1. Three names on a red stripe
Joss had promised a silent desert. At eight o’clock in the morning, Mara mostly heard a generator, someone looking for a shoe and Nadir accusing a zipper of ill will. The sun passed Sarn Ridge. Between the tents, the six teams finished preparing their bags for the Tour des Trois Portes.
The plateau extended north of the departure camp. A large rocky table divided it almost in half, with a cliff to the west and more open valleys to the east. Three controls were scattered around: the Puits Sec, the Arche Fendue, the Dent Rouge. It was necessary to join them in the order chosen, to mark the team’s notebook, to spend the night at the intermediate camp and to return before 18:00 the next day. The authorized areas, fallback routes and appointments with the organization were on the map.
Mara re-read the names while Joss tightened the straps. She worked in a set studio and had spent ten weeks preparing for this walk with him and Nadir. She knew their footsteps on the trails near their home. The light sand that was already in his shoes, however, turned this experience into something new.
Nadir, a twenty-eight-year-old librarian and Sunday runner, finally handed his closed bag to Joss.
— If you open it again to check, you wear it.
— I was just checking the food.
— You ate a bar.
— I checked the quality.
The organizer, Éline, brings them together one last time. The water points were at the start, at the Puits Sec and at the intermediate camp; the second day would require leaving with the reserves planned for the briefing. The night camp was to be reached before 18:00. The game’s red and white tags were not used to draw a continuous path. Everyone kept their call device for the organization, usable when needed. The teams had to stay together.
A woman with very short hair passed by them with her partner. She greeted Mara, then looked at Joss.
— Did you bring a card this time?
— What about you, a pleasant conversation?
The woman smiled and joined the starting line. Joss explained that her name was Vika. They had already participated together in a test, long before. Mara waited for the suite; he checked a loop from his bag.
Eline tied a red band with their three first names around the control book. Joss took it, then handed it to Mara.
— You will prevent us from losing it.
She slipped it into his pocket. At eight-thirty, they set out for the Puits Sec, with an immense shadow in front of them and two days still intact.
2. The wrong door
At 11:30, they reached the Puits Sec. A volunteer gave them water and punched the notebook. Mara paused to look at the tiny holes: the first proof that they had not trained for ten weeks for nothing.
Joss watched as Vika folded her card.
— They take the north. Like us.
Their route was to bypass the large rocky table to reach the Fendue Arch on its eastern slope, and then descend to the camp. Mara wanted to take back the distances. Joss showed the back of Vika, already engaged on the path, and handed over his bag.
— "She knows.
— “You too, it seems,” Nadir said.
Joss pretended not to hear. They went behind the other team, then lost sight of it at a fork. Traces turned to the left, to the west, as their passage left to the north. Joss said there would be a junction behind the relief.
Mara followed him. She had protested enough during the morning and did not want to spend two days playing the reasonable person.
Twenty minutes later, a stone portico appeared. Joss raised his arm with a cry of victory. From a distance, it resembled the ark drawn in their notebook; up close, there was no beacon or crack.
They searched anyway. Mara slipped behind a block, her hands against the hot rock. Nadir looked at the map without moving forward. Joss found an old metal tie and called them.
— “She was there. Someone kidnapped her.
He spoke of the piece of red cloth seen in Vika's pocket. Mara felt a more intense irritation than fatigue: he already preferred to accuse someone than to go back on the road.
She put the notebook against the stone.
— Come and see.
— I just showed you...
— The drawing, Joss.
The caption read, “View from the east.” They were on the wrong side of the board. The shadow taken for a crack crossed nothing; above them, the portico was in one piece.
He sat down. Mara looked at the hour: 14:10. If they went back to look for the ark, they risked missing control of the night camp. The bottom path, on the other hand, would lead them directly there.
— Let go of this one, she said.
Joss wanted to answer, then looked at Nadir. He had already handed over his bag.
In the narrow passage that brought them back to the fork, no one spoke. Mara was thinking of the moment when she had followed in the footsteps without insisting. She would have preferred to be able to blame him entirely.
