The Tenth Chamber (11 page)

‘The sooner the better,’ Luc said and when the bat man answered with a stony face, Luc added, ‘So what do you think of the paintings?’

The bat man replied, ‘I hadn’t really noticed.’

In the early afternoon, the second shift assembled on the ledge in anxious anticipation. Then Luc led the rest of the principals and the
Le Monde
journalist on a guided tour, acting like an artist at his own gallery opening. Every gasp, every murmur, every cooing sent a pleasant ripple up his back. ‘Yes, it is extraordinary. Yes, I knew you’d be impressed,’ he said over and over.

Zvi Alon caught up with Luc in between the Chamber of the Bison Hunt and a passage they were calling the Gallery of the Bears, where three large brown bears with expressive, open mouths and squarish snouts overlapped one another. ‘Listen, Luc,’ he said excitedly, ‘I can’t buy your assertion this is Aurignacian. It can’t be that early! The polychromatic shading is too advanced.’

‘I’m not making an assertion, Zvi. It’s only an observation from a single flint tool. Look at the outline of these bears. This is charcoal, no? We’ll have radiocarbon dates soon enough and we won’t have to speculate about the age. We’ll know.’

‘I know already,’ Alon gruffly insisted. ‘It’s the same age or later than Lascaux. It’s too advanced. But I still like it. It’s a very good cave.’

Luc left Sara alone till the last of the tour. They were nearly at the end of the cave, the unadorned Chamber 9. He sent the others back to start their work but kept Sara at his side. Everyone else looked bulky and shapeless in their protective suits. Her extra-small Tyvek garment somehow fit perfectly. She looked incongruously elegant, not couture, certainly, but unaccountably stylish.

‘How’re you doing?’ he asked.

‘Well.’ Her eyes were starry from the art. ‘Really well.’

‘I’ve got a private tour for you. Ready to get on your hands and knees to see the tenth chamber?’

‘I’d crawl a mile for that. But just so I’m prepared, are there a lot of bats?’

‘No. They don’t seem to like it there. I’ll have to ask our friend Desnoyers why.’

She stole a glance at the undulating colony overhead. ‘Okay, let’s start crawling.’

Moran’s padded mats made the passage easier on the knees. He led, she followed and he was quietly amused she had to follow his rump so closely. They emerged in the tenth chamber and stood upright. Luc could tell that Sara was dazzled by the exuberant display of humanity on the dome-shaped walls. Stencilled hands everywhere, bright as stars on a moonless night. ‘I saw your pictures, Luc, but, wow.’

‘It’s a warm-up. Come on.’

The last chamber was rigged with a single tripod lamp giving off a stinging halogen flare. He saw her buckle and instinctively grabbed her around the waist for support. She pulled away whispering an irritated, ‘I’m okay,’ then firmed her knees. She slowly began turning with little foot movements, eventually making a full circle. She reminded Luc of a music-box ballerina his mother had when he was young, which pirouetted on a mirrored base to the sound of an oriental melody. Finally, she spoke again. ‘It’s so green.’

‘Beyond being the first depiction of flora in Upper Paleolithic, it’s the only known use of green pigment from this era. It must be malachite but we’ll have to see. The browns and the red berries are iron oxides, undoubtedly.’

‘The grasses,’ she marvelled. ‘They’re completely compatible with the dry steppes we’d expect in the Aurignacian period during the warm seasons. And look at this fantastic beaked man standing in the grass like a giant scarecrow.’

‘He’s my new best friend,’ Luc said drily. ‘What about the other plants?’

‘Well, this is what’s so interesting. The manuscript illustrations are more realistic than the cave paintings but there appear to be two varieties,’ she said moving first to her right. ‘This panel is a bush with red berries. The leaf pattern is fairly impressionistic and imprecise, see here? And here? But the bushes in the manuscript clearly have five-lobed leaves in a spiral array on the stem. I’d have to say
Ribes rubrum
if pressed. The redcurrant bush. It’s indigenous to western Europe.’ She moved to her left. ‘And these vines. Again, the manuscript has a clearer rendering. The long stems and the elongated, arrow-head-shaped leaves,
Convolvulus arvensis
is my best guess, but it’s only a guess. The European bindweed. It’s an awful bugger as far as weeds go but it’s got pretty little pink and white flowers in the summer. But, no flowers here, as you can see.’

‘So, grass, weeds and redcurrants, is that the verdict?’

