The Gobi Desert (15 page)

That was all, and that was enough, as will become clear.

‘Sanders,' I said, with a kindness that was more and more merciless, ‘do you like this kind of crepe as much as that? Shush, don't interrupt, please. One really must like something very much to order it when it doesn't appear on the menu. Or perhaps it's because one is with someone who very much likes this item, and who one is trying hard to please, isn't that so? Now, black oat crepes with kirsch, I have only ever known one person who liked them so much, to the point where I also would have spent my last kopeck in getting them for her. And this person, do you insist that I should tell you her name?'

‘Michel!' he tried again to stammer.

‘Ah! Well then, shut up!' I said with a sudden violence. ‘I've had enough!'

*

It is essential that you understand me. Otherwise this ludicrous scene will seem no more than just a quarrel between two madmen. The fact that Sanders had eaten black oat crepes in company with Alzire, what could be more natural, and why should something so trivial upset me so much? He had slept with her, hadn't he? Yes, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he had religiously kept this menu, and then in his present confusion, with his terrible emotions, he had allowed me to discover this bed of roses. Come on, there could no longer be any doubt about it. I was a child not to have realised it earlier. He loved Alzire. He loved her. I couldn't think of anything that could prove that more clearly. He loved her to the point where he did everything he could to prevent me from writing to her, or receiving any news from her; to the point where just the idea that I might see her again one day was agony for him. He preferred to create occasions to pour rubbish over her, rather than not to say anything about her. Such was the real nature of the sympathy which he claimed to have for me, the old hypocrite! If I imagined for one moment that the favour I enjoyed with him was due solely to my merits, you could say that this event had really opened my eyes!

Ah yes! There was something else worth saying. Wherever she might be at that moment, dear Alzire, and however unconcerned she might be about her two lovers in the Gobi Desert, in the depths of their frozen darkness, she knew, at least, how to impose herself in their thoughts.

We remained like that opposite each other, without saying a word, as if Death had come and was also looking at us. Then I burst out laughing, in a painful, sorrowful, laugh

‘Michel,' Sanders begged, ‘how could you . . . ? At such a moment!'

Yes, he was right about that. You might say that we were going into battle on good terms.

He was infernal, this Kublai, playing hide-and-seek with us as if it were not a game but for real. It was already a week that this little joke had been going on. The day after the discussion which I have just been talking about, I went to see our leader, to shake his hand.

‘I'm sorry, Mr Sanders. There are times when one is no longer quite one's self, you know!'

‘You don't have to apologise, my friend. Fatigue, loneliness, I understand! It's the same in the hot deserts, the Sahara for example.'

And life began again between the two of us, for a few days at least, as if nothing had happened, as before.

Again, this cursed Kublai! It wasn't two, or three, but four caves at the entrance to which, just in case, we had had to fix crampons. In the morning, the indications were that the animal was here; in the afternoon, it was over there. Anyway, it was never where we expected it to be. The men were getting restless. As for Sanders, he didn't lose any of his self-assurance. Even so, you could feel that even he was beginning to get annoyed.

One evening he said to me:

‘Michel, I'm sure it will be tomorrow.'

We had already got back into our lorry. He knelt down by his couch, and made the sign of the cross, a gesture which I had seen him make two or three times before. His grandmother was Catholic, of Irish origin, I think. It was something he remembered from time to time, usually when things were not going quite as well as he wanted.

*

The next day was a day of snow such as we had never seen before. It seemed that the closer we got to Spring, the colder the weather became. You could have made me laugh, when I was a child, and I looked through picture albums about natural history, if you had told me that the day would come when, in the same sort of weather, I would set off on a tiger hunt, especially on a hunt for a snow tiger.

I had stayed behind at the camp that morning, not for my own pleasure, but because – and I don't know why – Sanders had ordered both Nain-Sain and me to do so. Shortly before midday he turned up unexpectedly, covered in frost like a snowman.

He threw his fur hat into the air. ‘That's it! We've got him,' he shouted.

‘Who?'

‘Him, for God's sake! We've got him, or as good as! The whole matter will be sorted out during the course of today. Anyway I did the right thing to keep you here as reinforcements, you and Nain-Sain. Something told me that it would turn out like this. But we haven't got a minute to lose. Come on, let's go!'

‘And the others, where are they?' I asked.

He waved his hand towards the south, in a gesture which signified that he didn't really care.

‘In that direction, on the wrong track. Welowski and Neratov were stubborn. They believed that their cave was the right one. I also thought that for a moment. There were certainly some relatively fresh footprints around it. I came back with Ilichine intending to go back there, just in case they were right, with the truck and the jack, since we only have one. But then what we saw on the way here has made us completely change our plan.'

