Authors: James Salter
Cabot was tired, too. His face was scalded from the cold. His eyes were red. In the corridor, afterward, he stopped her.
“Don’t discourage him,” he said. “It’s been hard.”
There was music coming from the bar. Along the corridor over their heads passed the sound of someone running. Then laughter, again from the bar. White-aproned cooks were at work in the warmth of the kitchen. Guests sat in front of the television. In the office someone was totaling bills. On the face of the Eiger even the ropes were frozen. They dangled in darkness like strips of wood.
“Is John really tired?”
“Well, you know he doesn’t complain,” she said.
“I know.”
They sat for a while in the bar. Cabot’s blond, scattered hair seemed dull in the subdued light. He was like a derelict seen in the shadows, indistinct, something helpless about him. Perhaps he was asleep.
The next morning they went again. They had decided to stay on the face until they reached the snowfield that seemed to lie above. Bray went first. They had left the hotel in darkness and all the way across the icy fields, a way they had traveled many times, not a word was said. Once Cabot slipped and fell. Bray hadn’t turned around.
All day he bore the brunt. They were making their way up an ice-filled crack. It was twenty minutes’ work to move a foot. The crack slowly widened, he was braced against its sides. Bray felt he was there alone. A strange feeling came over him, a detachment, almost euphoria, as if he were nothing more than a photograph. The silence beneath him vanished, fear fell away. He kept on working upward. He was clinging to nothing, balanced there somehow. He felt his foot begin to slip. He tried to hold on.
“Tension!” he cried.
The rope tightened. It wasn’t enough.
“I’m coming off!” Three thousand feet above the valley he began to fall. He saw it all clearly, he deplored it, he hardly cared.
The rope caught him abruptly. Somehow his leg was entangled in it. He was hanging upside down, ten feet from Cabot.
“Are you all right?”
“I’ve lost my glove,” he said.
Cabot lowered him.
“What happened?”
“Couldn’t do it.” He was breathing hard, his bare hand thrust inside his jacket. “I couldn’t hold on.” It was far into the afternoon. The sun had passed its zenith. The sky seemed white. “Next year I’m going back to plastering,” he said.
“You sure you’re all right?”
Bray nodded. He looked down. Suddenly he felt frightened. His courage had gone. After a while, he asked, “Are you going up to try?”
“You only have one glove.”
“Anyway, look at the weather,” Bray said. Clouds had appeared in the distance.
He was spent, that much is certain. Late in the day the two figures which had been motionless for hours began to descend. Perhaps the rope had been worn against the ice. Perhaps a rock had cut it. No one would ever know. To those who were watching, a speck of color seemed to free itself and move very slowly, almost to float, down the face. And with it, the cry,
“Someone’s fallen!”
Audrey often passed her time in a sitting room where the guests had tea. There she would talk to people, write postcards and read. It was the most natural thing in the world, sitting there, drinking tea, receiving the curious glances of tourists and their identical questions. Where are they? they asked and she would point them out as well as she could.
“Oh, my.”
“How far up are they?”
“A long way.”
“Doesn’t it make you nervous?”
“I don’t think about it,” she said.
She had heard nothing. She saw people suddenly rising all along the veranda. There was a crowd at the telescope.
“What is it? What’s happened?” she asked. She’d been reading. The book lay face down beside her. As she stood up, she felt frightened. She could not hear what they were saying, she could not hear anything. It was like a vacuum. In a moment the eyes of the crowd would turn toward her. She was certain of it. “Please. What’s happened?” she said.
T
HAT NIGHT IT BEGAN
to snow. In the dusk it fell softly. People were talking at dinner. Waiters glided across the room. Some time after seven, Cabot, who had been out for hours at the foot of the wall, knocked on the partly open door.
“Come in.” It was Barrington’s voice. Audrey was sitting in a chair, a cardigan around her shoulders.
“Hello, Jack,” Barrington said. “Are they all back?”
Pieces of Bray’s equipment were scattered around, boots behind the door, socks drying on the radiator. Cabot sat down. He found it hard to speak.
