MER DE GLACE
The lobby grew cluttered with trunks and unclaimed luggage. Rats were
leaving France as if it were sinking. Each day more rooms were shut up and
shrouded; each meal an ordeal whispers among the polished glasses, the silver
forks and starched white figured damask linen. Shadows crept to fill the empty
spaces, silence muffled every corridor and staircase until two new gusts came
down to breakfast one morning, the optimism of youth shining from their cheeks.
A young man and a girl. Fair-haired and wholesome.
Laura leaned towards
her husband who was reading an old copy of the Morning Post. “They look friendly. Introduce us, please, she asked Charles.
He continued reading. She sipped her
coffee.
She summoned the waiter
in her faltering French. At this, the new young man smiled from across the
room. She should have looked away - she was after all, and married women had to
preserve their dignity and reputation - but she liked his grey eyes too much
for that, even she was a married woman and, after all, and married women had to
preserve their dignity and reputation.
Only, the cloud of war that hung over them all was already rewriting the
rules. She could feel the scratch of the moving pen on her skin.
The young man turned to
the window and the misted rooftops. His companion chewed her plait amiably. He
reached over the table and slapped her hand at which she giggled and slapped
him back.
Laura stirred her
coffee. “I can't quite make them out. What do you think?”
Charles turned a page.
Beyond the windows
another summer's day was easing itself to its full brilliance. The glaciers
were retreating, the meadows were scorched, their flowers wilted, but still the
river thundered on. During the sweet, sticky nights when sleep eluded her, its
constant chunter shared her insomnia.
“Please, my dear. I'm
trying to read a complex article about the Austro-Hungarians. I can't
concentrate if you keep interrupting.”
Laura bit her lip. When
she first met Charles she had fallen in love with his calm reason. Having been
brought up as the baby of a house that was never silent, a house that resounded
to the petty squabbles of five sisters, she had been flattered by his quiet
attention. But she'd already forgotten how to speak to him and he no longer
listened. What she had learned was how not to make a noise when she cried.
The waiter placed a
boiled egg on the table. Charles folded his newspaper and picked up a spoon.
“Your eyes are very bright today, Laura. Doctor Parkin was right to suggest the
Alps. The mountain air suits you.” In fact, Chamonix had been Laura's idea. The
doctor had recommended Baden-Baden, but Charles had put his foot down. And she
wondered how much mountain air she had breathed since she wasn't allowed to
leave the hotel. She had lost her delight in books; her delight in life. What
was there to do but spend her days in their room, staring at the carved and
painted furniture?
“You'd think,” said
Charles, “that a hotel of this calibre would understand the concept of 'lightly
boiled.' This is concrete.”
H pushed the plate away
and picked up his newspaper. It was the first he had come across since they had
arrived and he had pounced on it like a hawk on a rabbit. Laura poured more
coffee from the pot and, inhaling its dark bitterness, resumed her
observations. The girl was toying with the crumbs left on her plate and the man
was watching her and jotting notes in his book.
“I know who they are,” she said. “Hansel and
Gretel. He has worked out a plan so they won't get lost in the forest. He will
drop the crumbs behind them to make a trail. But it won't work. The birds will
eat the crumbs and the dark forest will close over them. They will never
escape.”
Charles threw his
newspaper across the table. “Can't a man have some peace and quiet?” His egg
and spoon clattered to the floor. “I don't know why I bother. This is such an
old edition. We could already be at war.”
Hansel and Gretel rose
from their table. When they'd gone, Laura whispered. “I think they're German.”
“Who?”
“Hansel and Gretel. The
couple by the window.”
Charles glanced about
the empty room. “Are you sure you're not feverish again? Besides, there won't
be any Germans here now. They'll all be back home preparing for war. They knew
what was up the moment the Archduke was assassinated.”
Laura laughed.
Charles's features sharpened. “I fail to see any humour in the situation. I
sometimes think your misfortune has affected your mind.”
“You are right. It
isn't funny. Nothing is funny any more.”
She forced herself to her feet. “I'm tired. I'm going to lie down.”