Briefly he told us what had happened. Half an hour earlier, at the bottom of a ravine, they had come face to face with Kublai, who was dragging by the throat a yak which was almost as big as itself. The animal took no more notice of their presence than if they had never existed. They followed it carefully. The enormous tiger calmly made its way towards cave number one, the one where on the first day I had been given the task of fixing the crampons. It disappeared inside with its prey, at which point Sanders had left Ilichine on guard and returned hurriedly to the camp.

‘We have a tremendous opportunity. For the next hour he will be having his dinner. So we will surprise him while he is digesting it. Even for Kublai, a yak twice the size as your average Australian cow can't be digested just like that, you know! Come on, let's get a move on!'

While he was talking, and helped by Nain-Sain, he loaded the crate containing the net, and the box of rockets, on to the strongest of our vehicles, the one which had the crane mounted on the back.

‘Youen, you stay here. If any of the other gentlemen gets back before us, tell him what's happening, and say that my strict orders are that he must not move from the camp for any reason whatsoever. I do not want anyone coming along and finding us, and jeopardising our work.'

‘There will only be four of us!' I objected. ‘Don't you think it would be more prudent . . . ?'

Sanders shrugged his shoulders.

‘You think there should be a dozen of us, as if to beat him out of the bushes? You know nothing about this, my friend. The fewer we are, the better it is, especially when we have perfect equipment such as this. Ask Nain-Sain what he thinks!'

The Mongolian gave a grimace of a smile, which could conceivably be taken as approval.

‘Kiss, will you be quiet! Youen, I nearly forgot. Shut that little squirt up in the lorry. He wouldn't be able to save himself if he came to see what was happening, barking like that. Is everything ready?'

‘This time it's you who is forgetting his rifle,' I remarked.

He laughed. ‘My God, you're right. These are items which we shall hardly have use of today, I hope. But we'll take them all the same. But I'm not joking. My orders are not to use them except in the most extreme circumstances.'

I didn't say anything, just kept to myself the thought as to what such an extreme circumstance might be.

‘Are we ready? OK? Right, let's go!' said Sanders.

We set off.

*

Sanders was at the wheel. I was sitting next to him. Behind us Nain-Sain was hunched up on the luggage, trying to prevent it from all coming loose. The crane tripod looked like a sort of lugubrious spider. The sky had that yellowish-brown colour of a river which has burst its banks in winter.

We drove along the bottom of the ravine where Sanders had encountered the tiger. The engine was no longer making much noise. But even so it was too much for our liking. We judged it advisable to stop a good distance from the cavern. This was annoying, because it meant we had to carry all the boxes ourselves. On top of which, we had to make a detour so as not to directly approach the entrance to the cave. Three doleful birds, one after the other, flew over our heads, crows with bare collars and brown plumage. Their cawing was miserable, mournful . . .

‘They're like vultures!' Sanders cursed. ‘You go for a month or more without seeing any, and then it has to be just at this moment . . . !'

He was carrying the three rifles, as well as the box with the rockets. Nain-Sain and I had to struggle with the crate containing the net. The track was steep. I was sweating. I stumbled at almost every step.

‘There's still more than two hundred metres to go, Michel! If you and Nain-Sain are getting tired, stop here! Ilichine will come and give you a hand.'

‘There's no point!' I said, bracing myself as best I could. ‘We're not completely done in just yet!'

*

We reached a little crest. We couldn't see the cave from there, since it was a bit lower down. On the other hand we noticed, silhouetted against the sky and huddled up like a dark pebble, the outline of Ilichine. He had heard us coming. He made a sign to us to slow down, and to proceed only with the greatest caution.

We took a whole ten minutes to complete the last part of the journey, ten minutes almost on our stomachs. Ilichine, crawling on hands and knees, came about twenty metres to meet up with us.

‘What's new?' murmured Sanders.

‘Absolutely nothing, chief. There's only one thing I can tell you, and that's that he is still there.'

‘All quiet?'

‘Yes. At least, I haven't heard anything.'

‘So much the better! That proves the cave is deep. He won't hear us either. Provided it's not too deep, however. Because of the rockets, you see? They must be able to do what they're supposed to do. The rest of you, follow me, please.'

I did as he said, as did Nain-Sain. Still on our knees, we reached the edge of the plateau. From there we looked down to the entrance to the cave. The two upper crampons – which I knew well since it was me who had fixed them in place – were no more than fifty centimetres from my hands.

We had to decide what to do next. Sanders had so often bent our ears about what would happen. Even so he insisted on going over it once more.

‘You, Michel, you see to the two upper hooks! Nain-Sain, the three on the right. You, Ilichine, the one on the left. All clear and understood?'

