As Justine said these words, a feeling of horror welled up in me. Joseph. It must have been Greta’s son. I wanted to ask her to describe the boy, but I knew if I spoke I would show how deeply her story affected me. I would give everything away. “What did you do?” I managed.
“Everything in my body and soul revolted. I sobbed, or screamed, something between the two. The noise caught the creature’s attention. It turned and looked at me. Our eyes locked for a moment. I wanted to turn and run, but I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed by fear, and by something else, too, something closer to fascination. I stared at it, this tall, white-skinned, blue-eyed beast, and odd as it may sound, I felt that I was in the presence of something marvelous. Some part of nature we rarely experience. I found there was something intelligent about it, something I recognized as human, not only in the shape of the face but the expression. And so I spoke to it, hoping that it would understand. ‘I’m Justine,’ I said. ‘Justine.’”
Justine glanced at me, perhaps worried that I would think she was out of her mind. But I knew the exact feelings she described.
“The creature turned to me,” Justine said. “And I was sure, from its expression, that it had understood, if not the words I spoke, then my intention. It came closer, so close I saw its glassy blue eyes. I wanted to help the child, I wanted to take him in my arms and carry him down the mountain, but I couldn’t. I was too afraid. Instead, I ran.”
Justine looked at me, and I saw that her eyes had filled with regret.
“I was some distance away when I heard its voice. Although the sound was muffled by the wind, it seemed to me that it had called for me to come back. Justine, I heard. Justine. The monster had said my name.”
Nineteen
“I’ve upset you,” Justine said, leaning to me and touching my hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t tell that story, especially to someone I’ve only just met. Come, I’ll make it up to you. Pierre has made lunch.”
I followed Justine past the fireplace to an old-fashioned kitchen with an iron potbellied stove and a stone sink. Pierre had been cooking. The air was warm and smelled of roasting meat. Pierre opened a bottle of red wine and filled three plastic cups. Justine lifted a stack of plates from a shelf and set the table. The kitchen window was covered with a crust of ice, giving the world outside a watery, insubstantial look, as if everything beyond was melting. Wind whistled in the chimney. The storm was nowhere near over. I glanced at Pierre, wondering if he had tried to call the helicopter.
As we sat, Pierre placed a metal roaster on the table. Justine added a bowl of mashed potatoes. The meat smelled rich, gamey. Pierre cut a piece of meat and put it on my plate. “I hope you like lapin,” he said.
“Wild rabbit,” Justine translated. “Try it with mustard. It is delicious. Pierre shot it yesterday.”
Pierre poured more wine into his plastic glass and raised it. “Bon appétit.”
As we ate, they talked about ice-climbing gear, the top-ranked competitive climbers—a number of Koreans were ranked highly that year—and their intention to get back on the mountain as soon as the weather cleared.
But even as we talked, I felt Justine’s story weighing on me. I couldn’t help but think of the boy she had wanted to save and the creature she had fled. Finally, when there was a pause in the conversation, I said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t forget what you told me by the fire.”
“I can see that,” Justine said, refilling my glass. “You look like you’ve seen the monster yourself.”
I tried to smile and took a drink of the wine. “Do you remember what it looked like?”
“I will never forget it,” she said. “There was a human cast to its features—big blue eyes, a large skull, a wide mouth—but it was not human, I was sure of that. And yet, it wasn’t an animal either, or at least not an animal I could identify.”
“What was it, then?” I asked, my heart racing. The description matched the photo of the Iceman so precisely that I could hardly breathe.
“For a long time, I wasn’t sure,” Justine said. “And so I began to research the legends and myths