The mountain could be seen from every house in the village.
It stood beyond the fields, behind the dark line of trees, with a long ridge that rose towards the eastern sky. Its summit was bare stone, and a narrow stream ran down its western side.
The villagers had always called it the Mountain.
Nobody knew whether it had another name.
In summer, its slopes were green. In winter, snow sometimes rested in the hollows. At dawn, the summit caught the first light, and in the evening it was the last part of the valley to grow dark.
People climbed it occasionally, though not often. The path was steep, and the stones were loose.
Then, one morning, the mountain was different.
Not greatly different. The summit seemed a little farther to the north, and the ridge had a shallow dip where previously it had risen in a smooth line.
The villagers noticed it because the morning light fell differently.
The baker was the first to mention it.
"Has the mountain always had that hollow?"
The innkeeper looked up from his cup.
"What hollow?"
They went outside.
The hollow was plain to see.
By midday, everyone had an opinion.
Some said that the mountain had always been like that. Others insisted that the ridge had changed. One old man remembered climbing to the summit as a boy and finding a flat stone where the hollow now lay.
A woman who had lived in the village all her life said that the mountain had once been higher.
Nobody could agree.
The following morning, the hollow had disappeared.
In its place stood a narrow peak.
The stream on the western slope had divided into two branches, one running south towards the fields, the other disappearing behind the trees.
The villagers gathered in the square.
They looked at the mountain.
The mountain offered no explanation.
A shepherd named Tomas decided to climb it.
He set out before sunrise, carrying bread, cheese, and a flask of water.
The lower slopes were familiar. He knew where the gorse grew and where the stones shifted beneath his feet.
But halfway up, he found a stand of trees he had never seen before.
They were slender trees with silver leaves.
Beyond them, the path divided.
One branch climbed towards the summit. The other descended into a hollow that had not been there the day before.
Tomas stood for a while, looking from one path to the other.
Then he followed the descending path.
It led to a small lake.
The water was perfectly still. On the far side stood a cottage with a red door.
Tomas had never seen it before.
He sat beside the lake and ate his bread.
After a while, a woman came out of the cottage.
She carried a basket of apples.
"Are you lost?" she asked.
"I don't think so," said Tomas.
The woman smiled.
"Then you must have come a long way."
He looked back towards the trees.
The mountain rose behind them, but its summit was hidden.
When he turned again, the woman had gone.
The cottage remained.
Tomas returned to the village in the late afternoon.
He told the others about the lake and the cottage.
Some wanted to go with him. Others said that he had mistaken a hollow for a lake and a tree for a cottage.
The next day, three villagers climbed the mountain.
They found the silver-leaved trees, but beyond them was a broad meadow.
There was no lake and no cottage.
They returned by a path that brought them down on the eastern side of the mountain, where none of them had ever walked before.
They found a road leading towards another valley.
A week later, the mountain had changed again.
The summit was lower, the ridge broader, and the stream on the western slope had disappeared.
In its place was a dry channel filled with smooth white stones.
The villagers began to climb more often.
They found caves, meadows, streams, and once a small stone bridge crossing a ravine.
Sometimes the places they found remained. Sometimes they vanished before anyone else could visit them.
Nobody could make a map.
In time, the villagers learned not to ask which shape was the mountain's true one.
They spoke instead of the mountain as it was that morning, or as it had been when the first snow fell, or as it appeared from the bridge.
The children grew accustomed to seeing it change.
They made games of guessing what might be there the next day.
The older people were less certain, but they too began to look forward to the morning light.
One winter, a traveller arrived from the eastern road.
He stood in the square and looked towards the mountain.
"Is that the same mountain I passed through yesterday?" he asked.
The villagers looked at him.
"How could you have passed through it?" said the baker.
The traveller pointed towards the ridge.
"There was a valley there. A road, a river, and a village."
The innkeeper looked towards the mountain.
"Was there a village in it?"
"There was," said the traveller. "And a woman who sold apples."
Tomas, who was sitting by the fire, looked up.
"What was the name of the village?"
The traveller told him.
Tomas had never heard the name before.
But he remembered the red-doored cottage beside the lake.
The next morning, the mountain stood beneath a clear sky.
Its ridge was long and smooth, and the summit rose above the valley as it had in the oldest memories.
The villagers went about their work.
The baker kneaded his dough. The innkeeper carried wood. The children crossed the square on their way to school.
Tomas stood outside his house, looking towards the mountain.
For the first time in many months, he felt no desire to climb it.
He had begun to understand that the mountain did not need to be visited in order to be somewhere else.
He turned away.
Behind him, the path through the trees had begun to rise.
No comments:
Post a Comment