Charles's manner
changed on the instant. “My dear. You should have said before. I apologise for
my earlier outburst, but it is the fault of the Kaiser.” He rapped the
newspaper with his knuckles. “Impossible to believe he shares the same blood as
our King. Let me take your arm.”
Laura had lied. She wasn't weary, at least not in her body. That fizzed
and spat like fat in a pan. As soon as Charles left her to return to his
breakfast she flung open the shutters and leaned over the balcony. The town was
going about its business. Carts thronged the streets. Neighbours hailed each
other across the river. Below her the crashing of pots and the hot greasiness
of lunch being prepared drifted up from the kitchens. A boy was sweeping the
flags of the hotel terrace, dragging out tables and chairs, brushing fallen
leaves from the canopied swing-seat. He was whistling between his teeth. Behind
him, the river tumbled over heaps of smoothed boulders. The colour and texture
of onyx, it rushed on, never changing, ever moving. How long would it take
before the water she could see poured into the Rhone? And how long before it
disgorged into the dazzling blue of the Mediterranean? When a fisherman dragged
his nets ashore in Corsica, when his gasping, silver treasure slithered into
the baskets he would later carry to market, would he see that same water? And
if some of that same water glistening on one fish's back later splashed on the
market floor, how long would it be before the sun reclaimed it, sucked it up,
to fall as snow on the peaks that now shimmered through the mist? For the
journey did not begin here. It started up there in the ice that had creaked and
cracked high above her centuries before; ice that had felt the weight of
mammoths.
So what then of the
looming war? What did it mean to rivers, glaciers and mountains? And what then
of the loss of one child, a child who had never breathed air nor drank water,
compared with such enormity?
Threads of mist lay in
loose skeins across the valley and shawled the white Massif, but as she
watched, the threads unravelled and the peaks revealed themselves to her. They
didn't roar or splash like the river; they didn't chatter and clatter like the
servants in the kitchens but they spoke to her.
She only wished she
knew what they were saying.
The effort exhausted
her. The moment slipped from her grasp. The mist closed in again. She shivered,
closed the shutters and lay down on the bed.
She must have slept.
Sunlight striped the wall and Charles was leaning over her. “I'm sorry not have
come up before, but I have met the most interesting fellow newly arrived from
London. Morris - that's his name - says that if war comes, the British Army will
soon trounce our enemies. He also says he can find me a suitable military
posting so I won't miss the show. I suggested that he and I went for a stroll
to mull things over. You don't mind, do you?”
She closed her eyes.
“Not at all.”
“Splendid. What glory
awaits us all. Something to tell the children, eh?”
“What children would
these be, Charles? Dr Parkin told me . . .”
“Doctors aren't always
right, you know.”
“Shouldn't you go down?
You don't want to keep Mr Morris waiting. She sat up. “By the way. This war. It
made you angry at breakfast. And now it's a glorious show. What's changed?” But
he'd gone.
She ran out on the
balcony in time to see him striding out swinging his Alpenstock, in animated
conversation with a squat man with no neck. “Onward Christian soldiers,
marching as to war,” she muttered.
It was only when
someone coughed that she realised she’d been heard. Below her Hansel's tanned
face peered up at her. He was then joined by Gretel who waved her straw hat
like a banner. “My brother has ordered me to wear this to prevent . . .” She
began in English but floundered.
“Freckles,” said Laura.
The girl giggled.
“Eva and I are about to
have lunch,” said the young man. “Join us.”
“I can't.”
“Are you a prisoner?”
said Eva.
“No, but I have. . .”
She chose her words with care. “I have been ill. I need to rest.” “You can rest here,” said Eva.
“Indeed you can. It is
most pleasant in the shade.”
After introductions had been made and hats
compared, Laura found herself seated at a small table beneath a plane tree with
a glass of wine before her and a cushion at her back. Hansel's real name was
Theo Strauss. He was studying law, which he loathed.
“He wants to be a
poet,” said Eva. “He and Papa had a row about it, but Theo will have his way.
He always does”
“Frau Thompson does not
want to know that.”
“Laura, please. You
make me sound old.”
“How old are you?”
“Eva!”
“I don't mind. I'm
twenty five.”
