegel had to scramble a hundred feet or so off the trail to find a safe crossing, then step gingerly down the opposite bank, mossy and wet, to recover the trail. But from the new vantage, he saw that the trail did in fact angle down toward lower ground. The air before him was misty, as if a fog had settled in on the less exposed northern side of the range. Through the damp air he could see ahead of him the outline of the roof of the first shelter, a rude structure in a grove of withered birch.

Spiegel was greatly relieved at the sight. The wind off the summit brought a wet chill to the mountain face. Despite the good light, he could tell that it must be quite late. As he worked his way down the trail toward the shelter, with each step he imagined what he would do when he could lay down his pack. He would strip off his socks, build a fire in an iron stove, eat a quick dinner at a pine table, unroll his bag, and curl up for the night, like a fox in a den, to sleep without dreams. Too tired even to reach for the door handle, he kicked the door open with the toe of his boot. He turned as he stepped inside, letting his pack slip off his shoulders. It hit the wood floor with a thud, and Spiegel felt so light he thought he would float like a balloon. He didn’t. He sank to his knees, then sat on the mud-specked floor and leaned against the doorjamb, shaking from exhaustion.

He drooped his head and closed his eyes and made a conscious effort to breathe slowly and evenly, to regain his composure and his strength. He should not have pushed so hard his first day on the trail. But he would be okay if he could get some water and eat a little dinner before collapsing into sleep. Just being inside was good. His hands steadied, and he could feel the blood moving back to his toes, his face. He imagined that he must have looked white as paper when he stepped, or practically fell, into the shelter.

He wondered if he would have the stamina to push on to the railroad junction after only one night’s rest. His hands fumbled with the knots at the top of his pack. He had set aside some candy bars in a zipped pouch. That would do for dinner, he thought. In the morning he would see about a hot breakfast. There was the stove, just as he had imagined it, an iron potbelly with a flat cooking griddle. Beside it, firewood was neatly stacked. And, then, Spiegel felt a shock as if someone had touched his spine with wire. Behind the firewood, he saw a mess kit and a hand towel, hung from a peg on the wall and left to dry. Had someone else made camp in this lonely shelter? But who? How? Nobody had preceded him up the trail, at least not within the last several days. Spiegel would have seen footprints. Maybe the hiker had been living in the hut since the last storm or had approached the shelter from the north, or maybe the last visitor had packed in haste and left a few things behind to mark his passage.

A friend on the trail can be a good thing, Spiegel thought, a chance to trade stories and replenish provisions, like the whalers he had read about who would drop sail when they pulled in sight of one another on remote shipping lanes. But he felt that he couldn’t keep up his end of the deal. He was too tired to talk. Maybe his cabinmate could speak no English. Or maybe he would be asleep by the time the fellow returned to the shelter.

Spiegel unrolled his bag and stripped off his shirt, delicately peeling the dirt-encrusted socks from his blistered feet. He bunched his sweatshirt to form a rudimentary pillow where he was about to lay his head when he heard a noise in the doorway. Shit, he thought. He was too beat to go through the civilities, and the extra effort of trying to do so in Swedish would be more than he could bear. He struggled to stay awake but, hearing no more disturbing sounds, he closed his eyes and gave in to the overpowering force of sleep.

His sleep was uneasy. Even at rest, his body could not cast off the fatigue of the arduous hike. He felt as if he were trudging through his dreams. His feet tingled, his legs twitched and he turned from side to side as if he were entangled, as if he were wrestling with a demon of the air. He woke, startled, several times, and could not tell if he had been asleep for hours or if he had just plunged deep into the pool of dreams from a great height and immediately bobbed back to the surface for a gasp of air.

He dreamed of the long day’s events, the rowboat across the lake, Per tossing stones into the stream, Monika’s tender kiss, the reindeer brushing its flanks against his shoulder, and through the night all the elements of his dreams converged and gained velocity: he was running across a field, with Per, with Monika, with the reindeer, chasing something or someone, the sky filled with the scream of birds, the sun blinding him, a great force pulling him backward, gripping his shoulders like pincers as Monika and her brother, running and laughing, slowly disappeared into the tall grasses at the farthest reaches of the open field. Spiegel tried to call to them, tried to pull himself free from the force that held him back, when he shot upright in bed.

A flashlight was shining into his eyes.

“Yes, I thought so,” said a voice. A hand let go of his shoulder. There was a click. The light snapped off. The shelter, with the door latched and the windows shuttered, was cast into a penumbal darkness. Spiegel could not delimn the form that stood beside him. When he looked up, he saw only two bright rings, the retinal echo of the flashlight beam. “I hoped it would be you.”

The voice was strangely familiar and almost seemed to be emanating from within Spiegel’s own throat. It was as if he were hearing his own words spoken without having to utter them. Though it seemed that another person was in the room with him, he felt that he was alone, that he was conversing only with himself, as if his own words and thoughts were bouncing off a wall and returning a fraction later so that he misperceived the words as coming from another.

“How did you get here, man?” Spiegel asked, tentatively. He didn’t want to let on how little he knew and understood.

“I’ve been watching you. We’ve got some things to settle.”

As Spiegel sat up, the form stepped back toward the center of the room so that his face was illuminated by a band of light that passed through a slat in the wall. His hair was long and had grown into corkscrew curls that touched his bony shoulders. He had cultivated a thick beard, dull brown with blond highlights around the mouth, as if he had been kissed with gold. His eyes had become dark and hollow, tired. His aquiline nose looked pinched and drawn, white at the tip. He folded his arms across his chest. His hands were strong and graceful, his fingers flattened at the nub, like an artist’s. Tall and lean, his shoulders held back in an almost military posture that seemed like a sly commentary on his otherwise disheveled and frayed-at-the-edges affect, he still had the commanding presence of a natural leader. Spiegel wondered how long he had been under Aaronson’s scrutiny.

“Let me see you,” Spiegel said. He swung his feet out of the bed and propped his elbow against a ledge notched into the wall. “Let’s get some light.”

“It’s okay,” Aaronson said. “There’s nothing to see.”

“But how are you? Where the fuck have you been?”

“I’ve been here, waiting for you.”

“That’s not what I meant.” As Spiegel’s eyes grew accustomed to the dim light he got a better look at Aaronson’s profile. Aaronson seemed to be trying to avoid meeting his gaze. Spiegel understood why. It was as if Aaronson, with his hair and beard grown out and his pallid, troubled demeanor, had become the Spiegel of six months ago. He wondered if Aaronson was having the same thoughts. Looking at Spiegel, trim and fit and nourished by six months of good food and regular sexual contact, did he see the ghost of the self that he had left behind?

“I knew you’d be coming this way,” Aaronson said. “I didn’t know exactly when. I wasn’t even sure you’d stop here. I thought maybe you passed through along the trail in the night and I missed you. I was giving it one more night. If you didn’t show up by tomorrow, I was going to leave.”

“You were going back to Uppsala?”

“I was going after you. I was going to find you.”

“But I turned up just in time,” Spiegel said.

“Yes.”

Spiegel felt as if he had opened a doorway and stepped into a dark house, only to find himself tumbling down a flight of stairs into the cellar. Spiegel realized how he had fallen into Aaronson’s hands. He could no longer hide from the truth. Tracy had betrayed him and set him up, arranged to have him leave Monika and walk right into the trap.