Erin Miller

My hands are red and swollen. A bank sign blinks a red -14˚, as if it is trying to rub it in. How cold is negative fourteen degrees Celsius in Fahrenheit? It’s really cold. I have gloves in my pack, but somehow it didn’t occur to me that I would want them en route and I buried them near the bottom. I think that I could stop on the side of the road and dig them out, but I have images of freezing to death here at the base of the Italian Alps. ‘A girl found frozen to death hunched over her pack, a pair of Burton gloves clenched in her right hand’. And, I can’t figure out what I would do with all of my clothing and gear as I emptied my pack searching for my gloves, the roads are wet and snow-covered. I do not even think that my fingers would obey my mental commands well enough to undue the plastic clips on the top of my pack. I just keep walking.

As I had stepped off the bus in the town center of Canazie I had noticed the familiar scent of grilling meat drifting through the thin mountain air; the scent was rare in Italy. I had glanced across the road and seen a man selling hot dogs and hamburgers at a small stand. The address of my hotel listed it in Canazie and I had thought that it must be close. I had figured that of all people, the vendor was likely familiar with it. I had showed him my piece of paper with the name and address of the hotel. ‘Oh sure,’ he had replied in Italian, ‘it’s about five kilometers up the road, but another bus will be coming soon, the stop is just over there.’ I had boarded the bus, crammed full of tired skiers making their way back to their hotels. My sense of kilometers is not very strong; I stayed on the bus until I saw the sign indicating that we were leaving Canazie. In Italy these signs are large rectangles with a white background and large black letters showing the name of the town, with a red circle and an X drawn through the name. I had panicked as I saw that sign through the frost covered window of the bus. It had not felt like we had gone five kilometers, but maybe we had, or maybe the hot dog man had been mistaken. The sign had made me acutely aware of being on the edge of town, far from where I assumed my hotel to be. Frantically I had looked for the button to push to indicate to the driver that I wanted the bus to stop so that I could get off. Clumsily, I had pushed my way to the open door, knocking the men in their ski boots off balance. I had spun a panicked circle in the light dusting of powder on the road and then seen the light of a café.

I had walked into the café with tears forming at the corners of my eyes. My fear of walking alone and lost through the freezing dark mountain valley, not even knowing if I was still headed in the direction of my hotel, had consumed me. I had lost all ability to think rationally about my situation. I was angry at myself for not having planned things out more completely, more carefully, for not having prevented being lost at night. I was angry that I could not fully communicate with, and get help from, the people around me.
My usual optimism had abandoned me. The lump in my throat swelled, making any sort of communication difficult, and I had found it impossible to speak Italian. ‘Does anyone speak English?’ There was not a single nod or comforting word in my native tongue from the clientele. As demoralizing as it was, I figured that this made a certain amount of sense. The Dolomites were originally part of Austria and given to Italy only after World War II, at the Paris Peace Conference in 1947, as a reward for Italy switching sides of the conflict and joining the allied forces in 1943. There is still a strong Germanic culture in the area. The people in that café had learned German as their second language. A few of the old men sitting at the bar were probably born speaking German, and learned Italian only after the war, and only ever to a minimal extent due to the resentment they must have felt as their homeland was handed over to the conquerors.

Once it had become clear no one would be able to help me in English, I had mustered my Italian. ‘Conosce Santa Maria e Nives?’ I had pulled out the sheet from the Internet that showed the hotel and its address. The woman behind the bar had been concerned and eager to help. She had questioned the men sitting at the bar. One of them had been familiar with the hotel. ‘Sí, diritto, due kilometri.’ He had motioned with his hands indicating straight up the road. My face had dropped; the man could read my disappointment. ‘Forse solo un e mezzo, facile, non é lontano.’ Only one and a half kilometers — easy.

I had smiled and said ‘grazie,’ as I hurried toward the door attempting not to allow the lump to explode which would have forced the tears out of my blinking eyes and down my cheeks. Now I am walking along the road, alone, in complete darkness in negative fourteen-degree weather with a forty-pound pack stuffed with ski gear strapped to my back. I try to recall my optimism, it is possible that I am just walking slow kilometers; I haven’t ever timed myself walking with this pack. Maybe the hotel will be just around this bend.

This is my present to myself for my twenty-first birthday, a chance to ski the Alps. I am studying in Perugia, the capital city of Umbria, located between Rome and Florence. I had planned to arrive in Canazie while it was still light, but several transportation delays, including one because the train tracks were ‘broken,’ had delayed my arrival by hours and the sun had set while the bus was on the highway.

When I made the reservations as the hotel, I had not asked the woman that answered the phone for directions. I was certain I would not have been able to understand them even if I had received them. Making the reservation alone had stretched my Italian capabilities. ‘Vorrei fare un prenotazione.’ The women responded in several fast Italian sentences; not understanding, I repeated what I had opened the conversation with, ‘Vorrei fare un prenotazione.’ By the end of our conversation, the woman had taken my first name and said she would see me Friday. I had already called a dozen other hotels in the area and none of them had had any availability, so I hoped that I had successfully made this reservation. My American cultural understanding prevented me from feeling secure in having made a reservation until I had given someone all of my bank account information, my social security number, and promised them my first-born son.

My fingers are dreadfully cold, I attempt to clench my hand into a fist, but my swollen fingers bend just slightly. Then, at last, a series of road signs stuck on a wooden post that leans with the weight of the snow appears on a corner. My heart races as I approach the signs, hoping that they list my hotel. My eyes rush down the long list of signs; I am holding my breath in anticipation. At last, the second slab of wood from the bottom displays the name of my hotel. It points up the hill on the side of the road. I begin to climb the steep, icy slope. I lean forward hard attempting to balance the weight of my pack. At last, the hotel appears before me. There are lights inside, people in sweatpants, their hair a mess, sweaty, having been covered by wool caps all day. I cannot find the entrance, just wall after wall with windows but no door. I just want in; desperately I want inside. I consider knocking on what is clearly only an emergency exit; I approach it but at the last minute change my mind, convinced that surely the front door is just around the next corner, it is. I walk in, overwhelmingly relieved.

‘You must be Erin, we’ve been waiting; dinner is ready.’ The woman at the counter greets me with some of the most beautiful Italian words I had ever heard. She suggests that I put my pack down in her office and go straight to dinner. I explain that I need to go to my room first; my Italian is insufficient to explain that I need to rub my hands under warm water for a few minutes to see if I can get them to work again. Once I explain I will be to dinner very quickly, she reluctantly agrees, and shows me to my room. I allow my hands to thaw. I put long underwear on under my jeans and slip on my wool socks. I am terrified of becoming that cold again, even though the warmth of the hotel attempts to convince me that the fear is unrealistic. I go down the stairs to dinner. Along one side of the dining room was a large table full of people speaking English, at least what seems to be English through their thick Irish accents. Never being much of one for dining alone, I ask if I can join them. A redheaded, fair-skinned, button-down-shirt-and-sweater clad twenty-something man glances up, meets my eyes, and replies, ‘of course.’