I'm Gone Page 4
A pause, then Gourdel hastily rewraps his frame, nods to Ferrer, and leaves. Outside he runs into Martinov, who’s just heading in. Martinov is a young man with innocently cunning eyes; they exchange a few words.
“That asshole’s trying to shove me in the closet,” says Gourdel.
“I can’t believe that,” consoles Martinov. “He knows what you’re doing, he has faith in you. He’s got some artistic sense, after all.”
“No,” says Gourdel before heading off into the bland daylight, “nobody has any artistic sense anymore. The only ones who ever did were the popes and kings. Since then, nobody.”
“So you saw Gourdel,” said Ferrer.
“I just ran into him,” said Martinov. “Things don’t seem to be going too well.”
“He’s a complete wreck,” said Ferrer. “Sales-wise he’s not going anywhere at all, he’s nothing more than a symbolic leftover. You, on the other hand, are doing just fine. Someone just came by a while ago, who’s certainly going to take the large yellow. Apart from that, what are you working on these days?”
“Well, let’s see,” said Martinov. “I had my vertical series. I’m giving two or three of them to a group show.”
“Hold on a minute,” said Ferrer, “what’s this about?”
“Nothing,” said Martinov, “it’s just for the Deposit and Consignment Building.”
“What?” said Ferrer. “You’re doing a group show at the Deposit and Consignment Building?”
“So what?” said Martinov. “What’s wrong with the Deposit and Consignment Building?”
“Personally,” said Ferrer, “I think it’s ridiculous that you’re showing at the Deposit and Consignment Building. Ridiculous. And a group show to boot. You’re devaluing yourself. Take my word for it. Anyway, you can do as you please.”
It was therefore in a fairly bad mood that Ferrer listened to all the general information that Delahaye had for him about Boreal art: the Ipiutak, Thule, Choris, Birnirk, and Denbigh schools; Paleoarctic cultures that succeeded each other between 2500 and 1000 B.C.E. When Delahaye began comparing materials, influences, and styles, Ferrer was less attentive than when he started talking numbers: indeed it seemed more and more likely that this abandoned shipwreck business, if it proved to be true, might be worth the trip. Now for the moment it hadn’t proven to be anything, for lack of more precise information. But it was now in the last days of January and in any case, Delahaye reminded him, even if we knew more, weather conditions prevented them from leaving before spring, when, at those high latitudes, daylight breaks.
8
It was in fact just about to break when Ferrer opened an eye: the open hatchway sketched a pale gray-blue rectangle on one wall of his cabin. On the absurdly narrow bunk, it was not easy to turn over toward the opposite wall, and then, having managed it, Ferrer had no more than twelve inches of mattress on which to lie, but at least it was a lot warmer than on other mornings. He tried to firm up his position by slight movements, crawling in place on his side, if such a thing is possible: in vain. Then, as he was trying to increase these movements to gain a little of this warm territory, a sudden adverse force propelled him backward: Ferrer tumbled from his bunk. He fell with his full weight on his right shoulder, thought it was dislocated, and shivered: the cabin floor was all the colder in that Ferrer was nude except for his watch. He pulled himself up using all four limbs, then pondered the bunk while scratching his scalp.
It appears things had changed. The unforeseeable had happened. In the bunk, sighing with relief at being alone and turning over before starting to snore again, nurse Brigitte comfortably sank back into sleep. Her tan was deeper and more pronounced than usual, bistre fading to orange: she had fallen asleep again under the UV’s, poor thing, and gotten a little overdone. Ferrer shrugged his shoulders, shivered again, and looked at his watch—six-twenty—before pulling on a sweater.
He wasn’t feeling too well, to tell the truth, and was worried. The last time he went to see Feldman, the cardiologist had warned him against extremes of temperature: intense heat or intense cold, abrupt shifts in the weather: all of that was very bad for coronary cases. “You are not living a healthy life for someone in your condition,” Feldman had said. “Quitting smoking isn’t enough, you’ve got to follow a whole fitness program, every day, starting now.” Ferrer had therefore been careful not to reveal that he was planning to leave for the Great North. He had just mentioned a business trip, in the vaguest of terms. “Good, and come back in three to four weeks,” Feldman had said. “It’ll be time to do an electrocardiogram, and I’ll show you some good reasons to stop acting like an idiot.” As he recalled these words, Ferrer mechanically placed a hand on his heart, just to make sure it wasn’t beating too hard, too little, too irregularly: no, it was okay, it seemed to be doing fine.
