Obabakoak (35 page)

By the time I had written the last lines of the method, the sun was at its highest point and the smoke from the chimneys of Obaba told me it was lunchtime. However, having eaten all those figs, I was not in the least hungry and I decided instead to put the method into practice right there and then. I needed to demonstrate the efficacy of the method with an example. So I went to the library and chose a story with a clear plot from a book that had gone through dozens of editions. Before nightfall I had finished and written out a fair copy of the plagiarized story that follows: “The Crevasse.”

May wise Axular’s wishes be fulfilled.

THE SHADOW OF DEATH
passed over Camp One when Sherpa Tamng arrived with the news that Philippe Auguste Bloy had fallen down a crevasse. The usual bustle and laughter of supper ceased abruptly and cups of tea, still steaming, were left forgotten in the snow. Not one of the expedition’s members dared ask for details, no one said anything. Fearing they had not understood him, the sherpa repeated the news. The ice had swallowed up Philippe Auguste, the crevasse seemed very deep.

At last the man who was leading the expedition asked: “Couldn’t you have gotten him out, Tamng?” The man’s name was Mathias Reimz, a native of Geneva, a man who merited an entry in every encyclopedia on mountaineering for his ascent of Dhaugaliri.

The sherpa shook his head.

“
Chiiso,
Mister Reimz. Almost night,” he said.

It was a weighty enough reason. As soon as night fell, the cold—
chiiso
—was intense, the temperature around Lhotse could drop to forty below zero, a temperature that could in itself prove fatal to a climber but that also destabilized the great slabs of ice on the mountain. At night new crevasses opened up, while other older ones closed over forever. Rescue was almost impossible.

“What did you leave as a marker, Tamng?”

Turning around, the sherpa showed his back. The missing rucksack in red nylon was the marker, securely fixed at the top of the crevasse with pitons.

“Was he alive?”

“Don’t know, Mister Reimz.”

Everyone assumed that the sole aim of these questions was to begin preparations for the rescue party that would leave at first light the following day. To their surprise, Mathias Reimz began clipping on his crampons and calling for a torch and some ropes. The man from Geneva intended setting out immediately.

“Lemu mindu!”
shouted the old sherpa, making gestures of surprise. He did not approve of that decision, which seemed to him suicidal.

“The moon will help me, Gyalzen,” replied Reimz, looking up at the sky. The moon was nearly full. Its light illuminated the newly fallen snow, making it seem even paler.

Then, addressing his companions, he declared that he would not accept anyone’s help. He would go completely alone. He was the one who should risk his life, it was his duty.

Mathias Reimz and Philippe Auguste Bloy worked together at the ski resorts around Geneva and that was how the Europeans on the expedition understood the decision, as the result of the close ties formed during their long acquaintance. Less well-informed, the sherpas attributed it to his position as leader, as the man responsible for the group.

When the orange shadow of Reimz’s anorak disappeared into the snow and the night, a murmur of admiration arose in Camp One. It was an admirable thing to do, to put one’s own life at risk to save that of another. Some spoke of the power of friendship and the heart, others, of the spirit shown by mountaineers, their daring and their sense of solidarity. Old Gyalzen waved his white prayer shawl in the air: may good fortune go with him, may great Vishnu protect him.

No one suspected the truth. It occurred to no one that the decision might have its roots in hatred.

Philippe Auguste Bloy’s broken leg ached as did the deep cut he had sustained in one side. But even so he was falling asleep; the drowsiness brought on by the cold in the crevasse was stronger than pain, stronger than his will. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. He could already feel the warmth that always precedes the gentle death of mountaineers.

He was lying down on the ice, absorbed in his private struggle, trying to distinguish the darkness of the crevasse from the darkness of sleep, and so he failed to notice the ropes thrown from above when they landed on his boots. Nor did he see the man who, having lowered himself down on them, was now kneeling beside him.

When the man shone the torch on him, Philippe Auguste Bloy sat up with a shout. The light had startled him.

Then he exclaimed: “Don’t shine the torch in my face, Tamng!” and smiled at his reaction. He felt safe.

He heard someone say: “It’s me, Mathias.” The voice sounded threatening.