3. The red sleeve
They arrived at the camp at 16:50. Mara emptied the sand from her shoes, then her socks. Her feet were so sensitive that she sat for a moment looking at the distance to the point of water.
Vika repaired her shoulder strap with the red cloth. It was a broken sleeve of his shirt.
— “Did you find the door to the west?” she asked.
Joss stopped in front of her.
— You could have warned us.
— Are you following the wrong route? I didn't know you were following me.
She had come to the camp by the bottom path and was guarding the other two beacons for the next day. Joss had only seen the beginning of his journey.
Mara went to get three bowls. When she came back, she asked what had happened during their old race. Joss recounted a card error, a delay, an out-of-ranking arrival. Vika listened to him with folded arms.
— You said I was slowing you down.
— - Yeah.
— That’s not why we got out of the ranking.
He moved his meal. Mara waited for him to continue, but he had already opened the card the next day. She let him do it. She was hungry, had a sore foot and needed to believe they could still finish.
They prepared another approach by a saddle to the south of the plateau, giving access to the eastern valleys. Mara would lead; Nadir would check the markers. Joss would take care of the time and the breaks.
— I can still read, he said.
— Then you will tell us what you see. You won’t leave until we’ve looked too.
Vika showed the entrance to the pass on the map, then joined her partner. Joss asked her when she was leaving, and this time she waited until she had finished answering.
Later, Mara came out of the tent. The plateau had disappeared in the night; the stars occupied a space that she had not imagined so vast. She was finally starting to find the journey she had hoped for when she heard Nadir call her. Joss had taken her zipper in a sock.
— “Don’t move,” she said, stooping.
— It seems to have become my job on the team.
She laughed in spite of herself and had to start pulling the fabric again.
4. Two arches
In the morning, Joss announced the first break before being asked. Mara placed her bag with gratitude. She had begun to invent a reason to consult the map so as not to confess that she wanted to stop.
The saddle was hiding behind a block. They first saw two possible passages, then the good one when they arrived at the foot of the slope. Nadir pointed to the turning path; Joss reached out to Mara to take a walk without accompanying his gesture with a piece of advice.
On the other side, the landscape opened in red and pale valleys. The great wall that had stopped them the day before no longer existed in this form: they saw its folds, spurs and corridors. Mara stayed for a few seconds without looking at the map. She wanted to tell them that all this was already worth the detour, but she could not bear to be told the same thing the day before.
At ten o’clock, the columns of the Fendue Arch appeared at the bottom of the second valley. She felt joy rise and forced herself to check the point of view before moving forward.
Two passages overlapped. The first, wide and low, hid a narrower arch with a split top. By retreating to the small stone drawn in the foreground, Mara regained their exact alignment.
— - There. Look behind.
Nadir stood next to her. Joss waited his turn instead of leaning over their shoulders.
The red and white tongue was at the foot of the second passage. Mara checked the number and pressed the punch in the notebook. The small noise made her laugh. She showed it to the other two, then looked at it again.
— “Are you going to sleep with him?” asked Joss.
— “I’ll keep it for the times you say we’ve almost arrived.
They ate in the shade. Joss spotted on his map the portico of the previous day. He no longer tried to give meaning to the metal tie; he simply pointed their finger at the path they had actually followed.
Mara placed her phone on the stone to photograph them. At the trigger, Joss raised his elbow and Nadir laughed. She would have liked to redo the image, but it was ten and fifteen o’clock and they had thirteen kilometers left, by the Dent Rouge, to the starting camp.
Vika crossed them as they closed the bags.
— - Well?
Joss pointed to Mara.
— She found it.
Vika looked at the notebook, then gave him a small pat on the shoulder before passing. He let her go without trying to add anything.
5. Nadir's heel
Nadir spoke with his foot at the next pause. He had been waiting for them to sit down and defying his shoe by telling them it was probably nothing. Mara was already looking at the distance to the Dent Rouge.
— Can you walk?
— I will try.
He took care of the heel with what he had planned. Joss distributed part of his load and they slowed down, but Nadir had to remind them again in a depression: the exit was after the elbow, not in the first visible slope. Mara thanked him. He smiled with a fatigue that he took for everyone’s.
