Checkpoint

by Jean-Christophe Rufin

  The cab was fairly narrow and as she lay down she found her head ended up on Marc’s lap.

  “What about you? You won’t be able to sleep like that.”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  He caressed her hair, and for the first time she was sorry she had it so short. She would have liked to cover him with long silky strands, so that he could feel the softness in his fingers, so they would give him a little warmth.

  The woods were absolutely silent. Maud could feel the warmth of her body spreading under her sleeping bag. She was determined to stay awake but in a matter of seconds she fell sound asleep.

  When Maud woke up, there was pale daylight. She found that Marc had put a backpack under her head to serve as a pillow. He was no longer in the cab. She looked all around. It had stopped snowing, but it must have fallen most of the night because the ground was white and the branches were covered with a thick sparkling sleeve. The clearing was vaster than she remembered, and on one side there were lumberjacks’ cabins. Marc was sitting in front of one of them heating water on the stove he had taken from the truck. She put on her shoes and went to join him.

  “Did you sleep?”

  “Not much. Do you want some coffee?”

  He handed her a steaming mug.

  “They’re gone.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I went to the top of the hill and I watched them through the binoculars.”

  “Did you figure out who they were, in the end?”

  “A bunch of guys in uniform, but with no insignia, paramilitaries by the look of it.”

  “The cutthroats who were killing the villagers?”

  “Could be, or others.”

  “Were they looking for us?”

  “Maybe.”

  She took little sips of her steaming coffee.

  “Maybe we were worried for nothing?”

  “Never mind. It was better not to take the risk.”

  “Do you think Vauthier and the others have managed to raise the alarm?”

  “They might have. But in any case, that doesn’t matter anymore. Five kilometers further along and we’ll be leaving the road.”

  “Leaving the road? To go where?”

  They were already on a very minor road with almost no traffic. She could not imagine driving the truck on an even smaller road, except to drive for a few yards in order to hide.

  “We’re going to cut through the mountains.”

  Marc seemed to know what he was doing and she didn’t question him further.

  They had two slices each of some hard old bread Marc had cut with his pocketknife. Then they packed everything up again and drove off.

  They left the woods without difficulty. They were back on the hill they had been going up the night before. The early morning light on the snow gave the pastures and forests of fir trees an Alpine air that Maud knew well. She felt like she was on vacation. She recalled the smell of raclette, her family seated around the table, but this also aroused mixed feelings. She had always felt terribly alone in the joyful, affectionate closeness of those family holidays in the mountains. It was for her the cruelest measure of everything that separated her from others, particularly as they were meant to be close. But during the day she went skiing on her own, off-piste. She got lost in the woods and often ended up walking, carrying her skis. She would get back to the chalet as night was falling, full of dreams and oblivious of her parents reproaching her carelessness. Those memories were the sharpest image she had of happiness.

  As Marc had predicted, they found the side road a few kilometers farther along. At first sight, the road leading off to the left looked like it went no farther than a farm. But Marc had taken out a very precise geological survey map, which he kept unfolded on the dashboard. He showed Maud the thin line weaving toward the mountains. No one had been there all night. Behind them on the ground, white with snow, they left two parallel, orphaned tracks.

  It had taken Alex an entire day and two nights to fully emerge from the haze of the sleeping tablet.

  He came out of the tent where he’d slept alone and stretched. Vauthier and Lionel were still asleep. He seemed to remember they had talked for a long time the night before, but his memories were confused because of the drug. He heated up some coffee and drank it slowly, sitting on a camp stool.

  The ground was covered in snow. He thought about Bouba, who must be cold in her gloomy oven. He wanted to be near her. No woman had ever touched him like this before. There were days when he really wondered why she had this power over him.

  For Alex, snow meant his childhood. He had loved it when he was little. All autumn long he would wait eagerly for the first snowflakes. There had to be snow for Christmas. But one year there was none, and he’d been very unhappy. Then he started school, late for his age because his mother had stayed at home to look after him herself. At school the jokes started. They weren’t all that mean, just to make fun, and his schoolmates were probably simply repeating what they heard at home. The jokes all had something to do with the contrast between his dark skin and the white snow. For the first time, he became aware that he was different. He was not only a black child among white children. He was a black child in the snow. His blackness was only relative, because he was mixed-race, but his skin color stood out more sharply against the absolute whiteness of the snow. And that was when he began, if not to hate the snow, at least to dread it.

  It hadn’t stopped him from living, or even from being happy and having friends. But he still had a secret wound, the impression that life had set him down in a place where he shouldn’t have been. He was aware of an injustice, and though he could find no one to blame, it made him into an exile, someone who did not feel he belonged in the land where he was born. The girls he went out with could not understand him. They were white girls, mountain girls who lived in surroundings that suited them. In Grenoble he met a girl from the Antilles, but she had left Martinique at the age of twelve so she had never experienced something like his childhood. And then one day, from under his blue helmet, he saw Bouba. It was snowing that day, too. In her he recognized the same exile. The causes of her exile were different, because it was war, but it was exile all the same, a wrenching feeling. He sensed that he understood her sorrow, and that she would understand his. Thanks to Bouba, he could stop being a victim and become the opposite: a person who would try to save someone who was even worse off. There was a lot of that in his love for Bouba. And his plan to go and live there with her after the war would be like one experience of exile healing another.

