Christmas on the Rocks
Posted on Wednesday, 14 December 2005
The door closed with a loud bang. The wind who had caught it was howling with laughter outside. Lizzy and Fitzwilliam put down their backpacks and looked around the bivouac hut. It was tiny: only a few square meters, and sparsely furnished. Opposite the door was a small window with a table underneath, and against the other two walls were Spartan bunk beds. The walls were thin, but they were protected from the elements in this little refuge high on a ridge in a desolate mountain area. And it was all theirs for tonight, if nobody else showed up.
They quickly took off their harness and jackets and made themselves at home. They began sorting out their climbing material and settled into the bunk beds, and this and other things kept them busy for a while.
“Guess what?” Fitzwilliam said, looking at his watch/altimeter/wrist computer. “It’s the 24th of December.”
“Really?” Lizzy replied. “On the first day of Christmas” she started singing. “my true love send to me”
He took his head out of his backpack and joined in. “A partridge in a pear tree”
“On the second day of Christmas my true love send to me” she looked at him questioningly.
“Two carabiners.” He replied and threw them to her.
“And a partridge in a pear tree” they sung together.
“On the third day of Christmas my true love send to me”
“Three climbing ropes”
“Two carabiners”
“And a partridge in a pear tree”
“On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Seven muesli bars
Six pocket knives
Five detailed maps!
Four fuel tanks
Three climbing ropes
Two carabiners
And a partridge in a pear tree!”
Then they both agreed that it was getting boring. It was high time to cook dinner anyway.
“Well, I could do with a partridge.” Lizzy said. “And pears in wine for dessert wouldn’t be too bad either.”
Fitzwilliam took two freeze-dried meal bags from his rucksack. “Noodles or pasta?” he asked.
“Let’s go for pasta? That’s a bit more classy.” she joked. “It’s Christmas after all.”
Meanwhile she had assembled the stove and lit it. She emptied what little water remained in her bottle into the heavily dented aluminium pan. “Do you have any more water?” she asked.
He raised his bottle and drunk the last bit. “No.”
Lizzy frowned. “Then get me some snow, will you?”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because you can’t resist my charms.”
“Wanna bet?”
They stared at each other, until he grabbed her, kissed her quickly and ran out. Lizzy smiled and she turned back to the table. She started to open the pasta bag with her pocket knife, whistling a Christmas tune. Suddenly she felt something cold and wet coming down her neck and she screamed like a girl.
“You didn’t specify where you wanted it.” he argued.
Of course she took revenge.
When the food was ready Fitzwilliam turned off the stove. It suddenly went pitch-black in the hut and they both laughed.
“Well, sometimes it’s better not to see what you’re eating.” he remarked.
Lizzy was the first to find her headlamp and she helped him locate his. Then they sat on the bunk beds and fuelled themselves with carbohydrates. Afterwards they cuddled up nice and snug and shared the last piece of chocolate for dessert.
“Shall we light a candle?” Lizzy proposed.
He looked doubtful. “It’s really only for emergency situations.”
“But we’ve both got one. What are the odds that we’ll get stuck in a snow hole twice?”
He had to agree with that logic, and he took out his candle and lighted it. Then he dripped some wax on the table and fixed it to the wood. The atmosphere in the little hut was changed instantly, and even he could see the advantages of that.
He quickly rummaged through his first-aid kit. “Oh no!” he exclaimed.
“What? Don’t tell me you forgot to re-stock.”
He turned to her with a grave face. “How do you feel about children?”
They were saved from this agonizing dilemma by the noisy entrance of three men. “Buona sera!” [Good evening]
“Buona sera!” they replied. “Feliz Navidad.” Fitzwilliam added. [Merry Christmas]
The Italians looked at him quizzically.
“Uh, I think that’s Spanish, darling.” Lizzy said.
“I know.” he replied irritably. “¿Hablan Castellano?” [Do you speak Spanish?]
Apparently not.
“Do you speak English?”
“Inglese?” the smartest one echoed. “No. Italiano basta!” [Just Italian]
After Lizzy and Darcy had made room and the Italians had settled in, one of them took a liquor flask from his jacket. After a gulp he offered it to Lizzy and she gratefully accepted. It was passed around their little circle and they expressed how good the grappa was in wordless conversation. Alcohol is the universal language, after all.
Fitzwilliam and Lizzy felt they should make a return gesture and after some embarrassed deliberation contributed a small bag of nuts and raisins to the party.
“Why is it that I can grasp what they’re saying, but they don’t understand me when I speak Spanish?” Fitzwilliam wondered.
Lizzy had no idea either. “So, what are they talking about?”
“Well, I think one said you’re a very beautiful woman, and then the other warned him not to make me angry.”
A while later Fitzwilliam and Lizzy were lying in their bunks trying to sleep through the snoring of one, and the violent nightmares of another Italian. He was mostly screaming for his mummy, it seemed.
Lizzy hung down from her bunk bed to Fitwilliam’s. “Hey!” she whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Next time, and I don’t care how cold it is, we’re taking a tent with us!”
“Just what I was thinking.” he replied.
“Oh and....Merry Christmas.” His hand found hers in the dark.
“Merry Christmas.”