“Theo is twenty three
and I am sixteen.”
“Don't lie. You are
fifteen and only just that.”
Eva pouted. “You sound
more like Papa every day.”
Theo explained that his
father had asked him to take Eva on a European tour to complete her education.”
But she refuses to learn anything. She is hopeless.”
Eva pulled a face. She began to strip lengths
of straw from her hat and drop them to the ground. Theo grabbed it. “I thought
I told you to put your hat on your head, not your lap.”
“Poof!” Eva snatched it
back, stood up, slapped it down on her seat and sat on it.
Laura was amused. “You
remind me so much of myself. I was the baby of a big family so I got everyone's
cast-off. I once threw a pair of perfectly serviceable boots to our neighbour's
pig.”
“What happened?”
“It gobbled them up.”
“I wish I'd thought of
that.”
“Don't encourage her,”
said Theo firmly although he was not angry. “She already admires you too much.”
“I'm very ordinary.”
“Oh you are not
ordinary at all,” exclaimed Eva, piling salad onto her plate. “You are quite
beautiful. Theo said your hair is like golden thistledown and that you are a
princess locked in marriage to an evil wizard.”
“That is quite enough,
Eva. And hold your fork properly. You are not a peasant.” Theo's anger silenced
her and she said nothing more until the effects of the wine and food once more
softened his eyes.
When the meal was over,
Laura and Eva moved to the swing-seat. The shadows of the plane-trees crept
inch by inch across the terrace. A soft breeze rolled down from the mountains,
rustling the dry leaves above them. Chaffinches pecked for crumbs at their
feet. Two doves were calling to each other and bees lumbered through the heavy
afternoon air. The seat creaked as it swung, its fringe rippled and Eva snored
gently, her arm thrown across Laura's lap. Theo remained at the table, reading.
Absorbed and without self-regard, he melted into the scenery. Laura looked past
him to the mountains, their whiteness merging with the pale sky behind a veil
of shimmering light. She fanned herself with Eva's flattened hat. “I feel like
a Lotus Eater. Do you know Tennyson's poetry?”
Theo closed his book. “Of course. 'On the hills like Gods together,
careless of mankind.' Shall I order tea?”
“No thank you. I am
sipping nectar.”
He smiled. “Tea, Eva?”
His sister moved her
arm but did not wake. “She is fortunate to have you to care for her,” said
Laura.
“She doesn't think so.”
“Where will you go when
you leave France?”
“We had planned to tour
England. But that is now out of the question.”
“The war,” she said
watching a line of schoolboys march past.
“Yes.”
“If war comes . . . .”
“It will come.”
“Will you fight?” She
had a sudden image of Charles and Theo rushing towards each other, sabres
aloft.
“I have asthma,” he
said. “Eva does not know yet but as soon as war is declared I shall take her to
Zurich. Our family is to gather there. And you? What plans have you made?”
She shook her head. She
couldn't think ahead nor imagine anything other than leaning back, suspended in
the air, beneath the glittering mountains. She wanted to catch the butterfly moment
in her hand and hold it captive, feel it fluttering until she chose to let it
go. The purring of the doves, the flop of a leaf onto a table, Eva's crumpled
hat, the rush of the river behind her, a hawk hanging above the valley, the sun
on its slow decline, the scent of rain in the next valley.
“When I first came
here,” she said. “The mountains seemed too large. I was terrified they would
crash down on me.”
“And now?” asked Theo
batting a fly from his face.
“Like they want to
embrace me and keep me safe. Like a mother folds herself over her child.” A sob
caught her by surprise. Theo leaned forward in his chair, not questioning but
giving her space to speak further and before she was aware she was doing it,
before she had time to regret her indiscretion, she was telling him about the
miscarriage and the doctor's fear that she would never have another child.
“I detect your loss has
left a shard of ice in your heart,” he said
Had it?
Mountain weather is
volatile and clouds were now rolling through the valley. Thunder growled. Wind
rattled the trees and lifted the leaves from the ground. The birds had stopped
chirping but the river tumbled down to the Rhone, to the sea, to the sky to
fall as rain, to trickle, splash, rush, pour and tumble again and again and
again. And here she was.
