Free Snow Hunters: A Novel by Paul Yoon

now the face lying below him, unmoving in that light, and he saw that it was not a man but a boy, and Yohan heard his name.
    He heard the boy say, —Leave me alone.
    And, as if surfacing from water, he felt his body let go. The shop and the night noises from the streets returned to him. He attempted to stand but he couldn’t, the energy had left him, and he leaned back against the leg of a table and looked across at Santi on the ground.
    The boy was lying beside the door. His shirt had torn and his nose was bleeding. Around him lay scattered thethings he had collected throughout the years and which Kiyoshi kept for him.
    Santi sat up and began to gather the objects: a comb, a toothbrush, shoelaces, a pocket mirror. The lid of the cigar box was broken. Still he gathered whatever he could, kneeling there and placing them in the box.
    Then he stopped. He looked around at the shop, at this room that belonged to a man he had known since he was a child. He looked at the ruined dummy, the fallen rolls of fabrics, the scattered pieces of a vase reflecting light.
    —It’s all junk, Santi said, and he kept repeating those words, —It’s all junk, and he sunk to the ground and covered his face with his hands.
    Yohan moved toward him. He stood. He lifted the boy, and the boy let him. He felt Santi’s thin arms around his neck. He felt the boy’s breathing slow. Smelled the sea on him. He stepped closer to the window and looked out and held him.

9
    H e did not see Santi for a long time afterward. He did not see Bia either. He took over the tailor’s shop. He worked in the mornings and the evenings and delivered clothes in the afternoons. He remained on the second floor and left Kiyoshi’s bedroom as it was. He kept the radio on. The shop thrived.
    One afternoon he visited the church. The church bells were ringing through the town. He had finished mending a jacket belonging to Peixe. The stitching on the shoulders had been torn, the fabric long faded and discolored by the sun and the garden. He had folded the jacket, wrapped it in paper, and bound it with a piece of twine.
    It was warmer than other days. The daylight bright against the buildings. A neighbor was washing the sidewalk in front of a store and the water sped down the cobblestone. As he climbed the hill a motorbike passed him, carrying an open crate of fish lying on their sides. Now and then someone waved or smiled and he returned their gestures.
    In the church courtyard an old car was parked in the shade of a tree. There was also a bicycle leaning against the building, under a stained-glass window. The building’s walls were whitewashed, its heavy wooden doors the color of clay.
    A stone wall surrounded the property and sometimes, after the church emptied, Bia and Santi would sit there and wait for Peixe to appear. And they would stay for a little while with the man who had known them the longest, sitting under the tree or helping him with the chores.
    Yohan passed through the front gate. He walked around the side of the building, following a narrow stone path, ducking under the low branches and heading toward the back garden.
    There, a brick cottage stood against the slope under the town’s ridge. It had once been a gardener’s shed,which had been expanded and converted into a living space, a single room with low eaves and four windows, one on each wall. A wheelbarrow rested against one of the walls, as well as empty flowerpots stacked on top of each other.
    The path led to the door. He knocked and stepped away. Under the trees there was a silence. He turned to look out at the garden, the rows of vegetables. Vines climbed the back of the church. Farther in the distance lay the headstones, the statues, and the small monuments of the cemetery.
    He heard movement from inside the cottage. The door opened and Peixe stood within the doorframe, leaning against his cane and wearing trousers with suspenders over his shirt. A pair of reading glasses was tucked in his shirt