A Quiet Place in the Mountains

Ernst Heffelfinger woke up one morning and found that he was forty-five years old. It was a frosty day at the start of April. His bedroom window was ice-cold; outside it was murky and dim. Fog clung to the valley. Still there were no leaves on the trees.

He pulled on a pair of woollen socks and shuffled to the kitchen. He made a cup of coffee and poured milk over a bowl of cereal. He sat down at the table to eat. Sunrise touched the edge of the sky with a grey light. Soon it would be time to leave.

Ernst leaned forward, put his hands on the seat of his chair, and lifted himself up. But he didn’t stand. He just hovered there, a few inches above the seat. He stayed like that for some moments. His thighs started to hurt. His mouth drew tight, his eyes squinted like he wanted to blink a bad memory away. He breathed out sharply and clenched his teeth. “No,” he said, shook his head, and fell back into his chair. He sighed. “No,” he said again. A little light sparkled in the corners of his eyes. “Gosh blast it, no.”

Ernst phoned the bank and informed them that he would not be attending to work today. They asked if he was gravely ill but he said no, he felt quite fine, only he had taken the decision to quit. He requested them to please transfer his savings to an international account. He sold his apartment and smart car, gifted his succulents to Adelbert Hügli, a prominent member of the Rotary Club, left his cat Gertrud to his mother, and sold his collection of vintage coins to Hubert Eggenberger, who had always had a finer collection anyway.

For the first time in his life, Ernst had nothing. He had no job, no home, no obligations, no cat. He stood one morning in the doorway of his apartment, dusted the lint off the breast of his travelling suit, looked at the bare floors and spotless walls, waggled his eyebrows, shut off the light, and closed the door. “Gosh blast it,” he repeated under his breath. He was still proud of himself for saying that. He caught a taxi to the train.

He spent that spring in Italy. There we see him on top of a hill, watching a pink sunset flutter like flamingos over a sea of golden wheat. He walks through a town nestled like a seabird’s nest on the edge of a cliff. He stands in the sand of the Colosseum, wearing cargo shorts and sandals, pale hairless legs and a button-up shirt, broad-brimmed hat with a chinstrap, sunglasses hanging on a cord around his neck, camera also hanging from his neck, but lower, to avoid cracking the sunglasses, his face basted with sunscreen. He sits in a five-table restaurant in a cobbled alley, beneath houses with wooden shutters and roses growing in boxes on the windowsills, eating pasta. Vespas and excited chatter. Lovers strolling in streetlight. Ernst licks gelato off his wrist.

He sits in the hold of a ferry, surrounded by families with snotty children and tubercular grandmothers, everyone talking and eating, talking and laughing, laughing and eating, the sharp stench of cheese and wine as the boat rocks from side to side in the darkness. Ernst, green-faced, removes to sit alone on the deck and watch the moon paint islands silver beneath a sky of stars. He disembarks in a chaos of everyone running the wrong way at once. He pays double for a hotel room. He is led up the hill to the Parthenon by a jabbering youth, sweat oozing from his armpits and the back of his shirt. The sun hot on his face, the breeze playing like a babe with the flap of his legionnaire’s cap. He walks the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis, feeling the footsteps of three millennia fall about him. He sits in a cane chair in a courtyard shaded by an olive tree, his legs tired, his eyes heavy, drinking a cup of thick, sweet coffee.
Ernst sits on a bus winding through hills of grass sprinkled with wildflowers. Ernst stands outside a cathedral with white walls and green rooves the shape of onions. Ernst watches lean young men jump off a bridge into an icy river to the applause of their sweethearts beneath. Ernst peeks over the edge, tuts, shakes his head, potters away to buy baklava. Ernst stumbles home late through the alleys of Istanbul, stuffed like a vine leaf with food, his belt unbuckled so it won’t impact his bowls, groaning with every step.

Ernst walking through the streets of Delhi, saying, “No, thank you, no, thank you,” to a city of peddlers. Ernst lost in a market. Ernst on a boat at dawn, photographing a thousand people descending to pray by the water. Ernst on a train, sitting in a cabin marked ‘Private’, surrounded by chattering women in bright clothes and bare-footed children, one of whom sits next to Ernst on his bunk, stroking the fine blonde hairs on his forearm and wrist. A shouting steward with a moustache, wobbling heads and waggling fingers. A brave chicken escapes from a bag.

Ernst in an ashram, sitting in an armchair, counting down the minutes until breakfast. Ernst listening to a speech by a venerable old man, taking notes in a notebook. Ernst sitting in a houseboat on a lake as blue as cut gems, writing a letter to his mother, feeling lonely.

Ernst in Bangkok, eating dinner amongst talk, horns and the whistles of traffic police. Ernst gagging, lifting a napkin to his face, coughing out an indefinable meaty-looking thing, and dropping it discretely on the side of his plate. Ernst yelping as a small Thai lady hops up and down on his back, tugging his arms behind him and digging her knees into his spine. Ernst surrounded by clamouring orphans. One little girl following him the whole day, holding his hand, refusing to let go. A temple rising from the mist, its face reflected in an apricot lake. Ernst swimming in a blue sea, shaded by white cliffs from a throbbing sun.

Ernst on Sunset Boulevard, being fitted for a pair of designer sandals. Ernst wearing a T-shirt which proudly proclaims his affection for the metropolitan area of Las Angeles, California. Two thumbs-up. Fish tacos. A brightly-lit room with marble walls and a ceiling that glitters. Flashing machines and drunken folk. Ernst asks for directions to the bingo. Ernst climbs the Empire State Building, looks out on New York City, a pair of red headphones on his ears, listens to a lovely German lady talking about King Kong. Ernst feels lonely again.

Ernst celebrating his birthday alone in a fancy restaurant in Lima. Ernst climbing mountain paths so long they stretch almost to the past, wheezing to himself, “The next time I fly.” Ernst shivering in the fog, seven rows back, staring at the folds of skin on back of a fat American man’s neck as the sun rises over a Wonder of the World. Ernst in a ceremony with drums and nasal singing, everyone else swaying with mouths ajar as Ernst tries to get the attention of the man with feathers, saying, “Excuse me! Excuse me! I sink mine is not having worked yet.”

