Then the clouds suddenly parted to reveal a vast, washed sky. The moon was full, but the beauty was not to be found there, distant and galactic. It was close by, on the slopes that surrounded me. The entire cirque was adorned with hundreds and hundreds of silver ribbons, strewn over ridges, sliding down hills, as if the whole landscape were dressed for a village fete. Those ribbons were little brooks and streams descending from the mountaintops, anonymous gurgles that, further down, in distant valleys, would be named by men, if they made it that far. They were still tiny, fearful things, hidden in the grass. Some would die of evaporation, some would become lost, while others would disappear down thirsty throats. The strongest would join forces, sweeping across continents, making oceans rise. I hadn’t paid attention to them during the day. But the moon made them glorious, and I noticed to my surprise that one of them ran only two metres from my tent. I dipped my hand into the water. It bit my fingers with a sound of childish laughter before continuing on its way.
The knife moves back and forth across the bread, spreading the good yellow butter.
‘Your mother is dead.’
My great-uncle told me the news at breakfast. He came especially from Spain, my mama’s homeland.
‘You must be brave. You are a man now.’
I was nine.
‘It was … very sudden. A sort of sickness of the soul. You’ll understand when you’re older.’
I already understood. Whose soul wasn’t sick in my father’s house?
We had just returned from two days in Pau. The Commander had taken us to the agricultural fair in the big old cart. I’d rather shell out on a hotel and keep you where I can see you than have to worry about what you’re plotting when my back is turned.
While he was at the fair, Mama took me to the cinema. Just her and me. It was my first film: Baron Munchausen’s Dream, directed by Georges Méliès. The people in the audience laughed and yelled, my mother included. I had never seen her like that. Eleven minutes of happiness.
‘Look, Stan! A giant insect! And there’s a dragon! Look, Stan, an elephant in glasses!’
Yes, it’s true, there was already a dragon in this story. But I didn’t care about the dragon. Nor about the elephant in glasses. I wasn’t looking at them; I was looking at her, in the stutters of light and dust that splashed against the canvas. She had put her make-up on in secret, just after the Commander’s departure that morning. She looked like an actress.
Even today, for me, Baron Munchausen’s Dream is an eleven-minute close-up on my mother’s face.
Mama had American eyes. She was the one who said that, when I asked her where their colour came from. She was right. Those hinterlands where I would lose myself, those starry canyons, were not from here. She said she had seen whales, waves as high as bell towers, flowers that swallowed bees. The Commander had forbidden her to tell such lies – there were no whales in Spain – and had, above all, told her to keep her damn mouth shut while we were eating, in the rare moments that we spent together. He didn’t see the secret looks she shot me, my eyes voyaging in hers; he didn’t see a thing. He just burped contentedly as I explored America.
After the movie, Mama took me to a restaurant: a real one, with tablecloths. At home, she seldom left her room because of her migraines, and I had rarely spent this much time with her.
‘Choose whatever you want, Stanino. My Nino.’
I didn’t dare get much because the Commander had forbidden us to spend money. If I ordered an île flottante, I would undoubtedly get a beating. I was going to have to make a choice.
‘One day, Nino, you’ll invite me to dinner. Won’t you?’
‘Yes, Mama.’
‘You’ll invite me to stay with you in Paris. Say it.’
‘I’ll invite you to Paris.’
‘When you’re a … what is it again?’
‘A palaeontologist.’
‘That’s it, a palaeontologist. You’ll invite me to stay with you in Paris, in your beautiful apartment with mouldings.’
‘And the Commander?’
‘Would you want him to come?’
I mumbled no, my mouth full of île flottante.
‘Then I’ll come on my own. We won’t tell him anything.’
‘What are mouldings?’
‘They’re like a prettier kind of ceiling beam. You’ll be married, perhaps to a girl like you, who loves fossils. It’s important for the two of you to love the same things. I’ll have my own room. I’ll be able to leave my belongings there. Maybe I’ll even live there all the time, if that’s okay? You wouldn’t mind?’