At 13:00, the volunteer at Dent Rouge stamped their third checkpoint. He reminded them of the assistance point on the way back. Nadir answered his questions about his foot honestly; Mara felt almost annoyed that he was saying so much about it when he had just guided them so well.
As he left, Joss slipped and found himself sitting on the slab.
— I checked the ground.
Nadir asked for the result.
— “Always there.
They laughed, then walked again. After a few hundred metres, Mara no longer heard Nadir answer the jokes.
6. The place in the vehicle
The return followed a wide curve to the south-west. The large rocky table remained behind them, then to the right when they found the plain of departure. Tracks of wheels appeared in places. Mara looked at them with a desire that she had not felt in the morning.
Nadir was no longer joking. At each pause, he stepped forward before putting the rest of his weight on it. He refused to look at the distance on the map.
— Three kilometres to the assistance point, Joss announced.
— I didn’t ask you anything.
Joss folded the card. Mara waited until Nadir drank to offer to remove another item from her bag. He gave her the package of food without arguing. That was what worried him.
They reached the vehicle at 3:30 p.m. It was parked at the planned intersection, in the shade of a sign. Nadir sat down before even answering the volunteer who asked them for their team number.
Mara handed out the notebook. She opened it on all three marks, as if the holes could explain why a solution had to be found.
We took care of Nadir’s foot. Joss stayed with him. Mara walked away to the sign, calculated the remaining portion and returned. They had plenty of time before 6 p.m.
— If you take a good break, she starts.
Nadir shook his head.
She stopped in the middle of her sentence. He had just said no without giving him time to make the proposal reasonable.
— I took the car, he said.
The volunteer confirmed that a return to camp was possible. We had to wait: he was waiting for another team to pass at this point. He noted their decision, specifying that the course would not be validated as finished on foot.
Mara looked at the time. It wasn’t even four o’clock. In the distance, the ground was lowered; the last kilometers seemed almost soft after the valleys.
— “Joss and I can finish,” she said. We will be waiting for you on arrival.
Nadir looked down at his foot.
— "If you will."
She turned to Joss. Since the day before, she had explained to him when to wait, when to listen, when to stop running against another team. She was ready to show him the remaining path as we finally present evidence.
He placed his bag against the vehicle.
— - I'll stay.
— You can still make the distance. For us.
— You can, he said. I do not forbid it.
Mara tightened the straps of her bag, then released them. She wanted him to argue, to give her something to refute. He was sitting next to Nadir.
— “He’s not alone,” she breathed.
Joss looked at the volunteer, busy passing on information, then Nadir untied the knot of his shoe with tiny gestures.
— "I know. That’s what I told myself about Vika.
Mara did not answer.
Nadir raised his head. Joss sat next to him.
— She had a sore ankle five years ago. We were already late. I continued towards the finish. I thought if I finished it would at least stay that way.
— “Where did you leave her?” asked Mara.
— “Near a crossing. She had to wait for the volunteer we had just met. She ended up joining him herself.
He put his fingers on a dusty strap.
— I arrived before closing. All alone. That’s why we were put out of the rankings. Not because of his speed.
Mara relives the bowls of the camp, Vika waiting for him to finish his story, the card out at the right time. She remembered having brought her chair together to study the passage of the next day. Vika stood beside them for a while and then left.
— “You told us she had made you lose,” she said.
— - Yeah.
— “You had left someone who was in pain, and it was she who had made you lose?”
Joss did not look for another formulation.
— - Yeah.
The vehicle's generator set off. The noise filled the silence he had just left. Nadir slowly put his shoe back in his bag.
Mara put the notebook on the hood. She wanted to talk again, to make him understand all that he had hidden. But his own bag was always on his shoulders. She had a foot turned towards the start of the trail.
She took out the bag.
— I am angry, she said.
— "I know.
— Not just against you.
She sat on the other side of Nadir. He did not thank her. He only asked if anyone could pass him the package of food he had entrusted to him.
