ON THE WHITE BLANKET OF SNOW

ON THE WHITE BLANKET OF SNOW

The sky was still an uniform blanket of gray, without even a mottle, or a little opening , without a minimum space (area) of a tone slightly lighter or slightly darker. The compact gray of the sky loomed like a heavy hood over the snowy landscape she was looking at from the large French window. It had been snowing for hours, it kept on snowing.  Now the snow was falling like thin rain, in gusts and sprinkles. While until a little ago she had seen it falling in fluffy flakes which came down slowly, floating lightly, they looked like butterflies.

Dominique, her cat, was raving  around her and around the large French window, meowing restlessly, angry, arching his back, curving his tail, slapping his muzzle against the window glass. Dominique had given even little bites on her legs. Anne knew her wonderful cat couldn’t wait to go rolling, she said to do somersaults in the snow, which electrified him, exalted him. Since he was black, seeing Dominique rolling in the snow, with his shining green eyes flashing, was a really show. But as long as it kept on snowing she couldn’t let her beloved cat go out, since he would get wet and then he could get sick.  “ Good, Dominique…As soon as it stops m snowing , we will go out. I too want to take a walk in the snow” Anne said, taking her cat in her arms. Dominique, continuing to fret, bit her on the nose. “ Ouch! Bad Dominique!” Anne said, pretending to scold him, but starting to laugh, as she could never get angry with her cat or feel offended by him.

The snow kept on falling , and judging from the snowy sky, who knows when it would have stopped. Not that she was as impatient as Dominique, but she would glad have taken a walk in the snow, surrounded by snow. Yeah, she could go out even while it was snowing…but there was Dominique, which she was sorry to leave alone, with his unsatisfied frenzy of rolling in the snow.

It was still daylight, but she knew that, when it was snowing, the day ended earlier. Even watching it snow, when  the snow is falling in light flakes, which come down slowly, which slowly settle on the white carpet on the ground, (it) was relaxant, it gave a sense of peace, indeed also a feeling of enlarging, that is of slowing down time….and there was also the feeling that the place where you were was moved somewhere else.  But now, and from some time, the snow was falling thin thin, as rain, in nervous sprinkles. Anne, she too, was beginning to be impatient.

But it was  only when she saw an almost large dark stain among the branches of the old olive tree, completely covered with snow, that the desire to go out took over. She stood with her eyes glued to the window pane for a few minutes , and , under her gaze(look), the dark stain among the branches and leaves completely covered with snow not only grew larger, but it took the appearance of someone hooded and wrapped in a black cloak. It seemed to her that someone was crouching among the branches of the olive tree, someone who seemed to be hiding there.

Anne, forgetting of Dominique, which was still fidgeting , put on the anorak with hood, put on the boots , and went out into the garden. The old olive tree was at a certain distance from the French window, and she, walking under the snow to get close____snow kept on falling in gusts of very thin flakes_____she believed she would really find  someone crouching, hidden, in what looked like a den dug among the olive branches whitened with snow, since  as she moved towards the olive tree, she continued to see that large dark stain among the snow that covered the crown of the tree. It seemed to her there was a cavity  among the branches of the olive tree, and someone who was hiding in that cavity or had found shelter in it. When she came close the olive tree a gust of wind made snow fall from its hair, and suddenly the dark stain she had seen disappeared. Now she saw the branches and the leaves of the tree, from which the snow had fallen. And they were dark. Even though she felt relieved too, since, if someone had been there, he could have attacked her, Anne was also disappointed for the sudden disappearance of what had seemed to her a cave with a hooded man ( someone) inside.

For the first time since she was out she felt a shiver of cold. She thought of her cat and started to go back into the house. She had just turned her back to the old olive tree, that she saw , on the carpet of snow, beside her, a big dark shadow, which looked like the hooded she had seen crouched among the branches of the tree. It was only a shadow that she saw silhouetted on the snow beside her, but Anne turned around expecting to see someone casting that shadow. Behind her, between her and the old olive tree there was only snow, a carpet of snow. Yet there must be someone, she thought, and she started walking back towards the olive tree. After a few steps a big black bird came out, flying low, from the branches of the olive tree, slamming its beak in her face, before taking off.  So ( then) there was really someone inside the olive tree: this was the first thought which came to her mind. But what strange feeling she had while she was going towards house. It was if…if she had seen the shadow of someone who she only had seemed to see….that shadow on the snow, appeared and soon disappeared, seemed to be the shadow of someone who there was not.