Ernst lonely. Ernst tired. Ernst sick. Ernst longing for home but not knowing where that is. Ernst thinking of his cold apartment, polished floors and cups of coffee, drizzle, grey faces, winter jackets, the flu, snowmelt frozen overnight, 8am sharp, a laptop screen, the start of another day. The end of another day. Another another day, and another. On and on. Until – what?

Ernst lost. Ernst despairing. Ernst going away to a small hotel in the mountains. Ernst looking out his window in the morning, down the valley, along streams and over waterfalls, past hills terraced with corn, through pine forests, all the way to white-capped peaks. Ernst watching the clouds at noon climb up the valley, growing thicker and thicker until by mid-afternoon they are so thick Ernst can barely see through them at all. The taste of wet air. Whispering winds among the pine trees. Lights coming on in the hotel, the manager starting a fire in the dining room. Ernst rugged up in woollen socks. The sound of rain. The smell of it. The taste. Shushing on the roof through the gloomy evening, bubbling and gurgling, thunder yawning in the distance, drips dripping, drips dropping, murmuring Ernst to sleep. In the morning a cool sunrise, the sky washed, the grass moist, little droplets of water drooping from pine needles, glistening in the crisp light.

There was only one other guest in the hotel: a young American woman called Sarah. She had quit her job at the start of the year to travel. She wanted to be a writer. As she travelled she’d thought of an idea for a book, and she’d come to the mountains to write.

Her progress had been slow. She’d met a character but found nowhere for that character to live. An emotional progression had formed in her mind, but she could think of no catalyst for it, no metaphor through which to play it out. Most afternoons she sat at her desk, staring at the rain, the screen of her laptop fading periodically from bright to dull, until she nudged her mouse to rouse it again. She barely wrote a sentence. And if she did write something, she read it back at the end of the day, found it unnatural, forced and wrong, deleted it in despair and hastily shut her computer before she could lose courage and retrieve it. She was caught in a bog, static.

She met Ernst on his first night. She was eating alone in the dining room. She’d had a particularly grim afternoon, and she was feeling rattled and anxious. Ernst invited her to eat with him. She accepted, saying it would be her pleasure.

They felt comfortable together immediately. Ernst, who was normally so stiff and shy, felt at ease around Sarah. And Sarah was charmed by Ernst’s impeccable manners, his precise manner of speech, and the cute way he had of dabbing at both sides of his mouth with his napkin. They finished dinner, ate dessert, and stayed together for an hour after, drinking wine and talking, until the candles on their table started to flicker, and they heard the manager snoring from his chair in front of the fire. Then they blew the candles out, carried their wineglasses to the kitchen, and tip-toed to their rooms.

They met again at breakfast. They ate at the same table they’d sat at the night before, in the corner overlooking the valley. After breakfast, Sarah invited Ernst for a walk. They walked side by side through the forest: Sarah young and beautiful and full of sparkles; Ernst tall and pointy, walking with his hands folded in the small of his back and his head inclined, listening with grave interest and faint incomprehension to whatever Sarah said. The air was sweet with the smell of pine, bright and cool and fresh.

Sarah talked about her travels, her dreams of writing, and the difficulties she was having with her book. From time to time the conversation glanced one of Ernst’s topics of interest: then he took it in his mouth and raced off with it, babbling for a fervid minute about the correct angle at which to install a sundial at altitude, or how to properly care for tropical cacti in a cold climate, or how to distinguish between the different measures of currency among pre-1870s gold coins from the various German states. Sarah smiled and listened, a little startled by Ernst’s outburst, but also charmed by his guileless enthusiasm. Which is not to say she was immune to enthusiasms herself: sometimes she caught sight of a hummingbird or a green quetzal, stopped speaking suddenly, and stared with her mouth open as the bird flew past. Ernst stopped, too, and waited for Sarah to return to her senses, making use of the time to ensure his shirt was tucked adequately into his pants all the way around his waist.

Ernst and Sarah became friends. In the mornings they ate together, then went for a walk. They returned to the hotel in the mid-morning and went separately about their days. Sarah wrote, Ernst pottered, and in the evening they met again to eat dinner at their favourite table by the window.

Ernst was very quickly aware that he had fallen in love with Sarah. All afternoon he looked forward to dinner, when he would see her face glowing and flashing in the candlelight, listen to the sweet flutters of her voice and the champagne bubbles of her laughter. Every night at 7pm precisely he sat down at their table, dressed impeccably, his breathing rapid, his heart all aflutter. Five minutes passed, then ten – Sarah was impossibly impunctual – until at last Ernst heard her skip up the stairs, saw her enter the room and smile at him, and like a crazed hummingbird his heart tried to fly out of his chest.

Sarah, meanwhile, harboured no suspicions whatsoever that she was in love with Ernst. Perhaps she was fond of him; she certainly felt comfortable in his company. He was like an old Swiss friend she’d never met. She trusted him, and she valued what he said. She found him very dear. She loved his way of sitting bolt-upright at the dinner table, as though he were invigilating a high school exam. She grinned every time the grandfather clock in the lobby chimed two minutes early and she heard Ernst groaning in his room. One night, under cover of darkness, Ernst snuck out of his room and adjusted the clock by hand. The next morning at breakfast he was unspeakably smug. With gleaming eyes, like a troubadour, and in a secret voice, he told Sarah what he had done. She laughed so hard she got dizzy. She felt like her heart was going to explode. He was so perfectly, awkwardly, marvellously sweet. She felt unjudged by him, and appreciated, also. She liked herself when she was with Ernst. She was happy to be his friend. But love him – no, she did not do that.

Around this time, Sarah’s novel, which had been brackish for so long, suddenly burst its banks and came gushing forth. It flowed in ways she could neither predict nor control; it was all she could do to write it down. Writing ceased to be a battle, a process of re-jumbling old ideas into new orders, trying to squeeze juice out of old lemons; now it become something dazzling, fresh, and musical. It was a joy to write. A trapdoor opened at the back of Sarah’s mind, and light came flooding in. She sparkled, she shone, she glowed, and she was happy.

