Mine was called Bertoire. All you could see from Bertoire was the mountain, and a bit further down the road a house where some old people made bread, which they sold to the schoolteacher. The teacher lived above the classroom. She had enrolled her daughters in order to prevent the school closure that was forecast every year. I don’t think she even knew where the students came from, but they turned up every morning, scarcely twelve of them, including her two daughters. There they were: the children from farms that were out of sight, two orphan girls from town who had been placed with some old farmers, three boys from a farm even further away, an only child born late to another couple of old farmers, and my brother and me.
There we were: standing outside the little gate. Behind it were two crooked staircases, opposite each other, which provided access to the school on the edge of the mountain. The teacher would come down to open the gate and check whether I was there (I was the only one who regularly didn’t turn up). Some boys wore shorts even when it was snowing, their legs ruddy and swift on the stairs.
I liked going to school, but I was often sick, ill at ease with myself.
The teacher had improvised a sort of lunch room, not a regulation canteen or anything, but it was warm and convenient. We would go upstairs to her kitchen and reheat the food prepared by whichever parents, not just a snack for each set of siblings, no, it was a meal for all of us, prepared by each family in turn. By the teacher as well, since her two daughters were there too. As there were five families and no school on Wednesday, no family ever got the same day of the week, but we knew the schedule by heart. We would start whingeing first thing in the morning when it was so-and-so’s meal day, with their disgusting soup or whatever it was, or someone else’s stew with gristly pork-and-greens meatballs. Anyway, we whinged the whole time, except the days when it was our parents’ turn. We whinged for the sake of whingeing, because, if I can remember correctly, I think the food was good every day.
What was downright unfair were the jobs of setting and clearing the table and sweeping the floor, because the boys had to do it more often, on the pretext that we didn’t know how to do it, so we had to learn, we had to attain the same domestic standard as the girls (our teacher was a bit feminist). I was often let off the hook because I knew how to do those chores (they were on Maman’s list). So the boys mocked me, telling me I should have been born a girl, and for a while I got a kick out of telling them that one day I’d be a proper girl. All that carry-on meant that we had a good time in the lunch room, because that’s where we argued, we stood our ground, we got angry, but all in good spirits.
My brother and I always fought about the girl who was an only child. Her parents and our parents had come to an arrangement for the driving and Maman used to pick her up on the side of the road, where the path led out from her farm. By then, she’d already walked a couple of kilometres in the forest, but even the scent of the undergrowth that I loved so much did nothing to change the fact that she smelled bad, as if she’d been born too late, as if she was too lonely, as if she had been lost in the forest for a long time before reaching the road. We used to fight about not sitting in the middle, next to her, and when I think about it now I feel a bit ashamed.
Bertoire closed down, it got turned into someone’s holiday house. The farms around were also sold, others were overrun by vegetation.
The branches of the trees are growing over the paths, all over the run-down buildings.
The forest is taking over the vacant land, and land ownership is dwindling, despite farmers having access to wood from the local municipal forests. Our paths are disappearing beneath the mass of trees as dark as night, and the perfumed obstinacy of the shrubs.
I don’t know what’s happening to me. I feel overwhelmed by nostalgia, a bitter, miserly nostalgia that is not attractive. I’m withdrawing into myself. I feel threatened, spied on, sidelined. I feel as bad as I did with my old body. But how can I feel bad in my own landscape? It’s all nonsense.
My brother told me that small-scale mining creates weaknesses in the rock—the work renders it unstable—and yet it has to be done in order to reinforce the rock. He told me that bolstering the cliffs only results in delaying or more or less controlling the collapse, because monitoring everything would take too much time. They work like crazy for months, a year, on the same slab, and then the restrictions on the regional budget compound their exhaustion. In any case, all the corbelling is going to fall down for sure, but we don’t know when, it’s going to happen in the years to come, since some of it has already given way.
And, he told me, you know very well that the roads were all built at the same time. Forget the geological fault mapping, the presence or absence of parallel sedimentary stratum, the layers of soft clay behind—none of that makes much difference. Yeah, okay, it helps, but it’s only going to delay or precipitate the collapse.
He also said that it is often financially easier—those were his words, financially easier—and faster, to rig up a rope and rock climbing route, to install footbridges in caves, to secure the rocks above ski runs, than to maintain the roads I drive the bus along.
Gradually his words became more and more disheartening.
I have a very clear memory—piercing, painful and inexplicable—of the reasoning behind the soundings they carried out on the rock walls in preparation for the future tunnel works. I can see the probe drilling a little hole ten centimetres in diameter, but driven fifty metres deep from the surface, in order to place sensors in the core to ascertain whether the rock moves during the explosions and shots of the tests. He told me that, whether you like it or not, they have to have some idea of the stability of the rock mass, and he laughed at how hurt and upset I was about the holes drilled into the mountain.
When I think about that scene, I miss my brother. It’s been a while since I went down to visit him. Tony doesn’t much like it when I go and see Axel. We argue about it a lot.
