Children of the Cave
Page 9
The hatred that burns inside me does not alleviate my fear. I shall not sleep tonight, for sure.
POSSIBLY FEBRUARY 8TH IN THE YEAR 1822
I hope we shall manage to depart before anything happens. As if something had not already happened. How many unnecessary deaths will I yet have to suffer? I, who imagined I could embark on adventures from behind paper and words – without feeling, experiencing, being part of…
– YEAR 1822
This I want to remember for ever: Anna said I am the best thing that ever happened to her. She said that I am a good man and I should not doubt that. She told me not to grieve, even if we were never to meet again. I asked her what she meant. She would not reply, instead calling out instructions to the little ones in order to avoid my question. I never met anyone as adept at evading questions. I swore to her that I would come back. She kissed me, stroked my head and said that was exactly why she liked me. Why?
– IN THE YEAR 1822
– the dawn came. At last. I can’t see anyone outside. Who or what was it, and what did it want from me? I feel eyes on my back as I walk across the camp. Moltique –
FEBRUARY – IN THE YEAR 1822
Everything is going wrong. We should already be –
FEBRUARY – IN THE YEAR 1822
I do not understand –
This section of the notes has been destroyed, or else Agolasky simply did not write it. The following entry makes clear that Moltique was inexplicably missing for a time.
MARCH 15TH IN THE YEAR 1822
Since his return, Moltique has been growing more and more unpredictable. The men give him a wide berth. I only go to him if I have to. No one dares ask if we are leaving the camp and, if so, when. And where? Back to Paris?
Something very odd happened today. Moltique dictated to me and I wrote down everything obediently, though his thoughts were ricocheting crazily between zoologists’ theories and folk tales. The only connecting factor was a creature that was half-man, half-animal. Our great researcher had collided with a reality that he could not explain. I wondered if Moltique had tried to explain the snowman or if it was enough for him that he had seen it.* I was deep in thought and did not immediately notice what
* Agolasky did not know that some parties critical of Moltique’s professional abilities in the academy had mocked him throughout his career for only being able to make observations, not interpret the phenomena he reported seeing. Academy records mention an incident during which one researcher had vilified Moltique rather harshly: ‘Professor Moltique is a windbag who offers up only scandals and popular entertainment. His capacity for scientific thought is as developed as that of an ape.’ Discovering the children of the cave had most likely appeared to Moltique to offer an opportunity to prove to his critics that he was a wide-ranging and estimable researcher – this would explain his obsession with the task.
Moltique was doing. Suddenly, I came to, alerted by his silence. He was sniffing the air suspiciously. I asked what he thought he could smell, but he failed to reply. Snow smelt different in early spring, sweeter, than earlier in winter – that was all. I did not sense anything else myself. But Moltique was sniffing the air eagerly, head thrown back, eyes half-closed. Then – out of the blue – he stopped smelling, nailed me with his angry eyes and told me to get lost. I was more than happy to leave.
MARCH 16TH IN THE YEAR 1822
I woke up very early this morning – about an hour ago – because I heard someone moving outside. I put on my coat and went out. It was still dark and I couldn’t see anything. Then I spied a largish creature close to Moltique’s quarters. At first I thought it was a bear, but it was too small. Then I thought it might well be a wolf come to root among our leftovers. Something about the creature’s movements made me stay on the spot, observing for longer. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw it did not move with animal agility but like a man, crawling around.
I went to get a lantern, which I lit. Then I started cautiously towards the figure. Step by step, I approached it, alert and ready to flee if the creature straying into our camp proved to be a wild animal. I heard snuffling, growling and strange suckling noises, then saw, in the light of my lantern… a pair of bare soles. They belonged not to an animal of north-west Russia but to Professor Moltique. I stopped, frozen to the spot, and did not utter a word. I observed the bizarre sight spellbound: with the frenzy of a hungry animal, Moltique was tearing into the remnants of a dead hare that had been flung into the fire. He was in his pyjamas, on his knees, in the snow, hands purple, face greasy, a wild glint in his eyes. And then – he looked up at me and I knew. I was quite sure. Our expedition was doomed. The fates of Anna, the children and myself were all in the hands of a group of dishonourable men and an unhinged professor.
I turned and ran to my shelter. I flung myself onto my bunk and cried. By the time I had stopped, it was deserted outside. Moltique had gone back to bed – or else run into the forest.
MARCH 20TH IN THE YEAR 1822
I have not told Anna about Moltique. Perhaps because I am frightened. An idea has crept into my head: our forest is bewitched. The children’s best protection is that all those who come here change into animals, one by one. No, I do not believe it myself. The real reason is more likely to be that all this time I have feared for the children. Not so much on account of Moltique – it’s the other men I worry about. Now that Moltique appears to be mentally ill, I am even more frightened about what they may do to the children. How can I convince them that the children have nothing to do with the great, awe-inspiring professor who recruited them for the expedition regressing to the level of an animal?