“Laura!”
And there was Charles.
He took her arm and with a cold nod to Theo, pulled her from the seat and
propelled her into the hotel, up the stairs and into their room. “Have you
taken leave of your senses? Here we are on the very precipice of war and I find
you intimate with Germans.”
Laura gripped the
bedstead. “At breakfast you said there were no Germans here. Don't you
remember? All Germans are at home preparing for war.”
Charles raised his
hand. “Morris says there may well be spies working here.”
An explosion of
mirthless laughter ripped through her. Charles shook his head. “You are such an
innocent, my dear. By the way, I have asked him to join us for dinner. I want
you downstairs by eight. And wear your pearls.”
Laura couldn't move.
Her limbs were lead weights. A ball of ice was swelling within her. She felt
both very small and as mighty and implacable as the mountains over whose heads,
inky rags of cloud were now pouring. If she chose to she could rip the paper
from the walls, claw the paint from the wardrobe, shatter the windows and leap
to the ground and run through the streets, a screaming harpy. Instead, she had
to pull each frozen word from her mouth. “No Charles. I will not wear your
pearls and I will not come down for dinner.”
“If that is your
decision, I will respect it. Morris will understand. I have already informed
him of your misfortune.”
“Our misfortune.”
“Indeed, Laura. Our
misfortune.” He patted her arm. She shook the gesture off and he left her.
She shrank to think
that Charles could freely dispense private information that had taken a pair of
soft, grey eyes to extract from her. “My wife is a semi-invalid, you know,
since she lost our first child. That's why I brought her here despite the imminence
of war. Physically she is recovering but I am somewhat concerned about her
mental state.”
Damn him! She slammed
the window against the rain that was now sheeting across the town. The terrace
was water-logged; the swing-seat rocked like a ship at sea. Rain lashed the
flagstones and the wind's teeth shredded the sodden ribbons of Eva's hat that
lay abandoned on the seat.
The rain fell all night and on and off for the next three days as July
became August. Bloated clouds filled the valley, blotting out the crags and
peaks. The river rose and spilled into cellars and kitchens, but Laura, curled
up in her bed, knew nothing of this only that she was living up to Charles's
stereotype of a weak and silly woman. She hated herself for it, but couldn't
see how to stop until one afternoon—she didn't know what day of the week it
was—Eva knocked and entered. She flumped down at the foot of the bed, chewing
her plait.
“Are you very ill?”
“Not at all.”
“Theo and I miss you
terribly. We have been worried.”
“There was no need.”
She felt ashamed of their concern but at the same time she tingled in its glow.
Suddenly, bored with the role she had imposed upon herself, she finally became
aware of how others might see her. She touched her hair. It was thick and matted.
Her nightdress clung to her, grey and crumpled. Medicine bottles cluttered the
mantelpiece and discarded clothes were strewn across the floor.
“Theo says you have an
illness of the heart.”
“Did he? Then he is
wrong. There is nothing wrong with my heart. It's more simple than that. My
husband says I must not speak to Germans.”
‘I see.’ Eva opened the
shutters. The clouds had gone; the sky was a sheet of blue. The mountains
remained.
“Theo thought as much,”
she said. “Tell me. If your husband knew I was here, would he kill us?”
“Charles?” The very
idea of her husband, of all people, bursting into the room armed with a gun,
sword or even his Alpenstock was so ridiculous that she giggled. Eva joined in
and the more they did so the more ridiculous her prolonged sulk was. “Run
downstairs,” she said when she had regained control. “Tell Theo I shall be on
the terrace in fifteen minutes.”
It wasn't difficult. She didn't have to lie. Charles was so regular in
his habits that she knew he and Morris wouldn't return to the hotel until
four-thirty by which time she was calmly seated alone on the terrace, reading a
novel. And if her cheeks were more flushed than usual, and even if Charles
noticed, she could put it down to the alpine air.