‘No, we wouldn’t mind at all.’
Mama spoke in a loud voice because she was Spanish, but that was not why everyone in the restaurant was looking at her. As I’ve already said, it was because she was beautiful, really beautiful, a redhead whose body was all curves, like a flamenco dancer. I’d heard the seasonal workers muttering leyenda as they watched her out of the corners of their eyes and mimicked her swaying hips. Even though we didn’t speak much Spanish at home – the Commander thought it a language of farm workers – I understood. Legend.
‘You’ll take me to the opera. I used to adore going when I was a little girl.’
‘In Spain?’
‘No, in Buenos Aires.’
That was how I came to discover that my mother wasn’t Spanish, that she actually came from America. Not that it changed anything. People continued to call her the Spaniard all her life. All her life … In other words, the few days that remained to her before she was struck down by that sickness of the soul.
‘We’ll go to the opera, the two of us; it’ll be raining and we’ll have umbrellas. One each. Afterwards, you’ll take me out to dinner. We’ll have oysters. You’ll hold my arm because I’ll be old. It will be late. You’ll go into the restaurant first, because that’s what you do when you’re a gentleman, and you’ll ask if they’re still serving. And do you know what they’ll say?’
‘No.’
‘Of course, monsieur, for a customer like you.’
One week. We move our search zone towards the upper part of the glacier. One week and not even a hint of progress. So much time wasted clearing snow and examining rock, ignoring fatigue and bad news. Gio discovers that it is possible to see the three peaks from the other side of the glacier, to the north. We have as much work ahead of us as we did when we first arrived. Breath, damned breath which runs out. And so much time, time wasted in despairing. The thick yellow air that does not let us breathe.
One evening, back at the camp, Gio absent-mindedly juggles a woollen sweater knotted in a ball. He kicks it towards Peter, who is still limping. Peter uses his good foot to send it to Umberto, who passes it to me. The ball of wool spins. Gio breaks the rhythm, sending it over Peter’s head, and suddenly we are all kids again, rushing after the ball, pass it to me, to me. Something is happening. Umberto lines up a shot, kicks the ball at a tent. Celebrates with the invisible crowd. Peter hobbles outside the tent, dribbles past Umberto, who rolls to the ground screaming. Peter passes the ball, Stan hits a clumsy shot between two bags on the ground, and Gio makes an incredible save. The crowd rises to its feet, a roar of marmots and the wind in the grass. We collapse, out of breath, happy for the first time. A soccer game at the top of a mountain.
Cutting, scratching, hammering.
August unfolds in silence. Gio helps with our searches now. We listen to the glacier, a doctor listening to a patient’s heart. If I were the mountain, I wouldn’t want people walking on me, repeatedly stabbing me with sharp metal implements. I am afraid that it will seek vengeance.
Cutting, scratching, hammering. Exploring the smallest crack, just in case. Returning, I glimpse our camp clinging like a barnacle to the body of the mountain. In recent days, the landscape has changed spectacularly. The green of the grass has turned to yellow. Each blade cries out to the sky at the injustice of this. Gio anxiously watches the horizon – he knows that, sooner or later, the sky will answer the call
of the grass.
Cutting, scratching, hammering. We are close to being worn down when Yuri arrives.
Yuri, the fifth member of our expedition. Yuri, whom I mistook for someone harmless. He appeared from nowhere several days after us, impeccable in his military uniform. Yuri and his exile’s accent. Yuri, Peter’s friend, who smooths his handsome black moustache when he speaks. Yuri who rolls his r’s, who rolls all his letters in fact.
‘I was a priest in Bolivia, my friends, an assassin in Mexico, a star dancer at the Scala, a shoemaker in Paris, a king in the land of the pygmies. As for my last job, I’ll let you guess … Anyone? Did you ever hear about Céleste, the famous transvestite from Berlin? Well, yes, that was me. The darling of the city’s cabarets.’
Yuri is well known for his imitations. He offers us a demonstration, a private recital. Ladies and gentlemen, Marlene Dietrich.
