How do we get in there? he asked. There was something hungry in his look.
The waiter came with the check. Clemens said he’d have another beer. Will you have something else as well? His voice sounded beseeching, almost fearful. Christoph ordered an apple juice. He waited till the drinks came, then he began to speak. As he spoke, he had the sensation he was making the descent all over again.
He waded through a gallery deep in the interior of the mountain. The water was ice-cold and getting deeper, he was in it up to his belly, his chest, his chin. From the end of the grotto, where there were only a few inches between the ceiling and the water’s surface, a passage led steeply up. It was so narrow that once Christoph had crept into it, he was unable to put his hands back. He pushed himself up with the tips of his toes, inch by inch, just behind the guide. They didn’t speak, all that could be heard was the scraping of their boots and the occasional grunt or cough. He had long since lost all sense of time when the man in front of him stopped and said, We’ve reached the fault, it might take a while. Christoph was surprised by how close his voice sounded. Swearing, the guide pushed himself through the narrowest point. Christoph waited. The cold penetrated his neoprene suit and spread slowly through his body. He shut his eyes and pictured himself lying coffined in rock, a foreign body. We’re buried alive, he thought, we’ll never get out of here. Suddenly he became conscious that he was breathing fast. He forced himself not to think about where he was, tried to remember the words of children’s songs, added up the royalties he would get for his pictures, pictured landscapes, a wide expanse of sky, passing clouds. Then the man in front of him was gone, and Christoph looked through the fault and laughed nervously. You want me to get through there? You can do it, he heard the voice of his companion, which seemed to come from nowhere but was still very close. We’re halfway there. Christoph’s body pushed itself forward, mindlessly as a machine.
Clemens had been listening with shining eyes. I’ve gotta get in there, he said, when Christoph stopped. Will you take me? Christoph said there were no tours to that part of the cave. You could put in a word for us, said Clemens. He said he was prepared to pay. Sabine looked into Christoph’s eyes with a mixture of skepticism and adventure lust. It would be simplest for you, he said, you’re slimly built. It’s not dangerous, he said, the only danger is being afraid. Fear, he repeated, is the only danger.
Clemens went to the washroom. Christoph saw him exchange words with the waiter before disappearing downstairs. Even before he had returned, the waiter had brought a bottle of wine and three glasses.
How long have you two been together? Christoph asked.
Two years, said Sabine. He’s crazy, she said. He does all kinds of things, freeclimbing, canyoning, off-track skiing. Once he smashed into a snow slab because he was in slack country. He’s completely crazy.
YOU CAN STAY WITH US, Clemens had said, and ordered another bottle of wine, which he’d gone on to drink almost alone. They talked about the equipment, dry runs, and the best time for the expedition. Sabine hardly drank anything, and was as quiet as before. Christoph still disliked Clemens, but he allowed himself to be caught up in the excitement. It was like a game, a contest. It was all about—suddenly it dawned on him—who was going to get Sabine. They were fighting over this cool, childlike woman, who wasn’t even paying attention. He felt he had blundered into a trap. When Clemens asked him to stay the night, he had no choice. The game had to be played to a finish.
Christoph felt the alcohol, but he wasn’t drunk. Clemens staggered up the steps of the apartment complex. It took him forever to get the key in the lock. From the very first moment, Christoph felt ill at ease in the apartment, he didn’t know why. His hosts seemed to have no sense of beautiful things. They had the bare necessities, and even so the apartment looked untidy. The furniture didn’t match and was in the wrong places, jumbled together by chance, it seemed, as though it had been unloaded and left standing there.
Clemens had disappeared without a word. Sabine showed Christoph the guest room. He watched as she made the bed. She went out and came back with a towel. Clemens is asleep already, she said. He didn’t even get undressed.
Christoph went to the bathroom. When he was finished, he found Sabine in the living room, leafing through a photo album. He sat down beside her, and she handed the album over to him and went to the bathroom herself. Gunung Mulu, Malaysia, he read at the top of the page. The pictures were not very good. You couldn’t light a big cave with a single flash. On some of them you could see Clemens, on others there was a pretty blond woman, with a gamine expression. The last picture showed them standing together in dirty overalls, with tired smiles on their faces. Between them stood a native, about a head smaller, and with an alert expression. At the back of the album was a sheaf of photos that hadn’t yet been stuck down. Christoph began going through the album from the front. Pictures from a different expedition. There was the blond woman again, this time in a diving costume.
That’s his ex, said Sabine. She stood in front of him in leggings and an orange sleeveless T-shirt. She had narrow hips and a flat boyish chest. She asked him if he wanted a drink. What about a beer? A glass of water, said Christoph.
She brought it to him and sat back down. He went on leafing through the album, and they saw photos of beaches and old temples, and over and over again the blond gamine. They broke up over that business of the snow slab, Sabine said. It took Clemens a long time to get over her. Do you like her?
Her hands were folded in her lap. Christoph looked at her arms, which were anorexically thin, and covered with little black hairs. She gave off a smell—it took him a while to trace it—of camphor. It wasn’t till she pointed out something in one of the pictures that he noticed her knotty hands. Sabine must be much older than he first thought, perhaps older than himself.
She laughed softly. He’s crazy, she said, but I’m crazy too. And you must be as well? We’re all crazy. Why do you think we want to go in that cave? Why do you want to go there? Nirvana. Because no one else has been there?
Christoph shrugged his shoulders and shut the album.
We want to fuck the planet, said Sabine. She stood up and held out her hand. We’re going to fuck the planet.
SHE DIDN’T STOP WHISPERING. Never mind, she said. Her mouth was right up against Christoph’s ear, he could feel her lips brushing against it. They had tried hard, but that hadn’t helped. Christoph hadn’t been able to shake from his mind the caves she’d listed in the bar, and he’d thought she was just out for one more conquest, another name on another list.
Never mind, Sabine said again, as if she wasn’t quite convinced the first time. Her breath was coming and going in pants. Then she started fiddling with him again, with a silly giggle that got worse the longer it went on. Stop that, he finally said. I don’t feel like it. Right away she stopped, and was quiet. He moved away from her a little, he couldn’t stand her nearness. But she came after him, pressed herself against him. In the end, he sat up on the side of the bed. It was dark in the room, and he sat there and stared into the dark. What’s the matter? Sabine asked. Christoph still didn’t speak. Endure the dark, he thought, tolerate the silence. He heard the rustle of the sheets. Sabine must have sat up as well. She didn’t touch him, but he could sense that she was right behind him. It was completely dark. He heard her voice coming out of the void, sounding very calm and objective. You’re not going to take us with you, are you? You won’t dream of it. The thought seemed to amuse her, and she started her giggling again. Christoph turned his head half toward her, and said he didn’t think he would ever set foot in a cave again. Sabine laid her hand on his bare back, as if to push him away. I can’t do it anymore, he said. And then, slowly and haltingly, on the way down to Nirvana he had been more afraid than he had ever been in his life. Previously, fear had lent him wings, it was a source of tension that helped him to concentrate. But there in that narrow crevasse, he had felt lamed. It was as though all his strength had deserted him. He had felt utterly helpless, his thoughts spinning in his head. I don’t remember how I got out. I can’t remember the way back.