They made their own bread. In the toughest part of winter, they got fed up with eating rice with eggs and dried fruit. They saw someone put the testicles of a bull on a log and, with a rock, castrate it. Spring arrived. Erik learned to catch, kill, and cut up lizards, finding that their flesh tasted more or less like fish, and how to clean the nettles clustered around a brook. At last he had reached another kind of landscape, one of gifts and challenges. ‘I feel a great impotence connected to the outlandish scale of our surroundings,’ he wrote in his diary.
In the large open spaces, the geological complexity blocked even the donkeys’ progress across the plains, and it was painful to look at the brilliance of the golden walls tinting everything with a veil that was off-whitely phantasmagorical, as well as magnificent.
In any case, the nights were no longer impenetrable, and, when the sun went down, the men tracked the immensity with Thomson TRT Défense night-vision binoculars, one of the few donations Jordi had managed to obtain for the expedition. Wearing camouflage trousers and with his rifle slung over his shoulder, he might have looked like a soldier. The ammunition consisted of narcotic darts to make the barmanu sleep, in the event of its appearing.
In 1990, Pakistan was living through an extremely unusual parenthesis. The Russian war with Afghanistan had just ended, and for the first time in many years there was no war in the region, at least not any official one. If anyone had discovered Jordi there, they might even have thought he really was a hunter. There was, in short, peace.
When he lay down in the camping-tent, Jordi sharpened his hearing, as he did every night. ‘Listen,’ his mother had always insisted when they’d gone out to walk in the countryside. ‘The birds sing very well, they’re superb virtuosi.’ Dolores was devoted to Maria Callas — her operas could often be heard at home — and also Vivaldi. Dolores used to wake up to The Barber of Seville or any other more or less popular tune. ‘Listen.’
But Jordi had no ear for music; it was remarkable how little gift he had. Sometimes he would try to hum something, and when he named the tune, his family would be left bewildered, thinking he was joking.
That night, however, Jordi heard. There it is. Again. The cry of a creature that was unidentified, but which he recognised. There it is. He went outside, just pulling on his boots, flashlight in hand. He couldn’t see anything.
‘There you are,’ he said aloud.
Erik had heard it, too. From the start of the trip he’d been overcome by a strong sense of harmony and plenitude because of the universal nature of the expedition. He didn’t know if that hairy, elusive mystery incarnate that Jordi was presenting as a relict Neanderthal existed in reality, but he wanted to believe in it, it suited him to believe in it, the search consumed all his energies, it guided every one of his actions. Furthermore, he understood that, if it existed, the capture of that hominid would be one of the scientific occurrences of the century. And the idea of aspiring as high as possible proved the perfect incentive.
He had to acknowledge that the seeking the barmanu was the ideal motive for surrendering himself to the mountains, for exposing himself to the forces of nature. That was the prize, being there — he needed no more than that. The thing was, Erik had heard that cry, too.
XII
Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman — a rope over an abyss.
Friedrich Nietzsche
‘HAVE you got a moment, Cat?’
The French paleoanthropologist Catherine Valicourt-Malassé was in the laboratory of the Natural History Museum in Paris contemplating how it was possible that not a single one of her colleagues was giving any serious consideration to the theory she’d been proposing since December 1987 (the exact month and year when Jordi Magraner had gone off to Pakistan for the first time — though this, of course, was something the researcher did not know). Ever since her theory had been totally ignored by the Société d’Anthropologie, it was as though the idea had vanished into thin air.
‘Cat?’
Valicourt’s problem had begun when she insisted on pointing out that Darwin was inadequate to explaining how consciousness had developed in human beings, and wondered why there had not been more focused efforts to divine the origin of this most sophisticated capability.
The scientist recalled that the most recent populations of Homo erectus had lived in eastern Europe until 30,000 B.C., and that the extinction of these populations had not taken place in a uniform manner, allowing for the possibility that there were some individuals who had merely scattered. In the event of just one group having survived, relict humans could be a reality.
‘Caaaaat!’
And perhaps the evolution of those survivors would provide the answer to the why of consciousness.
‘Cat — please!’
‘Uh … hi, Édouard,’ said Cat at last; her old friend and collaborator Édouard Gasquet was practically on top of her by now.
‘Of course, when you get into something … Just a moment. Thing is, I reckon this might interest you. The reptiles and amphibians lab have started working with a young man who has just been exploring parts of Central Asia. He says he has eyewitness accounts suggesting the existence of wild men, and he wants to see fossilised skulls. Sounds like he’s read Heuvelmans’ book.’
‘He’s read Heuvelmans? Seriously?’
Valicourt agreed to receive Jordi in the offices of the Institute for Human Palaeontology in Paris.
Jordi knew the institute already, but at that moment it possessed an unusual seriousness for him, which was why he paused to contemplate the figures engraved on the stone of the façade. Primitive women use a branch to tickle the large ape that has been captured by the men. A cave family roasts a fish. A hunter slits the belly of the huge recently dead moose. History awaited him.
