Rising before them, immense, swollen, and out of proportion, was the imposing mass of a Boeing 747 Lufthansa cargo plane. There was no way to board the plane, no steps or ladder, all the exits were closed, prohibited, the front left door as well as those of the baggage hold in back. Water streamed down the white lacquered body of the plane as the rain continued to pour. Intimidated by the formidable dimensions of the machine towering before them — almost thirty feet high with a wingspan of at least two hundred feet, its two vast wings casting black shadows under their imperial reach — they stood in awe on the tarmac. The steady hum of a set of air conditioners mixed with the deafening roar of an auxiliary engine running in the tail cone. The plane seemed ready to leave its parking area, the various attachments and rubber pipes serving to fuel the plane and load the freight had been removed, a few service vehicles remained on the tarmac around the plane, scissor lifts at rest, diesel generators, stair trucks, and tiny maintenance vehicles, the whole ensemble like a swarm of miniscule symbionts tending to an immobile giant. A dim light shone on the flight deck, behind the narrow convex windshield of the cockpit, a thin slit at the top of the plane’s nose. Perhaps the pilots were looking over the route and studying their maps, waiting for instructions from the control tower in the half-light of the cockpit. Marie took a step forward and began shouting and waving her arms in the night. She was at the foot of the plane and was waving her arms like a ramp agent directing the plane on the tarmac, a tiny figure making huge gestures in the rain, trying to get the pilots’ attention, gesturing with increasing enthusiasm, caught in the joy and pleasure of the moment, unperturbed by all the inconvenience, even feeling overwhelmingly happy to be there in the rain, stuck outside on the tarmac with all her bags, Marie’s twenty-three bags, her large pearl-gray valise, her small dove-colored wheeled suitcase from Muji, her raffia purse with zippers at both ends, a large duffle bag fastened with a string laced through a row of eyelets, a computer case, a vanity case, not to mention more recent purchases, elegant cream-colored bags of glazed paper soaking in the rain, and three huge travel bags ready to explode (none of which were closed properly, Marie never closed anything, clothes spilled out, small objects thrown in at the last minute spewed over the sides, a toilette case sat lopsided atop a pile of clothes, with the toilette case itself open, from which a blush brush escaped as well as an open toothpaste container), and, taken by whim, by a sense of lightness, of insouciance, of fancy, Marie began running around her bags on the tarmac, discovering a stunning likeness of form and a subtle coherence of color as she looked at the sprawling heap of her bags at her feet: a camaïeu of beige, ecru, and leather, with dove and sand-colored touches throughout (she’d find elegance in a shipwreck, Marie).
Jean-Christophe de G. had stepped away to make a call, he paced slowly in the rain in his elegant dark jacket, one hand in his pocket and the other holding his phone to his ear, glancing up at the flight deck to try to catch the crew’s attention, but in a less conspicuous way than Marie’s, he was trying to place himself clearly in their field of vision. His was no more successful than Marie’s and he returned to wait by her side. Lufthansa’s station manager arrived shortly thereafter, getting out of his car and rushing over to them in the rain in his big black slicker to offer his apologies, confused that no one was there to assist them with boarding, undoubtedly a communication problem with the crew. Many Japanese ramp agents in gray jumpsuits had emerged from various technical vehicles and were busying themselves around the airplane’s freight-loading zone. The horse’s travel stall had been placed on a scissor lift, and several technicians scrambled about in the rain around the metal caisson, working by light of flashlights and electric lanterns. Lufthansa’s station manager supervised this process as he talked to one of the Japanese men in a blazer who had joined him. Marie was observing the scene from a distance when, slowly, a door opened at the front of the plane. One of the pilots appeared above the abyss, his silhouette outlined in the doorframe. As soon as steps were placed below the door Jean-Christophe de G. and Marie began loading their bags onto the plane. They’d loaded their last bags and were heading up the stairs when, at their side, they saw the horse’s travel stall floating weightlessly in the air, with the living thoroughbred inside, slowly rising in the night up to the fuselage of the Boeing 747 cargo plane. Reaching the cargo hold, the lift, after a brutal jolt, shook the stall violently, was pushed horizontally into the dark opening of the hold, and then the stall disappeared into the bowels of the plane.