‘Hardly a verdict,’ she said. ‘A first impression. When can I get to work on the pollen?’

‘First thing in the morning. So, are you glad you came?’

‘On a professional level, yes.’

‘Only professionally?’

‘Jesus, Luc. Yes. Only professionally.’

He awkwardly turned away and pointed towards the Vault of Hands. ‘You first. I’ll get the light.’

Celebration hung heavy in the air like the smell of gunpowder after fireworks. The air was chilly but as there was no threat of rain people were taking their meals on folding chairs and wine crates out in the open. Luc spent a last few minutes with the journalist, Girot, before the man departed for Paris. Before he left, they warmly exchanged business cards and Luc sought one more assurance the piece would be embargoed until further notice.

‘Don’t worry,’ Girot said. ‘A deal’s a deal. You’ve been great, professor. You can trust me.’

Alon sought out Luc and pulled up a chair. He had passed on the cook’s main course of rosemary lamb chops and roasted potatoes and opted instead for bread and butter and some fruit. Luc looked at his plate. ‘I’m sorry, Zvi, are we not accommodating your dietary needs?’

‘I don’t keep kosher,’ he replied, ‘I don’t like French food.’

Luc smiled at his bluntness. ‘So? The cave?’

‘Well, I think you’ve found one of the most remarkable sites in prehistory. It’s going to require a lifetime of study. I only wish my life span were longer. You know, Luc, I’m not an emotional man, but this cave moves me. I’m in awe of it, whatever its age. Lascaux’s been called the Paleolithic Sistine Chapel. Ruac is better. The artists here were masters. The colours are more vivid, which speaks to excellent pigment technology. The animals are even more naturalistic than Lascaux or Altamira or Font de Gaume or Chauvet. The use of perspective is highly advanced. These were the da Vincis and Michaelangelos of their time.’

‘I feel the same way. Look, Zvi, we have a chance to study this right and maybe make a breakthrough on the subject that you’ve written about so eloquently: why did they paint?’

‘You know I’ve had strong opinions.’

‘That’s why I chose you.’

Without a trace of self-consciousness, Alon said, ‘You made the right choice. I’ve been hard on Lewis-Williams and Clottes for their shamanistic theories, as you know.’

‘They’ve both commiserated with me,’ Luc replied. ‘But they respect you.’

‘I’ve always felt that they place far too much emphasis on observations of modern shamanism in Africa and the New World. This whole business of the cave wall being a membrane between the real world and the spirit world and the shaman being some paleolithic Timothy Leary with hallucinogens and a skin full of pigments – it’s hard to swallow. Yes, these people of Ruac and Lascaux were Homo sapiens, just like us, but their societies were in a continual state of transformation, not static like modern stone-age cultures. That’s why I can’t accept extrapolations from modern ethnography. There may not have been neurological differences between our brains and theirs but, by God, there were cultural differences which we simply cannot understand. You know where I stand, Luc. I’m old school, a direct descendant of Laming-Emperaire and Leroi-Gourhan. I say let the analysis of the archaeology speak for itself. Look at the types of animals, the pairings, the clusters, the associations. Then you can divine the common mythological stories, the significance of clans, try to make some sense of it all. Think about it, for a period of at least twenty-five thousand years, a huge span of time, they used a core set of animal motifs: horse, bison, deer, bulls with a smattering of felines and bears. Not reindeers, which they ate, not birds, or fish – okay, one here, two there – and not trees and plants, at least not until now. They didn’t paint whatever they fancied. There were reasons these motifs exist. But . . .’

He stopped speaking, removed his glasses and rubbed his rheumy eyes.

‘But?’ Luc asked.

‘But Ruac is disturbing me.’

‘In what way?’

‘I’ve become more of a statistician than an archaeologist, Luc. I’m up to my neck in computer models and algorithms. I can tell you more about the correlation between cave position and left-facing horses than any man on the planet. But today! Today I felt more like an archaeologist which is good, but also I felt like someone who knows nothing, which is unsettling.’

Luc agreed with him and added, ‘There’s a lot of ground-breaking material here. It’s not just you who’s going to have to reevaluate beliefs. Everyone is. The Chamber of Plants alone. And if it’s Aurignacian, which I accept you don’t buy into, then what?’

