“If you don’t want to be concerned with the girl, Belloq, I have someone who can undertake the task of discovering what she knows.”
It was no time to parade a weakness, a concern for the woman. Dietrich went to the opening of the tent and called out. After a moment the man named Arnold Toht appeared, extending his arm in a Nazi salute. In the center of his palm was the scar, burned-out tissue, in the perfect shape of the headpiece.
“The woman,” Dietrich said. “I believe you know her, Toht.”
Toht said, “There are old scores to settle.”
“And old scars,” Belloq said.
Toht self-consciously lowered his hand.
When it was dark and a pale desert moon had come up over the horizon, a moon of muted blue, Indy and his Arabs stopped digging. They had lit torches, watching the moon begin slowly to darken as clouds passed in front of it; after that there was lightning in the sky, strange lightning that came in brief forks and flashes, an electric storm summoned, it seemed, out of nowhere.
The men had dug a hole that revealed a heavy stone door flush with the bottom of the pit. For a long time nobody said anything. Tools were produced from the truck and the diggers forced the stone door open, grunting as they labored with the weight of the thing.
The stone door was pulled back. Beneath the door was an underground chamber. The Well of the Souls. It was about thirty feet deep, a large chamber whose walls were covered with hieroglyphics and carvings. The roof of the place was supported by huge statues, guardians of the vault. It was an awesome construction, and it created, in the light of the torches, a sense of bottomlessness, an abyss in which history itself was trapped. The men moved their torches as they peered down.
The far end of the chamber came into view, barely lit. There was a stone altar that held a stone chest; a floor covered with some form of strange dark carpeting.
“The chest must contain the Ark,” Indy said. “I don’t understand what that gray stuff is all over the floor.”
But then, in another flash of lightning, he saw; he shook, dropping his torch down into the Well, hearing the hiss of hundreds of snakes.
As the torch burned, the snakes moved away from the heart of the flame. More than hundreds, thousands of snakes, Egyptian asps, shivering and undulating and coiling across the floor as they answered the flame with their savage hissing. The floor seemed to move in the flicker of the torch—but it wasn’t the floor, it was the snakes, striking backward from the flame. Only the altar was untouched by snakes. Only the stone altar seemed immune to the asps.
“Why did it have to be snakes?” Indy asked. “Anything but snakes, anything else. I could have taken almost anything else.”
“Asps,” Sallah said. “Very poisonous.”
“Thanks for that piece of news, Sallah.”
“They stay clear of the flame, you notice.”
Pull yourself together, Indy thought. You’re so close to the Ark you can feel it, so you face your phobia head on and do something about it. A thousand snakes—so what? So what? The living floor was the embodiment of an old nightmare. Snakes pursued him in the darkest of his dreams, rooting around his innermost fears. He turned to the diggers and said, “Okay. Okay. A few snakes. Big deal. I want lots of torches. And oil. I want a landing strip down there.”
After a time, lit torches were dropped into the Well. Several canisters of oil were dropped into the spaces where the snakes had slithered away from the flames. The diggers then began to lower a large wooden crate, rope handles attached to each corner, into the hole. Indy watched, wondering if a phobia were something you could swallow, digest, something you could ignore as though it were the intense pain of a passing indigestion. Despite his resolve to go down there, he shuddered—and the asps, coiling and uncoiling, filled the darkness with their sibilant sound, a sound more menacing than any he’d ever heard. A rope was lowered now: he stood upright, swallowed hard, then swung out on the rope and down into the Well. A moment later Sallah followed him. Beyond the edges of the flames the snakes wriggled, slid, snakes piled on snakes, mountains of the reptiles, snake eggs hatching, shells breaking to reveal tiny asps, snakes devouring other snakes.
For a time he hung suspended, the rope swaying back and forth, Sallah hanging just above him.
“I guess this is it,” he said.