They ate the last cakes. They were soft, too sweet, glued to paper. Mara had dreamed of the bread of the camp all the way back; yet she finished hers without looking at the hour.
The other team passed. The volunteer checked the reserves and direction of his two walkers, and then received the agreement to bring them back. The three of them got into the vehicle. Nadir took the place where he could extend his leg a little.
Through the window, Mara saw the end of the road they had not walked. She recognized the markings on the map. She didn’t know if it would comfort or annoy her for weeks.
At 4:42 p.m., the vehicle stopped at the camp. Éline came to join them. She first asked how Nadir was, then accompanied them to the assistance point.
No one applauds them. We brought them three chairs.
7. The line that was missing
The ranking was displayed near the meals. Vika and her partner finished second. A team that went through the Dent Rouge the first morning had won. In front of their three names, a short mention indicated the assisted return.
Mara stood in front of the painting longer than she would have liked. She had counted the preparation weekends, put down days off, bought her shoes after three tries. She knew why they stopped. This did not immediately turn his disappointment into wisdom.
Joss came next to her.
— “You have the right to find it silly,” he said.
— I don't think so.
— “Okay.
He did not propose an imaginary classification or an upcoming race. They went back to get the soup.
Nadir was sitting away from the passage. He held his bowl in his hands. When Mara laid bread next to him, he asked:
— Are you mad at me?
She almost answered too quickly.
— I am disappointed not to have finished. I don’t blame you for hurting.
— It’s not always easy to see the difference when it’s your foot.
She closed her chair. They ate. Joss returned with a second plate, because he had not forgotten his principled opposition to fully liquid meals.
Later, he went to talk to Vika. Mara did not follow them. She saw him start with his hands, as usual, and then slip them into her pockets. Vika listened to him without laughing. She answered at length. When he returned, he did not tell the conversation as a reconciliation.
— “She heard,” he said only.
Eline gave them back their notebook. All three checks were well marked; the part of the arrival was marked with the vehicle. The red stripe was covered with dust. Nadir passed his thumb over the perforation of the Cleaved Ark.
— I would like to keep that, he said.
Mara nodded. She had thought to put the notebook at home, next to a photograph of the departure. She looked in her phone for the picture taken under the columns and showed it to her.
We could not see the beacon. Joss hid a corner with his elbow. Nadir laughed, his face half in the shadows. Mara wanted to redo the photo, then they got back on their way.
— “She’s fine,” Nadir said.
She sent it to him without reframing it.
They spent the last night at the camp. The transports left the next day. Mara lay down early, persuaded to sleep at once. His legs continued to walk under the canvas. She saw the wrong door again, then the two arches aligned, then her own finger tracing the last kilometers on the map, near the injured foot of Nadir.
He moved in his sleeping bag.
— Are you asleep?
— - Nope.
— “At first, I thought you took me to complete the team.
— - Nadir...
— "Wait. I'm not saying that so you can answer me something nice. I really thought you needed a third name on the notebook.
She's quiet. It was too dark to see his face.
— That’s why I didn’t talk about my foot right away. At least I wanted to finish.
Mara heard Joss move in turn. No one was sleeping.
— “You have found us a passage in depression,” she said.
— "I know. But I wish I could have sat down without having to remind you.
The canvas slammed slightly. Mara pulled her sleeping bag up to her shoulders.
— “Tomorrow,” she said, “you don’t wear anything until you’re transported. And you can complain if you are asked to choose a card to prove that you are serving something.
Nadir had a little laugh.
— Can I complain for no reason?
— Joss has been doing it since the beginning.
— “I hear you,” said Joss.
The three of them laughed less because of the nearby tents. Mara finally felt her legs relax.
In the morning, Joss prepared the bags without opening Nadir's. Mara handed him the big card. He asked what she wanted to do with it.
— - Keep it. Tell me about the right trip this time.
He folded it carefully.
In the return vehicle, Nadir placed his head against the window. The notebook was out of his pocket. Mara saw the red band, their three names, the dark spots left by their fingers.
She had spent two days trying to bring back three marks in this notebook.
She looked at the two men sitting next to her and let Nadir sleep.
End