“We got back a little while ago,” he said.
“Is it snowing hard?”
“Pretty hard. One thing that’s almost sure,” he said, not looking at Audrey, “he was unconscious the whole time.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. I saw him hit his head, right at the start.”
“You saw that?”
“Yes, I should think so,” Barrington confirmed. “It’s very jagged there.”
The word was disturbing. “Jagged …”
“Lots of outcrops.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said.
They were silent. The immense length of the fall and the helplessness of the climber, falling, filled the room. After a while Barrington rose and left. He would look in later, he said.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Cabot finally managed—the shock had been great for him. “The rope …it must have caught on something. I can’t imagine. It’s …it could have happened to anyone.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said.
“It was just one of those impossible accidents.”
“No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t an accident. I knew you would kill him,” she said. “I knew it the first time I laid eyes on you.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“Oh, yes.”
“It’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” she said. “Oh, yes. He was only a little man, I mean compared to you, but he was loyal, he had a good heart. You could make him do anything. All you had to say was you didn’t think he could do it and do it he would. Well, you know that. I’ve seen you make him. So the rope broke and now he’s gone. Last night he was here. He stood right in front of that mirror. He was dead tired, but you’d never stop him because he was tired. Now, where is he? I don’t even know where he is.” She had begun to cry. “You’ll go on,” she said. “You’ll get to the top. You won’t even remember him.”
“That’s not so.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” she cried.
“Listen, Audrey, it’s hard to explain.” He paused for a moment. “I didn’t make him do anything, he did it for the same reason I did. The mountains make you do it. You do it because of yourself.”
She stood by the window staring out at the snow. She was hugging herself, her arms clasped beneath her breasts.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said wearily. The way she was holding herself, as if she could expect nothing more from life, the clothes and cosmetics on the dresser, the pale square of bed reflecting light, these seemed to be speaking for her. The room was warm. The silence was mounting, like a bill that would have to be paid.
“Come and have dinner. You don’t want to be alone tonight,” he said. “If you like, we’ll eat in the bar. I’ll ask them to serve us there.”
“I don’t want to go to the bar.”
“It’ll do you some good.”
“No, leave me alone.”
He put his arm around her.
“Audrey …” He tried to say something else, but said nothing.
She nodded, she didn’t know why. She’d begun to cry again, the tears running down her cheeks.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she said.
“You’ll go back to England.”
She looked at him.
“Is that all?” she said.
He made a vague gesture.
“Is that all?”
“I’ll meet you in five minutes,” he said.
She did not answer.
“Are you coming downstairs?”
“Yes,” she finally said.
“In a few minutes?”
“Yes.”
He did not move. He saw there was no need to. Instead he put his hand on her breast, he had been looking at it for weeks.
“Don’t,” she said. He felt her shudder. “Don’t.”
He turned her toward him.
It was as if they had spoken, as if it had always been agreed. The snow fell through the night.
There was a small item at the bottom of the page,
CLIMBER KILLED IN FALL.
His eye was skipping the words. The blood left his face, he tried to read calmly.
Wengen, Jan. 24. Authorities identified today a 23-year-old English climber who fell 3,000 feet to his death on the Eiger yesterday …
It was Sunday in Paris and cold. Around him people were talking, the television was on. He felt as drained and colorless as the day. Suddenly everything was dreary. He was irritated by French being spoken, by the strangers around him, by the ignorance of the world. He thought of a little grinning man in a dirty jacket, small hands. Are you coming to England? We’ll work together, he said. The two of us. Side by side.
C
ATHERIN CAME DOWN THE
stairway buttoning her coat. He was waiting outside.
They walked toward the center of town. There were people everywhere; Chamonix was filled with the last crowds of winter. Cars passed, spattered with mud.
“Well, what did he say?”
“It’s definite,” she said.
“Definite?”
“The test is positive.”
“I don’t understand it. How could that be?”
“It just is,” she said.
He was silent. He stared disinterestedly into shop windows as they walked.
