The Gobi Desert Read online

  ‘Ah! At last, here he is, that naughty sulking man who has come back to keep the ladies company! But we haven’t waited for him to open the second bottle, oh no! Listen to me Mr Michel, or rather just plain Michel. You don’t mind if I call you that, do you?’

  ‘That is something which perhaps I shall see the point of later on,’ I said with a pleasant smile. ‘But for the moment . . .’

  ‘Huh! Such a rude man! But it doesn’t matter, we’ll forgive him, won’t we Alzire? He’s upset. Who wouldn’t be in his place? Despite himself we must cheer him up, this big baby. Ah, but he is right to be in love with her, his Alzire! If only he knew what she had done for him! Why don’t you tell him, my dear? But would you prefer that I should tell him? Well then, for as long as she is Macao, you should know, Michel, that the Hotel Domestici is yours. You will be waited on like the daughter of the house. No weekly bill to pay. No getting up at the crack of dawn to avoid meeting that poor Mme Domestici. If you imagine that I haven’t noticed your little game! Just take a look now and then at the accounts for me, as I’m getting old. That will be an occupation in which you will do very well, and which won’t take you more than two or three hours a day. And since you will be alone you won’t need such a large room. I’ll give you another one just as nice but more cosy, on the fourth floor, with a balcony.’

  I had had enough. Wasn’t that clear? Mme Domestici, in any case, didn’t seem in any doubt. She waited anxiously for me to thank her.

  ‘You can keep your room,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘your nice cosy room. Just look at the person standing in front of you. I give you my word that I shall never set foot in it. There is in fact something which you do not seem to realise, my dear lady, and that is that I’m also going away. I’ve had enough of Fouzan! No more Fouzan!’

  ‘Michel!’ cried Alzire in a reproachful tone, a tone which meant ‘What are you saying?’

  But Mme Domestici had already interrupted: ‘He doesn’t know himself, the poor boy!’ she said good-humouredly. ‘I repeat, we mustn’t bear a grudge against him, my dear. The news of your departure has come as a shock to him. So like the villain he is, he doesn’t want to stay with his mummy Mme Domestici, happy and spoiled like cockerel in clover. You’re planning to leave are you, Michel? That’s very good, that is. But where will you go? Do you have any idea? Allow me to be sceptical about that. And another thing, another question I would like to ask you: what sort of occupation have you chosen? What are planning to do?’

  ‘You really want to know? I’m going on a tiger hunt!’ I replied, by now completely fed up and hoping to put an end to this ridiculous discussion.

  ‘What’s this story about a tiger hunt?’ asked Alzire, five minutes later, when Mme Domestici had left us, overflowing with tenderness and blowing us kisses.

  ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘The truth, that’s all.’

  Alzire’s slim nose became pinched. Her voice took on that metallic inflection which I had heard on only a few occasions before.

  ‘You know I love you very much Michel’, she said. ‘All the same you shouldn’t treat me as someone like Mme Domestici. So I would be grateful if you . . . ‘

  She fell quiet. There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Who is it? Yes, come in!’

  A young native boy, about fifteen, proudly wearing the bizarre blue and gold uniform of the Myako, appeared at the door, holding a parcel. In a nasal voice he repeated my name.

  ‘Yes’ I said, ‘It’s for me all right. Thank you.’

  This was the present which Sanders had talked about! I admit that I hadn’t given it another thought.

  *

  After the boy had gone there was a silence which I was careful not to disturb. Alzire was obviously dying to ask me what was going on, but she wanted the explanation to come from me. Eventually she couldn’t bear it any longer.

  ‘What are all these mysterious things? Can’t you tell me what is in that parcel?’

  ‘Open it, if it interests you’, I said casually. ‘What’s inside will have the benefit of proving something to you once again my dear: that is that I never tell a lie. What would be the point?’