She had planned to spend a month at the hotel. That month ended, but her writing would not permit her to leave. She extended her stay, first by a week, then another, then a fortnight. Each time Sarah extended her stay, Ernst mooned up to reception an hour later, acting cool and heedless, feigning to have not a clue at all about the plans of the beautiful young American woman, and extended his stay for precisely the same length of time as her, offering some excuse like, “He found the climate stimulating,” or, “He was making a study of several local mosses and could not possibly leave until the opercula had dispersed their spores.” The manager smiled and bristled his moustache, saying, “Of course, sir, insouciantly.” Ernst smiled back, nodded, turned and walked away, trying to remember what the word ‘insouciant’ meant.

Sarah finished a first draft. She was very pleased with it. She read it back and found it as nice to read as it had been to write. It was not pretentious or overstated. It didn’t clank or drag. It flowed. She was full of an optimistic flush. But she wanted to rest. She wanted to give the book time to settle, get accustomed to itself, melt and re-shape in the back of her mind. She decided to take a break.

That night she told Ernst that she planned to check out in the morning and travel to the coast. She said she missed the sun and wanted to spend time at the beach. Ernst understood. He said it was a good idea. He had also been planning to check out. Perhaps he would do it tomorrow, too.

Sarah smiled. But her eyes were sad. She felt like she was losing something, though she did not know what. Or perhaps she did know, but didn’t want to admit it. They were mostly silent as they ate. Ernst fell into turmoil. He drifted in and out of himself. He became aware of Sarah for a moment, smiled shyly, then plummeted back into his thoughts again. The manager cleared their plates away. They ate dessert, and lingered.

Finally, like a cat coughing up a furball – abruptly – Ernst spat out the words. “I love you,” he said, then sighed.
Sarah nodded. “I know,” she said. But she did not say “I love you” back.

They went to bed that night with heavy hearts and hollow eyes. Neither slept well. In the morning it was clear and bright. Sarah checked out at breakfast. Ernst came to see her off. He stood stiffly, expecting a stiff handshake and some pleasantries. He was much surprised when Sarah, after putting her bags in the trunk of the manager’s car, raced up to him, jumped into his arms, kissed him tenderly on his cheek, and said, “Thank you, Ernst. You have been so good to me.”
“You are welcome,” said Ernst, bobbing about in a state of shock.
“I hope we see each other again,” said Sarah.
“Me, too,” said Ernst.
Sarah unwrapped herself from around him and made her way quickly to the car.

Ernst felt that some great gesture was demanded of him, but he didn’t know how to make it. And he didn’t want to, either! He didn’t want to make a mess of things. It wasn’t his style. But he had no style! He kicked himself! He had no panache! For a moment he hated himself for being so beige. He felt like he would explode into red. But he caught himself, and simmered down. He bowed gallantly, and said, “Safe travels, Sarah.”
“Safe travels, Ernst,” said Sarah. She got into the passenger seat, and closed the door.
Ernst waved as the car drove down the drive. It stopped at the gate, indicated left, and turned right onto the road. It disappeared behind a bank of trees. Ernst lowered his hand. His heart fell with it.

He spent a lonely day in the hotel. He went for a walk in the forest, came back for lunch, watched the rain in the afternoon, tried to read a book, gave up, and in the evening ate dinner alone by candlelight at the table in the corner of the dining room. The next morning he packed his bags, checked out, and went by bus to a town on the other side of the mountains which was famous for its toucans.

Sarah went south and enrolled in a scuba diving course. Ernst went north and did bird-watching. From time to time, Sarah sent Ernst an email telling him where she was, what she was doing, how her book was coming along, and what she planned to do next. Ernst was always delighted to receive an email from Sarah. He opened it immediately, read it through diligently, re-read it to make sure he had not missed anything, went away to digest her message and prepare a response, before returning in the evening to compose his email. He greeted Sarah courteously but not stiffly, asked her pertinent questions in regard to her message, offered advice if she had asked for it, described what was happening in his own travels, giving succinct detail but not gushing, in order to avoid coming across as a bore. He edited his email, rewrote a few paragraphs, shuffled the order about, checked his English spelling and grammar, composed a poetic farewell, and sent it to Sarah just as he went to bed.

Eight grey weeks passed, redeemed by ten emails. One morning Ernst was sitting alone at a fancy hotel in Bogotá, napkin on his lap, dissecting with knife and fork a slice of toast and a poached egg. He stared at his food with the look of misgiving he often adopted in the presence of foreign food, as though at any moment he expected it to break wind and leap off the table, and examined it minutely for spices. His phone flashed. He looked at it. It was an email from Sarah. His heart shimmied. Nervous and excited, like a child before Christmas, Ernst opened Sarah’s email.

The patrons and staff of that fancy Bogotá hotel were all very surprised when, a short time later, in the midst of breakfast service, apropos of nothing, a polite-looking European gentleman in sandals sprang abruptly to his feet, pumped his fists in front of his chest in the style of Rafael Nadal, and screamed at the top of his voice, “Yahoo!” then, just as suddenly, recovered his composure, sat down, and readdressed his toast and egg with a calm demeanour, as though nothing at all had happened. He even signalled to the waiter please to bring another napkin, as the one he had previously been using was now on the floor. But he could not conceal his smile.

Life changed then. We see Ernst walking hand-in-hand with Sarah up a mountain trail in Chile. Ernst and Sarah on a coral-pink beach in Venezuela, Sarah suntanned in a bikini, Ernst as white as fresh snow, wearing checked swimming trunks and a rashvest. Ernst and Sarah in a tiny mountain town in Bolivia, taking Spanish classes in the evenings. Ernst and Sarah learning (at very different rates) to dance salsa. Ernst and Sarah falling in love with a small town in the hills of Mexico with colourful houses and cobbled streets, thinking that maybe they would live there one day. Ernst meeting Sarah’s parents at Christmastime in Maine. Sarah meeting Adelbert Hügli and Hubert Eggenberger on a trip to the clock museum in Zurich. Sarah’s thirtieth birthday in a restaurant in Hong Kong, looking over the neon harbour. Ernst’s forty-seventh birthday in a hot air balloon over the Serengeti, watching the sunrise, the smell of earth in the air, and the sound of animals waking below. Ernst and Sarah on a sailing ship in the still seas of Zanzibar. Ernst dropping to his knee. Sarah thinking he had overbalanced, bending down to help him up. Ernst pulling a ring from the most secure zippered pocket in his cargo pants, asking, “Will you marry me?”

