Light-Keeper

LIGHT-KEEPER

By

Rigel Rae

       My name is Marta. I live in a village very far north. A watchtower stands guard many miles away, at a mountain pass. For three months out of every year, someone in my family stays in that tower, to keep a light at its very top. For those three months, winter is at its most brutal, and there is no sunlight. The tower was built many centuries ago as a way to help traders and travelers over the treacherous mountain pass as they made their way to and from our village. My family built that tower, and now my family keeps it. Planes may occasionally fly overhead, but flight paths over our remote location are few. For the most part, people still travel to our village on foot, so we live much in the same way our ancestors did.

       I am proud of our family tradition. I like to think of all the lives that were saved because of the light that led them over the craggy, snow-blown rocks. But it is a difficult job. The tower is many days away from our village, and the isolation comes with problems. We stock the tower well, so there is an abundance of food preserved to last for many, many months. There are also medical supplies and first-aid books in case of emergencies. But if medical help is needed, the nearest doctor is four days away over windy, snow-swept hills in total darkness.

       For this reason, Light-keeper is a volunteer position. When I offered to live the winter in this tower, my family conducted our accustomed ritual. A large dinner, presents of books and food, and goodbyes. We each say what had long been unsaid. Apologies are made and forgiveness is granted. It is not quite a funeral, but a farewell service. We hope they will return of course, and most of them have, but never unchanged. The Light-keeper may not literally die, but months of isolation without human contact changes a person. Especially when one does not have the option to go outside and interact with nature, which might assuage some of the loneliness. We are shut in with our books and our food and our own souls. There is nothing else.

       When I volunteered this year, not many were surprised. Even as a child, I have always relished solitude and the privacy it affords. I thought it might be an interesting experiment, to see how much solitude I could truly handle. And I felt I was probably better equipped for the long vigil ahead than a lot of my family members, some of whom have already done it and swore never to do it again.

       At first, being alone was pleasant enough. Outside, the wind howled across the mountains like a lost ghost, wailing over what was. But inside, a warm fireplace bathed my small living room in golden light. I would curl up with a mug of hot tea and a book, a blanket thrown over my lap, and read happily for hours on end.

       But after a while of this, it began to lose its charm. Quiet time had always been a delicious option for me. Now I had no choice. Every day became the same. Wake up, climb the winding staircase to refuel the 24-hour light in the tower, climb back down to make breakfast, sit and read for hours, make dinner, climb back up to refuel the light, climb back down and go to bed. Every day. At least I was able to bring my cat Pieter. But that didn’t break the silence and the perpetual howling of the wind. There was no electricity. There were no radio signals, no wi-fi, nothing. There were some records and an old Victrola, but it didn’t work very well. So it was just me, and the wind, and Pieter’s purring, and the sound of my own voice, if I chose to read out loud.

       Of course I talked to myself. That was the least of it. After a while it became a common practice in the long nights to throw my book down and cry, thinking of my family, thinking that it would be dinner time soon, and imagining I could see their faces around the table and hear their voices. Oh, how I ached for the sound of another human voice!

       I noticed there was no clock. I had a watch, but no clock. And then I remembered my grandfather mentioning that after two months the ticking was driving him mad until he finally dashed it onto the floor. I understood now. Howling and ticking, howling and ticking. Day in and day out. I would have dashed the clock to pieces too.

       I started to imagine I could hear voices in the wind. Maybe travelers crying for help. But when I started up and listened, I realized it was just more howling. There was nobody out there. Of course there wasn’t. Nobody was coming this way tonight. Nobody had and nobody would. Why was I even torturing myself like this? Why have we been torturing ourselves like this for centuries? Just for the possibility that somebody might show up? Somebody might need our light, so we keep this maddening vigil hour after hour, day after day, week after week, months…years…centuries…

       I threw my book across the room, covered my face and screamed. Pieter leapt off my lap and ducked terrified under the table. I didn’t care. I shrieked and shrieked as loud as I could. I ran to the window and screamed out into the moaning blackness “Fine! You want to wail? I can wail too!” And I screamed and  wailed until I collapsed in tears against the wall and slid down in a heap on the floor, sobbing and exhausted.

       Somebody pounded on the door.

       No, they didn’t. They couldn’t have.

       Somebody pounded on the door again.

       I leapt up and unlocked it. In hindsight, that was not particularly safe. I didn’t care. I opened it.

       There was a man standing tall against the wind and the cold. He asked if he might come in for a while and warm himself. I let him in without question. Again, not a safe course of action. But what was I supposed to do? Shut the door in his face? This is why we stay here. Not only do we serve as a guiding beacon to mark the pass, but also sometimes people need to stop for food and possibly to spend the night so that they don’t freeze to death. We have loaded guns and I know how to shoot if need be.