  I had answered off the top of my head, in all honesty. I maintain that I did not know what was inside Sanders’ present. What could have caused me such surprise? That was something which I still didn’t know. Alzire unwrapped the parcel. I watched as she took out five books, five large volumes, one after the other. You should have seen the look of alarm on her face as she was busy reading the titles, one by one. Hunting in the Manchurian Taiga and The Great Expedition, the History of a Tiger, the two books by Nicholas Baikov which Sanders had told me about that same morning; then there was Panthers and Tigers of the Altai, by Colonel Rechid Tabriz; Tiger and Man, by Bengt Bery; and finally, The Big Cats of the Koukou-Nor, by Dr Julius Accarias . . . .So many works which I had not heard of that morning but which were destined to become as familiar to me as the Bible was to an old woman.

  Five volumes, and all five devoted to the same subject! Alzire laid them out on her dressing table, methodically, in a row. When she had finished she raised her head and looked at me in silence.

  ‘So it’s true then’, she murmured at last.

  ‘As you can see’, I replied. And I added, with an air of authority at which I was the first to be surprised, ‘It’s time I began to get all my papers ready.’

  Visibly, Alzire was busy wondering whether or not I was making fun of her. It was the moment when she told me she was leaving me that I chose to take life seriously. All the same I felt there was something disagreeable in what I was doing.

  She continued to look at me closely with a mixture of surprise and irony.

  ‘To go tiger hunting?’ she said at last. ‘And why not, after all, good heavens! For a man that’s better than doing nothing. I shall content myself with regretting that you didn’t think to tell me sooner about your plans. It was only an hour ago that you were telling me that you hadn’t found a job anywhere. You must have had your reasons to say that. Nevertheless, well done, my dear Michel! But now listen to me. Of all the different professions couldn’t you have chosen one that was more lucrative, or at least less dangerous?’

  ‘In places like Hamburg or Sydney it’s very common to see tigers being sold for five or six hundred thousand francs,’ I replied.

  ‘Five or six hundred thousand francs!’ she said. ‘Aren’t those just figures plucked out of the air?’

  ‘On my word they are not!’

  She was quiet, and seemed thoughtful.

  ‘Michel, my friend,’ she began again with a certain gravity, ‘I’m not at all sure that you are in your right mind at the moment. As for me, on the other hand, I’m certainly in my right mind. You know the reasons why I have to go there. It’s a six-month contract which I have signed. I won’t do anything during those six months which might commit me in any definite way, at least not without having told you. That will allow you on your side, to let me know if you have managed in that time to improve a situation in which we can no longer decently remain.’

  I think I never saw her more beautiful than at that moment. We were standing opposite each other, looking at each other. With her head tilted back she smiled at me with that smile which would send me to the ends of the earth. Her lilac-pink lips parted. There was a sort of moist freshness in her. I kissed her . . . .

  ‘Please Michel, no tenderness’, she murmured. ‘We need all our strength. Let’s try and be happy, that’s all, since we have two whole days and three whole nights to spend together. There isn’t much to enjoy here so we’ll just have to try our best. Look, this evening, for example, since Mme Domestici has paid my travel expenses for me, what do you say if we go out for a bit? We haven’t done that for a long time. You can put on your nice suit; I’ll make myself as beautiful as I can, and we’ll have dinner at the Myako.’

  At about ten o’clock in the evening – one dines very late in Fouzan – wearing the smart grey suit in question,
I walked into the bar at the Myako. I had made up a random pretext to arrive a few minutes before Alzire. The first person I should bump into was Jack Sanders, of course.

  ‘Michel, my dear boy,’ he roared. ‘What a stroke of luck! This calls for a drink, toot sweet! Barman, another bottle of champagne. Michel, dear chap, did you get the books I sent you?’

  ‘I received them, Mr Sanders, thank you. But at the moment I have something else on my mind. A young lady is coming, who will be dining with me. It’s possible I will have to introduce you to each other. A young lady who . . . A young lady that . . . ‘

  Sanders burst out laughing. ‘I understand, you old joker. I’m not as stupid as you think. And so tell me, how can I be of service to you?’