  “What are you dreaming about?”

  He hadn’t heard Lionel come over; he was standing behind him.

  “Nothing. You want a coffee?”

  “Thanks. With two lumps of sugar.”

  Alex stirred the powder into the hot water, added the sugar, and handed the mug to Lionel.

  “I was really out of it all day yesterday.”

  “He gave you a mega dose.”

  Lionel sat down across from him and blew on the hot liquid.

  “Listen, maybe I dreamt it, given the state I was in, but weren’t you and Vauthier talking about having some paramilitaries do them in?”

  “Do them in? That’s pretty extreme.”

  “Well, what was it, then?”

  Lionel was a bit embarrassed. He couldn’t deny it altogether. But that was no reason to tell Alex everything, because he didn’t trust him at all. Above all, he didn’t want to take the slightest responsibility.

  “The point is just to shake them up a bit, I think.”

  “Shake them up? With a bunch of murderers? You can’t do that!”

  Alex suddenly realized how serious the situation had become. Because of his comatose state he had not been in on the decision. Now it might be too late.

  “Have you completely lost your minds!? Marc did so
mething stupid, granted. I’m as mad at him as anyone. But to hand him over to a bunch of cutthroats just for that?”

  “Listen carefully, Alex. We’re in a war zone. We can’t control everything. If the paramilitaries bump him off, it won’t be our fault. He just shouldn’t have gone on ahead by himself.”

  “You could have handed him over to the UN and had him locked up! But not killed!”

  “And didn’t he risk getting us all killed, with his explosives?”

  Vauthier had gotten up and now he joined in the conversation, shooting Alex a nasty look.

  “What’s going on?”

  “He’s worried about what’s going to happen to his buddy.”

  “I always knew those two were hand in glove. They’re not soldiers for nothing.”

  “That’s not the point,” shouted Alex. “Soldier or not, you have no reason to have him killed.”

  Suddenly, something else occurred to him.

  “And Maud? Are you going to do away with her, too?”

  “You might have missed an episode, given what you consumed. But may I remind you that they are sleeping together. She’s an accomplice.”

  “Sleeping together!” echoed Alex, stunned.

  He looked at Lionel, who had a crooked smile on his face. Then he suddenly stood up.

  “So that’s a reason to let her die? You’re mad at her for rejecting you and falling in love with Marc. You’re just jealous. You’re pathetic!”

  “Will you shut up?”

  “Drop it,” said Vauthier, “we get it, now. And besides, we’ve known it all along: he’ll never abandon his buddy. We should have let the three of them go off together, at this moment in time . . . ”

  “What about you? You’re a cop, and all you know is hatred . . . ”

  “Our friend is sharing his deepest thoughts,” said Vauthier calmly, narrowing his eyes. “In my opinion, next time we meet up with the UN, we should just hand him over to the authorities and have him repatriated.”

  “You won’t need to. I’m the one who’s going to leave. You disgust me, both of you.”

  With that, Alex walked away and started brusquely folding up his tent.

  Vauthier motioned to Lionel to calm him down.

  “Let him say what he likes. We don’t care. Besides, it’ll be done by now.”

  They calmly finished breakfast and put away their camping gear. Then they climbed back onto the truck.

  Alex sat in back, silent and sullen. Lionel was driving without saying a word, and Vauthier was humming, to show he was in a good mood and not at all affected by the insults.

  The fog from the previous day had dissolved. The sky was still leaden, but luminous, and the snowy landscape was soft and sensual, hiding all trace of war.

  At around ten o’clock they saw a group of men in the distance walking toward them along the road. Most of them were on foot, but they were followed by two jeeps.

  “Well, well,” said Vauthier, “looks like our paramilitary friends.”

  Alex, on the backseat, sat up straight.

  They drove a bit farther and before long they were only a few yards from the paramilitaries.

  “It’s them, all right. I recognize Arkan, the tall one with the black cap.”

  The paramilitaries surrounded the truck, waving their weapons. Vauthier jumped out and went over to Arkan. From the truck Alex and Lionel couldn’t hear what they were saying but they could see that the conversation was animated. They were a fierce-looking bunch, much scarier than any of the men they had encountered up to now. At the checkpoints they usually had to deal with disciplined soldiers glumly carrying out their tasks, or peasants who were more or less able-bodied but good for little else. But these were hardened fighters of the most dangerous kind: killers. And they had the cold gaze of men who knew neither fear nor pity.

  The more the rebel leader said, the gloomier Vauthier seemed to become. He came back over to the truck and Lionel opened his window to talk to him.

