Solo Faces (14 page)

They waited until eight o’clock. The helicopter never appeared. Instead they took the train to Montenvers, a special trip was made just before dark. A girl from the hotel kitchen gave them coffee. They sat on the ground by the doorway. The dining room windows were alight.

It was after ten when they started down the steel ladders that led to the glacier. The sky was black. They could see nothing above or below. The cold air of the ice age rose to meet them. By the jerky light of headlamps they began to make their way. Even at night, in the most dismal hours, the glacier creaked slowly. The sound of hidden water came from beneath.

On the far side the uphill path began. The packs were heavy. From time to time someone slipped and fell in the dark. It became colder, whether from the late hour or altitude one could not tell.

At two in the morning they reached the
rognon.
They crawled into their sleeping bags wherever. The young climber from the refuge hut, Hilm, did not have one. He slept leaning against his pack, a worn jacket pulled up over his head.

Daylight awakened them. It was after six. There were patches of blue in the sky. The clouds looked thin. The Dru was dark, ominous, dusted with snow. Like a huge organ in a cathedral it seemed capable of abrupt, chilling tones.

On the lower portion there seemed to be little ice. Higher, it was difficult to tell. The very top, where the roofs are clustered, was hidden by cloud.

“See anything up there?”

Rand had the binoculars.

“No.”

“Where are they, exactly?”

“I’m not sure,” Rand said.

“There’s an awful lot of snow on it.”

“Let’s have some tea.” He was already unpacking the things to prepare it. His eyes burned from lack of sleep. His limbs felt stale. “It doesn’t look bad. It looks like it’s clearing.”

Not long after came the faint, wavering sound of a helicopter. It was far off. Finally they saw it, coming up the valley. It turned toward the Dru.

“Why don’t you call them and see what’s going on? Something may have happened,” Dennis said.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. They may have died.”

An impenetrable static came over the radio as soon as it was turned on. It was difficult to hear anything.
“Allô, allô,”
Rand called. The helicopter was nearly overhead.
“Les Italiens,”
he was repeating,
“comment vont-ils?”

The helicopter was banking, close to the face. He had the radio to his ear. There was chatter he could not understand. Then, faintly,
“Ils agitent leurs mains …”

“What did he say?”

“They’re waving. They’re alive.”

“Oh. Good,” Dennis muttered.

They were eating bread and jam with dirty fingers, sorting out the gear. Rand and Dennis would lead, the other two were to follow. The couloir looked safe. They’d try it. They descended to the snowfield.

At the base of the mountain, Rand looked up. From here it had lost its shape. Cold as steel, it seemed to rise on and on. Had he really climbed it? Had he climbed it twice?

“Hello, you son of a bitch,” he murmured.

It was 7
A.M.
There were at least twelve remaining hours of light. He stood there, taller than the others, almost ungainly, storklike. He was wearing a knit cap under his helmet. Cuver crossed himself with a barely visible gesture. Not bothering to rope up they began to climb.

D
ENNIS HAD BEEN IN
Chamonix three weeks. It was his first visit. He had never made, here or in England, he had never imagined a climb like this. He could not believe he was doing it. At any moment he expected to be unable to go on. He dared not think about it. Late in the morning as pitch after awesome pitch unrolled, hardly aware of how it was happening he found himself on the most terrifying face.

The climbing was harder than he’d dreamed. The snow had to be cleared from holds. Higher up, there was ice, a slick, unyielding ice that could not be completely chopped away. His hands were cold. He was breathing on his fingers, clenching and unclenching, trying to warm them.

In more than one place he called for the rope, he could not have gotten up otherwise. His helmet was crooked, his gear in disarray. He was on a small cliff, close to the ground, he told himself, it was delicate but there was no risk. If necessary he could jump down, he pretended. He must not let the vastness affect him, if he did he was lost.

Whatever the others felt, he knew they would never reach the stranded climbers. What might happen apart from that, he would not guess. All that allowed him to go on, all that preserved him from panic was a kind of numbness, an absolute concentration on every hold and a faith, complete, unthinking, in the tall figure above.

The clouds were lower. By two in the afternoon it began once more to snow.

