Checkpoint

by Jean-Christophe Rufin

  As soon as they were sitting side by side, Vauthier, looking as natural as he could, said quietly to Lionel, who was heating up the hash in the flame of his lighter, “Those two are up to something.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “The two privates.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Nothing to me. It’s just I heard them talking while I was fiddling with the engine. They were some ways away, but sound carries with the cold air. They started arguing and I heard plenty.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know exactly what they were talking about. But one of them, the black one, I think—”

  “Alex?”

  “Yeah, Alex, he said to the other one, ‘We have to tell them.’ And Marc was losing his temper. He said, ‘If you tell them I’ll smash your face in.’ The other guy didn’t agree. He kept on saying, ‘I talked to the girl. I’m sure she’d understand.’”

  “You have no idea what they were referring to?”

  “No, but Alex said, ‘If any paramilitaries at a checkpoint find the stuff, Lionel will pin the blame on us and it’ll be fucked.’ And the other guy wouldn’t listen. He said, ‘Because you think that if he finds out he’ll cover for us?’ And then he started insulting us: ‘Those guys have no balls. They’ll never go along with it.’ The black guy got mad and finally he said, ‘You’re just an asshole. You’re going to fuck everything up.’”

  “Was that all?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you think this ‘stuff’ he referred to could be? What do you make of it?”

  “Those fucking soldiers are capable of anything, believe me. They’ve got some evil trick up their sleeve, I’d stake my life on it. We’ll all be up shit creek if we let them go on like this.”

  Lionel looked at the first truck. Through the reflections in the windshield he could see Marc staring at them. Fortunately the cannabis had relaxed him, because he felt a wave of panic, and Vauthier could see it. Lionel suspected the mechanic had nothing but scorn for aid workers, and for sure he had no respect for him. But he was his ally in this business and feelings had to be set aside.

  “What would you do, in my shoes?”

  “I’d search the trucks from top to bottom and open all the boxes to see if they haven’t stashed weapons or some other crap in the cargo.”

  Lionel tossed away his butt and stood up.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  This was his way of starting to act the boss again. But he had the creeping suspicion that he wasn’t fooling anyone.

  5

  They set off again, but when the convoy went through the village where the old man had helped them out, Lionel stopped the trucks by the barn and went over to speak to Maud, who was waiting behind the wheel.

  “Try and see with the woman whether she has anything to sell. Eggs, rabbits, whatever. I’ll go ask the old man a few questions.”

  Maud switched off the ignition and went to knock at the door. The woman opened it and she tried to make herself understood. The woman was immediately friendlier, even smiling. As Maud couldn’t understand what she was saying, the woman took her by the hand and led her into the kitchen. It was a huge room, more comfortable than the run-down air of the house might suggest. She could see that the farmer’s wife had done her best to copy the interior decoration photos in magazines. Appliances were neatly tucked under the countertops, and wall cupboards painted white flanked an electric range. Unfortunately all the appliances were made of heavy materials, inimitably Soviet in their design. At the back of the kitchen, a door opened onto a pantry with walls of softwood shelving. Apples were drying on racks. Plump chalky white cheeses were lined up on several shelves, giving off a faint odor. The woman displayed her treasures and tried to get Maud to say the Serbo-Croatian name of each item. Maud mangled the words and her hostess burst out laughing.

  Lionel had found the old man in the barn and they had come into the main room, which served as both living and dining room, all of it arranged around an enormous television covered with a lace doily. Even though she was not paying him much attention, Maud could hear Lionel shouting to the deaf old man to make himself understood. He had brought a road map with him from the truck and now he spread it on the table. The farmer had put on thick glasses, with a broken lens, and he was leaning over the map. He shared what information he had about the state of the roads and any military roadblocks in the area.

  Finally Maud emerged from the pantry carrying a crate filled with all sorts of food. The farmer’s wife had her sit down in the kitchen and insisted on serving her some black juice from an enamel coffeepot, probably a concoction made with roasted barley. Maud liked this female complicity: it made her feel safe, she could laugh with her. They had no language to communicate, yet they understood each other on another level. Maud was greatly affected by this type of exchange. She had a deep appreciation for the world of women, and yet because of her lifestyle choices she had found herself constantly fleeing from it.

  Lionel called out to her and she remembered she had to pay for her purchases. Unlike the old man, who had refused Lionel’s banknote, the woman readily accepted the money Maud held out to her. Maud acknowledged the simplicity, the pragmatism, the absence of pride, and saw it as yet another sign of a female perception of the world which distinguished naturally between various registers of existence. On one level, there was a complicity between them—she might even go so far as to say they were friends—but the value of things and the demands of life meant that a product on sale must be bought at its fair price.

  “Did he have anything useful to tell you?” she asked Lionel as they were walking back to the trucks.

  “Yes. We’ll keep on driving for a while. We have two hours of daylight. I’ll brief you at supper.”

  His martial tone made her smile, but she said nothing and went back to her place next to Alex, at the wheel.