He entered the shadowy building, went down a chain of corridors and passageways in the half-dark, and, after climbing various flights of creaking stairs, reached Valicourt’s office.
The scientist did not notice how elegantly Jordi had dressed for the occasion, nor the colour of his eyes, nor his curls, nor even his small stature. To her, what mattered was to ascertain that he was not a pathological liar; after all, the boy hadn’t been to university, and she wanted to be sure that she was dealing with someone honest, not one of those manipulating charlatans.
When Jordi began to talk, she was only listening out for information about the exploration, the methodology, his research and results, because this was the first time she’d met anyone who had been in search of witnesses and possible populations … having read Heuvelmans.
Valicourt interrupted him from time to time with direct questions that were framed almost aggressively. She was not going to be mocked. She was a woman even more practical than was typical of her profession; it was no coincidence she had been secretary-general of the Teilhard de Chardin Foundation, named for the palaeontologist and philosopher who had decided to surrender himself ‘body and soul to the sacred duty of the search’. She hated wasting time.
Jordi talked fast. He answered her questions instantly and effectively, there were no gaps in his speech … although maybe he ought to slow his narrative down, enunciate more slowly … pah, it made no difference. He was nervous and he had a lot to tell, these people always have too much of an agenda, and so he produced detailed reports, described experiences, plateaux, valleys, forests, sketched out his theories and the possibilities of future explorations in the territory.
‘And it’s all summarised in a file.’
The report’s conclusions convinced Valicourt.
From then on, their meetings happened at mealtimes. One lunchtime, leaving the self-service canteen of the Natural History Museum, they agreed to take one of their now almost traditional strolls through the Jardin des Plantes, chatting about the hypothetical hominids in the Hindu Kush. Jordi clasped his hands behind his back, marking every step clearly. If he’
d worn a frock coat, he might have resembled a gentleman of some earlier century. He was aware of the parallel — indeed he was overacting, unobtrusively satisfied to see himself like that, because that was just the right stroll, the historically ideal place, to talk about a subject of such transcendence.
The museum is at the entrance to the garden and no more than five minutes from the Institute of Human Palaeontology. You just had to cross the road and walk in a straight line, and so, amid Japanese sophoras and cedars, surrounded by exotic plants, hearing the cries of the inhabitants of the small zoo that formed part of the gardens — this was also where the finches were to be found that had provided Darwin with the key to his theory — a Jordi with a full stomach and the perfect temperature for taking a stroll without sunstroke allowed himself to get carried away by the euphoria: ‘When I record the sounds you can hear in the valleys, the experts will have to accept them as irrefutable proof of the existence of some creature that is, at the very least, different.’
He glanced at Valicourt. She was walking in silence, her eyes on the earth pathway.
‘And the interviews with Gujjars,’ added Jordi, ‘will mark the before-and-after point in the studies of relict humans.’
‘My dear, they’re going to need more than that! Those are only superficial proofs.’
‘Superficial? Do you have any idea how hard it is to reach these people? No, no. Not superficial at all. And then, when we talk about the bone, they’ll be dumbstruck, you’ll see.’
Valicourt’s smile did not express joy, not even complicity. She asked herself once again whether an alliance with the Spaniard was a good idea — if it wouldn’t be better to give up on it now while there was still time. Every conversation showed her that Jordi had too many ideas that didn’t chime with traditional scientific and historical knowledge, though he believed in them absolutely. How was he going to demonstrate all this? She couldn’t keep on helping him; it would end up creating problems. But the door that was being opened to her … Darwin’s finches swirled about just a few metres away. Valicourt had devoted her whole life to finding out what was hidden behind that door. The search for these populations was too important.
‘Yes, the bone is going to give them something to think about,’ said Valicourt.
The bone.
Jordi couldn’t get it out of his head. He was amused by this expression that sounded like a redundant play on words about the head bone, from which he couldn’t free himself — the bone that had made it possible to amplify the human cranial cavity.
How many hours had he spent calculating, proving, speculating about it. And there he still was, studying how that same bone had made it possible to project sound in ancestral throats, how that sound had adapted into a voice.
At the wheel of the van, Jordi was waiting for the lights to change.
If Valicourt hesitated, he’d encourage her himself. He could see she had doubts about his theories, but everybody knows original ideas aren’t normally accepted at first. The key was to defend these ideas, which hadn’t just appeared by magic but after years of investigation. I could keep telling this story for years.
The light turned green.
Jordi found a parking space right in front of the pet shop — That’s great, that doesn’t usually happen. He got out of the van, opened the side door, and, using the strength in his wrist, grabbed the last aquarium of the day. While the woman running the shop stamped the invoice, under its La Ferme Exotique letterhead, he calculated that it would take him more or less an hour and a half to get back to Valence.