Once inside the plane, Marie was unpleasantly surprised to notice there were no passenger seats. Packages stacked in her arms, she entered the immense hold, dimly lit, where containers were stowed. The floor, bare, metallic, streaked with rain from the loading of the freight, was covered with a mechanical roller that facilitated the transportation of pallets into the hold. Jean-Christophe de G. went over to the thoroughbred’s stall at the other end of the hold and Marie followed him, watching where she stepped, avoiding the roller track on the ground, worried, disoriented in this unwelcoming, harsh space. When, after a ninety-degree turn, the horse stall was positioned along the plane’s longitudinal axis, it began gliding automatically down the roller, which the station manager controlled from a control panel on the side of the plane’s interior. The travel stall, wet, dripping, glided along in the darkness of the hold, clattering loudly down the metal rollers in the convex belly of the plane. Two technicians walked alongside it to guide its path and assure that it remained on track. The stall passed through the hold before coming to a stop at the front of the plane, in the nose of the Boeing 747, where it was locked to the floor with cleats. The Japanese man in the blazer quickly inspected the stall to make sure it was properly stowed. Then, explaining to Jean-Christophe de G. that there hadn’t been time to examine the thoroughbred since they’d caught it, he handed his employer a medical case so that Jean-Christophe de G. could see to the horse’s injuries. Lufthansa’s station manager exchanged a few more words with the pilot before getting off the plane via the front steps, and then the doors of the plane were shut one by one.
Led by the pilot through the hold, among rows of boxes and containers, Jean-Christophe de G. and Marie reached the upper deck. They had followed a narrow floor-lit path, passed a section of five hundred vacuum-sealed office photocopiers arrayed in the half-light. The pilot then pulled down a straight telescoping ladder, opened a hatch, and invited them to come up. The plane’s upper deck was no more passenger-friendly than the main deck. There were only a few seats in this hollow space reserved for the loaders accompanying the merchandise. The floor was covered with a thin, worn carpet and behind the cockpit was a single row of seats, narrow, rudimentary. A Japanese man was already seated there, in sweat suit and socks, dozing in his seat, a sleep mask covering his eyes. Apart from this man and the pilots, they were alone in the plane. No sooner had they settled in their seats than the captain opened the door of the cockpit and asked Jean-Christophe de G. to travel with the thoroughbred in the hold, since they were about to depart, and it’s standard procedure when race- horses are transported for someone to be present to comfort the animals at the moment of takeoff.
Jean-Christophe de G. and Marie went back down to the hold. The lights had been dimmed for takeoff and, apart from the green lights of the emergency exits and the spectral blue lights lining the ceiling, darkness reigned in the depths of the plane. The Boeing 747 had begun on its way, had left its parking area and moved slowly in the night toward the runway in preparation for takeoff. A powerful wind rattled the fuselage and violent gusts shook the cargo at the back of the hold. The plane stopped at the beginning of the runway, awaiting authorization for takeoff from the control tower. Leaning forward, Marie looked out a small rain-struck window, its surface covered in a thin film of streaming water. She saw iridescent lights, white, yellow, sometimes red, steady or blinking, far off in the night, obstruction lights around the edges of the terminal and runway lights on the ground, blurring together with the
airplane’s beaming headlights through which torrential rain continued to fall.
Jean-Christophe de G. unbolted the stall door and stepped inside with the horse. Zahir, motionless, head lowered, seemed calm in his stall, he was no longer blindfolded and the hemp rope that had been tied around his leg had been removed. He wore a short velvet rug on his back, and his pasterns were still somewhat protected by shoddy neoprene braces, stained with filth and mud, a multitude of brown splashes from the chase. Jean-Christophe de G. didn’t have time to examine the horse’s wound, for the captain made an announcement over the loudspeaker, brief, dry, hardly comprehensible in the crackling static of the speakers, and the plane began to move, started to gain speed on the runway, its whole body trembling, the stall door swinging wildly, which Marie tried to hold onto, all the cargo in the hold rattling in a clinking and straining of chains and straps, hooks, hoop irons, bungee cords, and clasps.
