Solo Faces (13 page)

She settled in Izeaux—Vigan had his box factories near there—in an old house right on the street, built in the days when only an occasional carriage or cart passed by. The outside walls were plain, even drab, but the interior was warm and comfortable as only French country houses can be, with many doors giving onto the garden. There she was happy or at least freed from the difficulty of loving the wrong person. It would be wrong to say she did not think of him, but she did so with less and less frequency.

Vigan was kind and understanding. He was also flattered to have her back, doubly so since she had come from the arms of a younger, unconventional man. When she wanted to return to Chamonix to get her clothes, he forbade her.

“I’ll have someone collect them and take them up to my house. You can’t wear them now, anyway.”

He found her more beautiful, as pregnant women often are. Her appetite, her need for rest, and the return of her good humor filled him with a deep satisfaction. She was luminous with a contentment that is only hinted at in the wake of the sexual act. This was the fullest aspect of it and it was he who luxuriated in its warmth. The days before she came to Izeaux faded and were forgotten.

“I was really miserable,” she said. “I had the most depressing thoughts. I wanted to kill myself and have a gravestone like Dumas’ mistress with nothing but four dates, one in each corner: the date I met him, the date we first made love …”

It was early summer. The doors to the garden were open.

“As I remember, those were the same dates.”

“No.”

“I thought it was that memorable night you left the party together.”

“Was it that obvious?”

“You were absolutely stunned.”

“Please,” she said.

“I envied you.”

He was filled with a sense of well-being. In the light from the windows, late in the day, he looked no more than thirty-five. The clothes in his closet and bureau drawers were always neatly arranged, even the small shining scissors and various bottles on the bathroom shelf.
Le Monde
was on the entrance table with the letters, the bedclothes were fresh, the cook, a woman from the village, was good-natured and calm. His views on politics Catherin disagreed with, he was secretive about money, she would have preferred a younger man, but all in all she felt very disposed toward him, she felt they were bound together in a way that would not be undone. She liked the well-worn surfaces, the comfort of the house. She admired the details of his life.

Of Rand she thought only rarely. She received no letters from him, not even as the birth of her child drew near, but then, perhaps he did not know where to write.

H
E DID THE NORTH
Face of the Triolet and the
éperon
ridge of the Droites, alone. He could have found a companion, almost anyone would have jumped at the chance, but he left Chamonix by himself and for one reason or another began climbing that way.

The Triolet is steep, the ice that covers it never melts. It is climbed with crampons, a grid of spikes fastened to the boot. There are two that point straight ahead and can be kicked into the ice. The full weight goes on them.

He started early. The face was like a huge, descending river, steepening all the way. Its breath was cold. The sound of his crampons was crisp in the silence. He worked methodically, an ice ax in each hand. He became lost in the rhythm. The thought of slipping—he would have shot down the incline as if it were glass—first came to him only when he was far up, and it came in a strange way. He had paused for a moment to rest. The tips of his crampons were driven in a fraction, barely half an inch—that half-inch would not fail. A kind of bliss came over him as he realized this, a feeling of invulnerability unlike anything he had known. It was as if the mountain had ordained him; he did not refuse it.

He was happy, held there by the merest point of steel, above all difficulties somehow, above all fears. This is how one must feel at the end, he thought uneasily, a surge of joy before the final moment. He looked past his feet. The steepness was dazzling. Far above him was a great bulge of ice. There were two ways past it, two ways only.

Each step, each kick into the rime, methodical, sure, took him farther and farther up. He thought of Bray. For a moment it was as if he were there. These lonely faces, these days, were still his, he existed in them. Dead and dismembered, he was not gone. He had not disappeared, only stepped offstage. The day brought thoughts of him, the feeling of triumph as he passed the overhang, the view that awaited at the top.

He was often seen, rope over one shoulder, a pack on his back, headed out. He was off for a stroll, he would say. In the morning he woke among peaks incredibly white against the muted sky. There is something greater than the life of the cities, greater than money and possessions; there is a manhood that can never be taken away. For this, one gives everything.