“The weather’s coming in,” was all Rand said.

Dennis waited for something more.

“Shouldn’t we go down?” he asked.

“It doesn’t look that bad. You’ve climbed in worse than this.”

“Actually, I haven’t.”

The snow was coming sideways, stinging their eyes.

“We can’t stay here,” Rand said. He looked up to find the way. In his worn clothes and gauntness he appeared to be a secondary figure, someone in the wake of failed campaigns. It did not matter. He would do it. He was not merely making an ascent. He was clinging to the back of this monster. He had his teeth in the great beast.

That evening they bivouacked in the storm. The wind was blowing their matches out. The smallest act took on immense dimensions. They were wet and cold. Cuver sat huddled next to Rand. On the far side of him, half-hidden, was Hilm, the fragment of his profile as impassive, withdrawn, as if they were still on the Fourche. What his thoughts were, Rand could not tell. His own, obsessive, slow, stretched like an ocean current for endless miles. He was thinking of Cabot.

There are men who seem destined to always go first, to lead the way. They are confident in life, they are the first to go beyond it. Whatever there is to know, they learn before others. Their very existence gives strength and drives one onward. Love and jealousy were mingled there in the darkness, love and despair.

From above the snow slid down in airy sheets. None of them slept. They sat silent and close together till dawn, tied to the rock.

The sky grew clearer. The snow stopped. They climbed all that day, slowly at first and then more quickly, bodies warming, the icy ledge of the night left far behind. In the afternoon the sun came through the clouds. It raised their spirits. They heard the helicopter but did not see it.

Dennis had outclimbed his fear. An exhilaration that was almost dizzying came over him. He was one of them, he was holding his own.

Far above a length of rope was hanging by itself. Rand pointed,

“There they are,” he said.

“Where?”

“See it?”

“No, where are you looking?”

“Beneath the overhangs. There. Paul!” he called down. A face looked up. He pointed again.

“I see it,” Dennis cried. “Way up.”

“We’re not going to reach them today.” He cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hello!” he shouted. The sound dissolved in space. There was no answer. “We’re coming!” he called.
“Veniamo!”
He paused. “Do you hear them?” he asked.

“No.”

“Hello!” he shouted again. “Hell-o!” He waited. The vastness of the face was the only reply. As loudly as he could he cried, “We’re coming!”

In response, as slow as a dream, something white, a bit of cloth, a handkerchief came floating clear. They had heard him. They were alive.

The clouds were in a layer smooth as water. They had lost their darkness, their density. Beneath them was a band of open sky, a narrow horizon crushed by light.

They called to the Italians from their second bivouac. A head appeared, cautious, almost disinterested. Rand waved. In the morning they would reach them.

T
ALL, UNSHAVEN, A CHILDISH
grin on his face—such was the image that incredibly rose from the void. The two Italians had been hunched on the narrow ledge for nine days. Nine days of exhaustion, of cold, expecting they would die.

It was the man who was injured, he had broken his shoulder. The girl, who was as ragged as he, had astonishing white teeth. She said something in Italian. Rand couldn’t understand it.

“Parl’ italiano?”
she asked.

A little, he indicated.

“É spaccato,”
she said.

“Ah,
spaccato,
” Rand repeated uncomprehendingly.

Dennis was just below the ledge.

“Come up,” Rand told him. “Can you understand Italian?”

“We have company,” Dennis said as he reached them.

“What do you mean?”

“Down there. Look.”

It was another party, made up of guides. They had crossed over from the North Face and were now just below. They were calling to him.

Two rescue parties arriving at the same time or nearly—the story reached Chamonix that afternoon. What made it more extraordinary was the discussion that had taken place between them. The guides had come up an easier route and there were seven of them. They wanted to bring the Italians down. No, Rand told them. The helicopter was flying past, there were crowds at Montenvers.

“No,” he said. “We got here first. They’re ours.”

Against the vertical rock in sunlight, motley and at ease, were the amateurs who had made the rescue—photographs would be in every European paper—and the reply to the guides,
“Ils sont à nous.”
In Chamonix nevertheless was a wonderful mood of satisfaction, as if the reputation of the town had been saved.