I feel as if the local land management is keeping me at a distance. Quite honestly, I feel removed, but removed from what I don’t really know. From my home, perhaps. Isolated from things, as if I had no name, or no voice, no legs. I feel as if I’m no longer connected to the spirit of the mountain.
When they wanted to install the wind turbines, they assured us that up there would be perfect. There was no one there, only the wind.
I arrive at school without a hitch, and all day long I try to persuade myself that my fear was just as meaningless and stupid as the expression on the face of our crazy guy by the side of the road.
(on the way to the high school, by myself)
My stubborn fear takes hold of me again. The wind has picked up, gusting continuously, a blast from the south, a blast from the north, like a giant slap from nowhere. Again, it rises from within objects and inside people. It dislodges the snow and another sort of snow falls over the top—dry, ashy and light. The temperature is around minus twenty, it shouldn’t be snowing. I think the snow is being carried from far away by the squalls from the south.
This snow isn’t from around here, it comes all the way up the mountain and piles on top of our snow. You can see it leaving the gorges in colossal waves, as high as the sky.
When I reach the wind turbines, I notice that the snow—that is, the wind—is now contained in a horizontal band, raised above the ground at approximately the height of the bus. Down at the level of the tyres and my footprints (I got out to check because it seemed so strange), there was nothing up to about calf level, and nothing above the roof either.
There’s only one remaining snowstorm area, as tall as a man, as if the bad weather was demarcated, framed (in a three-quarter shot), and within this frame there is our space, our road, our life. A snowstorm just for us, from the knees up.
As I park at the high school, I request instructions on the two-way radio. I don’t feel up to recrossing the plateau. The school boarding house could put my kids up for the night, since the boarders have already left and gone down the mountain to take
their trains and buses. Too bad if the staff have also left, the principal’s still there, and if worse comes to worst, surely we can find a few families in the village, one or two kids could stay at my place. We managed to find ways of getting the boarders home last year when the school supervisors went on strike.
The reply on the radio is no, the boarding house is not an option, the holidays have begun. The snow-cutters have already started to drill into the biggest snowdrifts, I have nothing to worry about.
(on the way back from the high school)
If I have nothing to worry about, well, let’s get going, I’ve seen worse. I park and leave the motor running. It hits me hard when I open the door.
They’re waiting for me, huddled together against the wire fence, whether to feel less cold or to feel connected, I’m not sure. If I’m a bit late when they come out of school, I often find my teenagers like that: clustered together, a single body, tighter than a gang. Even Sylvain is in among them, even Nielle.
The group dissolves as they get in the bus. Sylvain emerges from his hoodie to ask me if it isn’t a bit risky, after all. I shrug to say that I have no idea, and that it’s out of my hands.
He puts his hoodie back on and shouts: Here we go on a big adventure.
Sébastien chimes in: Did you bring the spades this time?
I’ve got the spades, and a head torch. If it takes us three hours, I have an electric torch, but no candle.
Ah, Adèle, that’s really not good, because a candle…a candle (he hesitates) guarantees the temperature of the passenger compartment stays above zero.
I have space blankets.
The Year Nines did an orienteering course today, so that means we have two Swiss Army knives.
In the snow?
Yes, he’s a lunatic, that teacher. Adèle, you’ve no idea how many teachers are lunatics. So, yeah, we also have two Swiss Army knives. (They show them to me.)
Nadège says, Stop, you guys, that’s enough, we’re not in a reality TV show. Sorry about them, Adèle, they’re still into cowboy games, you know, they’ve got all the gear.
I smile, but it’s because I’m thinking about a night I spent with Tony when there was a power cut. We were about to go to bed, he had put on his head torch to go and find something in the kitchen. I told him he looked handsome with his extra eye. He replied, Wait, you haven’t seen anything yet, and proceeded to do a clumsy striptease, an awesome striptease in the light of his head torch.
Nadège is right. The older boys also have their head torches in their pockets. They bring them out when she says the word gear. And she brings out hers, admitting with a smile, yes, but a head torch is not the same thing: at my place we don’t have any street lights outside, well, there isn’t even a street. Julien then gets out his mobile phone. And don’t you have the two-way radio, Adèle? Driver, we’re ready.
With a sense of team spirit, they’ve all tied their head torches around their beanies (and Sylvain around his hoodie). I love them. But they mustn’t forget to fasten their seatbelts as well.
The game’s over now, we’re lost and neither my radio nor the mobile phones have any reception. We’re not completely lost, I can tell—and I know—that we’re not far from the volcano, the lake, my lake, where I take my break, but I can’t drive any further in this snowstorm.
I turn on the warning lights. I look at Sylvain and Joël, sitting up front next to me. The others have withdrawn. They still have their head torches on.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know at what point the parents or the emergency services will start to worry, I don’t know if they’ll find us, I don’t know if it’s wise to wait with the bus, the nearest farm must only be five or six kilometres away, perhaps fewer, but I’m incapable of working out exactly where it is.
The kids aren’t sure what to do either, they all have different opinions. We really can’t see far at all. The whirling snow is like a screen of shifting dust, dust bound together, as if lashed by the wind—we can’t see through it and neither the headlights nor the emergency lights can penetrate it. I might just be able to feel my way down to the lake, among the trees, following the hollowed-out rim of the volcano.
