Arms Down

Stand on the Brocken at sunrise, with the sun at your back and cloud below, and a giant will stand up in the cloud. It is your own shadow. Lift your arm, and it lifts its arm.

Count them, though. On the last Saturday in October there were 14 people on the west rocks, and 15 giants.

"I make it 15," Paul said, over the drone controller. "Ute. I make it 15."

"Hold that thing lower," said Ute, without turning round. "Count again. Out loud."

"You. Me. 10 guests with phones. Tom on his video call. Old Erik on the end rock. That's 14. And 15 in the cloud, all with the rainbow rings round their heads. No, wait. One's got no ring. The one next to mine."

"Put the drone up. Low, over the rocks. The rangers are still in bed. Get me something nice for the website, bookings are down a third. And tell me what the ground looks like."

"You could just turn round and look."

"I'm watching the guests. You tell me."

He sent it up. "Frost everywhere. The sun's so low we've all got shadows 30 metres long, right down the slope into the cloud. 15 shadows." His voice went thin. "Ute, one starts by my boots. On a bare bit of ground. Nobody's standing on it."

"Thin, like the others?"

"Thin, like the others."

"Then listen." She pulled his wrist down to his belt. "It goes to hands. If your hands are up, it comes and stands in your shadow. Keep them down, and it leaves with the cloud. That's the whole rule."

"Then we take them down. Now."

"Down where? The path runs along these rocks for half a kilometre. You want 12 people strung out in the cloud with that walking behind them? We stand still. We stand here."

"And if somebody runs?"

"Then I'll have two problems instead of one."

"You've seen it before."

"Some years."

"Has it ever taken anybody?"

"Nobody who was waiting for anybody."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means arms down, Paul." Then, bright as a school bell, to the row: "Arms down, everyone! I know you want to wave. Phones at your chests, please. Nobody waves till I say."

"My girl wants to see me wave," Tom called. "She's six. She's got my giant on her screen, Ute. Have a heart."

"Then she'll see a very polite giant. Arms down, Tom."

Tom told his phone that the boss lady said no. His girl booed down the line.

At the gate, at a quarter past six, Ute had asked every guest the same thing while she ticked their names. Who's waiting for you at home? She said it was her joke. She said it got people talking. Tom said his wife and his girl in Leipzig, who would kill him if he fell off. The couple in green said a dog called Bruno. A student from Hamburg said her mum, and her mum's three cats. Erik held his ticket in both hands and said sorry, nobody now. His wife had wanted to see the giants all her life, he said. He was seeing them for her.

Ute had ticked his name twice.

Then she had turned to Paul. He was eating her biscuits on the little bench by the café, the one with the brass plate that said JONAS, AGED NINE.

"And you, love? Who's waiting for you?"

"My cousin's sofa. And it isn't even mine."

"I know," said Ute, and ticked again.

She had taken him on in March with no papers and no past jobs. In spring she would sign off his hours, she said. Then he could guide alone, and rent a room with a door that shut. She told him that most mornings, and every time he wanted the door more.

"It's moving," Paul said.

"Tell me."

"It's not sliding like a cloud shadow. It's walking. The end of it swings, like a leg. One step toward the green coats." He swallowed. "Now it's stopped. Now it's come back. One step. Toward me."

"It's looking. Stay still."

"It's choosing."

"It's looking."

"Just one little wave, Ute," Tom called. "She's crying. She thinks the giant's cross with her."

"Tom." Ute's voice went flat and hard as slate. "Hands in your pockets. Now."

Tom put his hands in his pockets.

"Seven months I've worked for you," Paul whispered. "I've not heard that voice."

"You've not needed it."

"Ute, Erik's not filming. He's not even watching the cloud. He's staring at the frost, like he can see it."

"There's one with no ring," Erik said to nobody, very softly. "Look at that. As if it's waiting for somebody."

"Are you all right, Erik?" Paul asked.

"Sorry. Yes. Inge had this mountain on a postcard. It was on our fridge for 30 years, under a magnet shaped like a pear." Erik smiled at the frost. "She said one day we'd stand in the cloud like two giants. She said it every year, and then she stopped saying it."

