PART ONE
1 – Night had fallen by the time the teacher made up his mind to go out in search of news. The lights of the nearby farm were half blotted out by the fog, and beneath his anxiety the teacher was happy to think he’d be leaving the next day, because once August was over life here was clearly lived amid unending rain and mist, as he hadn’t known before, as this afternoon had abruptly taught him. “Just imagine living here year-round! Not for me, no thank you!” he muttered in disgust as he started down the path to the farm, testing the terrain ahead with the tip of his shoe before every step, so dim was the light of the moon.
The cold seemed to have come on all at once, just after lunch, as the teacher and his wife were tranquilly talking over their plans to return to the capital the next day, the second of September, a little later than usual. Suddenly a shiver ran through them both, and the teacher offered a few wise thoughts on the changing seasons. Had they perhaps delighted a little too smugly in their approaching departure, their only regret being that the fair weather hadn’t stayed with them for just one day more? It was certainly true that they’d never given a moment’s thought to the climate or anything else of this place, once the thirty-first of August came and they headed homeward; their long, invariably happy, sunlit vacation at an end.
And now a misty rain was falling, and the teacher had no coat to put on.
Feeling the cold, he walked through the farmyard to the house, knocked on the door. No answer came, and he guessed someone was looking out a second-floor window to see who was there, perhaps having difficulty making out his face, possibly waiting to be sure they recognized him before coming down. Self-conscious, he took a step back, looked up. His forehead stung from the cold. “Just yesterday it was so nice,” he blankly said to himself over and over, dismayed, suddenly despondent.
Finally the farmwoman opened the door a crack. “I’m Herman,” he called out, “the teacher, your neighbor.”
“Oh yes, yes.”
She opened the door wide, cordial and smiling but evidently not about to ask him in. She was a sturdy young woman with very red cheeks.
“Have you seen my wife and our son?” he asked.
He explained that Rose and the child had headed for the farm three hours before to buy eggs, so he was thinking they hadn’t come back because Rose had lingered to chat, or maybe the child had insisted on saying goodbye to the animals. But now it was time they were home, and he himself, Herman, the teacher, had been worrying all this time, concurrently a little indignant, that Rose hadn’t bothered to set his mind to rest with a phone call. His exasperation grew as he spoke.
“I’d like you to tell them I’m here,” he said sharply.
He took a step forward, inserting his shoe between the woman’s firmly planted feet, trying to protect at least his head from the spitting rain, but he immediately pulled it back, and even, blushing, began to retreat, because far from grasping that he wanted to come in and politely standing aside to make way, she stood rooted to the spot, still as affable as ever with her face slightly tilted toward him, the better to hear. A blouse printed with apple blossoms—worn by all married women in this region, he happened to know—encased her breasts, slightly compressing them, tied on one side by two laces of contrasting colors, which, if you were up on the local customs, told you what year she’d taken a husband. The scarlet of her cheeks was perfectly mirrored in the heart of each flower.
“Can’t she see I’m soaking wet?” Herman asked himself, both shocked and submerged in a sort of numbness that erased all trace of anger.
Seeing her offer no answer, make no move, even as she went on staring at him with a strangely obliging gaze, he asked her again to bring him Rose and the boy, carefully enunciating each word. Longing for the next day, the day that would see all three of them back in the capital, he wearily told himself: “Oh, I’ll never understand these people!”
She looked at him in surprise, and a little sound escaped her throat. She vaguely raised her arms in a sign of impotence—very pink, plump arms, bulging above the elbows where they emerged from the grip of the blouse’s short sleeves.
“No one ever came here,” she finally said. “We’ve seen no one today but the rural patrol.”
“That’s impossible!” cried Herman.
His exasperation came flooding back, spurred on by a terror he’d never felt before. He shook his index finger under the farmwoman’s nose.
“First you claim no one came here today, and then suddenly you tell me the patrolman stopped by: it doesn’t add up! In that case, why shouldn’t you have seen my wife and son too, since they told me they were coming here to buy eggs?”
She was still smiling, surprised, silent. The teacher sensed she’d stopped listening but was determined to go on displaying unshakable goodwill, perhaps out of respect for the time-honored duty to treat visitors courteously, overlook any offense, an obligation people around here traditionally honored, despite what they might be feeling inside. His worry was getting the better of him, he wasn’t thinking straight. Rather than rushing right off to try to find where Rose and the boy might have gone, Herman was fixated on getting inside, shoving the woman out of the way if need be, then sitting down for a few moments, he thought, in the kitchen by the stove, where he could dry his clothes and try to calmly question this woman, who would have no choice but to concede that it was impossible she hadn’t seen Rose and the child that afternoon if Herman could only show her, point by point, as he did with thick-headed students, that her first assertion didn’t stand up to scrutiny.
“Let me explain,” he insisted, with an edge in his voice. “I assure you, Rose came here. Where else would she have gone in this weather?”
“Not a warm day,” the woman agreed.
And she went right on smiling. Whenever he spoke she delicately tilted her forehead his way, with an exquisite courtliness that rattled the teacher. Try as he might to maintain his poise, wasn’t he showing a deeply deplorable disrespect, and wouldn’t the villagers construct their sense of him based on what this woman would surely soon tell them of this encounter? For ten years he and Rose had been spending their summer vacations in this remote area, and he’d made it a point of pride to behave with the slightly superior civility he thought the only suitable stance for citizens of the capital, always intent on revealing their sophistication but too fine to make a show of it. And now, despite his best intentions, drunk with worry, he must seem like a boor in the eyes of this woman and everyone else around here, all these people with their oddly refined manners.
“Forgive me,” he said, “it’s just that, you understand, I can’t think where my wife…”
“Yes of course, the weather changes so fast around here, you have to know it’s coming.”
Understanding that he was about to say goodbye, she widened her smile, gave him a bow, even stepped far enough outside to be dampened herself, elegantly pointing the way to the front gate—though there was no need, since Herman had come through it on his way into the courtyard—but with that gesture pushing helpful neighborliness to its furthest extreme. He returned her bow, feeling his awkwardness, and the rain fell on the back of his neck, slid down his spine. Shivering, he turned on his heels and slogged back toward the gate. The woman closed the door behind him, and immediately the house’s ground floor was dark, which he couldn’t help thinking slightly rude. He must have offended her enough that she believed she could justifiably limit the geniality of her face and gestures to when he was looking at her; for that matter, maybe the code governing behavior with outsiders, however rigorously welcoming it obliged one to be in their presence, did not stipulate that one had to go on helping once their backs were turned.