Today Anna asked what was troubling me. I did not reply. But I think they all sense my increasing worry on their behalf.
MARCH 22ND IN THE YEAR 1822
I was on my way back to the camp from the privy when Paul appeared from behind some boulders and asked to speak to me in confidence. We waded one after the other in the thawing, collapsing snow, deeper into the forest, then stopped to face each other. I had never before looked him straight in the eye, man to man. We stood for a moment in awkward silence, because Paul recalls as clearly as I do what they have done to me. He collected himself, however, and said he was worried. No, that wasn’t the word he used. It was afraid. He was afraid. He asked if I knew what was wrong with the professor. Wrong? I thought. What was wrong with all of us? It was as if he were talking about gout, or a bad tooth, or a headache, or woman trouble, though I could see he was on the verge of tears, in fear of his life. Paul seemed surprised when I exploded into laughter. My laughter was loud and shrill, because I was furious. If I were a different man, I would have smashed the wretched coward’s face in, on behalf of myself and all the dead children. To give the man his due, he restrained himself and waited for me to calm down. I seem to be the only one in camp whom he trusts in this situation. He is, after all, one of the most harmless ones, a mere miserable boy, a poor man’s orphan. Writing this now, I cannot help but wonder what he has experienced in his life, though he has hardly any beard on his smooth chin.
After I had calmed down, I said – straight and unadorned – that I suspected Moltique had lost the light of his reason; to speak plainly, that he was mad and in his darkest moments imagined he was some kind of animal. This information had the desired effect on Paul: his face drained of colour and his lips started trembling. I saw tears welling up in his brown eyes again – goodness and lost dignity shone out from them – and finally he began sobbing. He begged me for advice: what should he do? Follow Moltique’s gang, was that the only option? I said that was all we could do if we wanted to get back to civilization alive, out of the wilderness. That made Paul reveal something I had been desperate to know since the start of the conversation. He is afraid of Fist, who has decided to slaughter the most human of the children of the cave, capture the rest, and also kill Moltique and myself if we object. Cook and Fist intend to cash in on parading the remains of the dead children, along with the most anim
al-like specimens, whom they will allow to survive. Somehow, I knew all this but I am still horrified by the wickedness and grotesqueness of the plan, as well as by its short-sightedness. The most animal-like children do not live long to begin with and in captivity, transported round Europe, they would be certain not to last –
I wondered who and what Cook was before he joined us. He claims to have hidden a cache of money in Paris, on which he will live when he returns to the city. But he is probably as desperate as the other men and as lacking in cash. What will they do for a living when we get back? Could I make them believe that, if they stick with me (and Moltique), their future is secure?
– IN THE YEAR 1822
I grew up in a cultured family. My friends were the healthy children of scholars and landowners. I am sure to be the only one who left family-owned land, an ancestral estate, behind them. Now I am following a mad professor somewhere on the border between Finland and Russia; my love is a martyr abandoned by her family, more courageous than Joan of Arc, disabled as she is; and my best friend is a duplicitous minor criminal, a youth somewhere between a street perfomer and a pickpocket who has tortured and tormented me. We have a common objective, however: to make Moltique appear confident and authoritative, a leader whose feet and head both still function, and so to prevent an unnecessary bloodbath.
The children must be hidden.
MARCH 23RD IN THE YEAR 1822
My first act was to lie to the men and say Moltique was setting up a research station at the cave. They would all get well-paid jobs and respectable positions there. They could forget their pasts, change their names and reputations and start their whole lives over. I do not know if they believed me. Moltique is missing again; I claimed he was involved in fieldwork at the cave. At least he is not howling in his cabin and will not rush over to nibble my calves… I may gain a couple of extra days.
I have to get to the cave.
Added at night: I could not find Anna. I did not see the professor. I did not –
MARCH 24TH IN THE YEAR 1822
Where are you, Anna? Where have you gone? I miss you, but do stay away. Do not appear again unexpectedly, do not walk straight into a trap set by Cook and Fist.
My God, I beseech you.
MARCH 25TH IN THE YEAR 1822
I am cold, but no matter. It is early morning. I have just come back from the forest. Once the men had fallen asleep and the camp had quietened, I slipped to the cave. I crouched outside for a long time and thought back to those days two years ago: then, observing the cave was spellbinding and exciting; this time, I was eaten up by fear. Then, I waited eagerly for a glimpse of the children; now, I hoped they would stay away.
