War Page 19

  Bea B. stood quite still, contemplating the scene. Her eyes and ears were filled with beauty, her skin was perspiring in the sun. She witnessed the onrush of each metal shell, she heard the roaring of each engine hurtling forward at 4,000 rpm. It was extraordinary to remain motionless, like that, watching the river of cars pass by, at midday. This made it possible to understand a whole lot of unknown factors about war, about beauty. It made it possible to become increasingly cold and static, like an iron pole. The river had launched its solid body full of din and gleams, and was advancing implacably from one edge of the world to the opposite one, then back again. It possessed thousands of wheels and plate-glass panels and headlamps, thousands of sheet-metal bodies, doors, radiator grilles and windscreen wipers, but they were always the same ones. The stream of vehicles came from the end of the horizon, emerging without respite from the centre of the dust-cloud, yet nobody noticed. The cars advanced, huddling together like a herd of buffaloes, trampling the earth under their identical tyres. And this meant many things that were both strange and simple, as for example: truth is the cohesion of the crowd. Or else: 1 vehicle = 1,000 vehicles. Or again: FROM NOW ON, I WANT TO KNOW THE SURFACE OF THINGS. And this could also mean: today, midday, traffic conditions on the ring motorway remain fluid. An accident is reported at the junction with Exit 18. Heavy traffic build-up along the outer boulevard . . .

  Nothing, then, could halt the river’s progress. It marked time, it hollowed out its bed in the city, it plunged under great cement bridges with echoing arches. It pressed on relentlessly, expelling its thousands of joule-seconds. There was so much power, so much warmth and truth in this place that it seemed as though nothing else could exist. The straight road was stretched taut beneath the vault of the sky, all its pent-up energies straining to be unleashed. The girl felt the road’s scorching breath, mingled with exhaust fumes and dust, brush past her face and hair. She felt the long-drawn-out vibrations that made the ground shudder, sent tremors up her legs and clutched at her solar plexus. And she could hear the unbroken tattoo, like low thunder, that heralded imminent storms and floods. The sensible thing, of course, would be to get away, to climb on top of a high building and cower on the roof to escape the tidal wave. But that was not possible, for she was incapable of wrenching her eyes away from this spectacle of furiously spinning, onrushing movements. She could think of nothing else. Her feet seemed glued to the edge of the pavement. The streams of sleek metal flowed by her, a moving rampart that had sealed her body within its prison. The wind churned up by all this motion blew steadily. Flashes of sunlight bounced ceaselessly off the moving surfaces, exploding the same star across each windscreen. The odours of burning petrol, of rubber, of tar rose continually in great jagged clouds, and no other odours were imaginable. Bea B. struggled to breathe this air, and her heart beat very hard in her chest, under the nylon brassière.

  Just a few feet in front of her, the two opposite currents passed each other indefinitely, then receded towards the boulevard’s two outlets. The cars’ shells slid together blindly, melted into each other, then separated once more. This process repeated itself ten times a second, while the engines’ noises blended briefly, swallowed by the coagulating mass. Bea B. made an effort to understand what happened during the moment when the cars met and passed each other; but doubtless there was nothing to understand. The two streams came from the two ends of the earth, each along its half of the roadway, moving symmetrically as though a gigantic mirror were positioned somewhere along the route. This aimless arrival of waves that flowed against each other resembled nothing so much as a flattened circle. On each side of the river, the pavement’s thin strip also receded towards the horizon, with all its pillars and posts and all its men and women. But the latter were of no importance. They were the vague witnesses of a more powerful movement, as they stood there for hours on end, waiting for a safe moment to launch themselves across the road. Sometimes they died, felled by a single blow, like trees, or dismembered by the vulcanized wheels. For a brief moment a few eddies and a few bubbles would show that the flow had been obstructed; then the current would sweep everything away, down to the last smear of blood and sliver of glass, and the river would resume its journey, roaring hoarsely, as before, and hurling its waves of metal against each other.