  They drove out, blowing their horns to clear the village streets. The sight of the convoy had attracted curious onlookers to the main street, and gangs of children chattered loudly as they ran next to the trucks.

  The landscape was much lovelier now that they had left the low-lying valleys. There were gently rolling hills, but clearly the more mountainous terrain resisted human effort at domestication. Fields ended at the foot of rocky slopes, or stopped at the threshold of the pine forests that covered steep escarpments of icy gorges. From time to time they could see high peaks on the horizon. The fog banks that the sunless day had failed to dispel grew thicker with the onset of nightfall.

  Lionel pulled the lead truck into the entrance of an old quarry. A vast circular space was strewn with gravel, and all around were the sides of the quarry. It had been excavated in stages, and its yellowish wall was streaked with grooves carved by trickling water. In one corner was a pile of rusty carcasses, not signs of war but rather the abandoned relics of the extracting machinery.

  Once again the evening routine obeyed a strict choreography. Vauthier, after his brief hour of glory as the mechanic, was the fire minder, and that day he was also on grub duty.

  They had some difficulty driving the tent pegs into the stony ground. Marc twisted several pegs by banging on them with a big stone. When it was pitch dark they lit two storm lamps. Sitting in a circle around the campfire, they ate their dinner in silence. Everyone knew that Lionel had something to say, but he prolonged the waiting to make his speech seem more important.

  “Twelve kilometers or so from here we’ll be leaving the Krajina and entering Republika Srpska, the self-proclaimed state of the Bosnian Serbs. They’re bound to check us very thoroughly. We have to be well prepared.”

  Alex, sitting cross-legged, was listening attentively. Marc was tracing arcane signs on the ground with the tip of a stick. Maud was drowsy. Suddenly Lionel raised his voice.

  “And that’s why I’ve decided we won
’t go any farther tomorrow morning.”

  There was a moment of hesitation in the little group, which Alex then interrupted with a jesting tone.

  “So we’re staying here? Why not, it’s a great place!”

  “We won’t leave until we’ve finished taking the inventory of the trucks.”

  Alex shuddered and Maud noticed that in spite of his usually cocky air, Marc shot him a worried look.

  “Inventory. Which means?” he asked, unflinching.

  “Which means we unpack everything. There’s room here, it’s perfect. We open all the crates and we make sure the contents correspond to the freight lists. And then we pack it all up again.”

  There was a long silence.

  “We’ve just lost a whole day with the breakdown,” protested Alex. “You want to waste another one? We’ll get there once the war is over at this rate.”

  His irony fell flat. No one laughed. Marc took advantage of the silence to calmly ask a question.

  “Is this usual, this sort of procedure? Or is there a problem?”

  “There is a problem.”

  “Can you tell us what?”

  “The old man, this afternoon, told me that the paramilitaries in the region are very jumpy at the moment. I don’t want to take the slightest risk. We’re going to check the load. That’s all.”

  There was no need for any further explanation; the two former soldiers knew very well what was going on. Lionel’s defiance had to be about them. But he didn’t want a scene, let alone a fight. He said goodnight, and went off to sleep.

  “You can put out the fire,” barked Vauthier, following him.

  Maud was surprised by Lionel’s decision, but she didn’t have the courage to question it. She’d slept badly the night before and their walk had tired her out. She said goodnight and headed for her truck.

  Alex and Marc sat on alone by the dying embers. Once Maud had drawn the curtains in the truck and the light had gone out in Lionel and Vauthier’s tent, pitched at some distance from the fire, they began to whisper.

  “You said something,” Marc attacked.

  “I swear I didn’t.”

  “You told the girl everything. How else would they have found out?”

  “Who says they’ve found out?”

  “Why would he be wanting to search the trucks if he hasn’t found out?”

  “Fuck, will you believe me?”

  Alex had raised his voice and Marc looked over at the tent.

  “Quiet! Don’t make it worse.”

  “I didn’t tell the girl anything,” insisted Alex. “It must be something else. Maybe this afternoon. Remember, when we were talking, after we broke down. We weren’t paying any attention to Vauthier.”

  “Could be.”

  Marc didn’t sound convinced. He had not changed his mind, but he had moved on: there was no time left to beat themselves up about the past. Now they had to decide what to do the next day.

  “In any case, it’s too late now. If you really didn’t say anything to him, you’ll have to talk to him now.”

  “Wait, I don’t get it. You accuse me of talking to Maud, and now you’re asking me to talk.”

  “The situation has changed, that’s all. Before, you weren’t supposed to talk to her because she might tell on us. But if you didn’t talk to her, that’s different. It would be better to explain to her what’s going on rather than let them just find the stuff. What would be ideal is if they never open the box. You follow?”

  This was the way it always was, between them. Marc inevitably had the upper hand and it was often difficult to know why. Even when Alex was sure he was wrong, he ended up doing what Marc told him to do. It wasn’t a question of authority, even less of rank. Initially Alex had faulted himself for being weak, an imbecile. And then he eventually saw something quite beautiful in their relationship, a particular type of friendship. He trusted him, it was as simple as that. He knew Marc well enough to understand that he always did what was best for both of them. And he thought he carried a greater burden of selfishness, cowardice, and conformity than his comrade: consequently, in spite of his reticence, he always ended up falling in with Marc’s opinion.