Night fell as he drove. The fields of the Ardèche paraded past, perfectly orderly, along the sides of the smooth motorway. He had been lucky to find work so quickly on his return from his second expedition, but as soon as he managed to get at least some small amount of money together … He looked at the sheet of paper he had thrown onto the passenger seat at lunchtime. After eating a sandwich at a motorway rest stop, he had drawn two human skulls: one, before the expansion of the bone; the other, after. It was so clear. This was an answer! They were two different heads! Different sounding boards! How could he publicise his theory? And what about patrons? The whole world is constantly talking about these people, but how does one actually get to them?
When he arrived home, he kissed his mother, made a pot of coffee, shut himself up in his bedroom, and began to write letters explaining the work he was carrying out and the ways his research would be of interest to science. Then he gathered up a whole heap of scientific magazines, looked for the address of their publishers in the masthead, and put each letter into its envelope.
Louis Faton, the director of S.F.B.D. Archéologie, was interested to learn that Jordi was putting together a dossier on relict hominids. If one publication of such prestige were to endorse him, the rest would flow on their own. Which was why, when he received a missive from Faton, Jordi rushed, fiddled clumsily with the envelope, and, as he tore it, tore off a part of the letter. Still standing, he read that S.F.B.D. had been compelled to turn down his file. According to Faton, Jordi had refused to write an earlier article that would have helped the magazine’s team of pre-historians consider the opportunity to publish the report. ‘I’ve never turned down an article you suggested,’ Jordi replied in writing. Fanon did not give way.
‘Damn bastard hypocrite,’ said Jordi at home. He said it several times, on several days. Always at home. Then he swallowed his indignation and awaited a reply from other publications.
We do not intend to publish your assembly of witness statements. Fifty years ago a similar description could have been obtained for fairies and elves in the Breton lands. (Philippe Boulanger, Pour la Science magazine)
I regret to inform you that our magazine will not be publishing … (Marie-Jeanne Husset, Sciences et Avenir)
The noes lined up one after another, inexplicably, all the more so when he saw new articles getting published by Marie-Jeanne Koffman, the doyenne of the seekers of the Almastys (the wild man of the Caucasus), who was supported by several reputable scientists, despite the fact that Koffman’s contributions seemed incomparably inferior to his own.
‘A girl called asking for you,’ his mother told him one afternoon when he returned from work.
Jordi put the coffee pot to heat, glancing out of the kitchen window at the van.
‘She said to call this number.’
Dolores handed him the piece of paper where she had noted down a telephone number with a foreign code and a woman’s name.
‘She says it’s for a television programme.’
From the TV? He looked at the kitchen clock. What hours do TV people work? Would the girl still be on the editorial desk? Well, he didn’t want to appear too anxious, since if you answer too quickly they’ll think they can do whatever they want with you. What did they expect, that everyone’s got to come running when they call? No, no, they should learn to respect people. He did have to acknowledge the journalist’s perceptiveness in recognising the quality of his work, but that was all. He would wait a few hours.
In the morning, he asked permission from the employee at the establishment where he had just delivered the first aquarium of the day if he might make a call on his telephone.
‘Sure, it’s all yours.’
Just as well the guy didn’t ask if it was a domestic call or long distance — he wouldn’t have known what to tell him. Jordi dialled the numbers while the shopkeeper positioned the aquarium in the place he had reserved for it. An operator answered.
‘I’m sorry, who am I calling?’
‘This is Belgian Radio TV.’
Belgian? He said thanks, gave his name and the name of the woman he was after. The phone line clicked through.
‘Hello — Mr Magraner?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m delighted to speak to you — thanks for returning our call. I’m the producer of the Écran Temoin programme, and I
got in touch because we’d really like to have you on one of our shows to explain your story about being in the mountains …’
While Jordi listened, the employee of the shop admired his new aquarium, which he had positioned above two others that were practically identical, beside the cages of the ferrets. There were also puppies sleeping or gambolling about, parrots drinking or playing on their swings, snakes that were lying very still, and a semi-sour smell combining feed, excrement, and products for animal hygiene. It was amazing. They wanted to put him on TV. An act of justice! But why did they have to be Belgian?
Weeks later, Jordi went, delighted, up to the low country, never stopping wondering why the only people interested in him belonged to a country that wasn’t the one where he lived. Why?
He’d heard about the power struggles in scientific circles, he even had a little experience in that area, but he was beginning to grasp how much he was still unaware of the true dimensions of these conflicts and, above all, he didn’t understand how or why they might affect him.
When he informed Valicourt that he was going to be taking part in the programme, he used the opportunity to return to this subject that so excited his colleague.
‘I know you’ve told me loads of times, but I’m only now starting to realise just how far they’re prepared to go to get you out of the way if you aren’t willing to fit the mould.’ Jordi was talking standing in the scientist’s office, amid books and fossils. ‘It’s unbelievable. The way they can be so short-sighted.’
‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ replied Valicourt.
And she gave him a crash course in the different ways of being ignored. She used herself as an example, the years she’d spent insisting on the need to keep making progress in the study of hominisation, which now seemed, to her mind, officially over.
In the Land of Giants Page 6