Like the roots of fig trees meeting, joining, and twining together, Ernst and Sarah’s lives became one. They grew together, and they grew individually, too. Sarah’s novel was published and sold well. Ernst developed an interest in antique model trains.

In the spring they married. They rented out the hotel in the mountains where they had met, and invited their family and friends. Sarah’s mother, father, brother and sister flew down from Maine, as well as a dozen of her closest friends. Ernst invited his mother, Adelbert Hügli and Hubert Eggenberger. Adelbert Hügli and Hubert Eggenberger wore suits and ties at all times, refused to eat anything they could not pronounce or go anywhere they could not find explicitly mentioned in Lonely Planet, disinfected their own drinking water, wore shoes in the shower, and chafed visibly whenever the grandfather clock chimed. But Ernst’s mother was quite at home.

It was a simple wedding. Ernst and Sarah read their vows at a waterfall as rainclouds loomed on the horizon. Alfonso declared them man and wife, they kissed, Alfonso kissed them, there was a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder, and the whole party fled the rain back to the hotel. Fires were lit, a band played, Alfonso sang love songs from his youth. Sarah and Ernst danced the salsa. Sarah’s mother danced with Sarah’s father, Ernst’s mother danced with Sarah’s brother. Alfonso made a long speech, blessing Sarah and Ernst’s marriage, and wishing them many impacted years of unionism. Abuelita handed out shots of firewater. Sarah and Ernst kissed again. Alfonso wept like a father.

But who the hell is Alfonso?
Do you remember the manager of our hotel, snoring in his Davenport daybed in front of the fire on the night that Sarah and Ernst met? The one with the regimented little moustaches, who shook his head fondly whenever Ernst extended his stay? The one who drove Sarah to the bus, and indicated the wrong way at the gate? That is Alfonso. He is short and lean, and it is hard to define his age, since he dyes his hair and moustaches religiously. His moustache is very fine, perhaps the most dignified moustache in the whole canton. It suits Alfonso quite well, for Alfonso is a man of tremendous dignity, though he is also vain. He wears fine bowties and prostates to guests upon making their acquaintancing. He speaks florid and formalific English, and he is most proud of his musical ear for tongues, such that even when he is not cogent of the most appropriate word, he may always formulate it, merely by thinking of how it ought most properly to sound. He is a man of appearance rather than substance. Above all things, he admires the appearance of substance. He is also a lazy man, and has neither the hands nor the heart to be a farmer, as his brothers are. He enjoys thoroughly his work at the hotel: napping, loitering, lingering, looking important, polishing occasionally something, greeting guests, networking, tasting food, pouring wine, lighting fires, flouncing about in a handsome bowtie, being dapper.

But Alfonso is no mere manager of a country hotel. He is indeed the owner of the finest hotel in the whole country, a relic of a shimmering past. For this hotel was built by Alfonso’s grandfather in an age of gold and diamonds. It is constructed of polished hardwood and red velvet, brass fittings, black and white tiles, grand staircases, Greek motifs, glass ceilings, tall windows, standalone bathtubs with bronze faucets, mirrors, chandeliers, and a cage elevator operated by an attendant. It was built as a summer house for the bright young things of a prosperous and hopeful nation. But those days passed. The money vanished, no one knows whither. Inflation surged. Politics became a dangerous show. Nothing remains sacred. There are no more bellhops with red jackets and caps, no singers in the lounge, no six-course dinners or Rolls Royces in the drive. All the guests are foreign, and barely enough come to keep the hotel afloat.

When Alfonso heard how many people were coming to Sarah and Ernst’s wedding, his bow-tie went slanty. The prospect excited and terrified him in equal measure. He was quite overworked enough with two guests to care for; twelve was another beast altogether. He recruited most of his family to work for the week of the wedding: his brothers fixed the garden, his sisters dusted and tidied the rooms, his children raced about the place with cloths, polishing everything they could, until they tired of polishing and slid down the bannisters of the grand staircase instead. Alfonso’s mother, Abuelita, a large and matronly women, invaded the kitchen like a flock of geese and set up her nest. She decreed herself chef, welcomed assistance but brooked no collaboration. She rejected all of Alfonso’s requests for the wedding menu, and just cooked whatever she felt like. The table d’hôte menu she offered at the reception said simply ‘soup’, ‘stew’, ‘tortilla’, ‘pie’, ‘salad’ and ‘cake’, which worried all of the guests by its vagueness, not least Adelbert Hügli and Hubert Eggenberger, until the food emerged from the kitchen, resembling the menu not at all, and was found to be really quite delicious.

The wedding was a success. The bride was beautiful, the groom smitten, the guests fell in love with the hotel and the countryside around it. Alfonso did no work, though he superintended a lot of it, and he was extremely proud of what he achieved. The hotel made a lot of money, but Alfonso kept none of it, since most of it went to his family, and most of that went to Abuelita, to compensate the vast sums she had spent securing ingredients for her food.

So Ernst and Sarah were married. Their plans came to fruition, their hopes were met and their dreams fulfilled. Their guests stayed a few days and then left. There were hugs and kisses and farewells. They waved as cars vanished down the driveway, and walked back into a strangely empty hotel. They had a restless afternoon. It rained early. In the evening they sat down to dinner alone at their favourite table in the corner, and asked themselves, “What next?”

