Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Michel Guérin arranged for me to meet Marianne Terray for tea in the chalet Terray
had built in 1947. Cozy, full of sun, skillfully crafted out of a pale varnished wood, Ter-
ray's house, like Lachenal's, stands proud on a south-facing hillside, looking out not at
the Dru but at the Aiguille du Midi.
At eighty-five, Madame Terray was active but hard of hearing. She found my
French incomprehensible, so Michel served as interpreter. “Now you mustn't wear me
out,” she scolded at the outset. But then she became talkative. “Maurice Herzog was
not a very well organized leader,” she recalled. “He was full of disorder. But physically
and morally he was full of courage.
“Because of his success, he became a bit vain and troubled. He loves the glory. And
he is very seductive with the ladies. But after the death of Lionel, he did everything he
could for me and the children.”
“Marianne goes three times a week to Lionel's tomb,” Michel had told me before
our visit. “She talks to him, asks his advice. If she finds her lost eyeglasses, it's thanks
to Lionel.”
Now Marianne concurred. “He is always present. For me, he isn't dead. For the chil-
dren also. I don't believe in death. He's somewhere else. I don't know where. He's just
gone somewhere.”
Despite their falling out, Rébuffat had asked Marianne's permission to help carry
Terray's coffin in his funeral. The request had deeply moved her.
The chalet had the feeling of being still inhabited by Terray. Given free rein of
the house since he had worked on his reprint of
Conquistadors,
Michel took me on
a tour. The study was like an accidental museum. There, on a shelf, stood a picture
of Francis Aubert, Terray's young companion killed on the approach to the Aiguille
Noire—impossibly handsome, his face full of guileless ebullience. On one wall a pic-
ture of the Eiger; on another, a familiar photo of Terray surmounting an overhang with
metal stirrups, and a photo of Terray the father carrying his son on his shoulders.
Yet another wall bore Terray's framed marriage announcement. Nearby were a
photo of Lachenal and a drawing of Couzy.
Mounted on a wall in the antechamber to the study I found Terray's belated Legion
of Honor medal, awarded in later years for his alpinism, not for Annapurna. There
was also a framed commendation for his heroism in the war. I read a personal letter to
Marianne from de Gaulle himself, mourning the death of Lionel, “who carried so high
the worldwide reputation of French alpinism.”
Michel started going through drawers. I saw a chaos of loose slides, letters, old
mountain journals. We found, still rolled in the mailing tube, four large-format Wash-