"One ticket," Paul whispered. "Nobody now. Ute, is it him? Is he the extra?"

"Erik drove a bus in Halle for 40 years," Ute said, "and he takes two sugars. Watch your screen."

"I can't. The sun's on it. It's all glare." Without thinking, he lifted the controller up to his face.

"There we are," Ute called to the row. "The cloud's thinning. Two more minutes and you'll see the valley. A man in a wig wrote this view down in 1780, and he didn't wave either."

People laughed. Tom's girl giggled down the phone.

Paul let his breath go. "I'm putting all of this in the video," he said. "15 giants. We'll be famous."

"Paul!" Tom held the phone out at his chest, careful, arm low. "My girl says hello. She says your giant's got a friend now."

"Tell her thanks," said Paul, grinning at the glare. "Tell her he's very polite."

He looked up at the cloud.

The 15th giant was standing right behind his. Its hand was on his giant's shoulder.

Something cold and heavy settled on Paul's shoulder.

It had a thumb. It pressed through his jacket, and his knees dipped. Behind his right ear, close enough to feel, something breathed out, long and slow.

"Ute."

"Don't move," she said. She still had not turned. "Don't you move, Paul."

"It's on me. Ute, it's on me. It's leaning."

"I know where it is."

"My boots are going. I'm sliding. The cloud's gone gold, I can see trees through it. You said it leaves with the cloud."

"I said that so you'd keep still."

"Then what does it do?"

"When the cloud goes," Ute said, "whoever it's standing in goes with it."

A stone went off the edge under his heel. He did not hear it land.

Ute looked down the row. Her voice came out warm and easy, the one she kept for small children and for people who had paid.

"Erik! Erik, love, now's the moment. Wave for her. Both arms, high as you like. She'll see you."

Erik's whole face opened. He set his flask down on the rock, very carefully, and lifted both arms.

The weight left Paul's shoulder.

"It's going," he said. "Ute, on the screen. It's going down the row, fast and low, past everybody's boots. Like a dog when its owner comes in." His voice shook. "In the cloud it's stepped out of mine. It's walking to the end. It's behind Erik's giant. It's got both arms round him."

Erik laughed. It was a young man's laugh.

"Oh," he said. "There you are."

He stepped off the rock into the last of the cloud, arms still up, and the cloud closed over him.

A minute later it burned away.

"Look, the valley!" Tom told his phone. "See the little train? See the trees?"

"There's nobody on it," Paul said. "The drone's right over the slope. White frost all the way down to the trees, and not one footprint."

"Coffee in the café, everyone!" Ute called. "Erik's gone down early for his train. He told me at the gate."

Paul stood by the flask on the empty rock. It was still warm.

"You told him to," he said. "You picked him."

"At the gate. Yes."

"That's what the question's for. Who's waiting at home."

"Yes."

"And arms down." His voice cracked. "That's not to keep them safe. It's so nobody waves but the one you say."

Ute took off her hat.

"That bench you eat my biscuits on," she said. "Jonas was mine. The year nobody waved, it didn't leave with the cloud, Paul. It chose for itself. It took the smallest one. It took him right out of my hand."

"So now you choose."

"So now I choose somebody with nobody. When it comes. Not every year."

"How many?"

"Since Jonas?" She looked at the slope. "11."

"11 people with nobody."

"11 people who got to wave."

"You had your hands up. If Erik hadn't been here, you'd be down that slope now."

"You saved me."

"I did. Delete the video, love, and come and have a coffee."

"It's got everything on it."

"It's got frost on it, and a lot of happy people. Delete it."

"And when Erik doesn't come home? What do I tell..." He stopped.

"Tell who?" Ute said gently. "Who's going to ring?"

"You took me on with no papers," Paul said. "You asked me who was waiting at home, and I told you. Why bring me up here at all?"

Ute picked up Erik's flask and put it in her bag.

"Because some years, love," she said, "nobody waves."