They didn’t want to keep travelling. They were tired of shifting about. They wanted to settle, but they didn’t know where. Switzerland was too cold, America too crazy. They thought of their cobbled town in Mexico, but it seemed like a dream to them, and not a place to live. They thought of New Zealand. They thought of the Pacific. They thought of France. Everywhere tempted them, but nowhere seemed right. They couldn’t make up their minds.
This conversation continued for several weeks. Every breakfast and dinner they returned to it. They stayed at the hotel for their honeymoon. They walked in the morning and rugged up in the afternoon. Sarah plotted a new book. Ernst took up Sudoku. And they tried to plan their future.

One night Alfonso, who was sick of hearing the same conversation every dinner, finally broke his reserve. “It is extremely fistulating to me,” he said, dropping their soup slapdash on the table in order to wave his hands, “that I must always coming by and hearing you sillyquising about whither you will venture in the morningtime! Here, there, elsewhere! Always going away at night, but in the morning when you waken, I find that you are still in my bed, perfunctorily!”
Sarah looked at Alfonso with a confused smile. Ernst looked like he’d been woken by a strange sound in his bedroom at night.
“Why not,” continued Alfonso, waving his finger in their faces, “just congest here, in the hotel, erstwhile?”
Ernst twitched, like he’d heard that funny sound again. “But Alfonso,” said Sarah, “we can’t live in your hotel forever.”
“Then is not my hotel,” said Alfonso, taking the key to the linen cupboard from his pocket and slamming it on the table. “I exculpate you! I am damaged from running this wreck forever, always with only a couple of rooms in occupation! Alfonso’s youth is no more verdant. It is time for him to retire, place his feet in altitude, and spend his days at leisure gardens.”
“Do you mean that, Alfonso?” said Sarah.
“Obstetrics!” cried Alfonso, grandly.
“Well, we’ll have to consider it,” said Sarah. “We have to check the finances of course, make a business plan, arrange an inspection of the building, research the laws for foreign ownership, and also–”
“We take it, Alfonso!” said Ernst.
“What?” said Sarah.
“It is perfect, my darling. It could not be better. So, we take the hotel.”
“Well,” said Sarah. “Okay – well – but, first, let’s –”
“Done!” said Ernst, first taking Alfonso’s hand and shaking it vigorously, then picking the key to the linen cupboard up off the table, in a purely ceremonial way, holding it aloft, and putting it back down again. “We negotiate a price of course,” he said, “but tomorrow. Tonight, we celebrate!”

Alfonso was overjoyed. He bent forward, took Sarah’s face in his hands and kissed her on each cheek, then turned to Ernst and kissed him, also. He disappeared to the cellar, located a bottle of brandy, brought it to the dining room, uncorked it, found three glasses, poured a glass of brandy for Sarah, one for Ernst, and one for himself, and sat with them the rest of the evening, celebrating, toasting, and excusing himself occasionally to fetch the next course from the kitchen.

In the morning Sarah and Ernst sat down with Alfonso to negotiate. Alfonso, who didn’t have a crooked hair in his moustache, offered such a fair price it was almost generous, and they accepted. Alfonso said it was more than enough money for his family and him to live contentedly, and he wanted no more than that. Ernst and Sarah had enough left to make renovations. Everyone was pleased.

Ernst transferred the money that morning. In the afternoon Alfonso took him to the municipal office to pay the land tax. Alfonso cut a ribbon, for reasons Ernst did not understand, and shook hands with the mayor, his cousin. Shots of firewater were handed around. Ernst gagged when he drank his, and his eyes watered. The office applauded. The mayor presented him with a university diploma, and shook his hand belligerently. Someone took a photograph. A secretary took the flowers from a vase and gave them to Ernst, still wet. He signed his name on a series of papers, and officially became the proprietor of his own hotel.

Sarah and Ernst set about modifying their hotel. They knocked down certain walls to make the rooms more spacious, widened the windows and extended the balconies. They modified the bathrooms, but kept the original fittings. They reupholstered the old furniture, rebricked the fireplaces and cleaned the chimneys. They repaired the old elevator and put a skylight in the dining room. They invited a woman from the capital to decorate the rooms. Sarah designed a website. She called the place a ‘mountain retreat’. Within a week, they had a guest.

She was a shy lady from Vancouver, a poet. They put her in a large room in the southeast wing. She spent the mornings on her balcony, bathing like a cat in the sun, drinking coffee and reading. In the afternoon she rugged up in front of the fire and wrote poetry about death. In the evenings she ate with Ernst and Sarah. She was exquisitely happy. Day by day she seemed to come more alive. She left the hotel after three weeks, bright-eyed, flushed with health, and flew back to Canada, carrying a book of ecstatically bleak poetry in her carry-on. She promised to return as soon as she could.

Their next guest was her best friend. She was a strange lady who made sculptures out of old trash. She wandered about the hotel, scavenging, picking like an ibis through bins, and on her departure left a scale model of the hotel in her room, made out of unused building materials. Sarah and Ernst kept it, but in the cellar.

A man came next to spend a week illustrating a children’s book. A diplomat and his wife drove up from the coast to escape the summer. A couple came on their honeymoon.

Word spread about the hotel, and more guests came, in twos and threes and fours: artists, painters, writers and musicians, people who did yoga in the mornings and people who preferred to walk, retirees, young people out of college, divorcees, old couples, sea-changers, people who had quit their jobs. Sarah and Ernst worked hard, managing food, accounts, the linen, guests, inquiries, reservations, bills, WiFi, the garden, transport, and a dozen other things. Their days were hard and long, but they were happy.

One day Alfonso reappeared at the hotel, bedraggled and shabby, sporting a full beard streaked with grey. He said he was bedraggled with retirement and wanted to be manager again. Sarah and Ernst hired him on the spot. They were fond of Alfonso, and needed help anyway. The next morning Alfonso was sitting again at the front desk in his suit and bowtie, his hair trimmed, his face shaved and his moustache clipped, everything jet-black and shiny, bowing to guests as they came down the stairs and greeting them by someone else’s surname and title.

It was business as usual for Alfonso, but the business had changed. Everything was computerised now: the finances, timetables, website, inquiries and bookings. The hotel even had an Instagram account. Alfonso had no idea how to do any of these things, nor did he have any interest in learning. He appeared before Sarah and Ernst that afternoon and petitioned them to permit him to hire an assistant.