Philippe Auguste tilted his head to one side to avoid the glare of the torch. But the beam followed his movement and continued to dazzle him.

“Why have you come?” he asked at last.

The deep voice of Mathias Reimz echoed around the crevasse. He spoke very slowly, like a man who is very tired.

“I want to talk to you as a friend, Phil. And what I have to tell you may seem ridiculous. But don’t laugh. Consider that before you is a man who has suffered greatly.”

Philippe Auguste put himself on guard. Behind that statement he heard the hiss of the serpent.

“Vera and I first met when we were very young,” Mathias went on. “We must have been about fifteen; in fact, she was fifteen and I was sixteen. And she wasn’t a pretty girl then. She was even rather ugly. Too tall for her age and very bony. But despite that I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. I remember I felt like crying and for a moment everything seemed bathed in violet light. That will seem odd to you, but it’s true, I saw everything that color. The sky was violet, the mountains were violet, and the rain was violet too. I don’t know, maybe falling in love changes the sensitivity of the eyes. And now it’s almost the same. The feelings I had when I was sixteen are still there. They didn’t even disappear when we got married and you know what they say about marriage putting an end to love. Well, not in my case. I’m still in love with her, I carry her always in my heart. And that’s how I managed to climb Dhaugaliri, because I was thinking about her, that’s the only reason.”

The silence that followed his words emphasized the solitude of the crevasse.

“We’ve never been to bed together, Math!” Philippe Auguste shouted suddenly. His words resounded around the four frozen walls.

Mathias gave a short laugh.

“I almost went crazy when they showed me your photos, Phil. Vera and you holding hands at the Ambassador Hotel in Munich on the sixteenth and seventeenth of March. Or at the Tivoli in Zurich on the tenth and eleventh of April. Or in Apartments Trummer in Geneva itself on the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth of May. And at Lake Villiers in Lausanne, for a whole week, just when I was preparing for this expedition.”

Philippe Auguste’s mouth went dry. The muscles in his face, grown stiff with cold, twitched.

“Math!” he cried, “you’re making too much out of things that have no importance whatsoever.”

But no one heard him. The single eye of the torch was staring pitilessly at him.

“I’ve had many doubts, Phil. I’m not a murderer. I felt really bad every time I thought about killing you. I was on the point of trying it in Kathmandu. And when we landed in Lukla. But those places are sacred to me, Phil, and I didn’t want to stain them with your blood. Now, though, the Mountain has judged you for me, and that’s why you’re here, because it has handed down its own sentence to you. Whether it will take away your life, I don’t know. You may live until morning and the rest of the group will rescue you. But I don’t think so, Phil. I have the feeling you’re going to stay in this crevasse forever. That’s why I came, so that you wouldn’t leave this world without knowing how much I hate you.”

“Get me out of here, Math!” Philippe Auguste’s bottom lip was trembling.

“It’s not up to me, Phil. As I said, the Mountain will decide.”

Philippe Auguste breathed deeply. He had to accept his fate.

His voice filled with scorn.

“You think you’re better than everyone else, Math. An exemplary mountaineer, an exemplary husband, an exemplary friend. But you’re nothing but a pathetic clown. No one who really knows you can stand you!”

Too late. Mathias Reimz was already pulling himself up on the ropes.

“Vera will cry for me! She wouldn’t for you!” shouted Philippe Auguste as loudly as he could.

The crevasse was plunged into darkness once more.

The excitement of the visit roused Philippe Auguste’s body. His heart beat strongly now and the blood that had been about to freeze in his veins flowed easily into his muscles. Suddenly, perhaps because his brain was also working better, he remembered that mountaineers never take with them the ropes they use to descend into crevasses. They were a dead weight, an unnecessary burden on the journey back to camp.

“What if Mathias…,” he thought. He was gripped by hope.

He got up and felt around in the dark. It was only a moment but so intense that it made him laugh out loud with joy. There were the three ropes that, by force of habit, Mathias Reimz had left behind him.