He wasn’t so cold now; he was quite a sight in his sweater, his poor contracted genitals barely swaying underneath. For lack of anything better to do, he cast a glance out the porthole. A distant glimmer gave some idea of the dawning sun that for the moment was reflected only by terns with immaculate wings spinning in the heights. In that dim light, Ferrer could barely make out to port the eroded mass of Southhampton Island fading behind them, grayish like an old heap of gravel: they were about to enter the channel leading into Wager Bay. Ferrer took off his sweater and got back into bed.
Not so easily done. Magnificently proportioned though she was, nurse Brigitte occupied the entire bunk: no room to slip in even an arm, no way to crawl in from the side. Bucking up his courage, Ferrer decided to approach the matter from above by lowering himself onto the nurse with all the delicacy he could muster. But Brigitte began to murmur disapprovingly. She balked and started to push him away, and for a moment Ferrer thought the battle lost, but little by little she relaxed. They got down to business, though with scant margin for error, the narrowness of the bunk prohibiting more combinations than it allowed: they could only manage one on top of the other, albeit alternatively and in both directions (which is already not bad). They took their time, given that it was Sunday; they indulged themselves, they lingered, and did not leave the cabin until ten o’clock that morning.
It was Sunday, a real Sunday. You could feel it in the air where several scattered squadrons of cormorants pushed forward more sluggishly than usual. Walking up the deck they met part of the crew coming from the chapel, among them the radiotelegraph operator who concealed his spite rather poorly. But in any case, they were about to reach Ferrer’s goal; for the radioman it was only a matter of hours until he’d be forever rid of this rival who, having reached his objective, bid his farewells to the captain and staff on the bridge, then headed back to his cabin to pack his bags. The ice breaker dropped Ferrer in Wager Bay before immediately casting off again. That day a uniform fog hung over everything, expansive, opaque, low as a ceiling, masking the neighboring peaks and even the upper portion of the ship, but at the same time diffusing an extremely bright light. Once on land, Ferrer saw the Des Groseilliers disperse in the fog, its masses fade into outlines, then those outlines themselves fade into a mere sketch, which ended up evaporating as well.
Ferrer preferred not to linger in Wager Bay: it was nothing more than a group of prefab shacks with walls of rusted sheet metal pierced by little windows lit in dusty ochre. Between these buildings, which were huddled around a mast, several schematic roads barely breathed: narrow, uneven passageways warped by dirty ice, obstructed by snowdrifts, their intersections littered with dark masses of metal or cement and shreds of petrified plastic. Stiffly deployed like hung wash, albeit frozen horizontal, a flag flapped motionlessly at the top of the mast whose barely visible shadow stretched up to the cramped roundel of the heliport.
This small heliport was adjacent to a minuscule airport where Ferrer took off, heading for Port Radium, on board a Saab 340 Cityliner outfitted for six, even though the only passenger, apart from him, was an engineer from the Eureka weather station. Fifty minutes later, at Port Radium, whic
h resembled Wager Bay like an unloved brother, Ferrer met his guides: two locals named Angoutretok and Napaseekadlak. They were dressed in quilted down with synchilla polar fibers, porous undergarments made of capilene, fluorescent snow suits, and gloves with a built-in heating system. Natives of the district next to Tuktoyaktuk, they were structurally identical, basically small and wide, with short legs and tapered hands, beardless pentagonal faces and sallow complexions, prominent cheekbones, stiff black hair, and dazzling teeth. Having first introduced themselves, they presented Ferrer to the sled dogs.