  The girl remained there for a long time, watching the river of cars flow along the valley, in the centre of the city. She watched the wheels with their chrome-plated hubcaps, spinning furiously as they passed by. She watched the ventilators slice through the air with a whistling sound, and the radio aerials sway like whips. With smarting eyes, she watched the distant shimmering of the river, near the horizon, where the dust-cloud hovered overhead. Clinging to the iron pole with the winking yellow light on top, she concentrated all her attention on the majestic and terrible spectacle of the two streams of metal endlessly meeting and passing each other. She even tried to see the empty space, right there in the centre of the roadway, that separated the two opposing streams. It seemed to her that this space must surely be filled with powerful eddies, scorching whirlwinds, while the contrary currents passed each other at an ever-increasing speed. She began to think that, if she wanted to understand things, she should perhaps take up position on that spot: stand there in the centre of the road, while the two tornadoes of steel whetted their blades in a shower of sparks; stand there and wait, more alone than a cop in the centre of a crossroads.

  She saw again the white dome of the sky suspended above this whole scene, and it too was like a river, with ice-floes floating through its vast valley. Perhaps the distant star that shone in the depths of space was the motor that drove everything, and one day, after many centuries of warmth and life, these valleys would be motionless once more, sand-covered highways strewn with charred carcases. Vultures were wheeling in huge circles, very high above the rumbling river, keeping a look-out for these scattered remnants. Bea B. felt a kind of dizziness come over her, and she had to cling to the winking pole with all her might to save herself from falling under the wheels of the passing vehicles.

  Suddenly a car stopped in front of her, alongside the kerb. It was an ancient American model, a massive black machine with an enormous bonnet, and wings like a fish’s fins. A man opened the front door and shouted something, but his voice was drowned by the noise of all the motor-horns that had started screeching behind the halted car. The man opened the door wider, and Bea B. could see that the seats inside were upholstered in red. She went up to the gaping door and climbed inside the car, which immediately pulled away, belching a cloud of exhaust. Bea B. looked around and saw that there were five people in the car, the driver and another man in front, and a woman and two men in the back. The American car sped silently along the immense boulevard, following the flow of the traffic. The girl slumped back in her seat. Slowly, she felt the dizziness recede and her strength return. The man sitting by her side leaned towards her:

  ‘Where are you headed?’ he asked.

  The girl took a little time to answer.

  ‘Anywhere . . . Just let me out anywhere . . .’

  ‘We rescued you in the nick of time,’ said the driver, a thin man with close-cropped hair. ‘In another moment you’d have been under the wheels of the cars.’

  ‘It’s the heat,’ said Bea B.

  ‘Do you feel all right now?’ said a voice from the back. Bea B. turned round. First she saw the woman who had spoken, a young woman with black hair and a very pale face. Then she glanced at the two men sitting in the back with the woman, one on either side.

  ‘Do you feel better now?’ repeated the young woman.

  ‘Yes, I feel better, thank you,’ said Bea B. But her voice was feeble.

  ‘Here, drink this,’ said the man sitting beside her. He took a small bottle from the glove compartment. Bea B. uncorked the bottle and took a sip of the liquid. The bitter taste brought a lump to her throat.

  ‘What is it?’ said Bea B.

  ‘Drink it, it will do you good,’ said t
he man firmly.

  Bea B. took another sip, then handed the bottle back.

  The man at the steering wheel spoke without looking at her. He was weaving his way through the traffic, adroitly overtaking the cars in line ahead of them.

  ‘It’s a recipe of Starrkrampf’s,’ he said. ‘An infusion of marijuana in alcohol. It creates all kinds of energy.’

  The pale-faced woman gave a laugh and said in an odd husky voice:

  ‘Careful! She’ll begin to think we are dope-fiends!’

  Bea B. gazed ahead, through the blue-tinted windscreen. She felt like sleeping. Outside, the scene was snowy, deserted, agitated by spasmodic movements.

  Suddenly she saw that the sun was very low in the sky.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked anxiously.

  The man driving, who looked rather like Monsieur X, glanced at his watch.

  ‘Six o’clock,’ he said.

  ‘Six,’ she repeated.

  ‘Where are we going?’ said Starrkrampf.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ asked Monsieur X. Bea B. suddenly realized that the question was addressed to her.

  ‘I don’t really know, I –’

  ‘Are you on a trip?’ said the pale young woman, pointing to the airline bag.

  ‘Yes, I’m sort of travelling around,’ said Bea B.