That evening they reached a ledge halfway down. The weather had been mild all day. The small stove was burning in the dusk. The worst seemed behind them. A cup half-filled with bouillon passed from hand to hand until it reached the injured man.

“Molto grazie,”
he murmured. He would never forget the courage of his rescuers, he said later, in the hospital. His cheeks were black with a two-week beard. His fiancée was beside him.

“We could not move,” she said in Italian. “The ice was everywhere. After Sergio fell, he could not use his arm. We had very little food. The storm went on. We were finished. Then came this beautiful American.”

She was broad-faced, like an Oriental, and had a silky, dark mustache. She was full of passion and life.
Questo bel’ Americano …
he’d had his picture taken with the others, lounging like fishermen, when they got down to the
rognon.
Then, returning to town, he somehow disappeared. He sneaked in the back door of Sport Giro and into a small office where Remy found him, eating a tangerine. He did not want to talk to any reporters. He wanted the pleasure of being notorious, unknown.

It was not to be so simple. They were looking for him everywhere, the town could not hide him. Remy came back to tell him they were in the front of the shop.

“Look, they’re not going to leave you alone.”

“Do they know I’m here?”

“No, of course not. They came to buy equipment,” he said.

Someone was already at the door.

Rand attempted to slip past them, refusing to talk. They would not let him leave, he was too singular, too bizarre.

“No,” he told them. “No.”

“Oh, be decent. It’s not we who want to see you,” one of them said.

He had always been an actor, the call had never come. Now, in the parking lot in front of the Hôtel des Alpes across the way, he was given his role. He was weary but full of grace. Listening patiently to the questions, he tried to respond. He wore a shy smile, it sometimes grew broader, a smile on top of a smile. His long face loomed on the screens of France, gaunt, natural, the wind blowing his dirty hair. Did he feel himself a hero, they immediately asked?

“A hero,” he said, “no, no. It wasn’t an act of heroism. It was more a debt I owed the mountain. Anyway, it wasn’t me. Four of us did it, I was one of them.”

That night they would see him from their dinner tables, mixed in with cabinet ministers and the latest cars. Women would watch from kitchen doorways as he looked down at the ground.

This was the mountain he had climbed with Cabot and again with Bray. Bray was dead.

“Yes.”

“The great faces exact their price.”

“No, not that way,” he said. “You pay, yes. You have to give everything, but you don’t have to die.”

They were watching in old people’s homes, in cafés. In the large house in Izeaux, Catherin in her last weeks of waiting saw it. Vigan was at her side. She could feel the child move within her as she watched. She sat quietly. She did not want to reveal the intensity of her interest or the stab of longing that went with it. She felt faint.

“But John Bray, killed on the Eiger …”

Rand was silent. “Yes,” he admitted. “I mourn for Bray. Not really for him, for myself.”

“By that, you mean …?”

Ah, well, he couldn’t answer. “He died, but that’s not the end of it,” was all he could say.

“When you think that the guides of Chamonix,” Vigan said, “the gendarmes, the army, all of them …” He did not finish the sentence. He rose and stood watching the end.

“You love the mountains …,” they said.

“Not the mountains,” he replied. “No, not the mountains. I love life.”

Whoever did not believe him did not have eyes to see. People remembered. It gave him a name.
“Bonjour, monsieur,”
the woman greeted him at the
douches.
His honesty touched one. That worn, angelic face, filled with happiness, stayed in one’s thoughts.

That night he had no worries, no concerns. He let his glass be filled and relived the climb. Afterward he slept at Remy’s. He slept as he had the first time, long ago, as if all the earth were his and the night his chamber. He slept untroubled, with swollen hands.

When he woke he was famous. His face poured off the presses of France. It was repeated on every kiosk, in the pages of magazines, his interview read on buses by working girls on their way home. Suddenly, into the small rooms and houses, the ordinary streets, he brought a glimpse of something unspoiled. For two hundred years France had held the idea of the noble savage, simple, true. Unexpectedly he had appeared. His image cleansed the air like rain. He was the envoy of a breed one had forgotten, generous, unafraid, with a saintly smile and the vascular system of a marathon runner.