“Would you like a coffee?” she asked.
They sat near the back, Rand slumped in his chair.
“Well, I see the news has thrilled you,” she remarked.
“It’s not that. It’s just …”
“What?”
“It’s just a surprise.”
“Well, I’m surprised, too.”
“It’s not exactly what I was planning on.”
“I see that.”
The waitress returned with the coffee.
“What
are
you planning on?” Catherin asked. She took three cubes of sugar and dropped them in the tiny cup.
“Not family life.”
She said nothing.
“I wouldn’t be a good father.”
“How do you know?” She was slowly stirring her coffee. “You’d be a very good father.”
“Don’t have it,” he finally said.
“It’s too late.”
“What do you mean, too late?”
“It’s sixteen weeks.”
The number meant nothing to him. He was sure she was lying. “I’d like to know how it happened,” he insisted. “How could it?”
“I don’t know. Something went wrong.”
“What?”
“Is this the investigation? Why didn’t you investigate before we started?”
“I can’t be a father,” he said.
She was silent.
“You don’t want to marry. Perhaps that’s what you mean.”
“Perhaps.”
“Yes. I understand.”
A terrible heaviness hung on him. He gazed around the room vaguely, as if for a different idea.
“Well, I don’t know what to do,” she complained.
“Catherin, you know what my life is like.”
“Ça veut dire quoi?”
After a while she added, “Do you want to go on like you are?”
“You don’t go on like you are. A year from now, two years, I won’t be the same.”
“What will you be?”
“How should I know? I don’t want to be tied down.”
“You won’t be,” she said. “I promise. You can always do anything you like.”
The words thrilled him. He might have accepted them on the spot if she had not been so abject. Besides, she would forget what she was saying now, her instincts as a woman would come out. That was what always happened.
“You want me to get rid of it,” she said finally.
Yes, he thought, but for some reason said nothing. There is a moment when the knife must be pushed in coldly, otherwise the victim triumphs. He looked at her, aware that the moment was passing.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered.
She knew that she had failed him. She felt helpless, in despair.
“Talk to me,” she pleaded.
He said nothing.
That spring he was seldom in Chamonix. He was up in one refuge hut or another, sometimes for days. It was early in the season. The sleeping rooms were empty, the mattresses side by side.
After
9
P.M. Silence,
commanded the signs.
Occasionally other climbers appeared. They rarely spoke. The huts were still cold from winter, with outdated tariffs pinned on the wall. It was difficult when he came back down. He came less often and stopped at the shop.
“Ça va?”
he murmured awkwardly. Her shape did not seem to have changed.
“How was it up there?”
“Still a lot of snow.”
“So that’s where it is,” she said.
He failed to smile. As soon as he could, he left, somewhat sensitive to what she might say. He hated parting comments. There was a kind of agreement that they were still somehow together, at least the appearance was maintained. In a town as small as Chamonix things are found out quickly although, in the strictest sense, they were outsiders.
“I’m going up to Argentière,” he said one day. “If conditions aren’t too good, I might wait around for a while, you know what I mean.”
“You don’t have to hurry back,” she said. “I’m not going to be here.”
It was like a sudden blow.
“Oh? Where are you going?”
There is a time when one says, I love you more than life itself, I will give you anything. Somehow the memory of that flickered before her—she was leaving, she had already decided—it was like a last glance back.
“I’m going to Paris,” she said.
“Well, I’ll see you when you come back.”
She did not answer. She was remembering his face for the last time. Her silence frightened him.
“Or will I?” he said. Suddenly he was desperate. He was tormented by her. He loved her and this love was choking him. He wanted her and was afraid of what it meant.
“No. I’m going to visit a friend,” she told him.
“Who?”
“What difference does it make?”
What difference? It was maddening. All the difference in the world, suddenly. He tried to convince her but she would not tell.
The friend was Henri Vigan. Catherin had once been his mistress—for two years—and left because he would not marry her. She went back to him. He accepted her willingly. If she wished, he said, he would consider the child as his own.