  ‘Well, that’s fine,’ said one of the men at the back, ‘so are we.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s hungry?’ said Starrkrampf. He leaned over towards Bea B. and touched her arm. She gave a start.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ repeated Starrkrampf.

  ‘No, no,’ said Bea B., trying to stay awake. ‘I, I think maybe you’d better let me out, over there will do . . .’

  ‘We can’t just abandon you like that,’ said Monsieur X. ‘You’ll be all right with us. Won’t she, Geberckx?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Geberckx.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind going to that drive-in cinema,’ said the pale-faced young woman, who was called Alexandra Tchkonia.

  ‘Not now, later,’ said Geberckx.

  After that, nobody spoke again. The big American car flew over the grey city as it raced along the circular motorway.

  It was night, by now. The black limousine had been travelling through the city for a long time, doubling its tracks along the motorway, turning left, then right, then right again. Occasionally, red lights shone through the darkness, and Monsieur X brought the nose of the car to a halt in line with an intersection, drumming on the steering wheel with the tips of his fingers as he waited for the light to turn green. Hunched forwards, with her shoulder against the door, Bea B. looked at the walls of the buildings, and the patterns of lights, some of them stationary, others moving. Beside her, Starrkrampf was sitting with arms folded, listening to a muted voice on the radio. At the back, Geberckx and the other man were asleep, their heads lolling. They were both in need of a shave, and their faces were drawn with fatigue. Alexandra Tchkonia was smoking nervously; her white face looked even whiter now, gleaming under its black wig in the dark.

  At long last, the American car turned into a vast car park that had a box-shaped snack-bar in the centre. Monsieur X stopped the car near the snack-bar and got out. He came back a few minutes later, carrying packages of sandwiches and bottles of beer. Everybody ate and drank rapidly, in silence. Then they visited the washrooms, one at a time. When it was Bea B.’s turn she took her bag and walked quickly towards the neon-lit structure. The cold air helped to wake her up. She decided that when she came out of the washroom she would turn left, and keep going left until she was out of the place. But Alexandra Tchkonia must have suspected something because when Bea B. emerged she saw the pale-faced young woman waiting for her. The girl hesitated.

  ‘It’s too late for you to go, or too early,’ said the pale-faced young woman. She took Bea B. by the elbow. ‘Come on, the others are waiting.’

  Bea B. opened her mouth to protest, but no words came out. So she walked towards the American car. When she had settled herself once more on the red imitation-leather upholstery she simply thought, very briefly, ‘I am not afraid.’

  Monsieur X gently turned the ignition key on the dashboard, and the powerful engine started throbbing. The headlamps were suddenly ablaze, and two white beams shot straight ahead, illuminating the car park, picking out conglomerations of cars and advertisement hoardings from the darkness, and lighting up the red stars of cat’s-eye reflectors. With the same slow gesture Monsieur X shifted the gear lever upwards and engaged first gear. Then he eased his foot off the clutch pedal and the black car started moving. It passed silently between the parking lanes until it reached the street. There, Monsieur X rotated the steering wheel three times, the American car swung round gently, and the wheels bumped as they went over the edge of the pavement. The road was bright with lights. Many other cars were racing along, their engines screaming. Clinging close to the walls, pedestrians were walking along in small groups, lingering in front of the white shop windows. The American car got onto the roadway and began picking up speed. Monsieur X smoked a cigarette as he drove, holding it in his left hand while steering with his right hand. Reflections slid over his lean face; his eyes stared straight ahead like headlamps. Bea B. saw all this as though in a dream, a new dream that was longer than the others, one in which she knew neither the beginning nor the end. It was strange, driving along like this at night, in this big American car, with Monsieur X, Starrkrampf, Geberckx, Alexandra Tchkonia, and the other man whose name she did not know. It was like letting oneself be carried across the sea in a ship, listening to the sounds of the engine and watching the coast’s reflected lights very far away on the horizon.

  The American car criss-crossed the city for a while, skirting a whole number of identical streets and avenues. Then suddenly Starrkrampf looked at his watch and said:

  ‘Ten o’clock. Time to go hunting?’

  Monsieur X did not reply.

  ‘Well, are we going?’ Starrkrampf repeated. He half turned towards the rear seat.

  ‘Sandra?’ he said.

