The end of June, the summer solstice. Its flaw is that this is the shortest night, but its virtue is that the day is then at its longest. Which counts for more? Midsummer – here among the mountains that means nothing. For a good while we came by car, then we bundled ourselves into off-road vehicles, and in the end only our own two feet were left. On the plain, blazing sunshine and summer beyond doubt – here, at two thousand-odd metres, a hurricane-force wind tugs at our coats, flings snow in our faces, knocks us off our feet. This is not summer, not the longest day of the year, but a veritable Arctic, winter in summer. From under the melting slush the plants peeped out, the first shoots were pushing through – up here on the heights everything waits a long time, and then hurries to come into its own. Short is the summer, long the winter.
Then, from one minute to the next, the clouds disperse and the wind drops, the Sun blazes out with all its might, the patches of snow melt. The light is blinding, you look up towards the sky with eyes closed – but only for a few moments, then another change, mist comes down, the wind comes shrieking back. No one comes this way, only we wanderers. We set out from the mountain of prayers, where the view to the east is splendid, with tiny scale-model villages in the distance, and from the plain the keen wind drives great bulky clouds against the mountain. Vapour in the air, tears in the eyes, water everywhere, the thaw soaks everything with its streams. Spongy tussocks along the mountain brook, and again and again the silver of the brook and the yellow ribbon of the path twine together. Swaying, you step across the rushing water, balancing on stones large and small. We walk on mutely, having agreed only the day before on today's fasting and muteness. Stripped of comfort, we submit ourselves to an ascetic trial, climbing hungry, thirsty and mute. The mouth fasts twice over, but muteness lends still more substance to a trek splendid enough already. It is as if we were walking not on the earth, among the mountains, but on some heavenly path where we ought to meet none but good fairies, angels and saints.
Thought soars higher even than the peaks, the gaze is fixed on the steep slope, but the foot slips, the stick clings, the snow hugs the ankle. You pant, but you do not rest, you go on. Now the sweat breaks out on you in the blazing sun, now the sweat-soaked shirt stiffens with cold on your back, everything is relative. Now we cut across a band of snow, each boot in the print of the one before. It is hardest for the first, who must feel out the trail to lead the others along a safe path.
Looking back, the path slopes gently, but looking ahead it is steep. Which is truer? An inner monologue thunders in your head, sometimes breaking into dialogue, when your worse self does battle with your weaker self. And yet you set out so that your better self might meet your true self. Where? When? At the next ford, perhaps? Or beyond the rise? On the shore of the lake, or not until the summit? You must go on, there is no answer yet. The rucksack strap drags at your shoulder, and you see that others too are framing unspoken questions for themselves and trying to find the answers.
Like a chequered tablecloth, the landscape changes: flat dwarf pines hugging the ground, rocks, patches of snow and tiny flowers peeping out here and there, a merrily babbling stream. This bright chequerwork is counterpointed by the lights of the sky, or by their absence. Here and there sunlight gleams on the land, elsewhere shreds of cloud cast shadows on the coloured ground, or the mist takes possession of everything. It is as if the two grids slid over one another, and when light falls on the vivid patches of flowers, they blaze up, while if the mist seems to prevail, even the chatter of the stream turns to more of a rumble.
And then the earth growls. Or rather something beneath it. You stop short – did the others hear it too? You listen, but nothing – perhaps the rumble will sound again? As if spirits beneath the earth, captive souls, had growled. A howl, a muffled roar, a shrieking overtone and a deep thundering. Could these be the long-awaited angels? Shadows, dragons, telluric beings beneath the earth, captive ghosts, chained spirits, so many counterforces, a counterpoint to those who clamber in the open, on the surface – to us. Their deep, muffled noise is a warning to those who walk the surface: We are here too!
Then silence. You listen. Nothing. Only the stream babbles, the wind keens, the breath rasps. Have the prisoners beneath the earth broken loose, or have they withdrawn? Is the longest day a liberation for the shadow beings? Everything is relative…