she raises the volume instead of turning it down until it clicks off. As unbelievable as it may seem, it’s because she increased the volume rather than turning it off that she is now here. Everything else flowed from that gesture.
She remembers exactly how violently the sound burst forth. She wonders whether it’s possible the sound never even left her ears from the day that she’s now revisiting in her thoughts. Besides, where does the sound go that we hear? Where do words go once we’ve heard them?
That morning the radio shouted at her that, in a country of which the mere mention made her freeze with anxiety, the number of prisoners was such that, at the speed with which the verdicts were pronounced, it would take two or three centuries to examine each of the cases. More softly now that she’d turned the volume down, the reporter quoted the percentage of the incarcerated population in proportion to the population of the country itself. He was talking about her native land.
She stared at the small clock-radio for a very long time, her gaze seemingly directed at a friend who had just betrayed her in the most shameful way. Until that moment she had managed to protect herself from the mere mention of the only word that was unbearable to her—the name of the country where she was born—and she couldn’t understand why she had failed. She ended up turning the radio off, but the news item on the air that had assaulted her the way a criminal pounces on his prey wouldn’t leave her.
As she was walking toward the station, it seemed to her that she was having a more difficult time than usual hurrying along so she wouldn’t miss her train and her first class.
In retrospect, it was apparent to her that at that moment, as she was dragging her feet going to school, she had already moved on to something else—to another place. She was merely going through the motions, fulfilling a routine, or doing something she still saw as a duty. But part of her was no longer following along.
She arrived a few minutes early anyway, even though she wasn’t rushing as much as she usually did. In the lobby a crowd of students was milling about and rustling like a disturbed anthill whose population had suddenly grown and whose sound had been amplified.
Some were falling all over each other to catch a glimpse of the screen that showed which courses were being taught in what rooms; others were waiting their turn at the vending machines selling drinks. Most were chatting and smoking.
She is pleased to note that this world, though it couldn’t have changed in any way, has become completely foreign to her today. It’s only in a dream that she goes back there, joins up with a cluster in the lobby, and, after the obligatory round of kisses, hears herself ask the question she had formed:
“Did you hear the newscast this morning?”
No one picked up on her comment so she began again:
“Did you hear that unbelievable item on the prisons?”
“Yeah, you mean about those massacres a few years ago? What do you expect, such horrible events implicate an awful lot of perpetrators, and so an awful lot of prisoners. It’s only normal.”
“What do you expect?”
“It’s terrible, but what can you do . . .” a voice added in a compassionate tone, raising his hands and dropping them to his thighs, as if to bring the conversation to an end.
A short silence followed this remark that had escaped everyone except her. She plummeted down inside her head, feeling as cumbersome and painful as a brick in the pit of her stomach would be. Her brain sap was trying doggedly to rein her in, to no avail.
When she resurfaced from her straying thoughts, the conversation had picked up again. Everything she heard made her nauseated. A burden similar to that which had kept her from running for the train that morning added to the throbbing in her head, immobilized her. She was incapable of going to class with the others and even less of giving a presentation, as she was expected to do. So she headed outside without alerting anyone, her face showing nothing unless someone could see how haggard she looked.
She slipped her student ID card into the door detector and abandoned it there. As she walked toward the station, the words of that one phrase etched themselves into her head, flickering as on the screen of an old computer on standby: It’s terrible, but what can you do . . . Had they said it to hurt her? Did they know, or were they making fun?
She felt like crying but restrained herself. She didn’t care to add another drowned face recovered from the water to all the ones in front of her in the train going back. She’d bought a newspaper should she lose control. She opened it and buried herself in its pages, too much so to look as if she really were reading. Had anybody been interested, he would have seen that she was trying above all to hide what, that morning, had so dramatically illuminated the absurdity and cowardice of her daily pattern. She lost her grip and ended up by shedding at first two tears, then four, until she stopped counting them.
Once home, she threw herself on the bed and closed her eyes for as long as she could. And she had wept and wept and wept.
That morning, whose every detail she is replaying, she blamed herself first of all for not getting a hold again of the enthusiasm that had always carried her forward. Then, imperceptibly, something else got in her way. She was taking pleasure in feeling lost, crushed, trapped—commendable for once because, satisfied to drop the mask, finally naked, this excess was not acquiescence.
TWO
32. The cave Niko discovers resembles the one he’s spent years imagining in almost no way at all. When you enter it, the passageway widens as you move forward, opening into the first hollow space. His immediate plan is to make that his living area. Light and wind sometimes come this far, faintly, which eases the darkness and humidity. From the entrance to the cave it is impossible to see the high recess to which he will attach his bedding. Suspension is the only way to be protected from the animals and insects with which he must share his cave, he observes, congratulating himself on having brought twine with him. Yes, hanging the bedding is a good idea: the swinging movement of the setup will be enough to keep bats, rats, and cats at a distance. Cockroaches, spiders, and ants won’t be able to get at him except via the fastening point, and he promises himself to keep a particularly watchful eye on that. And if there are any mosquitoes and flies he’ll just have to get used to them. In the back of this first hollow space, a passageway he is forced to crawl through opens onto the ceiling of a very large room. Before he’s able to get down into it, Niko must first braid a long cord and attach it pretty firmly so that he can use it to climb up and down. So he goes out again to gather dried banana tree bark, which he dampens in order to work it without cracking the pieces, and from this he makes two long ropes. Still farther down the slope he finds a long stalk of bamboo, which he thrashes against the ground to soften it up. Three ropes are bound to provide him with what he needs to get down into the second hollow area. The twisted bamboo stalk assures solidity while the banana fiber cords will facilitate his grip.
33. Niko isn’t comfortable in a place that he hasn’t thoroughly checked out.
34. As he makes his descent, the torch, now humid and lacking air, threatens to go out with his every move. He realizes that he can’t continue his exploration and tries to go back up, but his weary arms won’t support him and he falls down.
35. He thinks his absence lasted only a very short period of time. One second that stretched out indefinitely, as far as the infinity of memory, as far as the dream’s eternity.
36. First he felt his arms defying, then his entire body deserting him. He remembers having let go and the awareness that his head was going to hit the ground first. And a moment later, he opens eyes that are stunned by what they’ve just seen and troubled by not recognizing anything in the darkness that greets them.
37. He wonders if he’s really awake when a monkey approaches him. He watches the animal’s silhouette as it detaches itself from the darkness. A stern face and a massive hand are displayed to sprinkle him with water and shake him before disappearing into the blackness, only to reappear soon thereafter. He muses over the scene from afar, as if it doesn’t concern him, because he is trying at the same time to