“Tell me that you love me”. Claude Barbier’s mountaineering and torments in Monica Malfatti’s book

Not all great climbers become as famous as they deserve. This is demonstrated by the history of Claude Barbierborn in Etterbeek just outside Brussels in 1938, and who ended his earthly adventure at the age of 39, in 1977, due to a fall on the Freyr crag, in the Ardennes.

Although born and died in Belgium, Barbier loved Italy (so much so that he wanted to be called Claudio and not Claude) and the Dolomites, where he opened around forty new routes, and where he practiced solo climbing at a high level. The list of his companionless ascents, in the early 1960s, includes there Andrich Street at Punta Civetta, there Carlesso at the Valgrande Tower, the Comici at Civetta and Ratti at Torre Venezia. Outside the Dolomites, in 1970, he made the first solo ascent of the via Cassin on the North-east face of Piz Badile.

Barbier’s masterpiece, on 25 August 1961, however, is the concatenation of the five north faces of Lavaredo (via Cassin to Cima Ovest, via Comici to Cima Grande, via Preuss to Piccolissima, via Dülfer to Punta di Frida, via Innerkofler to Cima Piccola) in just over 7 hours in total. An exploit worthy of Cesare Maestri, Reinhold Messner, Heinz Mariacher or Manolo, but which does not make its protagonist famous. Without a postcard sent to Marino Stenico, in reality, the news would risk getting lost.

In addition to his ascents, alone or in a group, Claude Barbier is known for his furious arguments with his climbing partners, for his moments of depression and his sudden silences. Monica Malfatti, a young journalist and mountaineer from Trentino, tells her story in “Tell me that you love me”a book (144 pages, 20 euros) just published by the Versante Sud publishing house.

It is not a classic biography, but for this very reason the result is compelling. Malfatti begins with a thirty-page introduction which is a compendium of the history of mountaineering in the Dolomites, and continues by having her climbing companions tell the story of the protagonist as Heinz SteinkötterGerman from Aachen transplanted to Trento, Alberto Dorigatti And Almo Giambisilong-time manager of the Vajolet refuge and of a hotel at the Pordoi Pass.

In addition to Barbier’s strength on the wall, many new details emerge. “Claudio always sang. Belaying, on the top, on the way to the start of the routes”. Giambisi dwells on a difficult moment, an argument on the Pale di San Martino followed by the accusation of having stolen a box of books and mountaineering material from Vajolet. When Almo finds her, and takes her to Claude in Val Gardena, their acquaintance turns into a true friendship.

Many other famous mountaineers intersected Claude Barbier’s life, and many of them are no longer with us. In 1955 it is Lino Lacedellithe fresh winner of K2, introduced the Belgian boy to climbing during a family holiday in Cortina. In 1959, while climbing with a friend in Lavaredo, Barbier witnessed the famous competition on the Cima Ovest between the Scoiattoli di Cortina and the Swiss Hugo Weber and Albin Schelbert.

With another famous German, Dietrich Hasseand with his friend Steinkötter, Barbier traces in 1966 the Via degli Strapiombi to Cima d’Ambièzin the Brenta Dolomites. Claude’s relationship with Reinhold Messner is not easywho is six years younger than him, and who began to ring his solo climbs in the 1960s.

In September 1968 the two teamed up to open a route on Piz Ciavàzes (Albina, 250 metres, V and V+) and to repeat the route after a lunch at Passo Pordoi via Senoner to the Third Tower of Sella. In the same period, however, the South Tyrolean continued his controversy against the “direttissime”, first by speaking at conferences and then with an article published in Germany and then in the “Rivista Mensile” of the CAI, and which in the Italian version ‘title “The assassination of the impossible”).

Among Reinhold’s targets there is precisely the Via degli Strapiombi at Cima d’Ambiez, and, according to Monica Malfatti, “reading that piece Claudio was really shocked”. Messner’s writing concludes with an invitation to “don’t kill the dragon” by erasing the impossible from mountaineering with pressure bolts.

At the end of September 1969, the mountaineer from Etterbeek responded to Messner by tracing a magnificent free climbing route on Lagazuoi Nord together with Carlo Platter and Giambisi, which included a long and exposed traverse. The author defines it as a “masterpiece of courage and mountaineering intelligence”. It is no coincidence that, in response to Messner, the new itinerary is called Via del Drago.

As with all mountaineers, Claude Barbier’s life is not just made up of rock. Monica Malfatti tells the story of his life and his loves, and gets help from Anna Lauwaert, the companion of the last two years of the Belgian’s life. He meets her in Loco, a village in the Canton of Ticino where Anna lives, she listens to the story of love at first sight, made first of physical attraction and then of profound understanding.

Anna tells Monica about the book “The Way of the Dragon” which she dedicated to her man, but which was only published in Italian. He then tells her about when she started rummaging through her 92 boxes of books, “the only true wealth – never boasted – of Claudio”discovering his interest in Cesare Pavese and Moby Dick.

Only many years later, in 2010, listening to the radio, Anna Lauwaert discovered the investigation that the Belgian judiciary had opened into sexual abuse committed half a century earlier in a Benedictine college. There is talk of at least 5,000 abused children, many suicides that occurred decades later come to light. Claude’s name never appears, but Anna becomes convinced that he was one of the victims. She has no evidence, she doesn’t go to court, but this helps her understand.

“Claudio had accomplished great feats, we had loved each other wonderfully, we had believed in the future with all our strength, but none of this was enough to erase the shadow of the atrocities we had suffered” Lauwaert tells Malfatti in one of their meetings.

Another moment that Anna tells the author sees her and Claude in bed embracing each other. “Tell me that you love me. Tell me you love me for me, not because of the mountain, not because of my exploits, not because I take you climbing, not because I make love to you. Tell me you love me only for myself”, he says before falling asleep. The book ends here, with a small photo of Barbier, a child dressed in white, on a beach in the North Sea. There is not only the mountain in the life of great mountaineers.