‘Sag mir Adieu … Dürr wird das Gras, Glück is wie Glas …’
His voice is disturbing, well-modulated, almost feminine. Credible despite the moustache. We applaud, an easy audience, still stunned by his sudden appearance.
‘You see, my dear friends, the Reds did not appreciate my opposition to the revolution. I abandoned everything in Russia: my lands, my family. Even today, they are hunting me. They wish to make an example of me. So I change cities, identities, genders. In Berlin, I was sold by a bastard to whom I owed money. I met Peter as I was escaping over the rooftops. You should have seen his face when I came through his skylight!’
Peter is a ventriloquist of genius. He gives life to his puppet with such conviction that his story sometimes strikes me as more credible than Leucio’s. I even thought I could guess that Yuri’s preferences were not for women.
I am too serious, without a doubt. Ever since childhood, I have classified everything. True things, false things, things that sting, things that burn, things that are funny and things that are dangerous, things that hurt and console; you have to know about everything if you hope to survive. Yuri is dizzying; he jumps from one pigeonhole to another, he overturns everything like a deranged puppy, messing up the order of the world. This morning, standing up after putting on my crampons, I was surprised for a brief moment not to see him. I was worried about someone who does not exist! So I couldn’t resist: I asked Peter where his puppet came from – pure invention? a real person? – because I had to understand how to classify it. Laughing like Marlene, the German raised his hands and sang: ‘Who knows? Who knows?’
Yuri, with his woollen head, has become our final bulwark against fatigue. We call him, he plays hard to get for a while, and then he emerges from Peter’s bag to a round of applause. Last night, he turned to Umberto: ‘What did your mother give you to eat when you were a boy? Sicily?’
Umberto laughs like an organ toccata. Gio’s eyes wrinkle slightly. Even I, the too-serious boy, chuckle heartily.
An atheist giant in love with a goddess. A seminarian turned ventriloquist. A guide who speaks the forgotten language of mountains. If I’d known these three when I was younger, perhaps I wouldn’t have grown up with a trilobite as my only friend.
The battle raged on the other side of the wall. Armies clashed – my mother against the Commander – and surely they had to be armies to make so much noise, to clash so loudly. Head buried under the pillow, I imagined the scene: the little soldiers scattered across their bedroom floor, the dying cavalrymen, the archers crushed by charging horses. Later I learned that this particular game was played without soldiers.
One day, the police rang the doorbell. The Commander opened the door; he often went hunting with the captain, who looked embarrassed at being there. They spoke in low voices. The Commander invited the captain and his men inside for a drink. With the threat of snow, there was no harm in warming up a little, was there, guys?
I walked around the table with the bottle of eau de vie, taking care not to knock anything over. The glasses disappeared into the men’s giant hands, swollen by strength and pride. The Commander pointed at the door: okay, clear off now.
One hour later, the policemen re-emerged, laughing. The captain in his handsome uniform nodded at me. I hate uniforms.
After they left, the Commander sat me down at the end of the living-room table. It was the table reserved for important occasions, such as Christmas lunch or counting money. He was enthroned on the other side of the tablecloth, reigning supreme over an ocean of red and white checks.
‘How old are you?’
‘Six.’
‘So you’re old enough to know that what happens in the family stays in the family. Right?’
I nodded. It was important always to nod whenever the Commander said ‘Right?’ He leaned forward and stared at me.
‘You wouldn’t have blabbed to anyone, would you? A teacher at the school? That damn priest?’
‘No.’
‘I mean, we’re good people. Maybe not perfect. Nobody is. Sometimes people bump into things. Three bruises are of no interest to anyone, as long as they’re just bruises, you understand? It was the same for my father, the same for my grandfather, and it’ll be the same for your children. That’s just how it is in the Pires Ainés.’
He stood up to get more alcohol and sat down close to me. Large blue veins showed through the flesh of his neck. He pinched my arm with his thick fingers.
‘You’re such a weakling! But one day you’ll be strong. As strong as your old man. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? So you could push the cart? You’d like that, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You want to arm-wrestle?’