Jean-Christophe de G. held Zahir tightly by the bridle, his face planted flat against the horse’s neck, and he was talking to the horse in a soft voice to calm it. The horse, frightened by the growing thrust of the engines and their roar in the hold, fidgeted anxiously, shying and twisting its head. The plane continued to build speed and streaks of light filed by at increasing speed outside the exit door’s window, and when, with an irresistible push from the engines, the Boeing 747 cargo plane rose from the ground to take flight, Marie almost lost her balance, her surroundings blurring momentarily, and she had the sudden desire to race back up to her seat. She took a few steps in the dark toward the hatch, hesitant, wobbling, her arms extended for balance, but immediately she retraced her steps, realizing she’d never make it up alone. The plane was rocked violently in the air. It struggled to steady its ascent as it continued to gain altitude, tossed relentlessly by a hostile wind. It was passing through thick rain clouds, knocked around by the wind, and torrents of rain pounded the plane’s body. Thunder rumbled outside, and lightning flashed in the night outside the hold’s windows, its brightness reflected on the ceiling in streaks of terrifying white light, electric, zigzagging.
The atmospheric conditions eventually calmed and Marie was able to join Jean-Christophe de G. in the travel stall. The horse was calm, seeming defeated, as though under a strong sedative. Marie slid into the stall, crept along the side of the thoroughbred in the half-light. The travel stall was metallic, its space dark and narrow, damp under its elegant, quilted blue felt padding, and the floor, sturdy, rubbery, was partially covered with a bed of straw into which Marie’s feet sank as she walked. The plane continued to rise toward its cruising altitude. The turbulence hadn’t let up, and at times Jean-Christophe de G. put his hand against the stall wall to keep his balance while he examined the horse’s wound with a pocket flashlight. He had no veterinarian training properly speaking, but he’d had many an occasion in the past to take care of his own horses, dress a wound or administer a shot. Zahir’s knee was gashed, dead flesh and torn skin had curled away from the wound and begun to stiffen. Jean-Christophe de G. took out a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully cleaned the wound, removed some hairs stuck to the open gash, then, opening the first-aid kit the Japanese man had given him, he dug through its contents, tiny bottles, vials, creams, compresses, rolls of gauze, scissors. He took his glasses out of his jacket pocket and carefully put them on in the stall, it was the first time Marie had seen him wearing glasses (he’d avoided putting them on in front of her until this moment, as if waiting for the right time, and Marie was delighted to make this touching discovery in the hold of a plane), and he read the label of a bottle from Schein Inc. laboratories, Povidone topical solution, along with a long notice written in English in small type, which he skimmed through, holding the bottle right up to his eyes (yes, that’s it, iodine, perfect, he said, we can add a few drops of this to disinfect the wound).
Although of great simplicity the travel stall was not without its amenities, containing a large supply of fodder and hay, plenty of water, several five-liter containers. Jean-Christophe de G. filled a bowl from the spigot of one of the containers, and, crouching in the stall, had poured a few drops of saline solution into the bowl of water, to which he also added a touch of antiseptic, until the mix, which he stirred lightly with his fingertips, reached the light color of oolong tea, with a few darker streaks, the color of licorice, like curvy veins, sinuous lines floating on the water’s surface. He stood up carefully, rocked by the plane’s unsteady course, and he walked toward the horse on trembling legs, trying to hold the bowl steady as the water rolled and lapped, spilling over the bowl’s sides and onto the hay in tiny splashes. Jean-Christophe de G. held the bowl to his chest cautiously, protecting it from any further jerks or jolts, and he began dressing the wound, dabbing the dead skin with a damp compress, removing the scum stuck around the wound, pebbles, dirt, and other foreign bodies encrusted on the damaged skin tissue. The horse, staring blankly, looked numb, serene. Only once did it step back with force, abruptly, as though to demonstrate it could still be dangerous.
