by Betsy Draine
“In 1940, during the war, four local boys from Montignac were on an outing. You may have heard they followed the dog of one of the boys down a hole. That’s a myth,” explained Gounot. He hacked a few times and continued. “In reality, an old woman told them that a hole under an uprooted tree looked like it might start a tunnel leading underground. The boys took a flashlight, dropped stones down into the hole, and then one of them, a youth named Ravidat, fell into the hole. He landed here, in the Hall of Bulls. The boys alerted their teacher, and soon word spread. After the war, the cave was opened to visitors, and over a million tourists came to see it. But unfortunately, these visits contaminated the environment, making it necessary to close the site. You are among the privileged few who will ever see the original paintings.”
“This is amazing,” Toby whispered to me, squeezing my hand. The five of us were lined up single file on a concrete walkway with low curbs on each side to remind us not to stray too close to the paintings. But I leaned in as far as possible, to explore each image as the guide’s light played over the wall.
As I peered at the figures on the walls, I noticed that almost all of them were drawn with miniature heads and shortened legs, with abstract ovals suggesting hooves. That meant the artists were following a set of conventions—and that, I always tell my students, is what defines a style. That also meant the artists had instruction of some kind. There must have been teachers—like me—who led apprentices into the caves to make sure they understood the fine points of the tradition.
While I was taking mental notes for a lecture I might give in the fall, I noticed Lily was acting strange. She had stepped back from the group, and she seemed unsteady. A touch of claustrophobia, I guessed. Her husband placed a protective arm around her shoulder and whispered to her in a tone of concern. She made a hand motion signaling that she didn’t want to call attention to herself, then raised her chin and moved back into the group.
“Are you dizzy, Madame?” asked the guide. “That sometimes happens in the cave. Try to take a few deep breaths.” She did so.
Toby whispered, “If he took a few deep breaths himself, he’d fall over.”
I gave Toby an elbow.
“Do you wish to return?” pursued the guide.
“No, no, I’m fine,” Lily said in English. She stood up straighter, brushed her long hair behind her, and gestured again to proceed.
“Very well,” replied Gounot. “Our time is limited, and there are two other chambers to visit. But before we continue, does anyone have any questions? Monsieur?” This last remark was addressed to the silent Frenchman standing in the rear, probably because Guonot doubted whether any of the rest of us could speak his language well enough to pose a question. But the man shook his head in the negative, his face impassive.
“No? Anyone?”
Toby, who is never timid, piped up. “How do you know how old the paintings are?”
“Bon,” replied the guide. “Everyone knows about carbon dating?” Nods all around. “Unfortunately, we cannot apply that method to the walls. The paintings are covered by a thin layer of calcite, which is how they have been so well protected. But calcite prevents the test. Nonetheless, other materials found on the floor of the cave have been tested—animal bones, charcoal sticks, and so on. We believe these objects were sealed inside when the original opening collapsed. And that gives us an approximate date of activity in the cave. Our estimate is about 15,000 BC.”
Just then Gounot’s lamp began flickering, and a few seconds later it conked out. There was not so much as a sliver of light. The darkness was absolute. I heard a tinny clank, as Gounot banged against the lamp with the palm of his hand. And at the same time I had an uncanny feeling there was someone else or something else moving about in the dark depths beyond us. A trick of the imagination, I said to calm myself, but the hairs rose on the back of my neck.
Gounot kept tapping his lamp until the light flickered back on. “Don’t worry,” he reassured us. “There’s a spare battery if needed. Are you all right, Madame?”
David sought to comfort his wife, who looked shaken. Toby and I exchanged glances, and smiled. Since infancy, I’ve been fiercely independent. My long-suffering mother reports that my first phrase was “Me do! Me do!” as I rejected help in putting on a shirt. Toby knows how to leave me on my own until the right moment, which I appreciate. And though he looked at me inquiringly, he let me be.
“Well, then. Any other questions?”