She, Eva and Theo soon
established a routine. Lunch on the
terrace, tea on the swing seat followed. Their conversation was mainly about
music and literature. Laura was ashamed that, despite Theo's low opinion of
Eva's learning, she knew far more about them than she did. Theo recommended
books for her and she read thirstily. Her French improved and she asked Theo to
teach her German. She was no linguist but when they were apart, how she longed
for the joy of sitting next to him with a pile of books between them, watching
the changing emotions in his eyes as she stumbled over his language, sensing
his closeness, stealing herself for his warm breath on her cheek, the brush of
his hand against hers.
The only thing she
dared not do was leave the hotel. Petty acts of defiance were easy enough;
blatant disobedience was quite another matter. But when Eva mentioned that she
and Theo were planning to walk up to the famous Mer de Glace the following day,
she knew she had to be there with them.
“We shall walk,” said Eva. “But there is a new
railway to the glacier. You could manage that, couldn't you?”
“I don't know. I will
have to ask my husband.”
“Poof. I will never
marry if I have to ask permission to do what pleases me.”
“That is enough, Eva”
said Theo. “You know nothing.”
“And you're horrid.”
She stomped over to the
river. “She is disappointed,” he said watching his sister hurl pebble after
pebble into the river. “She never knew our mother. I wish you could come on
your own.”
“Is it for Eva that you
ask or for yourself?”
“Laura,” he said.
“False naivety is not becoming.”
Charles was pleasingly relaxed over dinner. Laura suspected that he and
Morris had shared more than animated conversation and had themselves decided to
see this famous ‘meteorological phenomenon’. The excursion by train to the
glacier was easily decided on. He had patted her arm and said how relieved he
was that she was almost back to her old self. Only Morris, too, was to be
included.
The carriages soon filled. Laura hadn't been aware that so many tourists
still remained in the town. She had assumed that there carriage would be half
empty but she found herself glumly wedged between Charles and a Belgian woman
who, clearly expecting a famine, was distributing lumps of bacon and bread
amongst her offspring.
The little engine nosed
the carriages up the winding track. One moment she had a fleeting view of the
valley and the next the train plunged her into dank blue forest and dripping
tunnels before once more bursting out into the light. The air grew increasingly
chillier and she felt thin and stretched, distant from reality.
And yet, even here, the
talk was of war. The word scuttled up and down the carriage like a rat. Morris
had no other topic of conversation. In order to catch what he was saying over
the snorts of the engine and the rattle of the carriage, Charles had to lean
away from her across the aisle to where Morris perched, his Alpenstock gripped
between his tweed knees.
The train lurched ever
upwards. Women crossed themselves, silent lips moving; children screamed and
gasped as the incline steepened or the track seemed to cling to the very edge
of a precipice. Morris had finally run out of war platitudes and was reading
aloud from his guidebook. “The Mer de
Glace, or rather, Sea of Glass.” He nodded to Charles. “—Although River would be the more appropriate word, but
that's the French for you—is more than eleven kilometres (what on earth is that
in miles?) in length and moves at a speed of . . .”
Laura turned away. The
train slowed to negotiate a viaduct before levelling out alongside the
Montenvers Hotel. Its terrace was already dotted with fashionable hats, their
brims competing with the table parasols. The engine chugged into the station
and wheezed to a halt. Its passengers stumbled out onto the platform, huddling
into their coats and blowing on their hands, exclaiming at the sharpness of the
thin, icy air, hovering, uncertain what to do.
Charles took her arm
and led her to the viewing platform overhanging the glacier. Morris scurried
off, pushing past others to secure the services of a guide who, with his ladder
and thick socks for hire, was shouting his prices.
“I think it would be
best if you wait here,” Charles said banging his hands together, his breath
clouding around his face. “Retire to the ladies' waiting-room if you get too
cold. We will meet you at the hotel for lunch. Shall we say in half an hour?”
Morris bowed and he and
Charles made their way down the steps cut into the rock.
Laura felt
light-headed, like a kite tugging on its string. Perhaps it was the altitude.
It wasn't the sight of the glacier. She had expected a field of diamonds but it
was a dirty blanket of icy grit. Tourists were moving aimlessly on its surface.
With their ladders and lengths of rope, the scene resembled a game of snakes
and ladders spread out below her. Behind her, the train driver and his
companions were passing round a bottle of beer and exchanging desultory remarks
and short grunts of laughter as they stoked, watered and polished the engine.
