Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

Catherine McNamara

himself onto the deck and walked over to his daughter who was speaking with the two uniformed men. The group moved inside to the restaurant and he could see them arrange themselves at one of the windows. Frieda looked pale and dumbstruck. A waitress brought him out a glass of grappa on a wooden tray painted with alpine flowers. He threw its caustic tang into his body. Suspended above the ski run the chairlift lay idle for the night. Its cable drew upward with each double seat deathly still, pressed against the dirty white, pylons riveted to the bedrock in steep ascension. Each one was open-armed, imploring. Now his eyes dragged over the immense compartments of the mountain’s structure and the shadow deepening

between these in plunging cracks. The mass reared into the sky’s blue palette, its tip an incandescent flare as the sun sank downward and the planet revolved. It was a terrible cycle, he thought, each day symphonic and turbulent, yet the hours so meagre and convulsed. He had thought that there might be a oneness up here, far from the city, a few words of grace written at every man’s core. But he stared over the callous physics of the mountain and its spiritless geology. His eyes followed the ravine knifed through the trees. Magda came outside in her heavy coat. ‘You’re not going to make yourself ill standing out here?’ She had brought him his big jacket. ‘The child wouldn’t want that either.’

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