Toby again raised his hand, its shadow enlarged on the wall behind him by the cast of the lantern. “It seems the artists painted only animals. What about human beings?”
“Ah!” declared the guide, standing a little straighter. “Yes, the paintings are always of animals. There are also symbols, though we don’t know their meanings, but hardly any other subjects. Human images are extremely rare. Why? Perhaps there was a superstition against representing people in the paintings. Even today, in some cultures the making of human images is prohibited.”
That made sense to me. The Bible condemns graven images. In some tribes it is feared that if one person possesses the image of another, he controls that person’s spirit.
Gounot continued: “Nevertheless, here in Lascaux we have a famous example of human representation, but it is located in a part of the cave we can’t visit. I’ll tell you about it in a moment. First, please follow me. We are now going to enter the Axial Gallery.” These observations were followed by another coughing fit.
Lined up again in single file, we shuffled toward the far end of the chamber, hurrying to keep up with our guide’s bouncing light. Gounot led the way, followed by me, then Toby, then Lily, then David. The Frenchman brought up the rear. I found myself wanting to look behind me, but the path was uneven and difficult to follow. I had sensed something sinister, but what had prompted the feeling? Had it been fear of darkness lingering from a childhood scare, perhaps, or triggered by some obscure connection to our ancestors who once gathered here? I tried to shake off the feeling.
We squeezed into a narrow corridor with a profusion of images on both the walls and the ceiling. In places, the passage was so tight it was difficult to bend back far enough to see the paintings. The walls were uneven, with rock protruding from every angle, so it was necessary to watch your head. Once I turned to look over my shoulder, and as I twisted for a better view, I scraped my arm against a sharp formation.
“Attention!” barked Gounot. “Don’t touch the walls! Every contact introduces noxious organisms.” After a glare in my direction, he turned again to the depths of the cave.
We followed him toward the far end of the passageway, which came to an abrupt stop. There his lamp picked out the extraordinary image of an upside-down horse. “The falling horse,” he called it. Indeed, the fawn-colored horse with a long, delicate head and thick black mane seemed to be flailing in the air, its belly pointed toward the ceiling.
“Monsieur asked a question about animals. You might well ask, ‘Why were any of these paintings made?’ The most common explanation has to do with hunting. We know from bones found at the bottoms of cliffs that the Cro-Magnons drove animals over the edge, where they fell to their death. Perhaps what we see here with the falling horse is a depiction of such a hunt or a magical ritual to ensure its success. But not everyone agrees. Please follow me.”
The yellow lamp-beam jiggled on the walls as we began retracing our steps. By now I felt clammy, even though the cave was dry, not damp. Ahead of us, Gounot halted. “Look here, for example.” His light picked out a charming frieze of miniature horses that seemed remote from any violence. The pretty horses might have graced a carousel.
“Others have suggested the artists painted purely for art’s sake and no other reason. What do you think?” he asked rhetorically, gesturing toward the wall.
Above the little horses was a leaping cow painted in reddish brown. She reminded me of the cow in the nursery rhyme, the one that jumped over the moon. She had gracefully curved horns and a looping
tail. Her forelegs were stretched out in front of her, while her hind legs were tucked up, as if she had just cleared an obstacle. Was she leaping over the horses, or had she been painted at a later time and posed so she didn’t obscure the horses below? It was impossible to tell, but nothing in the scene suggested slaughter.
As we retraced our steps and entered another section called the Nave, we stopped at a striking painting of stags’ heads in profile. Each followed the other, as if the artist had seen the stags paddling across a river, eyes wide, heads straining up, displaying their antlers, but with nothing visible below the neck. The scene hinted at the artist’s pleasure in observing nature, but there was no sign of a hunt.
“This is as far as visitors are allowed to go.” With his lamp, Gounot indicated a small domed chamber off to his right. “Beyond this corridor is a narrow shaft about twenty feet deep. It may have been the most sacred part of the cave. They call it the pit, and at the bottom is the painting I mentioned before. Its meaning is unknown.”