‘No.’
‘Come on. Try to hold out longer than you did last time. Hook your thumb around like that. And tense your muscles before the contact, you understand? Otherwise any little bastard could beat you. One, two …’
He smashed my arm against the table.
‘I don’t believe it, damn it! Are you stupid? What did I just say? You didn’t even resist! All right, let’s try it again. And stop blubbering. Hook your thumb …’
He kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. My mind had escaped out of the window; it was running through the night to join Pépin as he prowled, Pépin my king, my puppy drunk on apples, my twilight guardian.
Twenty-first day. Nothing on the southern side of the glacier, where we had hoped to find the cave. Nothing on most of the opposite side, from where Leucio’s three peaks could also be seen.
The sun sets. We return to the camp, strides shortened by fatigue. There are only about twelve metres left to explore – a day’s work. The cave has to be there. When I think back to my naïve desire not to find it too quickly, I want to slap myself.
The prospect of failure increases the tension, and Yuri has a field day. A remark here, an allusion there … nobody is spared. Umberto is still mocked for his size, Gio for his enigmatic maxims. Peter does not escape his attacks – Yuri constantly asks why he doesn’t have a girlfriend. I don’t know whether to be terrified or amused by the spectacle of Peter mocking himself in his doll’s voice.
That evening, Yuri tugs pensively at his moustache as he stares at me over our fire.
‘Dear Stanislas, since we must think about the future, I would like to discuss a new project with you. I have it from a reliable source – the six-year-old nephew of my second cousin Boris – that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole. How would you like to help me find him? It’s your speciality, isn’t it, that type of expedition?’
If the others had laughed, I would have done the same. But Umberto looks down, embarrassed. My plate goes flying. My lentils go flying and so does my share of the rabbit killed earlier that day by Gio (everybody got some meat, even Yuri). Go fuck yourselves.
I plunge into the night. Behind me, a deathly silence. I won’t return until the others are all asleep, because I am ashamed. Because this anger isn’t me. It is an ancestral curse, the ugliness of the old man that runs through my veins, poisoning me.
What are the odds that we will find the cave
, after three weeks of searching, in the very last patch of rock wall? I can hardly blame my friends for doubting me. Even Christ had St Thomas. Yes, I know: poor old Stan thinks he’s the Messiah. But just tell me one big discovery that everybody believed in. The telephone? Aviation, perhaps? Give me the name of one great man who was understood in his own time. Giordano Bruno? Burned alive. Mozart? His corpse tossed into a pauper’s grave. And yet the Earth turns. And yet, the Requiem.
Let Yuri mock me, let him humiliate me. Let men abandon me, let them hang, draw and quarter me, let them crucify me. Let them laugh, let them bury me without ceremony, let them spit my name in the dust.
And yet.
Fifteenth of August. The long-dreaded storm has finally broken. We lose a whole day’s work to it – it’s impossible, in weather like this, to even think of leaving the tents. I am almost grateful to the elements for giving me an extra twenty-four hours of hope. The storm also gave us our first sight of our guide losing his temper. After walking around the camp in the pouring rain, he ordered us to get rid of all our remaining metal objects. At first, Peter refused to lose the few coins in his pockets. I thought Gio was about to hit him, and I guess Peter must have thought so too, because he quickly threw a handful of lire into the rain. That jingling copper saved his life. At that very moment, the air filled with a smell of ozone and the hairs on our arms stood up. Lightning struck. An electric finger lit up the coins in mid-air and the sky exploded with thunderous laughter, amused by the ease of this particular clay-pigeon shoot. Peter fainted.
I had never seen a storm like it. There were some big ones in our village when I was young, but they worked off so much of their rage on their way down from the Pyrenees that by the time they reached us they were exhausted. They made a big noise, and people pretended to be frightened, but that was all. Whereas here … Here, we are inside the cauldron where storms stew. Today I learned that a storm has a taste, a taste of metal and stone that coats your tongue with zinc.
A Hundred Million Years and a Day Page 5