After an exhaustive search, Alfonso determined the next morning that the best candidate for the position of Assistant General Manager (Operations) was his favourite nephew, Chucho. Chucho, in addition to being a very handsome boy, Alfonso said, had done several computers courses in high school and could operate Microsoft Excel at a superior degree of proficiency. Alfonso considered him overqualified.

Chucho came to work that day, wearing a suit and bowtie, his hair oiled and parted on one side, his teenager’s moustache clipped and neatly shaped, and he took up his post next to Alfonso at reception. He copied everything Alfonso did: when Alfonso bowed to a guest, Chucho bowed to a guest. When Alfonso led a guest to their room, Chucho walked behind, carrying their bags. When a guest asked Alfonso for directions to town, Alfonso told them, mapping the way out with his hands, while Chucho stood next to him silently, moving his hands in exactly the same way. When Alfonso ate, Chucho ate. When Alfonso napped, Chucho napped. When Alfonso raised his cup of cocoa to his lips and drank from it, Chucho raised his own cocoa to his lips and drank from it. When Alfonso went for a stroll through the grounds, looking imperious, Chucho strolled beside him, looking imperious, also.

Alfonso and Chucho made a majestic management team, but they were not effective. The roster fell apart; shifts were either over- or understaffed. The accounts turned queer. Money disappeared one day and reappeared the next in a completely different place. Guests were confused and often got lost. The hotel’s social media presence was disturbingly eccentric. There was an unfortunate incident in which a young French actress by the name of Clotilde wrote to make a reservation after shooting a film on the coast. Her email was written in English, but the English was poor, and the grammar noticeably Gallic. Chucho Google-translated Clotilde’s French English into Spanish, wrote his response in Spanish, Google-translated it back to English, showed it to Alfonso, who made the words longer, before Chucho finally sent it to Clotilde. Somehow, as the conversation transitioned from French to English via Clotilde to Spanish to English via Chucho via Google via Alfonso, the thread got lost, and so did poor Clotilde, who ended up on a poultry farm at the other end of the valley.

In the morning the farmer, who spoke no English at all but somehow reminded Clotilde of the email she’d received, approached her, knelt, and made an impassioned plea, offering her his heart, his home, his life and everything he owned, if only she would consent to make him the happiest chicken farmer in the world, and be his wife. Clotilde didn’t understand a word he said, but when she saw the man gesturing towards the chicken coop, she thought she got the gist. “Yes, please,” she said, “poached.” This sent the man into a fit of ecstasy. Clotilde was touched to see how proud he was of his produce. A large crowd crammed into the room and watched fondly as Clotilde waited for her eggs. She smiled at them. The farmer’s mother, a stout woman in a Vivienne Westwood dress, drove from the other side of the valley, burst into the room, kissed Clotilde passionately, and praised her beauty in gushing Spanish. Children tossed flowers on Clotilde’s head. An old man took her by the hand, gazed into her eyes, and wept. Someone crept up from behind her and measured the size of her head. Meanwhile, she was still waiting for her eggs. The farmer, who was meant to be poaching them, appeared in a dinner suit and bowtie, holding six chickens by their feet. “No, thank you,” said Clotilde. “Just eggs.” But the man did not hear. He placed the chickens on the floor, and one after the other, slaughtered them in Clotilde’s honour. Everyone applauded. Clotilde felt queasy. Then someone fired a cannon in the garden and she got scared. A group of ladies carried her to the bathroom and fit her for a wedding dress, and Clotilde grew quite disconcerted. She excused herself, saying in French that she had brought her own wedding dress and wanted to fetch it, raced to her room, packed her bags, crept out a window, hailed a van and hitched a ride to the nearest bus station. The celebrations continued at the chicken farm without her. At the bus station she checked her email. In her inbox was a message from Chucho, saying they were flabbergasted after waiting an entire day for her arriving period and they hoped she had not been rendered infertile to travel from being in heat in the lower regions as was liable to happen at such a time of months. They asked if she would like them to dispatch a lorry to seize her and drag her up the mountainside to where they were suffocating people waiting for her arrival as they could not wait to watch her come that night in a warm bed and drink wine the colour of blood and enjoy being toasted before an open fire, as always happened on Saturdays, weather excusing. The email was signed, “Yours, Jesus,” which, of course, was Chucho’s real name. Poor Clotilde, terrified, boarded the first bus that came, went to the airport, and boarded a plane out of this insane country, vowing never to return.

Later that week Sarah read Clotilde’s review on Tripadvisor. Alfonso and Chucho were immediately relieved of their online duties, and kept on in a purely in-person capacity. They liaised with guests and waited tables. They were also put in charge of hiring. The hotel was getting busier, and it needed more staff. Alfonso brought some of his brothers back permanently as gardeners, and his sisters became maids. His children ran errands. Abuelita reappeared in the kitchen and shooed everyone else out. She announced that the food had been substandard until now, and demanded a larger budget to secure better ingredients. Every Monday Ernst gave her a 1000 peso note, and by Sunday it was gone. There was never a single peso left. But no one asked questions, since Abuelita’s cooking was terrific.

Alfonso’s family colonised the hotel like termites. In the meantime, Sarah and Ernst began a family of their own. Sarah gave birth to a boy, Samuel. Samuel grew to be a chubby little ragamuffin, blonde like his mother but with his father’s eyes. His personality must have been recessive. He was a wild, nude and wilfully free young fellow. He enjoyed climbing trees and chasing animals around the garden. He was a menace to all postmen, girls, squirrels, and chickens. And he was a menace to Alfonso’s brothers, also, whom he haunted around the premises, mimicking them as they trimmed hedges and painted sheds, standing a few metres away, naked bar his sandals and the cowboy hat Alfonso bought him for his birthday, asking a series of unrelated questions that never seemed to end.