The plane encountered more turbulence. It started to rock and shake even more than before, the plastic containers clattered on the ground, straps swung uncontrollably from the stall wall, the first-aid kit tipped over and spilled out its contents on the floor, vials upturned, small scissors in the hay. The situation was becoming critical in the stall, Marie was forced to hold onto the edge of the trough lest she be tossed down at the horse’s feet, and, from the plane’s loudspeakers, distant, crackly snippets of pressing emergency announcements could be heard, of which they understood nothing, simply guessing they’d been instructed to return to their seats and fasten their safety belts. All the lights suddenly turned on simultaneously from the hold’s ceiling, throwing the premises into sharp, violent relief, casting a harsh light onto the stacks of pallets visible through the stall’s open door, and then the neon lights flickered on the ceiling before going out, not a single light remained, even the emergency exit lights had gone off. Alert, the horse became frantic in its stall, sensing the growing anxiety in the plane, stomping in place, stepping back, yanking its lead in every which way, tugging on the trough it was attached to. The horse wanted to turn around, and it reared up in the stall, stood on its hind legs, and began neighing, its long mouth open, suddenly baring its teeth and gums in the dark. Marie thought it had managed to get free and, frightened, she bolted out of the stall.
They both abandoned the stall at once, in the same rush of panic and desperation, they dropped the flashlight in their haste and made no effort to pick it up, scrambling along the side of the stall without looking back, refusing to go back, leaving the flashlight lit behind them in the hay, a small slanted beam of light shining between the horse’s legs. They dashed out of the stall and found themselves in the darkness of the hold, listening to the engines drone with immeasurable force. The horse raged furiously in the stall, lurching forward and back with little room to maneuver, it stepped on the flashlight and crushed it like a nut under its hoof, pulverized it with a loud crack, extinguishing in one blow the last sliver of light left in the hold. The stall was impenetrably dark now, hiding the horse’s black figure, its shifting, invisible body, raging noisily in its narrow compartment, locked in on all sides.
They ran away without knowing where to go, they couldn’t find the ladder to the hatch, they wandered side by side in the dark seeking a place of refuge, or even something they could hold on to. They tripped over the loading tracks, the protruding roller bearings and bolt ends, unable to make out the limits of the mechanical rollers aligned on the floor, leaving the designated paths and venturing onto one of the rollers, which were not held in place and began to spin under their feet at each step with the alarming sound of a conveyor belt beginning to move. They danced in place, shuffling their feet on a surface that slipped out from under them, carried by the rollers, flapping their arms pathetically to keep their balance, holding on to one another, but wobbling together, putting one hand down on the ground, Jean-Christop
he de G. let go of the bowl, which rolled wildly on ground, they saw it bounce on the metal floor, brutally projected into the air at each jolt of the plane. Not without some difficultly they retraced their steps in the darkness, as though moving against the wind, stooped forward, following a narrow path along the plane wall. They stopped at the door to the hold, which rattled clamorously as though on the verge of becoming dislodged. They could feel the vibration of the fuselage in their bodies, its tremors, its minor shocks, the pressure from the air masses and unrelenting winds through which the plane was passing, knowing that no more than ten, twenty centimeters, the mere width of the plane’s hull, separated them from the night itself.
They crouched down by the door and didn’t move. In front of them, with the straining of cords and the grating of metal, large containers rocked on their bases. They saw through the window the steady blinking of the wing lights, brief, white, silent, intense. They no longer knew where they were. They heard what sounded like whimpers in the dark a few feet from them, Zahir had calmed down, he was making muffled sounds, slightly guttural, plaintive. Zahir struggled to stand, he was sweating, drooling, saliva swung from his mouth, he made no effort to stop it, a frothy foam gathered at the corners of his lips. Zahir seemed drugged, skittish at times, then overcome by exhaustion or indifference. Perhaps he had been given a tranquilizer after the chase, a discreet move, accomplished behind Jean-Christophe de G.’s back, an intravenous shot when no one was looking, a cotton ball soaked in alcohol to disinfect a cut on the horse’s neck and, stealthily, a needle stuck in the jugular. But Zahir’s heart, perhaps pounding at two hundred beats a minute at takeoff, continued to beat wildly, in spite of his being at rest now, of his exerting no energy, Zahir had figured out how to keep his balance in the stall, shifting his weight or moving slightly each time there was a little turbulence, putting his weight on his hind legs to offset the force of the jolts. Zahir felt sick, was nauseous, queasy. He kept still, defeated, eyes open, nostrils flared. He scratched the ground in anguish, made a hole in the straw with the tip of his hoof, a perfectly demarcated and useless hole. Zahir did nothing, was suffering, a diffuse feeling of suffering, light, sickening, and not even of suffering, but simply of nausea, unwavering, still, limitless. Nothing was happening. Nothing, the persistence of the real.
The Truth about Marie Page 7