We listened intently as Gounot recounted the drama depicted at the bottom of the shaft. Since then I’ve pored over photos of these drawings— and given what happened next, they are stamped on my memory.
At the bottom of the pit, drawn in black outline, are the figures of a man and a bison. The man appears to be hurt. He seems to be falling back on his heels, his arms flung out in alarm. Unlike the animals of the cave, which are lifelike in detail, the man is crudely sketched, like a child’s stick-figure. Facing him stands the bison, its head turned sideways to examine its belly, where it has been wounded by a spear. The most baffling element of the scene is an object, also crudely drawn, that appears to be a bird on the end of a stick. Afterward, my mind would return again and again to this weird talisman, trying to connect it to the events that followed.
We were nearing the completion of our visit. Gounot had guided us back to the Hall of Bulls, where he paused to deliver the finale of his lecture. For the last few minutes of the tour, he had turned on the flood-lights again, bathing the rotunda in color. I was glad of this second chance to view the magical images from my youth. I looked up into the familiar face of the enormous bull, and suddenly the cavern was plunged into darkness.
And there it was, a sound—a scuffing sound along the dirt floor.
“Merde!” The guide’s exasperation was audible. I could hear him muttering in the dark and trying to locate his hand-lamp, which he had placed behind him on the floor of the cave. I recalled there were two wall-switches for the ceiling floodlights, one near the entrance, close to where we were standing, and one behind us at the far end of the rotunda. Without the hand-lamp, which Gounot was fumbling blindly to locate, he couldn’t find the switch nearest him, by the entrance.
“Who touched the lights?” he shouted angrily toward the far end of the hall. But there was no answer. Instead, I felt a movement of air and heard the wordless sounds of a scuffle: grunts, panting, the frightening thump of bodies against a cavern wall. “What’s going on?”
The sounds of struggle continued. I reached blindly out to left and right, searching for Toby. I wanted to run, but in the dark I had no sense of direction. Instantly, Toby found me and threw his arms around me. His scent was comforting. From behind us came a gagging cry, followed by silence. Toby held me tightly.
“Don’t move,” Gounot commanded. We heard him wheezing and shifting about in the dark. “All right, I have it!” he shouted breathlessly. He had found the lamp somewhere on the floor, but it wouldn’t go on. I heard him banging it against hard stone. “Wait. The battery.” He muttered, working to change the battery by feel.
Somewhere close to us, David said, “I think we should join hands and stick together.”
“Right,” agreed Toby, and there was a sound of rustling jackets, as Toby uncurled himself from me and took Lily’s hand, linking the two couples.
“Monsieur?” David called out to the stranger behind him, his voice echoing in the dark. There was no response. “Monsieur?” he called again.
“He’s not there! I can’t find him,” David cried hoarsely, his voice rising in anxiety.
“Hold on to me,” said Toby, grasping my hand more tightly.
It took Gounot forever to change batteries, or so it seemed. In reality, perhaps only two minutes went by. My hand, clasped in Toby’s, felt sweaty. At last, the lamp came to life, and we looked at one another with relief. Lily was very pale, but Gounot’s face was flushed with exertion.
“Stay where you are,” said the guide, reasserting his authority. He moved to the wall-switch for the floodlights and turned them on. Around us, the great bulls and horses galloped across the walls.
Then we saw the missing Frenchman. He was sprawled on his back below the great white bull, with his arms flung out, his blank eyes staring at the charging beast. Blood oozed around his neck where a thin wire had been looped and tightened.
And lying next to him, its gray feathers also streaked with crimson, was a tableau out of the distant past: a dead bird impaled upon a stick.