Marion watched as Belloq entered the tent. He came across the floor slowly and studied her for a while, but he made no move to untie her gag. What was it about this man? What was it that caused a sensation, something almost like panic, inside her? She could hear the sound of her heart beat. She stared at him, wishing she could just close her eyes and turn her face away. When she had first met him after being captured, he had said very little to her—he had simply scrutinized her in the way he was doing now. The eyes were cold and yet they seemed capable, although she wasn’t sure how she knew this, of yielding to occasional warmth. They were also knowing, as if he had gone far into some profound secret, as if he had tested reality and found it lacking. The face was handsome in the way she might have associated with pictures in romantic magazines of Europeans wearing white suits and sipping exotic drinks on the terraces of villas. But these weren’t the qualities that touched her.
Something else.
Something she didn’t want to think about.
Now she closed her eyes. Marion couldn’t bear to be so closely stared at, she couldn’t bear to think of herself as an object of scrutiny—perhaps like some archaeological fragment, a sliver of clay broken loose from the jigsaw of an ancient piece of pottery. Inanimate, a thing to be classified.
When she heard him move she opened her eyes.
He still didn’t speak. And her uneasiness grew. He moved across the floor until he was standing directly over her, then he put his hand forward very slowly and slipped the gag from her lips, sliding it softly and teasingly from her mouth. She had a sudden picture, one she didn’t want to entertain, of his hand caressing the fold of her hip. No, she thought. It isn’t like that at all. But the image remained in her head. And Belloq’s hand, with the certainty of the successful lover, gently drew the gag from her mouth to her chin and then he was untying the knot—everything performed slowly, with the kind of casual elegance of a seducer who senses, in some predatory way, the yielding of his prey.
She twisted her head to the side. She wanted to cut these thoughts off, but she seemed incapable of doing it. I don’t want to be attracted to this man, she thought. I don’t want him to touch me. But then, as he moved his fingers beneath her chin and began to stroke her throat, she realized she was incapable of fighting. I won’t let him see it in my eyes, she told herself. I won’t let him see this in my face. Despite herself, she began to imagine his hands drifting across the surface of her body, hands that were strangely gentle, considerate in their touches, intimate and exciting in their promises. And suddenly she knew that this man would make a lover of extraordinary unselfishness, that he would bring out of her the kind of pleasures she hadn’t ever experienced before.
He knows it, she thought. He knows it, too.
He brought his face close. She could smell the sweetness of his breath. No no no, she thought. But she didn’t speak. She knew she was leaning forward slightly, anticipating the kiss, her mind dancing, her desire intense. It didn’t come. There wasn’t a kiss. He had bent down and was beginning to untie her ropes, moving in the same way as before, letting the ropes fall to the ground as if they were the most erotic of garments.
Still he hadn’t spoken.
He was looking at her. There was a light in his eye, the faint touch of warmth she’d imagined before—but she couldn’t tell if it was real or if it was something he used, a prop in his repertoire of behavior.
Then he said, “You’re very beautiful.”
She shook her head. “Please . . .” But she didn’t know if she was begging to be left alone or if she was asking him to kiss her, and she realized she’d never experienced such a confusion of emotion in her enti
re life. Indy, why the hell hadn’t he rescued her? Why had he left her like this?
Repelled, attracted—why wasn’t there some hard and fast borderline between the two? Signposts she could read? It didn’t matter: there was a melting of distinctions in her thoughts. She saw the contradiction and she understood, with a sense of horror, that she wanted this man to make love to her, to teach her what she felt was his deep understanding of physical love; and beyond this, there was the feeling that he could be cruel, an insight that suddenly didn’t matter to her either.
He brought his face closer again. She looked at his lips. The eyes were filled with understanding, a comprehension she hadn’t seen in a man’s face before. Already, even before he kissed her, he knew her, he could look into her. She felt more naked than she’d ever felt. Even this vulnerability excited her now. He came nearer. He kissed her.
She wanted to draw away again.
