But now, all these years later, I cannot conceal from others how I have tired of those coffeehouses and dinners, those lectures and conferences. For all the learning of my colleagues and friends, I find my thoughts returning to that small village of St. Kristoff, high up on that hill, with the forest around it, so remote from the bustle of life here. I returned to the village several times over the years, and it had altered not a whit. Yet I have never been visited by any desire to inquire for my hunter there. For a time, I halfbelieved that I had not met him at all, but that he had come out of my dream. I still remain undecided on the matter.
I told no one of my meeting that evening so long ago, but committed it here to this journal instead, to consider its meaning yet again.
ONE
The day before the two bodies turned up in the woods, Felix Kimmel was staring at the grasses by the side of a road. This klamm, as Styrians call these narrow mountain roads, had all the steep grades and sharp turns that visitors remember long after their travels in this southern province of Austria. Even sophisticates from Vienna who come for the Apfelfest and its potent ciders soon stop comparing the endless rows of hills and green mountains here to the Alps, or to their own summer escape of Semmering, with its picturesque views and cool heights, and its sudden, but few, green valleys.
Felix had spotted a bird hopping about amongst the spring growth. It had had a worm in its beak, and he was waiting for it to hop into view again. Even thinking about this bird was better than listening to his sister Lisi, in whose car he sat now, hungover and listless. Too many of her stray, random thoughts had been spoken aloud. She’d been nervous, he understood, and sad. Talk was her way of dealing with it. But there was nothing to be done about the day really, just to get it over with.