When Samuel was three years old he was joined by Amelia, a beautiful blue-eyed sister, full of giggles, chuckles and squawks. Amelia spent her life in other people’s arms. Every morning Maria, the children’s nanny, carried Amelia around the garden, balancing her on her hip. Amelia’s blue eyes opened wide at the sight of flowers and butterflies, animals that licked themselves, animals that napped, animals with bushy tails that climbed trees, animals that flew and whistled, the little naked animal in the cowboy hat persecuting chickens, the gurgling blue stream and the green grass and smiling faces. When the sun got hot Maria carried Amelia inside for Sarah to feed her. Ernst took his daughter next and jiggled her on his knee, making faces at her and smiling. Abuelita had her turn after breakfast, carrying Amelia about and giving her kisses. Alfonso bought a baby carrier so he could stand at reception with Amelia strapped to his chest. Chucho did the same.

Ernst’s mother, Oma, came for a brief visit when Amelia was born. She took up residence in the master suite and never left. She went on marathon hikes through the forest and played with her grandchildren, teaching them Swiss German and games she remembered from when she was a girl. She took a keen interest in the management of the hotel. She was forever suggesting ways for Ernst to run his business more efficiently, or innovating new ways for him to manage the accounts. She conversed at great length with guests about how they were enjoying their stay. In the evenings she was maître d’hôtel, a role which suited her perfectly: her manners were impeccable, her understanding of etiquette unsurpassed, and she had a great talent for turning silence into small-talk. Alfonso was in awe of Oma, and slightly in love. And Oma was the only person whom Abuelita would allow into the kitchen while she cooked. Those two grandmothers struck up a close friendship, which was quite remarkable, considering that neither understood a word the other was saying: Oma did not speak a word of Spanish, and Abuelita’s Swiss German left much to be desired. Oma wrote home to Zurich, and over the course of a month all her possessions were shipped to the hotel, including Gertrud, Ernst’s cat.

Things flourished. The children grew, the business grew, everyone grew closer. Guests were greeted at the door by a bowing Alfonso in a bowtie, who directed them to his assistant Chucho, wearing a matching bowtie, to carry their bags to the antique elevator and show them to their room. The guests flopped down on their beds, or lazed in the sun, or read books in the library, or strolled along the banks of the stream. The boys gardened, the girls cleaned. Oma went for hikes, Abuelita bought a fancy handbag. Ernst did the accounts. Sarah finished a second book. An old brown cat streaked down the hallway, pursued hotly by a naked blonde boy, himself pursued by a beautiful young woman, carrying a blue-eyed infant on her hip, hissing at the little boy to leave poor Gertrud alone.

They planted a vegetable patch and an orchard of fruit trees. They composted their food scraps. Every month they set some money aside for the local town. They built a children’s playground and bought instruments for the school band. They paid for a little girl’s physiotherapy after a car crash and sent a blind lady to hospital to have her sight restored. They made paths to the waterfalls and lookouts. Every night, everyone who worked or lived or stayed at the hotel sat down together to eat dinner cooked by Abuelita. It was a time of joy.

Then there was a coup in the capital. It was not such a big deal, and the ripples it made barely reached the mountains, where life went on as it had always done. There was little violence, but a great deal of drama. The new president proved temperamental. The country was unsettled. The governments of the Western world advised their citizens not to visit. Guests stopped coming to Ernst and Sarah’s hotel. It was empty for a month, six months, a year. The children forgot what it was like to meet new people. The staff stood idly by.

One night, a year and a half after the coup, a storm swept up from the coast and ran roughshod over the hotel. The wind howled and the rain hurled itself against the windows. The lightning was frequent and fierce. One bolt of lightning struck the fig tree in the drive, making a sound like a whipcrack. The tree swayed and wobbled, then fell onto the hotel, caving the front wall beneath its weight. The roof sagged and the windows smashed. Rain gushed through the aperture and flooded the top floor. The carpet was ruined, the woodwork sodden. Water seeped into the electrics and the power shorted. No one was hurt, but the hotel was wrecked.

In the morning the weather was bright and still, but the ground was sodden and scattered with debris. Builders came to offer quotes, carpenters and electricians inspected the damage. The building could certainly be repaired, but it could not be done cheaply. Ernst did the sums and reached a conclusion he did not like.

Ernst gathered everyone on the steps and broke the news. They didn’t have enough money to repair the hotel. No bank in any nation would give them a loan. Their dream was over. They would have to sell, probably cheaply, and leave. They would be okay. They would start again somewhere new. Sarah had her writing, he could return to work. They would buy a townhouse, send the children to school, hire a carer for Oma. It was not so pleasant, but they would have each other, and with each other they could learn to love any kind of life.

Sarah cried. Oma cried and Abuelita, once everything had been translated, cried also. Chucho hung his head and his bowtie drooped. Maria clutched the children tight to her chest. Amelia felt the pain in the air, and started to wail. Even fierce Samuel was seen to shed a tear.

Only Alfonso was not despondent. A fire burned in his eyes and his nostrils flared, causing his moustache to twitch. He thrust out his chest and straightened his bow tie. He set his jaw firm and stepped forth proudly. “No,” he said. Then he turned to Oma, and, for her benefit said, “Nein.” He slammed his fist against the palm of his other hand and cried out, “I digest this!” Then he spun around in a military way, and marched off peremptorily.

No one could say what was wrong with Alfonso. People deal with grief in a whole spectrum of ways, they reasoned – this setback must have touched him in a painful place, and he needed to be alone. They went about their business, mopping floors, patching walls, boarding windows, saying goodbye. They worked with heavy hearts. But after an hour Alfonso stormed back up the drive, carrying a pillowcase. He mounted the front stairs, stood there like a proud Caesar, roared, and upended his pillowcase onto the ground. A dozen bundles of American one hundred dollar bills tumbled out and lay in a messy pile.

“Alfonso!” cried Sarah. “What’s this?”
“This is the confinement you have made me on my hotel!” said Alfonso, waving his hands about generally to indicate which hotel he meant.
“That was a bank transfer.”
“I am not trusting those scoundrels of the bank! They are rotten snakers!”
“Is this all the money we paid you?”
“Additionally my salarium as manager.”
“But that’s all you have!”
“No!” said Alfonso emphatically. “This place is all I have. I do not let it go!”
“We’ll pay you back, Alfonso,” said Ernst, “with interest.”
“Notwithstanding!” said Alfonso, flapping his hand dismissively.

