Manly House - Part #2
Gerald Beckman
Issue #2 (April 2008)
When we first encountered Manly he had endured the loss of his parents, sold their inn that he both loved and despised and built his beloved Manly House. Still, Manly is unsatisfied with his cliental. Even though Manly attempts to discourage “unworthy” guests with the constant raising of rates, the guests still come. Manly begins to realize his guest list will grow ever longer as his dream becomes a status symbol for the wealthy to attain. He waits restless for the isolation of winter to begin.
He watched the first snowflakes of the season fall from the panoramic windows of the Lookout Room with great relief, but the relief was tempered by the realization the flood of visitors would begin again next May. The reservations had already been made and paid for.
The first snowfall lasted two days. Every detail of his world was hidden beneath the blinding cover – trails, shrubbery, rocks, boulders, outbuildings, fences – everything was covered by soft, rounded folds of accumulated snow so bright it hurt his eyes. The midday sky was such a clear, dark blue the stars were nearly visible. Wispy crystalline clouds swirled around the tops of the mountains like water in slow motion around boulders in a creek. The valley floor was sharply visible through the cold air, seemingly more disconnected than ever from Manly’s world. It remained in its continuing browns and greens of autumn for another six weeks, but Manly House was already locked in the grip of bitter, uncompromising cold.
Later, as the fierce storms followed one after the other, life settled into a routine. His animals, chosen for their adaptation to mountain living, remained comfortable as long as they had access to the hay Manly accumulated during the summer months. The inn was purposely built on a dramatically exposed site where the wind was nearly constant. Thus snow could accumulate only when no wind accompanied the fall, and such falls were rare. By Christmas the snow was already thirty feet deep in the near passes and on the mountainsides, but near the inn seldom got over a foot deep and that only on the protected side of buildings and boulders. As the winter wore on it became more and more common to hear the distant and sometimes not so distant roar of avalanches tearing down a mountain.
Never for a moment did Manly experience fear or loneliness. The longer he was alone the more he came to believe it was the ideal. He was so engrossed that first winter he seldom used his library and almost never turned on his TV or computer. He was satisfied, more than satisfied, to wander about, absorbing his world. On clear nights the thin air provided such a strikingly clear view of the skies that he sometimes thought he saw detail on the satellites streaking by overhead.
He knew the dangers he faced and he knew his limits. On every side loomed empty space, precipitous mountain walls, or deceptively inviting valleys filled with cliffs and ravines hidden by deep snow. Illness or accident could strike him down at any time, and if that happened he would be beyond anyone’s help but his own.
But he was strong and limber, and his blood was thick with red cells from a lifetime of hiking through mountains. His lungs were large and elastic, and his heart was all muscle, beating 50 times a minute at rest. His father died of a coronary and his mother a stroke, but both had lived on the same foods they had fed their guests, and believed sweat was only for poor people who couldn’t avoid it. Manly’s genes guaranteed a long and healthy life, provided he took care of himself.
Which, of course, meant exercise, and exercise meant hiking and climbing, even in the bitter cold of the mountains. He had storerooms full of cold-weather gear, so as long as he didn’t lose his way, extreme temperatures were not a problem.
One day in February during a terrible blow with the snow swirling all about, he was sipping green tea, gazing at the sheer peak behind the inn, watching how its colors changed with the moving sun. He resolved to climb it. It would be a hyper-technical climb, but he calculated he could get up and back in six hours. There would be some danger, but not enough to sway him. He began the next day.
It was almost a disaster. A crampon came loose on his way down, and had he not been able to get a foothold on a small protrusion of granite, he would have plummeted 300 meters to his death. When he got back to the inn, newly impressed with the contingent nature of life, he began a journal. Its first entry was a detailed description of the climb and the feelings of terror and elation it evoked.
As it turned out, he would climb the peak every year on the anniversary of the first climb, and every year he would write in the journal of the experience. There were no other entries.
The first visitors of the season were due on May 10, and Manly was depressed and a little bit angry. When the first group arrived, they told with great excitement how they almost had to turn back. A long stretch of trail up the side of the mountain had collapsed over the winter months. One member of their party had been able to lasso a boulder and after much effort rigged a rope handrail. The stretch could now be negotiated, but it took substantial upper body strength and more nerve than some of them had.
Manly listened without comment. At its end, the tellers sat with expectant looks on their flushed faces, waiting for assurances that matters would be set to right at the earliest possible moment.
“Welcome to Manly House,” was all he said, eyes gleaming with pleasure at their news. “Please, make yourselves at home. There are sandwiches and tea in the Lookout Room, or drinks of a stronger sort if you prefer. Don’t worry about your things. Set them in the lobby and we’ll carry them to your rooms while you revive yourselves.”
Confused, perplexed, the climbers looked at each other. Some felt a stirring of fear, others a flush of anger. Some laughed nervously. But none pursued the matter.
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