       The man unwound some of his snow-caked outer layers. He was young, with piercing blue eyes and hair an unusual shade of icy white. He asked for some food. I had some hot soup simmering on the stove, and I made a fresh pot of tea. When we sat down to eat together, he started making small talk, asking about me and my family. I asked him about himself too, but he seemed a bit evasive. He told me his name was Hannes. But he wouldn’t be specific about what his occupation was, nor why he was traveling in such inhospitable terrain. Still, somehow I felt safe with him. We talked long into the night, and it was so good to hear another human voice! When it was time for me to refuel the light and go to bed, he said he had to be on his way. I tried to persuade him to stay the night, but he declined. I was sorry to see him leave and I was not looking forward to the many weeks of isolation I still had to get through. But he said his business might take him this way again soon.

       Sure enough, about a week later he returned. And again we talked for hours. Mostly about books. Once he asked me if there was anything I liked about living so far north, despite the darkness and cold. I told him I loved the warm summers where the sun didn’t set for months; when the rivers thawed and flowers bloomed under a soft breeze from the south. I told him about my family and about our long tradition of being Light-keepers in the darkness, and that despite my feelings of painful solitude, I was proud to be here carrying it on.

       He never said much about himself, and it seemed he wasn’t from our region. But he knew a lot about historical events that had happened a long time ago. I love history too, and can rattle off many details about famous world leaders and the events that shaped us, so his knowledge didn’t strike me as that strange…except that he talked about some of these incidents with an unusual intimacy, as though they were still fresh to him. Truly a passionate scholar, I thought, and how fortunate that this traveler shared so many of my interests!

       He came every week or two. I tried to recognize a pattern, but couldn’t find one. He’d either show up or he wouldn’t, and it lended a bit of spice to the days I lived through, not knowing whether I’d see him or not. It also helped with the loneliness, knowing that I might have company soon.

       Eventually, the long months drew to an end. In my village, we have a custom that on the first day the sun is seen above the horizon, a party is sent out to bring the Light-keeper home. How glad I was to see them! Even though I knew I would miss my friend. From what he’d told me, his business never took him into my village. I’d suggested exchanging phone numbers and social media information, but he’d declined. But now I was back with my family and that was what mattered most.

       On the Light-keeper’s first night back, there’s always a huge dinner to welcome them. Sometimes they decline and stay in their room for a few days, as it can take a while to readjust to being around groups of people again. Then the family has it without them, grateful that at least they are safely returned. I was only too happy to accept.

       When I was telling my family about how unexpectedly hard it was to tolerate the extreme isolation, I got to the part about my breakdown, and about the traveler who had come and saved me from my loneliness. Suddenly I saw my parents giving each other strange looks. They asked me to describe the traveler. I said he was much like most of us from the far north: tall and broad-shouldered. The thing that had set him apart for me was his hair, that unusual shade of icy blonde. Pure white, in fact. The kind you usually only see on very elderly people, except his face had been youthful and unlined, and I’d guessed he was probably in his mid-thirties.

       My parents kept looking at each other strangely, and then at grandfather. Grandfather had remained silent during this whole conversation, but now he said “I saw him too, fifty-seven years ago. As did my father, and his grandmother before him.”

       “No, that’s impossible,” I said. “He was young, not much older than me. It must have been somebody who looked like him.”

       “Tall?” said my grandfather. “With snow-white hair and a young face? He came one night unannounced and never said what his business was? He came every week or so? He talked about what you love most in the world?”

       “Yes, but…”

       Grandfather reached into a drawer nearby and pulled out an old notebook he used to sketch in. He showed me a drawing he’d made, dated fifty-seven years ago. I was speechless. It was my visitor. Unmistakably. Even the clothes he’d worn were identical, down to the pattern on the sweater.

       “What did he tell you his name was?” Grandfather asked.

       “Hannes,” I replied.

       Grandfather seemed satisfied. He leaned back in his rocking chair and murmured “Yes, Hannes. It means ‘God is gracious’. We give light to others, and He gives a helper to us. An angel to protect us in our solitude and strengthen us in our task.”

       “Not every Light-keeper sees him, Papa,” my father pointed out.

       “That I have no answer to,” Grandfather replied. “Perhaps not everyone needs that kind of strengthening. Some are better equipped to endure the solitude than others. Some even relish it. All I know is, when I was at my lowest point, about to break from the pain, he appeared at my door. As he did to my father, and my great-grandmother. Call him what you will, to me he is the Angel of the Mountains. God is gracious, and Marta is very blessed.”

       My parents were silent. They just looked at each other again and I could see they weren’t sure what to think. Some in my family are more religious than others. Some are more willing to accept the miraculous than others. To me, Hannes’ coming was a miracle, and I chose to accept it as such.

       I have yet to decide if I will be the Light-keeper again. If I do, I think I will wait a few years. And I wonder if I should tell the next Light-keeper about Hannes. Would it help to know he might show up, or would that get their hopes up only to be disappointed if he doesn’t? Nobody told me about him beforehand, and if they had, would it have changed anything? I would probably still have broken down and screamed out into the darkness, only I’d have been screaming for him to come and find me. I’ll have to think about this. For now, I’ve written my story out, just in case.

THE END