Wafts of sulphurous smoke drifted down and melted in the milky blue of the mountains
that guarded the head of the glacier. She checked Morris's guidebook he had
left behind. They were called, 'Les Grandes Jorasses.' She didn't know what the name meant but it
sounded suitably lofty.
“You came, then?” Theo
sat down beside her. He slipped his haversack off his back
“Did you doubt me?”
He considered her
remark. “No, but I …”
“Charles is playing
snakes and ladders with Morris.”
“I see,” he said but
clearly didn't.
“What does 'Grandes
Jorasses' mean?”
“I don't know.” He was
out of breath and distracted. “Does it matter?” Why was he so brittle? Had the
altitude frozen his friendliness?
“I suppose not.”
They both pretended to
admire the view; she looked left; he right.
“Where's Eva?”
He pointed to where she
was crouched on the snow, plait in her mouth and a pencil and sketchbook in her
hand.
“Laura,” he began. Then
stopped. He reached out his hand. Instantly she was elated and deflated by the
banality of his gesture. Was this what she had come here for? She didn't know
but their hands didn't touch. Instead, a babble of voices broke out around
them. One of the railway workers had left his fellows and was pushing his way
towards the hotel. Another began to slide and slither down the steps towards
the glacier, shouting and gesticulating. Soon the whole mountainside was
stirred up as if an ant's nest had been poked by a giant stick.
“What is it? What's
happening?” Theo was now on his feet, struggling with his haversack, calling to
Eva.
Charles returned. She
held her breath, bracing herself for his anger but he merely bowed to Theo. “It
would seem that your country has declared war on France. It will not be long
before our countries are enemies.” He held out his hand.
“Indeed so.” Theo took
the hand but looked stiff and uncomfortable. He then turned to Laura and bowed.
“Goodbye, Mrs Thompson. My sister and I must leave for Switzerland
immediately.” Helping Eva to her feet, he guided her steps over the ice towards
the track that led back down to the valley.
She took a step
forward. “Wait!” she cried stupidly without knowing why. Her voice rang around
the rocks, before fading away. Eva turned her head briefly but Theo didn't
hesitate or turn round
“It's time we went
home,” said Charles softly. He paused
before whispering, “You are so, so lovely. I had not seen it until now.”
The platform was
already crowded with ashen, silent faces peering at the sky in the expectation
of thunderbolts crashing down from the blue or at least something more
significant than a little toy engine with its comical funnel and scarlet
carriages.
And then she noticed
something else. “Where's Morris?”
“We had a small
difference of opinion down on the glacier. When he heard the news, he said that
if he had a pistol, he would have shot every German in sight without
compunction. Man, woman or child.”
“And what did you say
to that?”
“That he was a pompous
ass.”
They both smiled. He
took her hand and folded it in his. Theo and Eva were out of sight and she
would only retain scraps of them in years to come. She knew they would prosper.
Like raindrops on the ocean, nothing left a mark on people like Theo. But what
of Charles? And the moment she posed the question, the mountains and the ice
melted away, and she saw him in a ditch, splattered with blood-streaked mud,
his eyes wide and staring, seeing nothing. She clutched her fur collar and
stumbled.
“Are you all right?” he
said and she was. And so was he. The mountains glittering in the brittle
sunlight could teach her nothing. “Let us not take the train back,” she said,
tugging his sleeve. “Let's walk.”
The snow kicked up by their boots
circled them in luminescence until they entered the shadow of the pines leaving
the sea of glass to itself.
About the author
Sally Zigmond's dream always was to read and write.When her
sons were occupied during the day with full-time dedication, she attended
various adult education classes run by the local government.She eventually
stumbled on "Creative Writing for Pleasure and Profit" and she was hooked. Her
commercial fiction has been published by The People’s Friend, My Weekly, The
Lady and Woman's Weekly. Her more literary
fiction and has won prizes and competitions and much has
been published in QWF - Quality Women's Fiction.
Hope Against Hope a Victorian novel was published in
2011 and Chasing Angels, a novella in 2019
