Martin Walker: The Caves of Perigord

And what he had seen was Moon at the stream bank, sitting cross-legged and sketching in the clay, looking up at him from moment to moment, but not to catch his eye nor to smile at him, but with a steady concentration. She was sketching him again, as she had done the first time he had become aware of her talent. He had noted that she was making tiny, carefully chosen lines in the clay, rather than her usual long and fluid strokes. Curious, he had begun to rise to look at her work, but almost sharply she had told him to remain where he was. So he had been content with watching her until she stopped and studied the clay, and then finally looked at him, smoothed out her work, and came laughing into his arms.

And now, as he hung the rabbits on their frame and removed his sack and laid his flint ax in its place by the cave entrance while waiting for his eyes to grow accustomed to the darker interior, he was aware of Moon standing by that far, untouched wall. He became aware, too, of some large, round design taking shape upon it. He swallowed the instant rush of anger and affront, that she had embarked upon the work without the discussion and agreement that had become their custom. He had not asked her about the first line he had drawn on the rolling hill of what became their wall, he recalled. This cave was her work as much as his and he knew the ever-rising level of her skill and the trueness of her eye. In truth, he had nothing left to teach her. He closed his eyes and sat in silence, waiting for them to adjust and to see her work as she was seeing it, and smiling as he thought of her. Weaving, hunting, painting, loving, splashing in the water and tending the fire, skinning the game and sewing the hides into panels for their smoke tent. As brave as a man and as capable, and mistress of all the things that women did. He heard her footsteps approaching, and began to blink.

“No,” she said firmly. “Don’t open your eyes, not yet. Come, let me guide you.” She helped him to his feet and led him down the passage and into the cave. She took him three, then four paces inside until he thought he must be standing almost in the center, with the great landscape to his left and the tableau of him and Moon and the stag to his right. She stopped him with a hand to his chest, and then came and stood behind him and covered his eyes with her hands.

“Open them now,” she said, and withdrew her hands, resting them lightly on his cheeks, and he saw himself for the first time. It was him, just his face and shoulders, as he had glimpsed them in the stillness of a pool of water. His hair, thick and curling over his brow and on his shoulders, his shape. He raised his hand to his own jaw, his mouth, his nose, his cheekbones and found her hand there and pressed it.

“I never thought …” he said, his mouth too dry to speak, his thoughts too confused, his reactions tumbling over each other from shock to fear to admiration. He took a deep breath. “I never thought this could be done. I never knew or dreamed.”

He stepped forward, breaking the spell that bound him to her, and discovered himself. The painting of him as seen by Moon. He had not known that his eyes were that color of brown with those flecks of green, that his lips were so red, or his nose that shape. He raised his hand to his cheekbone, feeling the sharpness that she had conveyed to the rock. He felt his own jaw, his fingers searching for that groove she had placed in his chin, the corner of his mouth for that half-smile she had given him, his neck for the slim length of it.

The painting was huge, so much larger than his own head that he felt dwarfed by it. His face was the scale of his chest and stomach, bigger than the stag or the bear or even the great bull in their landscape. He was a giant, but he looked kind. He had a face, but this was more than flesh and bone and eyes. It was a character, a mood, and a person who thought and saw and spoke. This was not just the head of a man, but him, Deer, as seen and re-created by the woman he loved.

He stepped closer still, to see how those faint lines on each side of his nose had been lightly drawn in charcoal. Then he noted how she had given the depth to his nose by the lighter patch of color on one side, and used a tiny fleck of red in the corner of his eye. And he saw that she had used his trick of the dried grass to catch the texture of his hair.

He began moving backward, his eyes fixed on the portrait of himself, farther and farther until his back touched the corner of the cave where it opened into the passageway. Now he could see how right she had been to give the head this great size. Balanced by their other work on either side of him, the scale of the portrait was precise and fitting. It dominated the cave without overwhelming it. It put man in his proper place in this universe they had made between them, apart from the beasts and landscape that he shared with them, apart and different, something distinct. A person, a single person, with thought and character and a look that made each human creature unique.

“This makes you the real Keeper of the Deer,” he said, trying to find words to express his awe at her achievement. “Of this Deer. Me.” He had not noticed her move, but suddenly she was beside him, her hand on his arm.

“Then you are Keeper of the Moon,” she said, and slipped her arm around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder. She felt his body trembling.

“This is the most wonderful work I have ever seen,” he said. “I cannot wait to try this new thing, to paint you. How could we never have done this, thought of this, before now? This changes everything I thought I knew about our work.”

He turned and looked at her with wonder, his eyes scanning her face, his hand reaching up to touch her hair. Amid his awe, amid his love for this woman, which was filling him and swelling his chest, he was looking with a painter’s eye at the planes of her face, thinking how to catch the forms and colors.

“That is why I left that great space to the side,” she said. “I knew, or I hoped, that you would want to paint me.”

“But you have left more space on each side,” he said.

“Yes, for there will be children,” she said, smiling and putting his hand on her belly. “I have been thinking of painting your face for a long time. It was taking place in my head, and then last night I started making the sketches when I was sure that we will have a son to look at his father’s likeness on the wall.”

“Or a daughter to look at her mother’s,” he said, his delight huge as he hugged her to him. “I cannot wait to start painting you, young mother.”

“Not just yet,” she said, loosening the thongs at her shoulder to let her tunic fall to the floor, and slipping her hand to his thigh. “There’s time for everything.”

He knew not what it was that woke her, but he felt her hand tighten on his shoulder and sat up, reaching for his ax, and thrusting her back into the passageway toward the cave. She moved clumsily, the babe heavy in her belly, but scooped up her spear and his pack as she scrambled into shelter. He saw nothing but the night stars and the trees rocking gently in the autumn wind, but he felt the presence of others nearby in the night just as surely as he felt the loom of the rock behind him. He groped for his bow and quiver of arrows, biting his lip in anger at himself at the scraping sound his bow made as he caught it on the passage wall.

Moon was safe behind him, her spear ready. He had his bow, his ax, and his knife. He could hold this passage against any beast, and most men, unless they had the patience to starve them out. He and Moon had rehearsed their defenses. There were water skins and smoked meats in the cave, and rocks with which to build a wall that could block the passage and give him cover to shoot. He craned his ears and heard a whispering outside. Men. Then he heard nothing, but saw a glow as they stirred the embers of his fire into life and settled around it to wait until dawn. They could be strangers who had caught sight of their fire and would move on. But strangers would not be out at night, and if they were, they would call out and seek the hospitality of the hearth. The dread began to build with the realization that somehow, finally, the Keeper of the Bulls had caught up with them. Moon came and held him tightly. He took off his knife, slipping the thong around her neck, and they waited.