Philippe Auguste’s wounds made him groan with pain, but he knew that a greater suffering, the worst of all, awaited him at the bottom of the crevasse. Tightening his lips against the pain, Philippe Auguste took hold of the ropes and began to climb, slowly, trying not to bump against the frozen walls. He used the narrower places to rest, forming a bridge with his back and his good leg. An hour later, he had managed to climb the first ten yards.

When he had climbed some eighteen yards, an avalanche of snow threw him off balance crushing him against a hard lump on the wall. Philippe Auguste felt the blow on the same side he had the cut and the pain filled his eyes with tears. For a moment he thought of the gentle death awaiting him at the bottom of the crevasse. But hope was still there in his heart and it whispered a “perhaps” to him that he could not ignore. After all, he was lucky. Fate had given him a chance. He had no right to doubt it. Besides, the fall of snow indicated that the mouth of the crevasse must be very near.

Half an hour later, the walls of the crevasse became first gray then white. Philippe Auguste considered that, in throwing him against the wall, Fate had wanted to put him to the test, and that this, at last, was his reward.

“The sky!” he gasped. And it was indeed the rosy sky of dawn. A new day was breaking over Nepal.

The sun was shining on the snow. Ahead of him, toward the north, rose the mighty form of Lhotse. To his right, across the frozen valley, was the zigzagging path down to Camp One.

Philippe Auguste felt his lungs revive as he breathed in the clean air of morning. He opened his arms to the vastness and, raising his eyes to the blue sky, mumbled a few words of thanks to the Mountain.

He was still in that position when a strange feeling troubled him. It seemed to him that the arms he had stretched out had bent again, against his will, and were embracing him. But who was embracing him?

He looked down to see what was happening and a grimace of terror contorted his face. Mathias Reimz stood in front of him. He was smiling mockingly.

“It’s not nice to cheat, Phil,” he heard him say just before he felt the shove. And, for an instant, as he fell toward the bottom of the crevasse, Philippe Auguste Bloy thought he understood the meaning of those last hours of his life.

Everything—the visit, leaving behind the ropes—had been a premeditated plan of torture: Mathias Reimz had not even wanted to spare him the pain of unfounded hope.

“HOW ABOUT LEAVING
the martini that’s on the schedule for another day,” suggested the uncle from Montevideo, laying aside his papers and getting up from his leather armchair. The story-reading session on the verandah was over.

“That depends on what you have to offer in its place,” we joked.

“I can offer you a delicious Rhine wine that I have in my cellar. Hearing that story about Klaus Hanhn made me feel like opening a bottle. How about it? Shall I put it to cool in my
fontefrida
?”

The
fontefrida
was my uncle’s name for the well inside the house, next to the kitchen.

“For my part, I’d be delighted. The truth is I’ve never drunk Rhine wine in my life,” I said.

“You’ve never drunk it and yet you write about it in your story! The nerve of the boy!” said my uncle, laughing and shaking his head.

“You’re back to being nineteenth-century man again! Experience and originality and, if possible, two or three adulterous affairs per novel. So much for your newfound faith! I bet even the story you plagiarized was from the nineteenth century!”

“Now that you mention it,” my friend broke in, “what writer did you base yourself on for the story about the crevasse, Uncle? You never told us.”

My uncle walked over to the door like a child ostentatiously feigning indifference. He knew the stories he’d read had impressed us.

“Not a word! The program states that any questions and comments must wait until the second cognac of the afternoon. So until then you have only two options: silence or small talk. Now go and sit down at the table in the garden. The wine will only take five minutes to cool.”

“As the honorable Mr. Fig-eater wishes,” I said, getting up.

“The table will be in the shade, won’t it?” asked my friend, looking out the window. The temperature outside was hovering around the 95° mark the radio had forecast.

“It’s underneath the magnolia tree in the corner. But, come to think of it, perhaps I’m being too trusting putting it there. I can hardly expect you to behave like pale nineteenth-century maidens. If you like, I’ll come over in a minute and pull it out into the full blaze of modernity.”

“Oh, very droll,” we both said as we went outside.

The “modernity” of which my uncle spoke filled the whole garden. One was aware of nothing else, just its intense heat and light. Only the monotonous song of the crickets interrupted the general stupor imposed on Obaba by that Sunday’s heat.