A pack dozing in a pen around a chief, these dogs were hairy, dirty, with yellowish-black or filthy-yellow pelts and surly dispositions. If they didn’t much like the men who, not much liking them either, never petted them, they didn’t even seem to care for each other very much: the looks they exchanged denoted only envy and jealousy. Ferrer quickly understood that, as individuals, not one of these animals was the sort you wanted to know. If you called one by name, he barely turned around, then turned away again if he didn’t see any food. If you exhorted him to get to work, he didn’t even react, signifying with a brief sideways glance that you should talk to the leader of the pack. The latter, aware of his importance, then made a face and gave a cursory acknowledgment with his eye—the annoyed eye of an executive under stress, the distracted eye of his secretary doing her nails.
They started out that same day: there they are, heading off. They were equipped with Savage 116 FFS All-Weather carbines, 15 x 45 IS binoculars with image stabilizers, knives, and whips. Napaseekadlak’s knife had a handle made of oosik, the bone that acts as a walrus’s sexual organ and whose qualities of suppleness, resistance, and porosity give it an ideal grip. Less traditional, Angoutretok’s was a White Hunter II Puma with a Kraton handle.
Leaving Port Radium, they at first formed a small parade. On both sides, flecks of snowy ice were scattered on the rocks like a remainder of foam on the walls of an empty beer mug. They advanced fairly quickly, each one rudely jostled on his sled by the uneven ground. At first Ferrer tried to exchange a few words with his guides, especially Angoutretok, who spoke a little English; Napaseekadlak expressed himself only by smiles. But the words, once emitted, echoed too briefly before solidifying: as they remained frozen for an instant in the middle of the air, one had only to stretch out one’s hand for these words to fall into it in a jumble, melt gently between one’s fingers, and evaporate in a whisper.
Immediately the mosquitoes launched their attack, but fortunately they were easy to kill. In these latitudes, in fact, man is practically unknown to animals, who are not wary of him: you can kill mosquitoes with a backswipe of your hand, without them even trying to escape. Which didn’t prevent them from making life unbearable, attacking by dozens per cubic yard and stinging through clothing, especially on the shoulders and knees where the fabric was taut. If the men had wanted to take a photo, the swarms, floating in front of the lens, would have blocked the view; but in any case they didn’t have a camera, that wasn’t what they were there for. Having covered the air holes of their hoods, they moved forward, batting at their sides. Once they saw a polar bear, too far away to be a threat.
But it was mainly the dogs who caused all sorts of problems. One morning, for example, as Ferrer found himself ejected from his sled by a rugged snow ridge, the driverless vehicle began to careen every which way. But instead of stopping, the animals, thinking they were free, took off at top speed in several directions at once. The sled ended up spilling over and getting stuck across the trail, immobilizing at the end of their traces the dogs who immediately began yapping noisily at each other. Meanwhile, Ferrer tried to regain his senses on the edge of the trail while rubbing his hip. Having set the sled upright, Angoutretok tried to pacify the animals with his whip, but managed only to make things worse: instead of calming down, the first whipped dog reacted by biting his neighbor, who bit the one next to him, who bit two others, who reacted the same way until everything degenerated into total confusion. They were finally subdued with great effort; then the train headed off again. The boreal summer progressed. Night never fell.
9
In Paris, at the beginning of February, Ferrer might have been the first to disappear for good.
The end of the month of January had been very busy. After Delahaye had, insistently, revived the question of how interesting the Nechilik could be, Ferrer decided to take a serious look. Visiting museums and private collections, consulting experts, travelers, and curators, he began to learn firsthand all he could about polar art and its market value. If what remained of the ship should one day prove accessible, it would no doubt be an affair of consequence. Ferrer had even bought, from a gallery in the Marais, two small sculptures that he studied at length every evening: a sleeping woman by Povungnituk and a figuration of spirits by Pangnirtung. Although these forms were not familiar to him, he ended up trying to understand them, to distinguish their style, discern their intentions.
In any case, this northward operation remained hypothetical for the moment. Delahaye, despite his research, had still not turned up any information to help them locate the wreck more precisely. Already, however, in anticipation, Ferrer sketched the broad outlines of a possible expedition. But these winter days brought with them some new cares. Preparations for a first Martinov retrospective (after the latter had given up on Deposits and Consignments), flood damage at Estrellas’s studio (reducing all of his rock candy installations to nil), Gourdel’s suicide attempt, and other preoccupations provoked an unusual heightening of activity. Without really noticing, Ferrer found himself buried under things to do, overworked like your average marketing manager. It was so unlike him that he didn’t even realize how hard he was pushing himself. Several days later he would pay the price.