A strange thing’s happened to me,
he wrote to Cabot,
I’ve lost all fear of death. I’m only climbing solo these days. I did the N. Face of the Triolet and the Coutrier on the Verte. Fantastic. I can’t explain it. What’s happening in the States? Where have you been?

It was not only solitude that had changed him but a different understanding. What mattered was to be a part of existence, not to possess it. He still knew the anguish of perilous climbs, but he knew it in another way. It was a tribute; he was willing to pay it. A secret pleasure filled him. He was envious of no one. He was neither arrogant nor shy.

Early in August he arrived at the small refuge hut on the Fourche. It was evening. On the long trek across the glacier he had passed Pointe Lachenal, the Grand Capucin. The sun had passed behind Mont Blanc. He made his way in twilight.

The hut was nearly full. The vast face of Mont Blanc, directly opposite, had sunk into darkness. Voices, when they spoke, were low. Most of the climbers had gone to sleep.

“Bonsoir,”
someone whispered. It was a guide, one of the younger ones. Rand knew him by sight.

“Bonsoir.”

“Beau temps, eh?”

“Incomparable.”

The guide moved his hand one way and the other—who knew how long it would last—and glanced at the entry Rand had made in the book, “Brenva, eh?”

Rand did not reply.

He made some soup and found a place on the wooden sleeping shelf. As he drew the blanket around him there was a cough in the darkness, the cough of a woman. He turned his head slightly. He could not see her. A sudden loneliness swept over him. He was frightened by its strength. Lying there he fell into dreams. Catherin came to him, just as she was when they first had met. The newness of her dazed him, exactly as then. The little Renault parked behind the shop, the smell of her breath, her sudden smile. How impossible ever to tire of her, her scent, the white of her underclothes, her hair. Her face among the pillows, her naked back, the watery light of mornings in which she gleamed. Her slender hand touching him—he could feel these things, words collapsed in his head. She became a harem, a herd, his mind was wandering, multiplying her as she cried, as she yelped like a cur. The memory overwhelmed him. In the darkness he lay like a stone.

At dawn the sky was overcast. It had begun to snow. No one would climb that day. A few parties had already started down. He noticed the woman who had coughed, he heard her complaining, in fact. She was English, wearing a thick sweater and climbing pants unfastened at the knee. He watched her comb her hair.

“What do you think?” she came over to ask. “Will it clear?”

“Hard to say.”

“I can’t decide whether or not to go down.” Her voice seemed amiable. “How do you manage to stay so calm?”

Rand was boiling water.

“Could I have some tea?” she asked. She watched as he poured it. “Are you really doing the Brenva?”

“Perhaps.”

“And you’re going alone.” She put in three spoonfuls of sugar. “Isn’t that asking for trouble?”

“Not really,” he said.

Her eyes were direct and gray. She was not like Audrey. She was a different breed.

“But one mistake and it’s all over, isn’t it?” A pause. “My guide seems to think you’re some sort of outlaw,” she said.

“Well, guides sleep in warm beds.”

“And you?”

“Occasionally,” he said.

“I would imagine.”

“Are you here for the season?”

“Just a fortnight. I’m with my husband, he’s a very good climber, he’s been doing it for years. I’m afraid he’s a bit irritated at the moment.”

“Is he?”

“He’s hurt his leg. He fell on the Blaitière, so I came with a guide but I think I’m a bit over my head. You’re the American who does everything by himself, aren’t you? I don’t think I know your name.”

“Rand.”

“Yes, that’s it. Rand …?”

“Vernon Rand.”

“I saw you come in last night. To be truthful, it frightened me. I wasn’t sure I should even be up here. When I saw you, I knew I shouldn’t be.”

“Well, you have a guide.”

He was watching from across the room.

“Even if I had three of them,” she said.

Her name was Kay Hammet, she was staying at the Hôtel des Alpes. She left at noon. It was snowing harder than before. That night there were only four of them and two went down the next day.

There were plenty of blankets then. He lay bundled up, asleep much of the time, waking to see the snow still falling. The wind made the metal walls creak. There was one other person in the hut. Not a word passed between them.