  ‘Just this,’ I said, wiping my brow. ‘For reasons which I won’t bore you with explaining, I have told the lady in question that in three days time I am going on a tiger hunt with you. I would ask you not to contradict me. There. That’s all.’

  I had expected that he would burst out into laughter again. He did nothing, just looked at me oddly. Then with a sudden seriousness he said ‘That’s all? Agreed! You can count on me. Besides, it’s up to you whether it’s true or not, my boy.’

  *

  Just at that moment, in the grand illuminated hall, Alzire entered, half-naked in her golden brown silk dress, adorned with green embroidery. She came in, smiling, shy and a bit weary. She left in her wake such a voluptuous trail that men and women, laughing and chatting, suddenly fell silent.

  I seized Sanders by the hand. ‘That’s her!’ I said, hardly able to speak. And I added, as if mad with pride, ‘Tell me, what do you think of her? She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?’

  ‘Very beautiful,’ he said.

  Leaning on the arm-rests of his leather armchair, he stood up. He seemed to be trembling slightly.

  ‘Yes, very beautiful’, he repeated, looking at me with an indefinable expression.

  And I thought I could see in his eyes a sort of pity.

  VI

  ‘So my friend, it’s true then? Tell me honestly, you don’t regret being here?’

  ‘Mr Sanders, how can you think that? After all your kindness over the past month! Do I have to give you my word?’

  I was being sincere, I would have given my word willingly. How was it then that there was no enthusiasm in my voice? The obsession, the feeling of homesickness, Alzire’s sadness perhaps . . . Sanders looked at me askance.

  ‘Too bad for you’, he said with a sudden harshness. ‘It’s too bad for you if you’re lying! I haven’t taken you by surprise. You only had not to sign the agreement which is now all sown up. For now, if I have a piece of advice to give you, it’s in your interest to honour it as best you can.’

  What had got into him? He who never had any self-doubt, or doubt about anything, what was this sudden crisis of mistrust? Where had it come from? From the landscape I think, the spectacular and yet gloomy landscape which we were passing through. Behind our junk the river water swirled, only to resettle, smooth and flat, like the sad waters of Erebus on whose surface no star ever managed to shine.

  We could see these stars in the sky above, but there were fewer and fewer of them, as the massive sides of the mountains through which we were navigating came closer and closer together. Already we could no longer make out the scrawny birds which screeched above our heads. There are some places and some occasions when you wonder if daylight will ever return.

  Sanders sniggered. ‘It’s nice countryside’, he said ‘And you had better believe that this is just the beginning!’

  At that, for a puritan from New South Wales, he made the most peculiar gesture: he made the sign of the cross.

  *

  What a strange man! In equal measure rough and coarse as he usually was on the docks at Fouzan. And then suddenly, unexpectedly, humane, considerate, almost sensitive. ‘It’s up to you whether it’s true or not!’ was what he had said to me when I had asked him not to contradict me if we got to talking about this tiger hunt when I had said I was going to go with him. Surprised by the sound of his voice, I looked at him. He was serious, and not joking. So the offer he had made to me that morning was not just empty words. But I hadn’t had the chance to clarify the point any further. Just at that moment, as we know, Alzire had come in.

  ‘What did you think of him?’ I asked Alzire after I had introduced them to each other. ‘He seems a good fellow, don’t you think?’

  ‘A good fellow, perhaps!’ she replied, with a little amused laugh. ‘But as far as refinement goes you must admit one could think of some who are better!’

  Lowering her voice she added: ‘In any case, if I have any advice to give you, it is not to sign anything without careful consideration.’

  Sanders had been sitting alone, waiting for his guests, at a table which had been set for three. Out of shyness he hadn’t wanted to ask us to join them. So much the better then! We would have felt obliged to accept, and that would have meant goodbye to the cosy evening which Alzire and I had been so much looking forward to.