2
INSPECTOR DAGLAN HAD what you might call a professional squint. It was designed to show just how shrewd he was. Short, square, balding, and nearing retirement age, he spoke in the chewy local accent and had the habit of ducking his chin into his chest to emphasize his points. He and his team—a gangly assistant, two tough-looking gendarmes, and a bearded medical examiner—had driven down from Périgueux as soon as they received the call. Waiting for their arrival, the four of us and Gounot marked time in the guide’s hut in a state of shock. We had left the body in the cave without touching it.
Although Gounot seemed no more eager to return to the cave than we were, he was dispatched to point the police to the scene, while the tall assistant kept an eye on us. The gendarmes, with handguns drawn, led the team up the trail, with Gounot a step behind them issuing warnings and directions. In the hut, we sat in silence. Personally, I had no desire for conversation. It took all my energy just to quiet my unsettled mind. It must have been twenty minutes before the inspector returned alone.
“Quelle horreur!” was Daglan’s first remark. He sunk down into the guide’s chair, which his assistant had left empty. He expelled a sigh and looked from face to face, using his squint to good effect. “Do you all speak French?” Toby and I replied in the affirmative. David explained his wife understood a little French but did not speak it. She looked so shaken, she would have had a hard time expressing herself in English.
“Then permit me to begin with you, Monsieur. Your name, please.”
“David Press.”
“Your wife’s name?”
“Lily.”
“From?”
“New York.”
“The city of New York?”
“That’s right.”
“American citizens?”
“Yes.”
“Profession?”
“Lawyer,” replied David. I noted Daglan did not inquire as to Lily’s profession.
“How long have you been in France?”
David thought for a moment. “We arrived three days ago.”
“The purpose of your visit?”
“Vacation.”
“En vacances.” Daglan nodded to his assistant, who was making notes on a pad. “May I see your passports, please?”
David looked nonplussed. “I’m sorry. They’re in our room. We’ll be happy to produce them.”
“Do you know that in France you are expected to carry your identification with you at all times? Where are you staying?”
“The Château de Cazelle…. That’s near Beynac,” David added, in response to Inspector Daglan’s expression of curiosity.
“I know where it is. In fact, I know the family. We’ll send for your passports. And you, Madame?” he inquired, squinting in my direction.
At that second I was too startled to respond. My international cell phone was vibrating in my pants pocket, and I didn’t know what to do. My brain ordered me to ignore the pho
ne and answer the inspector’s question. My body got there first, however. I had the phone out and was glancing at the caller ID. The number was my mother’s, but this wasn’t a good time for a family chat. I put the phone back in my pocket.
At the same time, Toby blurted in English, “Did you say you’re staying at the Château de Cazelle?”
“That’s right,” replied David, with a puzzled look.
“We are, too!”
Lily’s face brightened at the news. David’s registered surprise.
“In French, please, Monsieur,” said Daglan, looking from David to Toby.
“I said that we are also staying at the Château de Cazelle,” Toby explained.
“Really?” said Daglan, raising an eyebrow. “So the four of you are traveling together?”
“No,” said David.
“But you all know each other, yes?”
“No,” replied Toby. “That is, we just met for the first time here at the cave.”
“Quite a coincidence!” muttered Daglan. I thought so too, but I kept my mouth shut.
“When did you arrive at the château, then?” Daglan asked David.
“Yesterday,” he replied.
“And you, Monsieur?” The question was addressed to Toby.
“They’re expecting us this evening,” he said.
“And where did you stay last night?”
“At the Hotel Vézère in Montignac.”
Inspector Daglan’s assistant was scribbling furiously on his pad. Daglan wagged his finger between Toby and David. “How long will you be staying at the château?”
“Ten days,” answered David.
“The same for us,” chimed Toby. At once I understood the coincidence.
“Then you must be here for the cooking class,” I said to Lily in English.
“Yes, we’re both enrolled,” she replied, relieved to be following at least some of the conversation. Now things were becoming clear. The four of us had signed up for the same cooking class. It was scheduled to start this evening. I explained this state of affairs to Daglan.
