Numbered Account

"And Neumann," Cerruti called weakly, "when you see the Chairman tell him I'm fit as a fiddle and rarin' to go."

CHAPTER 19

Later that evening, Nick found himself standing before an ungainly gray-stone apartment building on a lesser street far from the prosperous center of the city. The temperature had crawled below freezing and the sky had partially cleared. A scrap of paper showed an address: Eibenstrasse 18.

His father had grown up in this building. Alexander Neumann had lived with his mother and grandmother from his birth until he was nineteen in a lousy two-room apartment overlooking a perpetually shaded interior court.

Nick had visited the apartment when he was a boy. Everything about it had been dark and musty. Closed windows covered by heavy drapes. Massive wooden furniture dyed a deep chestnut brown. To a child used to playing on the rolling lawns and sunlit streets of southern California, the apartment, the street, the entire neighborhood where his father had grown up, had appeared evil and unfriendly. He had hated it.

But tonight he felt the need to revisit the place of his father's childhood. To commune with the ghosts of his parents' past and to reconcile the boy who had grown up on these streets with the man who had become his father.

Nick stared up at the grimy building, recalling a day when he had hated his father. Absolutely despised him. When he had wished the earth would crack open and suck him down to the burning nether regions that were undoubtedly his true home.

A trip to Switzerland during the summer of Nick's tenth year. A weekend in Arosa, a mountain village nestled on the hillside of a sweeping valley. A Sunday-morning gathering of the local chapter of the Swiss Alpine Club in a glade situated under the stoic gaze of a monstrous peak, the Tierfluh.

The party of twenty-odd climbers sets out at dawn. They are a mixed lot: at ten, Nick is the youngest; at seventy, his great-uncle Erhard, the oldest. They walk through a field of high grass, past a milky lake as flat as a mirror, then ford a gurgling brook. Soon they enter a stand of tall pines, and the path begins to move up a gentle slope. Heads are bowed, breathing deep and steady. Uncle Erhard leads the pack. Nick stays in the middle. He is nervous. Will they really try to reach the craggy peak?

An hour after the walk has begun, the group stops at a wooden hut standing in the center of a grassy meadow. The door of the hut is pried open and someone ventures in. He returns a moment later, holding a bottle of clear liquid high in the air. A cry goes up. All are invited to enjoy the home-distilled Pflumli. Nick, too, is given the bottle, and he drinks down a thimbleful of the plum liqueur. His eyes water and his cheeks flush, but he refuses to cough. He is proud to have been taken into this fine group's company. He vows not to reveal his fatigue. Or his growing fear.

The walk resumes. Again into the trees. An hour later, the path emerges onto a rock-strewn plain and for a while is flatter, but now less sure. Stones crumble beneath every footstep. Slowly, all vegetation disappears. The trail leads upward as it skirts the side of the mountain, moving deeper into the shadowy saddle that links two peaks.

The line of climbers has strung out. Erhard keeps the lead. He carries a leather rucksack on his back and holds a gnarled rod in his hand. One hundred yards along comes Alexander Neumann. Twenty paces farther back follows Nick. One by one, the climbers pass him by. Each pats him on the head and offers an encouraging word. Soon no one is behind.

Ahead, the trail cuts into a field of summer snow, as white as icing on a chocolate cake. The pitch of the slope increases. Each step forward is one half step higher. Nick's breath is shallow, his head light. He can see his great-uncle far in front, can recognize him only by the walking stick he carries. He can see his father too: a bobbing head of black hair above a sweater as red as the Swiss flag.

Minutes pass. Hours. The trail winds upward. Nick lowers his head and walks. He counts to one thousand. Still the end is no closer. Snow rolls out for miles before him. High above his left shoulder, he can see the sharp rocks that lead to the summit. He notes with alarm the distance that separates him from the others. He can no longer see his uncle. His father is merely a red speck. Nick is alone in a valley of snow. With every step, he grows farther separated from his father and his great-uncle. With every step, he comes closer to the peak that wants to kill him. Finally, he can go no farther and stops. He is exhausted and frightened.

"Dad," he yells. "Dad!" But his thin voice disappears easily in the vast mountain spaces. "Help," he yells. "Come back!" But no one hears. One after another the trail of climbers disappears around the girth of the mountain. And then his father disappears, too.