‘Yes, the plants, of course they’re something totally new. But it’s more than that. The whole gestalt of the place is getting to me. The bird men, particularly. One with the bison, one with the vegetation. I looked at them and that goddamn curse word, shaman, kept popping into my head.’ He slapped Luc’s knee. ‘If you tell Lewis-Williams I said that, I’ll kill you!’

‘My lips are sealed.’

Pierre trotted over and towered over them. ‘Got a minute, Luc?’

Alon’s knees cracked when he stood up. He raised up on his toes and steadied himself with an arm on Luc’s shoulder to whisper some hot-breathed words in his ear. ‘Would you let me go back to the cave tonight, alone, just for a few minutes? I need to experience it on my own, with just one small light, like they did.’

‘I think we need to stick to protocol, Zvi.’

Alon nodded sadly and went on his way.

Luc turned to Pierre. ‘What’s up?’

‘A couple of people from Ruac village are here to speak with you.’

‘Do they have pitchforks?’

‘They brought a cake.’

He’d seen them before. The couple from the café in Ruac.

‘I’m Odile Bonnet,’ the woman said, ‘and this is my brother Jacques.’

Odile clearly noticed the look of recognition on Luc’s face.

‘Yes, the mayor is our father. I think he was rude to you before so – well, here’s a cake.’

Luc thanked her and invited them to his caravan for a brandy.

She had the flashing smile and sultry looks of a golden-era film star past her peak, not his type, a little on the easy side and too much of the peasant in her, but definitely Hugo’s kind of woman. Even though it was chilly, she liked to show a lot of leg. Her blank-faced oafish brother didn’t seem as pleased to be there. He stayed quiet, a bit of a cipher, probably roped into coming along, Luc figured.

She sipped the brandy while her brother swallowed his in large gulps, like beer. ‘My father is not a modern man,’ she explained. ‘He likes the quiet old ways. He doesn’t like tourists and outsiders, Germans and Americans in particular. He’s of the opinion the painted caves, especially Lascaux, have changed the character of the region, with the traffic and the postcard shops and the T-shirts. You know what I’m saying.’

‘Of course,’ Luc said. ‘I completely understand his position.’

‘He reflects the views of the majority in the village which is why he’s been mayor for as long as I can remember. But I – my brother and I – are more open-minded, even excited about your discovery. A new cave! Right under our noses! We’ve probably hiked by it dozens of times.’

‘I can arrange a tour,’ Luc replied enthusiastically. ‘I can’t tell you how much I want the support of the village. Yes, it’s a national treasure, but first, it’s a local treasure. I think local involvement from the beginning will help shape the future of Ruac Cave as a public institution.’

‘We’d love to see it, wouldn’t we, Jacques?’ He nodded automatically. ‘We’d also like to volunteer. We can do anything you’d like: Jacques can dig or move things around – he’s strong as a farm animal. I can file, I can draw well. Cook. Anything.’

There were a couple of sharp raps on Luc’s caravan door and it swung open. Hugo was there, hoisting a magnum of champagne with a red bow around its neck. ‘Hello!’ Then, seeing Luc was with someone, he added, ‘Oh, sorry! Shall I come back?’

‘No, come in! Welcome! Remember that nice couple from the café in Ruac? Here they are.’

Hugo climbed in and immediately shifted his attention to the woman, and when it was established the man with her was her brother, he joked the champagne was for her. They chatted for a while then Odile uncrossed her legs and announced they’d have to be off.

‘The answer is yes,’ Luc said to her. ‘I’d welcome your help at the campsite. Cave work is going to be very restricted but there’s lots to do here. Come anytime. Pierre, the guy who showed you in, will set you up.’

This time her parting smile to Hugo was unambiguous. Luc felt the kind of humming sometimes experienced around a high-voltage line.

‘If I’d known she’d be here I would have come yesterday,’ Hugo said. He looked around the cramped caravan. ‘This is where the famous Luc Simard, co-discoverer of Ruac Cave, is staying? Not exactly Versailles. Where am I sleeping?’

Luc pointed to the spare bunk at the far end that was piled high with Luc’s laundry. ‘There. Have some brandy and don’t you dare complain.’

Zvi Alon button-holed Jeremy in the kitchen where the student had gone to brew a cup of tea.

The bald man blurted out, ‘Luc gave me permission to visit the cave on my own for a short while. Let me have the key.’

Jeremy was thoroughly intimidated by Alon and his tough reputation. His bony knees were practically knocking. ‘Of course, professor. Do you want me to go with you to unlock it? It’s tricky going down in the dark.’