Several days, or rather nights, for soon afterward a physiological episode occurred: all of his exhausted vital functions fell asleep when he did. It lasted only two or three hours at most, during which time his biorhythms went on strike. The beating of his heart, the circulation of air in his lungs, perhaps even his cell regeneration worked only the barest minimum, hardly noticeable, a kind of coma, which uninitiates would have found almost impossible to distinguish from clinical death. Ferrer had no knowledge whatsoever of this episode taking place in his body, nor did he experience the slightest suffering. At most he passed through it as if in a dream, and perhaps he did indeed dream it—not a half-bad dream to boot, since he awoke in a pretty good mood.
He woke up later than usual and without realizing a thing. He didn’t imagine for an instant that he’d just been victim to what is known as an atrioventricular block. Had he been examined, the specialists would no doubt have posited a Mobitz II block, before further reflection and consultation led them to settle on a diagnosis of second-degree Luciani-Wenckebach.
Whatever the case, when he awoke, Victoire wasn’t there. Apparently she hadn’t come home last night. Nothing so strange about that: the young lady sometimes spent the night at a girlfriend’s, usually a certain Louise, or at least so she reassured him in her usual evasive, detached way—Ferrer not being exclusive or attached enough himself to seek further reassurance. Still, once out of bed, he first supposed that Victoire had changed rooms during the night to sleep in peace, for the simple reason that he snored, he knew he sometimes snored, no use denying it. And so he had gone to see whether Victoire was sleeping down the hall. No. Hm. Then, noting first that her toilet articles were missing from the bathroom, then her clothes from the closet, then she herself over the following days, there was no use denying either that she was gone.
As far as his time allowed, he looked for her the best he could. But if Victoire had any close friends he could ask for information, a little family, some next of kin or next best thing, she’d never introduced him to them. She had very few habits apart from three bars: the Cyclone, the Sun, and especially the Central, also frequented by Delahaye, but the latter was hard to reach these days, claiming to be occupied full-time with that N
echilik business. Two or three times, Ferrer had also seen Victoire in the company of the woman named Louise, who was the same age as she and had a part-time job at the train station. He revisited those bars, saw Louise, learned nothing.
And so once again he lives alone. But this isn’t good for him. And still less so in the morning when he wakes up with an erection, in other words like most mornings like most men, while lurching between the bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. Luckily, after these perambulations, it becomes no more than half an erection. But ballasted, almost unbalanced by that appendage perpendicular to the hunched vertical of his spine, he finally sits down, opens his mail—an almost always disappointing operation that generally and quickly ends in a new sedimentation of his wastepaper basket, but that, mutatis mutandis if not nolens volens, at least shrinks his apparatus back to normal size.
No, it isn’t good for him; it can’t last. But it’s no mean feat to improvise when the void suddenly opens. Even Victoire’s brief presence was long enough to erase other women’s presences around Ferrer. He naively thought those others would always be there, as if, as potential stand-ins, they had nothing better to do than wait for him. But they all let him down, they haven’t waited, of course; they’re living their own lives. So, not being able to remain celibate for long, he goes looking where he can.
As everyone knows, you never find anyone when you’re looking; it’s better not to look like you’re looking, act like nothing’s happening. It’s better to wait for some chance encounter, especially without looking like you’re waiting, either. For so it is, they say, that great inventions are born: by the inadvertent contact of two products placed next to each other by chance on a laboratory table. Of course, this still requires someone to place these products next to each other, even if no one had planned their juxtaposition. It still requires someone to call them together at the same moment: proof that they had, well before anyone knew it, something between them. It’s chemistry, and that’s that. You can look far and wide for all kinds of molecules and try to combine them: nothing. You can have samples sent in from the four corners of the earth: still nothing. And then one day, by a slip of the hand, you jostle the objects that have been lying around on the tabletop for months, accidental splatter, test tube knocked over in a crystallizer, and immediately it produces the reaction you’ve been trying to get for years. Or, for example, you forget some cultures in a drawer and bingo: penicillin.