I was about to leave the cave when I spotted Professor Moltique. He ran, half-crouching, among the trees, sank into the thawing snow, stumbled, fell, got up again and went on with his clumsy effort at running. I watched the professor I once admired with a mixture of pity and fury. I saw the unbearable grotesqueness of his abasement, but recalled his unpredictability and nasty superciliousness. I despised myself for having respected him and kowtowed to him so willingly, and yet my heart was gripped by a deep sadness as I watched his inevitable decline.
As I watched, Moltique knelt in the wet snow and started for the cave mouth. He sniffed the ground, occasionally lifting his face and emitting an odd, squeaking sound. I thought it just as well I did not have a gun. I, who have never felt the need to kill any living creature!
Moltique reached the entrance and vanished into the darkness. I waited a long time, eventually becoming worried, but finally he came back. He lowered his trousers – he has retained that much humanity – and emptied his bladder like a dog, with one leg raised, in front of the cave. Not even the most animalistic of the cave children are that ill-mannered: they all go to the toilet at a decent distance from their dwelling, just as we and our gang of criminals have set up our latrine outside the camp. How low will Moltique yet sink?
I turned and started back for camp, trembling with disgust. I had only taken a few steps when I bumped into Cook, leaning against a pine by the path we had trampled into the ground. He looked at me strangely, asking why I was out at night. I said I was trying to find Moltique. Cook asked if I had done so and I lied, saying there was no sign of the professor. He repeated the words ‘no sign’ after me, peering over my shoulder at the cave. Did he see what I did – Moltique crawling on the ground? If he did, what conclusion did Cook, and Fist, come to?
Many pages of the book appear to have been destroyed at this point. The following extracts are undated, but their contents indicate they should be placed here, given the course of events.
– IN THE YEAR 1822
I dreamed of a massacre. In the dream, Anna was sitting among dead children, singing the lullaby my mother used to sing to me.
– IN THE YEAR 1822
Moltique has returned. He is having a better day today, acting as if nothing has happened and appearing fairly normal. He called me in to him first thing, wanting me to go through our notes. They seemed embarrassingly muddled to me, but the professor listened seriously, nodding sagely. I do not think he actually listened to my halting reading. He seems to be in pain and his hands are in a terrible state. He froze them badly while crawling in the snow: the joints of his fingers are red and swollen, the skin is all shiny and dotted with protuberances secreting fluid. He does not wear shoes, but pads about in oversized felt boots, which makes me suspect his feet are also in a bad state.
After I had finished reading the notes, Moltique asked how preparations for our departure were progressing. I did not dare ask if we were leaving. Matters seemed settled to him. He clarified: the men knew what to do? I nodded; I could not disclose that if the men’s whole time and resources did not go on staying alive – hunting, fetching water and wood, making fires, cooking and repairing utensils – the consequences would be fatal. The camp is already teeming with activity: Fist and Cook are working out whom to trust and whom to get rid of, when the time is right. Some of the men believed my lie about founding a research station and the jobs this will provide. I can’t bear to think about what will happen if my lie is exposed.
Fortunately, Moltique did not wonder why I did not reply. Instead, he uttered his first sensible sentence during our whole excursion: ‘I cannot solve this riddle. I don’t know enough. We’ll go back to Paris and get hold of the right people. Not that I care one iota about the fate of these children, but I want to know if regressing to an animal is becoming more common. Could it affect any of us?’ I looked at him, struck by the grotesqueness of the idea. He, a wolf in man’s clothing.
As I write this, worry gnaws at my breast. What will happen if Moltique calls a camp meeting tomorrow and asks about preparations for departure?
Added at night: I woke up from a restless sleep. I write to achieve some kind of peace. I have been wondering where Anna will take the children. She has not told me and I have not asked. If someone enquired, I would not want to have the secret extracted from me against my will. I do not even know if their refuge will provide shelter for a longer period or if Anna will have to return to the cave at some point. Today, I saw footprints outside the cave; they told me someone had been there. Anna? Fist? Cook? Moltique? One of the children? I also wondered if Anna missed me.
APRIL 9TH IN THE YEAR 1822
I cannot concentrate. When I cross the camp, I imagine the men looking at me ominously.
APRIL 10TH IN THE YEAR 1822
Luck is on my side. Awful to say this when some of Professor Moltique’s frozen fingers have developed gangrene. But the professor’s extremely poor health provides me with brief respite. I asked Pierre Rufin if Moltique would recover, but he did not dare promise me anything one way or the other.
APRIL – IN THE YEAR 1822
Fist and Cook have taken control. Neither of them pretends otherwise. They have set the men to work preparing for the journey and incited dogs to track the children. The atmosphere in the camp is feverish. The m
en, who believed my lies about the research station, are sullen but do what Fist and Cook want. I enquired discreetly what they think and learned most believe Moltique will die. What will happen to the research station if we no longer have a leader? they ask. Obviously, they do not consider me a serious leadership candidate. I cannot blame them. I am young, wretched, frightened.