That shadow down there, that’s the trees, the forest around the lake.
Are you sure, Adèle?
Yes.
But even if you made it to the lake, and say you got a fire going on the beach, how does that help us? We’re no better off, Adèle, we might as well stay in the bus, we have enough heating for a few hours.
I don’t know, we’re probably down to a quarter of a tank.
Sylvain scratches his hoodie.
I look over at him, and whisper directly at him: Or else there’s the cave.
He returns my gaze, laughing: The cave? Where the caretaker used to live?
Uh, yeah, the caretaker of the lake, the troglodyte. The cave we’ve been to a few times.
Sylvain continues my line of thought: You’re right, it’s sort of cozy inside, basic, but there’s a fireplace, straw, the cow sculpture (he hoots with laughter). Then he recites: The troglodyte caves were restored and opened to the public with the support of the local government, to enable visitors to engage in an intimate experience of the lives of the inhabitants who lived here until the end of the 1920s. The caves are man-made, dug out of the volcanic material that resulted from an explosion caused by the confluence of water and lava.
Stop, Sylvain! Adèle, make him shut up.
The caves are testament to the highly innovative dwellings inside the surrounding volcanoes.
The others scream, Stop! Oblivious, Sylvain continues his annoying theatrical recitation.
Adèle, please, make him shut up.
On the ground floor, the old home of the caretaker of the lake has been reconstructed, and on the first floor an exhibition space has been created. My father is a tourist guide in Germany.
Yeah, sure (Sébastien hates Sylvain), and your mother the witch must know how to force open the door, although (he perks up) it should be fine if the wood isn’t too wet, if it’s not frozen stiff.
Joël isn’t certain we’ll be able to get in over the glass panel that runs the length of the corridor. Behind the panel the interior design and furniture have been reproduced for the tourists (or the visitors—sometimes the brochures use the term the public).
Of course we’ll be able to get in, even Sébastien. We’ll give the little kids a hand. At least we’ll be warm while we wait for the rescue team. We’ll be able to drink the lake water, we’ll smash the ice, or we can drink snow, we’ll melt it in a saucepan—yes, there are saucepans, they’re hanging on the mantelpiece, they’ve put everything back the way it used to be in the olden days.
Sylvain just told you, Adèle, they’ve restored everything, to make it look authentic. Like it was back then.
Yes, that’s right. Now, everyone, leave your bags here, only bring the bare essentials. Okay, iPods, yes, but especially your head torches. And snacks if you have them. Snowsuits too. Surely you wore them if you went on an orienteering course in the snow? So put them on. Snow boots as well. No one had ski class today? (No, it’s the Year Eights on Friday.) Okay, come on, let’s go. I’ll bring the space blankets.
The older kids are smiling. They joke around as they watch Julien and Joël get into their snowsuits in between the seats. Your change room is not that convenient, Adèle.
Yeah, anyway we’re going to do it again.
What?
Uh, the orienteering course.
All right, you can all laugh. I just hope the others have snow boots or proper walking shoes (I turn around, bend down to check). You’re kidding…I can’t believe they’re wearing sneakers. Marie and Marine are anxious. I tell them to trust me.
We’re going to leave a note under the windscreen wiper. We’ll have to walk two or three kilometres, perhaps four. Two or three more if we come out on the other side of the lake. We’ll head down through the forest, and I want us to stay toge
ther as a group. The snowstorm is raging up here, not so much among the trees, but I’m guessing there’ll be fog down the bottom.
I stop and collect my thoughts.
Okay, everyone, when we get to the lake, we won’t know exactly which side of the lake we’re on, we’ll continue on around the edge until we find the cave. In the forest, I want you all to gather firewood. Break branches if you have to, even though they’ll be green. Oh no, they won’t be—in winter the moisture recedes. I want each one of you to pick up as much kindling as possible. And if you have scrap paper in your schoolbags, that’ll be useful as well.
Sébastien announces that he has plenty of class notes to burn, but what about logs of wood?
No, don’t worry about wood. There must be half a cubic metre of wood next to the fireplace, to look authentic, as you said, like in the old days. I just hope the flue isn’t too blocked.
Marine and Marie are rattled: we’ll never be able to get this fire to shine.
Around here, that’s what we say, shine the fire—we mix up light and heat, and it’s fire after all that will allow us to see better in the cave.
Girls, listen to me, even if we can’t light a fire, a cave stays at a constant temperature, it must be, I guess, about eight degrees at that altitude. It’s the best solution. Come on, is everyone ready?
In the forest the fog is as dense as flesh, you can touch it. And, as we continue, we really don’t know what we’re going to touch, or what is going to hook onto us, apart from the tangible, freezing fog. The dark trees add their black backdrop, and my big kids have fallen silent out of respect mingled with fear.
All I can hear as we walk are their hollow footsteps, behind me, in front of me, the crackling of dry branches, the breaking of compacted snow, gusts of warm air, sometimes right next to us. The layers of snow are carrying us higher, towards the crown of the trees.
One Day I'll Tell You Everything Page 10