He was sitting in the Stube, his wide-brimmed black hat next to him on the wooden bench, his broad forehead furrowed. His sparse grey hair was cut short. Every so often, he would sigh and run the palm of his hand over the back of his neck.
He had spread a threadbare linen cloth, frayed at the edges, on the table. Carefully, because waste was an insult to work, he had emptied the contents of a small wooden box onto the small tablecloth. A cascade of small black seeds.
With the help of his thumb and a tablespoon, squinting in the light of the oil lamp, the hollow-cheeked man examined them one by one, then dropped them into a cotton pouch the size of a packet of cigarettes.
A pan was simmering on the stove.
The man’s name was Simon Keller, and his father, Voter Luis, had been a Kräutermandl. Many people owed their lives to Voter Luis. There wasn’t a single herb, berry or root in the whole of South Tyrol whose properties Voter Luis had not known.
Voter Luis had been a father, a Kräutermandl and, above all, a man of faith. He knew that life was like the warmth of the Föhn wind, an illusion, and had made sure his knowledge would not die with him. Voter Luis could read and write. He had read a lot and written a lot. His notes were Simon Keller’s most prized possession.
After the maso, of course.
Simon Keller had learned from him the secrets of the herbs and the mountains, and the knowledge of the ancients who had lived there.
The ancients were a mystery. Why had they chosen to live in such rugged terrain, perched high over the valley, above the forest, clinging to pastures that were as steep and sterile as overhanging rocks, so close to the sky that they might be blinded by it? And when had they arrived there?
At the time of the Flood, Voter Luis would say, the waters rose and they came up here to escape His wrath. Voter Luis always had an answer to his son’s questions. He was a man of faith.
Simon Keller didn’t know how long ago the Flood had taken place, just as he did not know who the ancient peoples really were, but thanks to Voter Luis he knew that there were herbs for sleeping, soothing toothache, making blood coagulate and keeping pain under control. The seeds, small and dark as fleas, which he was in the process of selecting belonged to that extraordinary category.
They were poppy seeds, from which you could extract opium to drive away pain.
It was incredible that such power could be contained in these almost invisible grains. As Voter Luis used to say, “The world teems with miracles and mysteries.”
Like his father, and his father before him, Simon Keller was a Bau’r.
A Bau’r was a peasant but also a Kräutermandl, a hunter, a woodsman, a cook, a carpenter, a farmer, a doctor, sometimes an athlete and even a priest. Above all, a priest. Without faith, you could die of loneliness and silence up here. Faith filled the blank spaces of the long, endless winters with answers.
A Bau’r was the lord of the mountain.
It was right at the foot of the mountain that Keller had found the young woman. It had been pure chance. Or perhaps fate. Keller did not usually stray so far from his maso. There was no point. But a sky that promised the first blizzard of the season had compelled him to go down the mountain to retrieve the traps he used for obtaining fresh meat during the winter. The task had taken him all afternoon and well past sunset, until, cold and tired, he had decided to return home.
He had seen her on his way back. Motionless in the crumpled Mercedes. He had thought it unlikely there was any hope for her. It was not uncommon in these parts, in winter especially, to come across dead bodies. Most had died from exposure: smugglers, poachers, travellers. Keller never refused them a blessing and a prayer. That was the reason he had come down the slope. But much to his surprise, the young woman was alive. He had dropped his traps and done what he could to help her.
He had pulled her out of the car, rubbed her body to bring back the circulation, heaved her over his shoulder and carried her up to the maso. There, by the light of a candle, he had checked the reaction of her pupils, washed her injuries with soap and stitched the worst cut, the one on her forehead, and bandaged it in linen strips he had first boiled in water. Then he had given her an infusion to alleviate the pain.
Once she was awake, the young woman would ask a whole lot of questions (Where am I? Who are you? What happened?), and that worried him. Voter Luis had composed magnificent sermons. He had a way with words. Simon Keller did not. Voter Luis knew how to stir people’s hearts, while Simon approached them only when he had to, when he needed to sell what little surplus he produced and buy what he could not make himself. He hoped he could at least reassure her that here she was safe. There was food, wood for the Stube, opium for the pain and a large number of Bibles upon which to meditate.
After weighing the pouch, Keller replaced the leftover poppy in the wooden box, folded the cloth in four and put it in a drawer whose brass handle had been darkened by time. The box went on a shelf.
From the sideboard he took out a ceramic cup (chipped and cracked, but the best he owned), blew on it and placed it on the table. He bent over the fireplace, lifted the pan with a rag so as not to burn his fingers and poured the boiling water into the cup. He immersed the pouch with the poppy in it and stared at the colours the infusion was taking on.
There were no clocks in the maso. All you needed to determine the time of day was the sun. Keller had learned patience from an early age. “Time,” Voter Luis would say, “belongs to the stars, not to men. What are you in comparison with the stars, my son? They were shining when Terah begat Abraham and they will still be shining when you are long forgotten. The stars own time, while men are crushed by it. Not being able to wait is a sin of arrogance.”
Keller waited until the infusion was ready.
Oil for the lamp was expensive, and he turned it off. He could move around his maso in the dark without fear of tripping over. This was his home. He was born here.
People said that sooner or later there would be electricity even in the highest masi, but he did not believe it. He would not even be able to buy a generator, as others had done, because he would never be able to afford one. Generators and fuel cost too much. Besides, why light up the night when the night was made for sleeping?
He went upstairs. He did not knock, there was no point. The young woman was unconscious and would not wake up until tomorrow. He put the cup down on the bedside table next to a candle stub, which he lit with a match.
By the light of the flame, he studied the young woman’s features. She was in pain, and he felt sorry for her. Pain, though, as Voter Luis had taught him, was a good sign. It meant the heart was still beating.
Was the beating of the heart not a miracle full of mystery? Indeed it was.
Keller lifted the young woman into a sitting position, holding the pillows behind her back and head with his left hand. With his right, he poured the hot infusion between her lips in such a way that she would swallow it by reflex, in small sips. Gradually, her face relaxed. Keller was glad.
When he had emptied the cup, he pulled the blankets back over the young woman and studied her face.
Especially that peculiar beauty spot.
“The world is a sign of His existence, and He conceals signs in the world for men of faith to see. The world teems with signs, miracles and mysteries.”
Especially mysteries. Yes, indeed.
He stood up and checked that the window was firmly shut. Beneath it, he had put dried moss to stop the cold draught coming in. Not that it made much difference, he was sorry to see. Outside, the blizzard was still wailing.
In Simon Keller’s mind, there was only silence.