bright, cold, indifferent stars. From that north face, they had no hint of the
A collapsible spirit burner balanced tentatively on the slim ledge between him and Jean-Paul, Anderl brewed cup after cup of tepid tea made from water that boiled before it was really hot. They were close enough to pass the cups around, and they drank with silent relish. Although each man forced himself to swallow a few morsels of solid food, glutinous and tasteless in their desiccated mouths, it was the tea that satisfied their cold and thirst. The brewing went on for an hour, the tea relieved occasionally by a cup of bouillon.
Jonathan struggled into his eider-filled sleeping bag and found that, by forcing himself to relax, he could control the chattering of his teeth. Save when he had actually been climbing, the cold that followed their drenching in the frigid water of the chute had made him shudder convulsively, wasting his energy and eroding his nerves. The ledge was so narrow that he had to sit astride his pack to cling without continuous effort, and even then his position was almost vertical. His rope harness was connected to the pitons behind by two separate ropes, just in case Karl should attempt to cut one while he dozed. Although Jonathan took this sensible precaution, he considered himself to be fairly safe. The men below could not reach him easily, and his position directly above them meant that if Karl knocked or cut him off, his fall would carry the other two with him, and he doubted Karl would care to be on the face alone.
After his own safety, Jonathan was most concerned about Jean-Paul, who had made only the most minimal arrangements for comfort. Now he slumped his weight against the restraining pitons and stared down into the black valley, receiving the proffered cups of tea dumbly. Jonathan knew there was something very wrong.
The rope connecting two men on a mountain is more than nylon protection; it is an organic thing that transmits subtle messages of intent and disposition from man to man; it is an extension of the tactile senses, a psychological bond, a wire along which currents of communication flow. Jonathan had felt the energy and desperate determination of Karl above him, and he had sensed the vague and desultory movements of Jean-Paul below—odd manic pulses of strength alternating with the almost subliminal drag of uncertainty and confusion.
As the fall of night combined with their physical inactivity to give the cold a penetrating edge, Anderl shook Jean-Paul out of his funk and helped him struggle into his sleeping bag. Jonathan recognized from Anderl's solicitude that he, too, had sensed something defocused and queer through the rope that had connected his nervous system to Jean-Paul's.
Jonathan broke the silence by calling down, 'How's it going, Jean-Paul?'
Jean-Paul twisted in his harness and looked up with an optimistic grin. Blood was oozing from his nostrils and ears, and the irises of his eyes were contracted. Major concussion.
'I feel wonderful, Jonathan. But it's strange, isn't it? I remember nothing after the stone knocked me off my stance. It must have been quite an event. Pity I slept through it.'
Karl and Jonathan exchanged glances, Karl was going to say something when he was interrupted by Anderl.
'Look! The stars!'
Wisps of cloud were racing between them and the stars, alternately revealing and concealing their twinkle in a strange undulating pattern. Then, suddenly, the stars were gone.
The eeriness of the effect was compounded by the fact that there was no wind on the face. For the first time in Jonathan's memory, the air on Eiger was still. And, more ominous yet, it was warm.
No one spoke to break the hush. The thick plasticity of the night reminded Jonathan of typhoons in the South China Sea.
Then, low at first but increasing in volume, came a hum like the sound of a large dynamo. The drone seemed to come from the depths of the rock itself. There was the bitter-sweet smell of ozone. And Jonathan found himself staring at the head of his ice axe, only two feet from him. It was surrounded by a greenish halo of St. Elmo's fire that flickered and pulsed before it arced with a cracking flash into the rock.
Faithful to the last to his Teutonic penchant for underlining the obvious, Karl's lips formed the word,
EIGER: July 12
Ben snapped up from a shallow doze with the gasp of a man drowning in his own unconsciousness. The distant roar of avalanche bridged between his chaotic sleep and the bright, unreal hotel lobby. He blinked and looked around, trying to set himself in time and space. Three in the morning. Two rumpled reporters slept in chairs, sprawled loose-hinged like discarded mannikins. The night clerk transferred information from a list to file cards, his movements somnolent and automatic. The scratch of his pen carried across the room. When Ben rose from his chair, sweat adhered his buttocks and back to the plastic upholstery. The room was cool enough; it was the dreams that had sweated him.
He stretched the kinks out of his back. Thunder rumbled distantly, and the noise was trebled by the crisper sound of snowslide. He crossed the lobby and looked onto the deserted terrace, lifeless in the slanting light through the window, like a stage setting stored in the wings. It was no longer raining in the valley. All the storm had collected up in the concave amphitheatre of the Eigerwand. And even there it was losing its crescendo as a frigid high from the north drove it out. It would be clear by dawn and the face would be visible—if there were anything to be seen.
The elevator doors clattered open, the noise uncommonly loud because it was not buried in the ambient sound of the day. Ben turned and watched Anna walk toward him, her poise and posture betrayed by makeup that was thirty hours old.
She stood close to him, looking out the window. There had been no greetings. 'The weather is clearing a little, it seems,' she said.
'Yes.' Ben did not feel like talking.
'I just heard that Jean-Paul had an accident.'
'You
She turned toward him and spoke with odd angry intensity. 'Yes, I just heard it. From a young man I was with. Does that shock you?' She was bitter and punishing herself.
Ben continued to stare dully into the night. 'I don't care who you fuck, lady.'
She lowered her lashes and sighed on a tired intake of breath that fluttered. 'Was Jean-Paul hurt badly?'
Ben inadvertently paused half a beat before answering. 'No.'
Anna examined his broad, heavily lined face. 'You are lying, of course.'
Another, more distant roll of thunder echoed from the mountain. Ben slapped the back of his neck and turned away from the window to cross the lobby. Anna followed.
Ben asked the desk clerk if he could get him a couple of bottles of beer. The clerk was effusive in his regrets, but at that hour there was no way within the rigid boundaries of his printed instructions that he could accommodate.
'I have brandy in my room,' Anna offered.
'No thanks.' Ben cocked his head and looked at her. 'All right. Fine.'
In the elevator Anna said, 'You didn't answer when I said you were lying. Does that mean Jean-Paul's fall was serious?'
Fatigue from his long watch was seeping in and saturating his body. 'I don't know,' he admitted. 'He moved funny after his fall. Not like something was broken, but—funny. I got the feeling he was hurt.'
Anna unlocked the door to her room and walked in ahead of Ben, turning on the lights as she passed through. Ben paused for a moment before entering.
'Come in, Mr. Bowman. What is wrong?' She laughed dryly. 'Oh, I see. You half expected to see the young man I mentioned.' She poured out a liberal portion of brandy and returned to him with it. 'No, Mr. Bowman. Never in the bed I share with my husband.'
'You draw the line in funny places. Thanks.' He downed the drink.
'I love Jean-Paul.'
'Uh-huh.'
'I did not say I was true to him physically; I said I love him. Some women have needs beyond the capacities