The storm lasted three days. Afterward, the clouds stayed low, covering the peaks.

On the sixth day, at noon, the door opened and a man walked in, stamping the snow from his feet. It was Remy Giro.

“Salut,”
he said.

“You’re the first person to walk through that door in a week.”

“I believe it. It’s terrible out there. Do you have some soup?”

“No, do you want tea?”

“Anything,” Giro said. He watched the stove being lit. “What have you been doing up here?”

“Not much.”

Giro glanced at the young man sitting at the far end of the hut.

“It was full up when I got here,” Rand explained. “It’s interesting how they leave, first the guides and clients, then the ones who really didn’t want to climb anyway. Then the English, out of food. Finally there’s no one left but”—he gestured toward the back—“the Phantom.”

“Don’t you think it would be more comfortable in town?”

“I have my legend to think of,” Rand said offhandedly.

“Have you heard what’s happened?”

“No, what?”

“You haven’t heard the helicopters?”

“An accident?”

“Two Italians are trapped on the Dru.”

“Where?”

“One is badly hurt.”

“That’s no surprise. Where on the Dru?”

“The West Face, far up. Above the ninety-meter dihedral. The whole face is solid ice.”

They had done two-thirds of the climb and been caught by the storm. They tried everything possible to come down; the ice was too severe. On the second day, realizing they had to do something, they decided to go up again and force the summit. That was when one had fallen. They were somewhere beneath the overhangs.

“They’ve been there for a week.”

“They’re still alive?”

“They’ve tried everything to reach them. They even lowered a cable from the top but it was too far out. Now they’re trying to go up the North Face and cross over.”

“Who?”

“Everyone. The gendarmes, the mountain troops.”

“What about the guides?”

“Of course. The guides.”

“They’re giving advice.”

“No, no. They’re trying, too. There are two hundred people involved.”

“Why don’t they go up the West Face?”

“Ahh,” he said.

“Have they tried?”

“I don’t think so,” Remy said.

“Even the guides?”

“The guides are trying to go up the North Face.”

“Maybe they’ll find somebody trapped there,” Rand suggested.

“They’re trying,” Remy defended them.

Rand nodded. He began putting things in his pack. “Five days they’ve been trying?”

“It won’t last much longer,” Remy said calmly.

“Who’s this over there? Do you know him?” Rand asked.

“I’ve seen him in town.”

“Can he climb?”

“Probably. Why else would he be here?”

Rand called to him. The young man looked over, unhurriedly.

“Do you want to climb?” Rand asked. In response there was a slight, almost indifferent gesture. “Come on,” he said.

I
N
C
HAMONIX THE EFFORT
had reached its final stage. There was little hope. The many attempts of the rescuers only made it more painful, more clear. Calmly, knowingly—for Chamonix knew its mountains—people watched the inevitable. The two Italians still somehow alive on the highest part of the Dru were lost.

It was true they had tried to lower a cable from the top. It had hung far out from the face. The conditions were unimaginable. One rescuer had already been killed.

In the streets, looking for anyone he knew, Rand found a friend of Bray’s.

“Do you want to take a crack at it?”

“Don’t they have hundreds of people up there?”

“Not where we’re going,” Rand said.

“I’ve never been on the Dru.” He was a schoolteacher, earnest, somewhat shy. He had very red, almost feverish lips and coarse hair. His name was Dennis Hart. “All right,” he said.

From the army they managed to borrow extra equipment, a radio, even some food. On the way back into town they enlisted another climber, a Frenchman, Paul Cuver.

“We’ll be there by seven tonight,” Rand told him. “They’re giving us a helicopter to the foot of the Dru.”

“A helicopter?”

“That’s right.”

His plan was simple. All other attempts had rejected it out of hand. Rather than seek the most practicable, he would try the most direct way. He didn’t know how bad the conditions would be, but he knew the route. They would leave fixed ropes behind to aid in the descent. If they were at the base of the Dru that evening, with luck they might reach the Italians on the second day.