  ‘What about her?’ said Monsieur X, jerking a thumb towards Bea B.

  ‘She is with us,’ said the pale-faced young woman, ‘we’ll give her a demonstration.’

  ‘Whereabouts do you want to go?’ said Monsieur X.

  ‘We might try the south motorway,’ said Starrkrampf.

  ‘Isn’t that a bit risky?’ said Geberckx.

  ‘We haven’t been out since the other evening,’ said the other man in the back.

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘And anyhow, all we need do is go a little farther on, this time, that’s all.’

  ‘OK, let’s go.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ repeated Alexandra Tchkonia.

  Monsieur X said ‘OK’ once more.

  The big car leapt forward. From that moment onwards they limited their conversation to occasional terse remarks, while the car glided through the streets. Bea B. noticed that their faces had become serious, with eyes staring fixedly through the windscreen. The wind whistled along the sides of the black panelling, and the engine gave out a dull hollow roar like an aeroplane. From time to time they passed the little bottle around, each taking a gulp from it, or they lit cigarettes. Or else they rapped out brief phrases that sounded like orders:

  ‘Left, here.’

  ‘Straight ahead now.’

  ‘Watch out.’

  ‘Left here, then right.’

  ‘Squeeze right for the approach ramp.’

  ‘There you are.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Watch out, the toll-booths are about a hundred yards ahead.’

  A kind of white wall pierced by six archways suddenly loomed up, in front of the car’s bonnet. It was a triumphal arch made of cement, rectangular, illuminated by floodlights. Above each entrance a green light shone brightly. The road ran straight up to the construction, splitting into three parallel channels marked with broad yellow stripes. At the end
of each channel, there was a sort of undulating carpet made of rows of iron pipes embedded in the tar. The American car shuddered as it drove over the carpet. It continued its slow progress until it reached the porch. On the left was a glass-walled cabin with a man in a black uniform inside it. At the far side of the porch a red light gleamed and a metal barrier blocked the way. When the car came to a halt under the cement arch there was a click and at the same moment an automatic machine proffered a pasteboard ticket, the light ahead turned green, and the metal arm lifted. Monsieur X took the ticket and propped it against the windscreen. Then he let in the clutch, and the car passed through the toll-gate.

  On the other side stretched the motorway. It lay spread out in front of the car, as broad as an airport runway, plunging straight ahead into the night. This too was a river, icy and stark, a black river flowing between lines of stunted shrubs. Once on the motorway, the car quickly picked up speed. It seemed to be floating, and its four tyres glided over the asphalt with a slight tremor. The two headlamps pierced the thick night, throwing into sharp relief all the yellow geometric designs, the dotted lines, the stripes, the metal panels with the figure 100 on them, the arrows, the circles, the triangles. The signs all arrived in a flash, surging out of the night with their bars and hooks, and they talked, they talked all the time. They told stories about speed and death, stories about accidents, when the overturned carcases blazed in the centre of great pools of oil. The girl looked at the never-ending line of yellow dots that came rushing sinuously between the car’s front wheels. Then she looked at the night’s solid mass, as motionless and black as the sea’s lower depths, with only a few phosphorescent glows traversing it. By now they were parsecs away from the city, travelling through space between one star and another. Everything was silent and calm. No-one inside the car spoke. Monsieur X was scanning the road ahead, his hands resting lightly on the steering wheel. Starrkrampf was sitting perfectly still, listening to the radio. In the back row Alexandra Tchkonia went on smoking her filter cigarette, leaning forwards now and staring over Starrkrampf’s shoulder. Geberckx and the other man were finishing off the contents of the little bottle. They were all waiting for something. The American car speeding along the motorway was now inhabited by a strange intensity that may have been an electric current or else a sense of hatred. It was difficult to pinpoint. No doubt it emanated from the compression of the engine and its low throbbing, and from the friction of the black coachwork against the air’s layers. It also emanated from the signals lit up by the headlamps, from all those hooks and crosses that sprang out of the darkness and hurtled at them at a speed of over a hundred feet a second. At long intervals the dark mass of a lorry appeared on the crown of the road, and then the American car overtook it and passed it effortlessly. Or else, for no apparent reason, the road slewed round in a long gentle curve, and all the occupants of the car were tilted sideways by the force of gravity.