It continued to snow, It still was snowing when the evening came down , and then at night. Anne dreamed that in her garden completely covered with snow, flowers of all kinds were blooming, very colorful flowers, whose colors stood out against the dazzling white of the snow. In the dream she was not at all surprised that so many flowers had bloomed on the snow. It was an enchanting vision the garden of the flowering snow, with the sun intensifying and making the colors of the flowers shine, and the white of the snow too.                                             

The following morning it had stopped snowing, the sun was shining, there was a high layer of snow on the ground, the trees and the roofs of the houses were covered with snow. Anne could venture with Dominique to roam in the snow. She puts the boots on and, oh, no, she didn’t put the boots on her cat, which went out barefoot in the snow. It was a clear and bright day, but an icy wind was blowing.

As soon as he was outside, Dominique started to jump and roll on the snow, with great enthusiasm, even with frenzy. After a slow of somersaults in the garden covered with the  snow, her cat , perhaps to rest, perhaps to get drunk of the dazzling whiteness of the snow, lay down, with his muzzle stretched out on the snow, that he seemed to be smelling it, the snow, even tasting it. Yeah, since she knew that the snow had a smell. For Anne it smelled of ice and earth, it smelled of air crumbs, it smelled of wheat grains, and of apple seeds…..and also of soot…and snow also smelled with childhood.

Who knows what the snow smelled for her cat, but it certainly must have been a heady smell , judging by the blissful expression Dominique had.

While her cat had started again to do somersaults on the snow which covered the garden, Anne, thinking back to the big shadow , that the day before had appeared to her, standing out dark on the snow, began to observe the snow on the ground looking for something which she did not even know what it could be, while she continued to say  herself that yet , that shadow, which looked just like someone’s shadow, even if she had not seen anyone, yet that shadow some sign of its presence, of its passage on the snow must have left it. Anne did not take into account that what she was repeating herself, that her conviction was completely irrational, since she too knew, like everyone, that shadow leaves no marks, it slips away from the surface on which she had appeared. However Anne, convinced that the big shadow had not appeared to her by chance ( on the carpet of snow that her garden had become), she was also convinced that SOMETHING that shadow , if it was really a shadow, had come to do in her garden. So, while Dominique kept on rolling on the snow, with great enthusiasm, she decided to inspect the fallen snow in her garden inch by inch. Despite the freezing wind, she equipped herself with a magnifying glass and a rake to scrupulously examine the blanket of snow which covered the entirely ground of the garden.

The morning passed without finding anything, not even something tiny, or insignificant, which she certainly would have taken for a mark left by that shadow. The wind blew more and more cold, her hands were almost frozen, the snow in her garden was beginning to turn into ice.

Dominique, perhaps because he was tired, perhaps because he too was cold, started to meow in front of the French window. Anne went back into the house with her cat, which ate with great appetite and then went to sleep on the sofa in front of the fireplace.

Anne went back to the garden, leaving Dominique lying comfortably on the sofa . Her cat didn’t seem to care about snow anymore.

The air was freezing outside. She began again to inspect the carpet of snow, which was turning into ice. And, after hours, numb from the cold and the frozen wind, she suddenly found a small black spot on that expanse of white. It was a small spot which grew larger as she scrapes it with her fingers and with the rake. That black spot just seemed to lead to something which was hidden, or rather buried under the snow. Anne went to get a pickaxe to take the snow off, that had become hard. Soon something appeared to her, which took her breath away. Under the thick layer of snow there was that kind of…..it looked like a doll, no more than sixty centimeters high, which reproduced, albeit in smaller scale, her features. The doll wore a skirt like the ones she, Anne, used  wearing, its hair was tied in a tail , as Anne’s hair. But more astonishing, even chilling, was that the doll reproduced Anne’s physical and physiognomic characteristics. The doll had a shorter leg, the right one, just like Anne, it has a potato nose, just like Anne, and a mole under its nose, just like Anne. She was overcome by a great fear at the sight of that doll. She would have liked to run away, or, at least, to go home straight away. But as soon as she tried to take a step, she slipped and fell on the frozen snow. Anne felt that the doll which reproduced her features, the doll which the big dark shadow had buried under the snow, in her garden, it was the announcement of her imminent death.