  “What did they say?”

  “They didn’t find them.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Do I look like it?”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Arkan was categorical. They went all the way back up the road and they did not see the truck.”

  Alex felt relieved but he was careful not to show it.

  “That’s incredible. Where could they have gotten to?”

  “They must have gone into hiding. Apparently there was a lot of fog last night. Unless . . . ”

  “Unless what?”

  “Show me the map.”

  4

  Where does this track end up?”

  Maud was studying the map but it wasn’t very clear. The narrow passage they were taking branched out just as it crossed the mountains. Apparently there were several possibilities.

  “We’ll see which is the best way through,” said Marc.

  “But to get where?”

  Marc changed hands on the steering wheel and as he was driving he stabbed one finger onto the map spread across Maud’s lap.

  “Over here. To the east of Zenica. It’s still the Kakanj enclave, but we won’t go into the town. We’ll stay farther west.”

  “Is that where they’re waiting for us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is it? Your two friends, the doctor and the architect?”

  “Among others.”

  It was tiring, in the end, to have to worm the information out of him. Maud folded the map with a sharp snap.

  “Don’t you think you could tell me straight out what we’re going to do? I’m in this thing with you. I’m taking the same risks. It seems to me I have a right to know.”

  Marc said nothing. He took a tissue from his pocket and wiped his nose. She wondered if she had annoyed him. If so, well then, the hell with it. When he had that face, she felt distant from him. Why should she put up with behavior from him that she would not have tolerated from anyone else?

  “I wanted to tell you everything yesterday. But we got interrupted.”

  That was true, and he was speaking calmly. She was sorry she had been so short with him.

  “The two men I told you about, and who have become my friends, have a lot of foresight. They realized it was in their best interests to join forces with the Muslims against the Bosnian Serbs.”

  “Which doesn’t stop them from threatening the refugees who are in the mine.”

  “That is some sick game the local kids are playing. But on a higher level, among the leaders, things are different: they’re cooperating. Yes, I know, it must be hard to understand.”

  “I think I can manage.”

  He smiled at her and held out his arm to put his hand on her knee. She quivered, not so much because of his gesture but from the physical emotion he aroused in her.

  “Go on.”

  “With the Muslims in the neighboring zone, my two friends have come up with a plan. It’s sort of outside their usual remit, but that’s another feature of this war: there are a lot of local initiatives. Armies are not very centralized.”

  “So what is the plan?”

  “The concept is simple, even if the situation is complicated. The Bosnian Serbs can only continue surrounding the other groups and shelling them if they can be sure of their supplies of weapons and ammunition from Serbia. To cut them off from their supplies, we have to stop them from using the roads that lead to Belgrade.”

  Maud had opened the map again and was trying to picture what he meant.

  “To supply central Bosnia, that’s the road they use. Do you see it?”

  It was easy enough to find, the road symbolized by a wide red ribbon.

  “As they have neither aviation nor artillery worthy of the name, the only way—”

  “—is to blow up th
is bridge.”

  Maud had her finger on the spot where the red ribbon crossed a vertical blue line indicating the river Drina. She got the impression he had let her finish as if she were a child whom one is prompting for the answer. But she reproached herself for being on her guard, and she forced a smile.

  “All they’re waiting for is our explosives,” said Marc.

  Maud felt a sudden dizziness. The weapons they were transporting—for they had to call them by their name, they were weapons—were no longer just a forbidden freight which they had to smuggle in. They were an instrument of a military action, a decisive action that might change the face of the conflict. An action that, in the long run, might save lives, but that would take other lives first. In a word, they were going to kill.

  The road was very narrow, scarcely larger than the truck in places. The virgin snow made it look easy, but it actually hid an irregular surface. The ground had not frozen enough to solidify the mud, and frequently the wheels skidded and spun. At one point the horizon opened up ahead of them and they could see summits and passes at high altitude. The spectacle would have been beautiful had those lofty regions not constituted the obstacle they were going to have to overcome. She asked Marc for his binoculars and she studied the distance. Most of the slopes were covered in forests and she could not see any houses or roads. It all looked deserted and inhospitable.

  “Are you sure we can get through at this time of year?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  As the morning progressed, the sky grew lighter. The clouds no longer formed a gray ceiling, but fragmented into round bundles that floated against a pale blue background. The outside temperature had risen and the snow melted on the track, which was warmer than the fields. It was now a black ribbon winding across the white carpet of countryside. They went past several farms and stopped outside one of them. A farmer’s wife, her head covered with a flowered kerchief, agreed to sell them some eggs and milk, and a big loaf of bread she herself had baked in her oven.

  Early in the afternoon they saw two fighter jets appear in the sky above the mountains, which were now very near. The planes were flying low. The pilots must have spotted them because they banked tightly and flew a second time directly above the truck. As the UN had banned the Serbs from flying over, and the others had no air force, they were probably fighters belonging to one of the countries in the international coalition.