They were silent for a moment. Then, one by one, they turned and walked away. Fernando, Alfonso’s brother, was the first to return, carrying his savings in a box, which he emptied onto the ground next to Alfonso’s pile of cash. “It was for my children,” he said, “but they will never be poor as long as this place is standing.” Reinaldo, Alfonso’s eldest son, came back next and dropped a handful of banknotes on the pile. “It was for a motorbike,” he said, “but what the hell?” Lupe, Alfonso’s niece, emptied a bundle of money on the ground, saying it was a downpayment on her home, but she didn’t need another home when she already had this one. Then Chucho came, carrying his money in a pillowcase, just like Alfonso. “This was extruded for my matrimonial,” he said, “notwithstanding!” And with a flourish he emptied the pillowcase onto the ground.
“You are getting married?” cried Ernst, clasping his hands together in front of his chest. “How did I not know?” And he took Chucho by the hands and congratulated him with all his heart.
Maria came back, carrying all her money in a little purse, which she emptied onto the ground. “This was for my wedding,” she said, “but the wedding can wait.”
“Two weddings?” cried Ernst, letting go of Chucho’s hands and turning to Maria. “How wonderful!”
“No,” said Chucho, putting his arm around Maria’s shoulders. “Just solitude.”
“Oh!” cried Ernst. “I am so happy!”
“I too am felicitous,” said Alfonso, with tears in his eyes.

Soon everyone had added their money to the pile. Even little Samuel went upstairs, brought down his piggy bank, and broke it on the ground. He contributed nine and a half pesos, a stick of chewing gum and two buttons. Oma was on the phone to her bank in Switzerland, organising a transfer of her superannuation. Sarah called her publishing company to get an advance on her next book. Only Abuelita did not contribute. She bristled even at the suggestion of it, saying she was just a poor, simple old lady who worked hard in the kitchen to support her family, and she couldn’t understand for the life of her how anyone could imagine that she had piles of miscellaneous cash just lying around. She was firm and indignant. She really put her foot down, swearing by her Swarovskis and stomping her Jimmy Choos, and no one was found brave enough to pursue the matter further.

Ernst pooled the money, added it up, and found it was enough to repair the building and keep the hotel going. They cut up the fig tree and burned it in a huge bonfire. They planted a new one in its place. Builders fixed the front wall, carpenters relaid the floorboards, and electricians replaced the wiring. A man came from the capital to restore the carpets. In a few weeks the hotel was better than ever.

A month later there were elections. The President was ousted and a conservative government elected. Alfonso was so pleased he wore a pin on his lapel. The government stabilised, the economy recovered, foreign nations lifted their travel bans. Guests returned to Ernst and Sarah’s mountain retreat. Soon the hotel was full again.

Chucho married Maria. Ernst and Sarah paid for the wedding, which was held at the hotel. It was a lavish affair with flowers and fancy place settings. They hired caterers from the capital so Abuelita could take the day off. Maria was welcomed in name to a family she had long been part of. Everyone was glad. Alfonso was best man and made an inordinately long speech. Oma sang a German folk song. The silverware disappeared from the table where Abuelita sat.

As a gesture of friendship, Sarah and Ernst gave a 50% stake in the hotel to Alfonso and his family. They were partners now, as well as friends. They live on happily together, right to this day. Alfonso and Chucho work at the front desk. The boys garden and the girls make the rooms shine. Oma does as Oma will. Abuelita will take time off in the winter to go on a Caribbean cruise. Ernst potters. The old grandfather clock is always on time. Samuel got an Australian sheepdog puppy for his fifth birthday, and the little thing has almost as much energy as he does. They roam together through the countryside, searching for and finding trouble, and every night the pup sleeps with Samuel in his bed. Amelia can walk and talk. She loves to draw. Sarah is working on a children’s book. The main characters are a savage little boy and a beautiful little girl, who must become allies to navigate a world full of adventures. Every night she reads a new chapter to the children before they go to bed, and she either keeps the chapter or discards it, depending on how they like it. She is trying to finish the book soon, while she only has two characters to deal with, since in a couple of months there will be a third little personality jostling for attention in her mind. Maria is pregnant, also.

One rainy season, a young writer came to stay at the hotel. In the morning it was clear and bright; at noon clouds rose up the valley, and it rained all afternoon. One evening the writer sat in the dining room, waiting for dinner. The owner came in to light the candles. He struck up a conversation with the writer. The writer asked him how he had come to own this place, which was so charming but so quaint, and so far away from the rest of the world. The owner told him the whole story, right from the beginning, when he woke up one cold morning, looked around his apartment, said “Gosh blast it, no,” packed his bags, and left forever. He showed the writer photos of his travels, across Europe, through India to Asia, over to America and down to South America. The owner’s wife wandered into the room, quite pregnant. She joined the conversation. She spoke of how she had quit her job to travel, and come to this hotel to write her first book. She met a man while she stayed, fell in love with him, took a while to figure it out, finally told him, and travelled the world with him. As she spoke, her husband continued to display photos. They were describing their wedding when a man in a bowtie appeared in the room, commandeered the conversation and steered it directly to himself. A large lady in a pearl necklace interrupted and spoke over everyone in Spanish. A young man in a bowtie came to discuss place settings, but two little blonde children took the owner’s attention away. They were followed by a second pregnant lady, who kissed the young man with the bowtie. An old German lady hit a gong. Everyone walked to the dinner table, where the German lady directed them to their seats. She heard them talking about the hotel and listened intently, interrupting from time to time to make factual corrections. A group of men came up from the garden, their hands and faces scrubbed. A group of women walked down the hallway to join them. Someone put a bowl of dog food at one end of the table, and a bowl of cat food at the other. Everyone sat down together, talking and laughing, ate, and stayed up late into the night.

The next morning the young writer woke, opened his balcony doors to the sun, sat down at his desk, and began to write.