The kiss—she closed her eyes and gave herself to the kiss—and it wasn’t like any other kiss in her life. It moved into a place beyond the narrow limits of lips and tongues. It created spaces of bright light in her head, colors, webs of gold and silver and yellow and blue, as if she were watching some impossible sunset. Slow, patient, unselfish. Nobody had ever touched her before. Not like that. Not even Indy.
When he drew his face away, she realized she was holding him tightly. She was digging her nails into his body. And the realization came as a shock to her, a shock that brought a sudden sense of shame. What was she doing? What had possessed her?
She stepped back from him.
“Please,” she said. “No more.”
He smiled and spoke for the first time: “They intend to harm you.”
It was as if the kiss had never existed. It was as if she had been manipulated. The abrupt letdown she experienced was the wild drop in a roller-coaster ride.
“I managed to persuade them to give me some time alone with you, my dear. You’re a very attractive woman, after all. And I don’t want to see them hurt you. They’re barbarians.”
He came closer to her again. No, she thought. Not again.
“You must tell me something to placate them. Some information.”
“I don’t know anything . . . how many times do I have to tell them?” She was dizzy now, she needed to sit down. Why didn’t he kiss her again?
“What about Jones?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Your loyalty is admirable. But you must tell me what Jones knows.”
Indy came swimming back into her vision.
“He’s brought me nothing but trouble . . .”
“I agree,” Belloq said. He reached for her, held her face between his hands, studied her eyes. “I think I want to believe you know nothing. But I cannot control the Germans. I cannot hold them back.”
“Don’t let them hurt me.”
Belloqshrugged. “Then tell me anything!”
The tent door flapped open. Marion looked at the figure of Arnold Toht standing there. Behind him were the Germans she had come to know as Dietrich and Gobler. The fear she felt was like some sun burning in her head.
Belloq said, “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t move. She simply stared at Toht, remembering how badly he’d wanted to hurt her with the poker.
“Fräulein,” Toht said. “We have come a long way from Nepal, no?”
Stepping backward, she shook her head in fear.
Toht advanced toward her. She glanced at Belloq, as if to make some last appeal to him, but he was going from the tent now, stepping out into the night
Outside, Belloq paused. It was odd to be attracted by the woman, strange to want to make love to her even if the act had begun out of the desire to extract information from her. But after that, after the first kiss . . . He stuck his hands in his pockets and hesitated outside the tent. He wanted to go back inside and make those worms stop what they were about to do, but his attention was suddenly drawn to the horizon.
Lightning—lightning concentrated strangely in one place, as if it had gathered there deliberately, directed by some meteorological consciousness. A congregation of lightning, spikes and forks and flashes spitting in one spot. He bit on his lower lip, deep in thought, and then he went back inside the tent.
Indy moved toward the altar. He tried to ignore the sound of the snakes, a mad noise—made more insane by the eerie shadows thrown by the torches. He had splashed oil from the canisters across the floor and lit it, creating a path among the snakes; and now these flames, thrusting upward, eclipsed the lightning from overhead. Sallah was behind him. Together they struggled with the stone cover of the chest until it was loose; inside, more beautiful than he’d ever imagined it to be, was the Ark.
For a time he couldn’t move. He stared at the untarnished gold angels that faced one another over the lid, the gold that coated the acacia wood. The gold carrying-rings affixed to the four corners shone brilliantly in the light of his torch. He looked at Sallah, who was watching the Ark in reverential silence. More than anything else now Indy had the urge to reach out and touch the Ark—but even as he thought it, Sallah put his hand forward.
“Don’t touch it,” Indy exclaimed. “Never touch it.”
Sallah drew his hand away. They turned toward the wooden crate and removed the four poles that were attached to the corners. They inserted the poles into the rings of the Ark and raised it, grunting at the weight of the thing, then levering it from the stone chest into the crate. The fires were beginning to die now and the snakes, their hissing beginning to sound more and more like a solitary upraised voice, were slipping toward the altar.
“Hurry,” Indy said. “Hurry.”
They attached the ropes to the crate. Indy tugged on one of the ropes, and the crate was pulled up out of the chamber. Sallah took the next rope and quickly made his ascent. Indy reached for his exit rope, pulling on it to be certain of its support—and it fell, itself snakelike, from the opening at the top into the chamber.
