The Man Who Came in from the Cold

von Marcus Krug

 

A heavy blizzard is raging outside the lodge, which is clinging to the steep mountain face close to the snow-covered and famous Thorong La pass. Inside, the open fire is lively crackling away, giving off some precious heat. Only a few guests have found their way up to the rustic chalet that night. Outside, a single man is running towards a faint glow of light in the white hell of driving snow. His legs sink knee-deep into the snow with every step he takes. He is running away from something. Something that is hard on his heels.

When he finally hammers on the heavy wooden door, he still has to wait for quite some time until he is let in. Now everyone is staring at the sturdy door frame. Underneath, the dark silhouette of a man – who came in from the cold – surrounded by a flurry of snow. Therefore no one is paying attention to a single shadow that is passing by the window.

“Look what the cat dragged in, man! Tris, is that you?” Pim says, squinting his eyes and lifting his head from the cushion he had put on the table to support his heavy head while spacing in and out of his consciousness.

“Joder!” Álvaro says, “What the hell are you doing here, Tristan? We thought you’d come up here tomorrow.”

“I am being followed! A monster is after me! We are not safe here!” Tristan says, panting heavily.

“Who’s following you? And where are the others, are they with you?” Álvaro says.

“No, they are not. I was alone until I followed some weird footprints into a cave full of human and animal cadavers.”

“A cave full of gnawed off bones? Hahaha!”

“Yes, believe me, white bones everywhere. And then there was this giant beast right in front of me. A hideous white creature!”

“No, not this again! Seriously?!” Álvaro says, “The abominable snowman, Tristan, of course?! And he is after you? Sure thing!”

“What are you talking about?” Pim chimes in, “The Jedi? – Out of your fucking mind, you are! Yes, hmmm.”

“Shut up, Pim. No, I am not talking about the Jedi! But yes, I saw the monster! I am dead sure about it!”

“Oh, Bun Manchi, eh?” the hostess, who was eavesdropping, says, “You talk about yeti, eh na?!” She gestures to her husband and says something in their common tongue. Then she ushers him away and disappears into the nearby kitchen. The husband hobbles towards the main door and vanishes into a hole in the floor.

A couple of minutes later, the host reappears from the basement with a dust covered wooden box wrapped in a white Tibetan prayer flag. The hostess rushes over from the kitchen and snatches the box out of her husband’s arms and puts it on the nearby table. Then she opens the box ceremoniously, unwrapping the prayer flag and lifts the lit.

“Mi-goi head,” she says, “hair from the wild man.” The hostess beams at the spectators. Inside the chest, there is something that looks like an ancient, lice-ridden hairpiece. The scuffed thing sports an old fashioned middle parting. And after a few seconds of silence – to let the impression sink in –, she leans over to her guests and says mysteriously, “Local legend has it that he who sees one, dies or is killed.” Then she puts the ugly piece back in the box again and indicates her man to put it back where he got it from.

“This is ridiculous, there is no such thing as that wild snowman. It’s just a myth. A fairy tale. Nothing else.” Álvaro says.

“A myth! A fairy tale! Of course, you know it all, you’ve seen it all!” Tristan says, “But it was all like in that book I’ve read.”

“Tintin in Tibet, I gather?!” Álvaro enquires. “He and Captain Haddock are after the obnoxious snowman. Yeah, what an enormous piece of evidence for the snowman’s existence that is! Like that shaggy wig in the box. I am overwhelmed!”

“Really funny, Álvaro! The book I mean is by that mountaineer guy from Italy. The title of the book … I have it at the tip of my tongue … it is ‘My Quest for …”

A bearded guy in the corner close to the fireplace, who himself bears some cunning resemblance to the hairy beast in question, gets up from his stool, knocks it over and turns around, away from his Sherpa. He says with a booming voice, “No it is not a myth. It is not that easy, either. But yes, I have seen one, too. It was long ago. You probably weren’t even born, back then. We were just on the way back from the Everest, me and my friend Tensing here,” he points to the old and extremely weathered man by the fire “when we ran into the beast. My first impulse was to get the camera out and take pictures, but then it was heading straight at us. So, instead I pulled the rifle from the holster Tensing had on his back.” the guy goes on, “I shot it right between the eyes. And when we came closer, we saw that it was not the monster, but an enormous bear. Probably a Tibetan blue bear or even an endangered Himalayan brown bear.”

At that, Pim, suddenly, begins to recite: “When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride.”

“Pim?”

“He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.”

“Shut up, Pim!”

“But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.”

“For fuck sake, Pim!”

“For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.” Pim finishes the first stanza of the poem and goes back resting his head, heavy with thoughts, on the soft cushion again.

“Anyway, it’s all in my book. It’s called ‘My Quest for the Yeti’.” Reinhold Messner says, turning back to Tensing, his Sherpa, resuming the conversation from where they had left it.

Outside the blizzard had eventually died down. Now the crunching of the snow is clearly audible. The one shadow from before is now accompanied by many more. And then all of a sudden there is an impatient rattling at the door and the glass in the tiny windows shatters.