  His guests were not late in arriving. They were two of my new acquaintances from that morning: Otto Streep, his assistant, and Captain Lucas.

  Lucas didn’t notice me at first, but he noticed Alzire all right, and greeted her with a smile.

  ‘Do you know that gentleman?’ I asked her.

  ‘There’s nothing strange about me knowing the second-in-command of the ship which I shall be boarding on Thursday,’ she replied. ‘In addition to which, I should point out to you that he has gone to great lengths to see that I am comfortably settled in that old boat. If we get the chance in a moment to have few words, don’t forget to express your gratitude to him.’

  With that we happily decided what we were going to eat, and dined with a cheerfulness which was abruptly interrupted only when we thought of our impending separation. We stopped joking and laughing. We held hands tightly under the tablecloth. In three days we were going to have to let go of each other, but for how long?

  *

  ‘Who is that man with your friend and the captain?’ asked Alzire, after the caviar and the vodka.

  ‘His name is Otto Streep, and he is Jack Sanders’ authorised representative,’ I replied. ‘I think you will be travelling with him. He is responsible for transporting on the Bendigo the merchandise belonging to his boss.’

  And without thinking it necessary to say any more for the moment about the nature of the merchandise in question, I told her about the way in which we had met each other that morning, about Sanders’ challenge, the gunshot, and the little green feather from Streep’s felt hat fluttering down across the bar to finally end up on a shelf.

  Alzire was amused and laughed. ‘All the same,’ she couldn’t restrain herself from saying, ‘so that’s how you were spending your time, while I imagined you were busy looking for a way in which we could get out of this mess!’

  ‘In fact I didn’t do too badly . . . . .’ I began.

  She shook her head with a sad smile. ‘Some way or other so we wouldn’t have to separate,’ she said in a gentle tone of reproach. ‘That’s what I meant, and I hoped you would have understood.’

  From every corner of the room, people were looking at us; by us, I mean Alzire of course, her ambivalent and cruel beauty, her dark eyes, her jet-black hair. I had already seen, and I shall see many other women, for my troubles, and if God wishes, as a means of redemption. What I shall never see again, alas! is the carnal and indolent halo which made both men and women spin with desire around her, the vague frisson, the feverish authority which she imposed on all those in her circle. But there was one person, as we shall see, who wasn’t completely of the same type as the others and, as we shall also see, who was an exception to this rule, a triumph however which for a long time did not turn out to be to his advantage.

  To get back to Otto Streep, one couldn’t say that it was an irresistible sympathy which had straightaway brought us together. He was constant
ly, furtively, looking at me, throughout the meal! Which was surprising, given the manner, which I had thought to be quite witty, of making his acquaintance that morning! Just think, a bullet had passed by no more than two or three centimetres from his skull. Nevertheless, he had smiled at this excellent joke. I didn’t see him begin to frown until a moment later when he was in a position to notice on what terms I already was with my boss. The influence which he alone could have over Sanders, that was evidently the source of this fellow’s livelihood.

  A man of rather average height, and a sallow complexion, as I’ve said. If my bullet had been fired a little bit lower, it wouldn’t have risked taking off much of his hair. Having said that, he was very hirsute individual. He was one of those unfortunate people who could shave themselves ten times a day. Their beard seems to grow as you watch, as quickly as on a corpse, making the cheeks look green or blue. On Streep, whose cheeks were the colour of beef stroganoff and peach melba, the hair made his cheeks seem darker between each dish.

  After dinner, as the first couples began to dance and weave their way between the tables, Sanders, who appeared to be constantly awkward and deep in thought, sent Captain Lucas over to us. He wanted us to join them and finish off a few more bottles of champagne. I couldn’t be bothered, but Alzire prompted me to accept.

  ‘You can’t do otherwise!’ she muttered.

  *

  People only had eyes for her of course, as she crossed the room with an elegant and graceful style. She was really the sort of woman who if you were standing next to her you would have little chance of being noticed.