“What the hell—”
From above, the Frenchman’s voice was unmistakable: “Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place?”
There was laughter.
“You’re making a habit of this, Belloq,” Indy said.
The snakes hissed closer. He could hear their bodies slide across the floor.
“A bad habit, I agree,” Belloq said, peering down. “Unhappily, I have no further use for you, my old friend. And I find it suitably ironic that you’re about to become a permanent addition to this archaeological find.”
“I’m dying of laughter,” Indy shouted up.
He continued to squint upward, wondering if there were any exit from this . . . and he was still wondering when he saw Marion being pushed from the edge of the hole, falling, dropping. He moved quickly and broke her fall with his body, sliding to the ground as she struck him. The snakes edged closer. She clung frantically to Indy, who could hear Belloq arguing from above.
“She was mine!”
“She is of no use to us now, Belloq. Only the mission for the Führer matters.”
“I had plans for her!”
“The only plans are those that concern Berlin,” Dietrich said back to Belloq.
There was a silence from above. And then Belloq was looking down into the chamber at Marion.
His voice was low. “It was not to be,” he said to her. Then he nodded at Indy. “Indiana Jones, adieu!”
Suddenly the stone door to the chamber was slammed shut by a group of German soldiers. Air was sucked out of the Well, torches went out, and the snakes were moving into the areas of darkness.
Marion clutched Indy tightly. He disentangled himself, picking up two torches that were still lit, passing one to her.
“Just wave the torch at anything that moves,” he said.
“Everything is moving,” she said. “The whole place is slithering.”
“Don’t remind me.”
He began to fumble around in the dark, found one of
the oil canisters, splashed the oil toward the wall and lit it. He stared at one of the statues above, feeling the snakes encroach ever closer to him.
“What are you doing?” Marion asked.
He poured what remained of the oil in a circle around them and set it ablaze.
“Stay here.”
“Why? Where are you going?”
“I’ll be back. Keep your eyes open and get ready to run.”
“Run where?”
He didn’t answer. He moved backward through the flames to the center of the room. Snakes flicked around his heels, and he swung his torch desperately to keep them away. He stared up at the statue, which reached close to the ceiling. From under his robes he took his bullwhip and lashed it through the half-light, watching it curl around the base of the statue. He tugged on it to test its strength, then he began to climb one-handed, the torch in his other hand.
He hauled himself up and twisted once to look down at Marion, who stood behind the dwindling wall of flame. She looked lost and forlorn and helpless. He made it to the top of the statue when a snake appeared around the face of the statue—hissing directly into Indy’s eyes. Indy shoved his torch into its head, smelled the burning of reptile flesh, watched the snake slip from the smooth stone and fall away.
He jammed himself in place, his feet stuck between wall and statue. Let it work, he thought. Snakes were climbing up around the statue, and his torch—failing badly—wouldn’t keep them away forever. He flailed with it, striking this way and that hearing snakes drop and fall into the chamber. Then the torch slipped from his grasp and flickered out as it dropped. Just when you need a light, you don’t have one, he thought.
And something crawled over his hand.
He yelled in surprise.
As he did so, the statue gave way, came loose from its foundation and swayed, shivered, tilting at a terrifying angle to the roof of the chamber. Here we go, Indy thought, holding onto this statue as if it were a wild mule. But it was more like a log being clutched in a stormy sea—and it fell, it fell while he struggled to hold on, gathering speed, toppling past the startled Marion, who stood in the dying fires, whizzing past her in the manner of a tree felled by a lumberjack, breaking through the floor of the Well and crashing into darkness beyond. Then the voyage astride the statue stopped abruptly when the broken figure hit bottom, and he slid off, stunned, rubbing the side of his head. He fumbled around in the dark for a moment, aware of faint light filtering through the ragged hole from the Well. Marion was calling to him.
The Adventures Of Indiana Jones Page 13