Snow Hunters: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

and the shoppers converse and barter, translating what sentences he could in his mind, catching a phrase he did not yet understand and memorizing the sounds so that he could ask Kiyoshi about it later.
    Craftsmen and toy makers sat on wicker chairs, fanning themselves with newspapers. They sold pottery and dolls and tapestries and wooden animals and toy boats of various sizes, lined up in rows, some of them as small as a pebble. He held the miniature rowboats, examined their craft, felt their lightness and their smoothness in his palm. He bent down and peered into their hollows as though expecting to find something there. He imagined each of them being placed into the sea, moving in separate directions. He thought how wonderful it would be to follow them.
    The full height of the church spire rose above the ridge. He heard a door open and looked down into the town, over a stone wall where the old priest appeared,followed by Peixe, who leaned on his cane as they walked through the garden behind the church. He understood that they were speaking about a Sunday service and a dinner, catching their fragmented conversation. Then they parted, the priest returning inside as the groundskeeper began to collect vegetables.
    Peixe wore cotton trousers, an old shirt, and a vest. His hair was disheveled and there was a basket slung over his arm. In that first year in the town, they had only spoken a few words.
    There had been a farmer who sometimes visited the camp, bartering with the soldiers. He lived in a farmhouse in the valley, far beyond the fences, and Yohan would look out at it from time to time, seeing the farmer at the door or outside, washing a window.
    He never knew the man, did not know if he was married or had a family, or how his life had been altered during that war. He imagined the man was still there. Perhaps even the camp itself. He thought of all the doctors and soldiers and nurses forever moving along that field surrounded by high fences and towers, and he wondered what remained in those mountains.
    From the ridge he watched Peixe for a while, in the afternoon stillness, the garden trees throwing shadows on him.
    In the harbor, crates hung suspended in the air. Birds circled them. The sea was clear. It moved toward him and faded and he felt the time that had passed and his time here. He thought that he had made the best of it all, that he had worked and made a living, and he felt the contentment of that. He thought of what the years would bring, what sort of life was left in him.
    It was then that he saw the children. There were two of them, a boy and a girl. They had appeared on the cliff beside the town. Now they were moving through the meadow, heading toward him.
    Their clothes were almost identical. They both wore trousers that were too large for them, the hems rolled up to their shins and wet from the ocean. They wore white button-down shirts: the girl had folded her sleeves up to her elbows; the boy’s hung over his arms so that it appeared as though he were without hands, the pale fabric swinging by his hips as he followed the girl.
    The boy had short, dark hair; the girl’s was long and pale and fell down her shoulders, reaching her waist. They were barefoot.
    He knew them. Though he had not seen them in some time.
    He watched as they slowed in front of him and approachedwith shyness. He was sitting against the tree with his hands around his knees. They stopped and the boy looked somewhere behind Yohan’s shoulder as if expecting someone else to appear. The girl’s eyes were fixed on him but revealed nothing. The day was bright and the wind continued to come in from the sea.
    He held up a bag. The girl tilted her head, as though considering the bag, then took it. Her arm vanished into the opening, her hand burrowing in the canvas. When it reappeared it held bread rolls, fruit, and strips of dried fish he had gotten at the market.
    She handed the bag back to him. Then, standing there under the tree, the boy