  “Okay, I’ll talk to her tomorrow morning.”

  Lying on the cold, uneven ground in his tent, he thought about it at length, and it took him several hours to get to sleep.

  In the stony amphitheater of the quarry, the nighttime damp lingered and caused the sides of the tents to stream with condensation. When they got up, they were stiffer than usual. But the sky was clear and the sun was almost warm, a last autumnal sunshine rising in the east above the clusters of trees. The rocky sides of the quarry were glistening with a straw-colored glow, and those bushes that still had leaves turned russet, warm to the gaze. Maud thought to herself that it would have been a good day for traveling. Instead, once they’d had breakfast, they rolled back the tarps on the trucks, took out the lists of items making up their cargo, and got started on their inventory.

  Marc displayed unexpected zeal, which meant that thanks to him the first truck was ready to be unloaded before the other one. Lionel started on that one, with Vauthier’s help.

  Alex and Maud waited their turn, drinking another coffee.

  They warmed their hands with their tin mugs.

  “Do you feel like going for a run?” suggested Alex. “Just a quick lap, to stretch our legs. This will take them a while.”

  “Good idea.”

  They emptied their cups and Maud called out to the others: “We’re going for a little jog, we’ll be right back.”

  They set off at a trot. The road was still in shadow and it felt damper there. Their breath rose in white scrolls. Alex ran easily, his stride was loose, and despite their steady pace, he didn’t get out of breath.

  “You know,” he began, once they had warmed up, “I have something to tell you. That’s why I wanted us to get away.”

  Maud gave him a sidelong glance. From anyone else, she might have feared a romantic confession, a declaration, a sexual proposition. But she trusted him. Why didn’t she feel the least bit wary in his presence?

  “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  The road came out of a long bend and overlooked some pastureland. Maud raised her face to the sun and blinked with pleasure.

  “Do you remember what I told you about the mine in Kakanj?”

  “Refugees in the ovens.”

  The image had stayed with her. Filled her with a sort of horror. At the same time, she couldn’t quite picture the scene. She had even dreamt about it. Images of crematoria, which she’d seen in the big book about deportation in her parents’ library, had come to mind.

  “Yes, but I also mentioned the pumps.”

  “The pumps that empty the water from the tunnels, you mean.”

  “And without which the mine would be flooded and could never be used again.”

  “So?”

  “Well, they run on coal.”

  Maud was disappointed. She had expected a confession about Alex’s girlfriend or something in that vein, in other words a human, concrete, emotional issue. Something alive, basically. And she couldn’t understand why he was still talking about the pumps.

  “And as I told you, they’re not extracting coal anymore, since the mine has been shut down.”

  A flock of blackbirds sat studying them on a nearby rock shaped like a locomotive, and Maud looked at them with a smile.

  “So what do they do if they have no more coal?” she said distractedly, to give Alex the impression she was interested in what he was telling her.

  “At the beginning of the war, the mine was still running, but they made no more deliveries. For a few days, they built up a supply, and then everything stopped. So to run the pumps, they used coal from the supply.”

  What an odd boy, honestly!
Why was he acting so hesitantly, so awkwardly just to talk about some business with coal? Whatever the case might be, it had given them the opportunity for a little run, and Maud felt good. Never mind if the price to pay was a boring conversation.

  “So is it important, this supply?” she went on politely.

  “That’s just the problem. It’s coming to the end.”

  “Can’t the UN send them a convoy of coal?”

  “No, it’s not allowed. Fuel is considered strategic material. The Serbs have taken that into account, in their war. They have been sabotaging everything that isn’t in their own zone. In Sarajevo, for example, right at the beginning they attacked the power plants to deprive the city of electricity.”

  However fit he might be, Alex was having trouble keeping pace while he was talking so much. He was out of breath and Maud slowed down so he could regain his calm. This conversation was really spoiling her pleasure. She was wondering how to change the subject without annoying him.

  “There is only one way the pumps can keep working so that the mine will survive,” he insisted.

  “Which is?”

  “To extract the coal right there. Not a lot, just enough to build up a supply.”

  “So, what is stopping them? Nothing, I suppose.”

  “On the contrary.”

  He really had no intention of talking about anything else. Maud felt a bad mood coming on. She suggested going back to the quarry. Docile, Alex agreed to turn around. But after they had gone a hundred yards, he stopped and changed his tone.

  “You have to listen to me, Maud. I’m not just talking to pass the time of day.”

  She was struck by his serious tone and could hear the real concern in his voice.

  “Let’s sit down over there,” she said, pointing to a mound of stubbly grass dried by the sun.

  “I’ll get to the point,” said Alex. “To extract the coal from a mine like Kakanj, there is no other way than to shatter the coal face in a tunnel. The seam is very hard, and tools are not enough to break it up. Once the face has been cracked, it can be broken by hand or with a drill, and they can mine the coal. But first it has to be shattered.”