He himself took responsibility for securing the bottom of the net to the three crampons fixed in the ground, which was the most risky part of the job. We needn't worry about how he would do this. The composure of Nain-Sain and Ilichine was admirable. I think I didn't do too badly either in this respect. But I had the feeling that we had no existence of our own next to Sanders, or rather that we existed only in relation to him.

‘Michel,' he said, with a smile which lit up his coarse face, ‘those two upper hooks, you know what they mean? I don't need to go over your role again do I?'

I shook my head. No, of course, he didn't need to go over it again. I knew that once the action had started, it would be on me that the final outcome would depend. It was I who had responsibility for this famous pulley, to which all the ropes and stringing of the net were attached, and which would immediately close up. It was definitely not a question of physical strength, but of alertness, and seizing the opportunity. When Mikado was captured, Sanders had taken on this task for himself. What greater testimony could I have of the confidence which he placed in me!

‘These wretched creatures!' he grumbled through his teeth.

He was talking about the crows with the red plumage which continued to circle round and round above our heads while calling to each other. Their unbearable cries couldn't fail to wake up the tiger! Anyway, we had to hurry.

‘The net!' Sanders ordered.

It was still in the crate, about twenty paces behind us on the plateau. Sanders and I went back to get it. We stretched it out. It made me shudder to feel it so thin yet so taut between my fingers. Would it be strong enough for the job? When you thought of the enormous animal, and the desperate movements it would have to restrain!

Ilichine, huddled up at the edge of the plateau, had resumed his watch while waiting for us. Sanders was busy emptying the box of rockets. He also took out the big glass syringe, already full of its crimson liquid.

The net was fully extended on the snow, which it covered with its grey chequered pattern. Now it only remained to secure it to the nine crampons fixed around the entrance to the cave. We started with the two top ones. We let the net gently drop down the side of the wall. I stayed by myself on the plateau while my three companions, clinging to the rocks, climbed down the five or six metres till they were level with the entrance to the cave. None of them was armed. It was me who, up above, my rifle in my hands, was responsible for ensuring their safety while they were adjusting the net.

‘Everything seems to be OK!' muttered Sanders.

One by one he checked the crampons and the way in which the mesh had been fixed to them. Stretched out like that, the net now seemed like a gigantic pocket, swelling out over the entrance to the cave. As soon as the tiger rushed in to that pocket, it only remained to operate the pulley, and then . . . . . .

Ilichine on the left, Nain-Sain on the right, from now on they seemed to be transformed into statues. They glanced up to reclaim their rifles from me. I leant over the edge to hand them down. Only Sanders now remained unarmed. He had forbidden himself to be burdened with even the smallest item of equipment, given the role which he was now called upon to play.

I observed these preparations a bit like a spectator sitting in a box in a theatre. I seemed to have no part in the performance, any more than a member of the audience would have. I forgot that I was holding in my hands the vital strings of the drama, a drama which was going to come to life at any moment. A sense of complete indifference had taken hold of me. Suddenly nothing was of any interest to me, except for one thing, and one thing alone. I knew that at that same moment, in a room somewhere in Macao, there was a young woman called Alzire, and that this young woman would be getting dressed so as to be ready, as her daily work required, for the hour of the
aperitif-dansant
at the casino. If I was here, my finger on the trigger of this rifle, in these funereal surroundings, with these three mangy birds wheeling and squawking above me, watching for Death which was about to leap out from this hole, it was for this little Alzire, for her alone, as I said, so that she might have a bit of happiness, that's to say that it might be possible for her to allow herself some of those trivial things without which a woman cannot live, soft shoes, stockings with little pockets for money, silk gloves, little bottles of perfume, a fragile and vain panoply of things which any real man worthy of the name must devote himself to achieving, otherwise he would run the risk of shaming himself for ever.

*

What was happening? It was Sanders. He was waving to me from down below.

‘Are you there, Michel?'

I saw him rather than heard him murmur that. Yes, I was here! I was brought back to reality with a start. There was, all the same, whether you liked it or not, something disturbing in seeing him like that, more vulnerable than a new-born child, all alone, in the face of a nameless peril which was going to leap out at any moment. It had stopped snowing. The wind had died down. There was a harrowing silence. Over the ghastly desert there stretched a gloomy, wine-coloured sky. And suddenly, for no reason, I was afraid, yes, afraid. God Almighty, this was a fine moment! I wasn't going to start shaking, was I? Feverishly, my fingers gripped the ropes of the pulley. I licked my lips. I looked at Sanders. If I had to warn him of danger, to put him on his guard, to shout out to him, I don't know if I could have managed to do so.