Narita Airport’s customs office closed in less than ten minutes, and the four Japanese men quickly got out of their vehicle and ran into the hangar, carrying paperwork and official documents under their arms. Jean-Christophe de G. and Marie followed at their heels, Marie in skirt and black boots, her leather coat folded over her arm, which she put on without breaking stride to protect herself from the cold drafts in this dark, humid space. The hangar, a vast space of more than twenty thousand square feet, looked like an abandoned fish market after closing time when the stands are shut and the workers are spraying down the floor with hoses. The lights were turned off in most of the sections, there were boxes covered with tarps, there were empty shelves, a freight elevator was stationed nearby, duckboards strewn on the floor. Here and there forklifts moved to and fro through empty alleys, driven by workers in hardhats and white gloves transporting goods to the few open sectors, tiny islets of bustling activity violently lit by white fluorescent lights, where warehouse workers carried boxes toward lifts, boxes of goods of all sorts, vacuum-sealed or in worn cardboard boxes riddled with tags, crates of fresh produce poorly tied. The customs office was at the back of the hangar, at the center of a space reserved for airlines, their check-in counters empty, nothing remaining but a few makeshift signs posted here and there on the walls, KLM Cargo, SAS Cargo, Lufthansa Cargo.
In the customs office the four Japanese men talked to a customs official, a man with a sickly pallor, his face livid, emaciated, wearing an official’s hat bearing the airport’s insignia and a masuku over his mouth, a mask of white gauze that covered his mouth and nose to protect him from microbes. He was going over a document concerning the transportation of the thoroughbred when, seeing Jean-Christophe de G. come into the office, he dropped what he was doing and bowed to offer his apologies, telling Jean-Christophe de G. in English through the thin layer of gauze covering his mouth that he was sorry for making him wait in the cargo zone and that he’d try to board the horse without further delay. Jean-Christophe de G. considered the officer incredulously, realizing from his hissed apologies, filtered twice over (by the language barrier and the thickness of the mask material), that getting the thoroughbred through customs successfully, which project had caused him such anxiety, and whose success, only seconds earlier, he believed to be compromised, had just been taken care of without any complications.
Jean-Christophe de G. had stepped out of the hangar and was waiting for the horse’s travel stall to arrive so that they could proceed with the boarding. The trailer’s driver had opened the back door of the vehicle and lowered the metal ramp in the rain, while the other workers gathered around the back end of the trailer. Two of them looked like Yakuzas or young Japanese thugs, wearing belted bomber jackets with orange lining, while the third worker, wide-framed, stocky, entirely bald, his neck wide and thick, his skin like buffalo horn, was perhaps just as Japanese as the others, but would have fit in in any of the world’s cities, Moscow, New York, with his rock star’s bodyguard look and the tiny, international slits of his eyes, a natural citizen of the world. Apparently they weren’t authorized to touch the horse, they were only there to look after the horse’s safety, prevent anyone from getting too close. And they didn’t do any more than what was asked of them, pleased as they were to keep watch by the vehicle, their imposing presence alone acting as a strong deterrent. The travel stall hadn’t arrived yet, and two of the four Japanese men had stepped inside the trailer to try to calm the horse, to appease it, gently petting its neck. Since after the firing of Zahir’s trainer that same morning, and not only the trainer but the whole crew, including the traveling “head lad” (which, in hindsight, was a grave mistake, even Jean-Christophe de G. had to admit this), the thoroughbred no longer had a stable-hand, it had lost its regular stable-hand, its trustworthy stable-hand who had traveled with it since its birth, who had always been by its side, who fed it in new settings and led it around the paddock before races, the only one with whom the horse felt comfortable.
The travel stall finally reached the lot, borne aloft on a flat trailer like a parade float, towed by a small electric vehicle that carried it in its wake. The tow vehicle went around the various cars parked near the warehouses and came to a stop by the minibus at the hangar’s entrance. Lufthansa’s station manager was to oversee the handling of the horse, walkie-talkie in hand, wearing a black slicker over his suit in the rain. Two technicians stepped out of the tow vehicle and climbed onto the trailer, unbolted the doors, and set up an inclined plane by means of which the horse could reach the travel stall, a sort of watertight caisson, metallic and ridged, on whose surface bits of yellowish orange Lufthansa stickers remained partially stuck. Marie had taken shelter from the rain in the hangar and observed the proceedings from a distance. All the doors were open, but the horse remained invisible in the depths of the trailer, where all eyes were now fixed. There was no sign of the thoroughbred’s presence apart from a few quiet whinnies coming from inside the trailer and a strong horse smell, a pungent mix of hay and manure, combining with the smell of rain and the stench of kerosene.
Then, slowly, the thoroughbred’s croup emerged — its black croup, smooth and shiny — as it stepped backward, its back hooves seeking holds on the ramp, loudly clinking on the metal and stamping in place, wildly nervous, shying to the side before being brought back on track. Its only form of harness consisted of a halter and a lead, and it wore a short rug of luxurious purple velvet on its back, its legs carefully wrapped with protective bandages and Velcro-strapped travel boots, the bulbs of its heels and its tendons double wrapped to prevent cuts and scrapes. Eleven hundred pounds of fury, of strained nerves, and of excitement had just appeared in the night. Its coat black with a fine sheen, its muscles pronounced, it was descending the ramp backward, the two Japanese men in navy-blue blazers pushing all their weight into its shoulders lest it slip, holding on to the lead, tugging it and keeping it taut. The horse wasn’t cooperating, the stubborn beast, turning its head in an attempt to break loose, snorting, fighting, shivers spontaneously shaking its mane like visible waves of tension and excitement. Its physical strength was astonishing, a beastly electric energy emanated from its body. The two Japanese men seemed overwhelmed by their task, losing their footing, their blazers swinging open and their ties thrown over their shoulders, they grunted and groaned out stifled and vain calls for help, their hands and faces trembling, their emotions on edge. Immobile on the ramp, the thoroughbred stood stock still, stepping neither forward nor backward in spite of the men’s efforts, who continued to pull on the lead to no avail. Lufthansa’s station manager, walkie-talkie in hand, walked up to the trailer and no one moved, not the horse, stationed mid-ramp — immobile, furious, imperial — nor the onlookers, entranced by the sheer force of this unflinching stallion, its long and powerful muscles, tense, bulging, and the contrast marked by the graceful step of its legs, the finesse of its pasterns, skinny and narrow, delicate like a woman’s wrists.