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“You’re running around like an open razor blade. You might cut someone.”
—Georg Büchner, from Woyzeck, translated by Henry J. Schmidt
Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing. He was strangled by the ropes of a swing, like one of those children you read about in newspapers. But Oscar was not a child. At seventeen, you don’t die like that by accident. You tie the rope around your neck because you want to feel something. Maybe he was trying to find a new form of pleasure. After all, that was what we were here for: the pleasure. Anyway, I did nothing. Everything stemmed from that.
***
IT WAS THE last Friday in August. Late at night; the campsite was sleeping. The only ones still up were the teenagers on the beach. I was seventeen, too, but I wasn’t with them. I was trying to sleep, and their music was keeping me awake. It reached me from the dune, along with the sounds of the waves and their laughter. When it stopped, I could hear my parents moving around in their tent. I was restless. I could feel stones under my inflatable mattress. The sand stuck to my skin. Sometimes I would start to fall asleep and then someone on the beach would yell. It was a sort of fierce joy directed against me, a wild, pulsing dance around my tent. I was exhausted. One more day and the vacation would be over.
That night I decided to get up and go for a walk outside. All was calm on this side of the dune. The tents and the bungalows were lost in shadows. The only light came from the condom vending machine. “Protect yourself,” it said. Though what it really meant was: Do it. Every night, proud and ashamed, the teenagers would buy some. Buying a condom was already like doing it a little bit. Often it would end up as a balloon, burst in the air, like a dying hope. I knew all the colors of that campsite. For two weeks I’d been roaming its paths aimlessly, killing time. I’d gone to all the parties. I’d made an effort. And every night, after a few drinks, I’d walked away, pretending to go to the bar for another beer, then walking along the shore and returning unseen to my tent. But I hardly slept. The music didn’t stop. I felt like there was something lodged in my chest that kept me up until dawn.
It was while wandering aimlessly that night that I came upon Oscar. I walked past the playground and saw him on the swing. He was drunk. The ropes were coiled around his neck. First I wondered what he was doing there. I’d seen him earlier, dancing on the beach with the others. I’d seen him kiss Luce and I’d almost vomited, I remember; their bodies, practically naked, had stood out in the darkness. I watched him alone on the swing and I realized he was dying. The ropes were slowly strangling him. He had done that on his own and, to judge from the expression on his face, he might have changed his mind. I didn’t move. Nothing moved on that secluded playground. The moon was hidden behind the tall pine trees. Suddenly Oscar saw me: his eyes met mine and they didn’t let go. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He kicked his feet, but his body hung still. We looked at each other like that. It was true that I’d sometimes wished he would die, certain days, seeing him smile in his blue trunks. On the other side of the dune, the music kept playing. I recognized the chorus: Blow a kiss, fire a gun… We need someone to lean on… It took a long time. Strangulation is not a quick way of dying. The moment of his death was drawn out and I didn’t notice when it happened. I just felt more and more alone. After a while his head fell forward, propelling the ropes in the other direction. They started unwinding, faster and faster, until finally they released him. His body slumped lifeless onto the rubberized floor of the playground.
I hadn’t made many stupid mistakes in my seventeen years of life. This one was difficult to understand. It all happened too fast; I felt powerless. I walked up to Oscar and touched his shoulder. I shook him. I hit him. His vacant stare passed over me when I moved his body. I wanted to think, but then I heard sounds coming from the beach. A small group headed toward the campsite. They were talking in loud voices. They were drunk, too. I thought they’d be able to hear me. I called out, but my voice didn’t carry far; it stayed close to me. The others walked away, laughing. “Shut up!” a man shouted from his tent. They disappeared. On the beach, the music stopped. The last teenagers passed by. I remained standing there, on the playground, making no attempt to hide. No one saw me. At last I was absolutely alone, with Oscar, who continued being dead at my feet.
Suddenly it occurred to me that I’d killed him, and this thought crowded out all the others. There was nothing left but his heavy body. And then I had a very clear memory of a large hole that some children had dug in the dune that afternoon. It seemed obvious to me that Oscar had to disappear. I didn’t give it any further thought. I did think that maybe this was the stupidest mistake of all, but I did it anyway, just to do something. I grabbed his legs. He wasn’t that heavy. I dragged him. We advanced slowly, first through the playground and then along a gravel path, across some grass, some sand. The weight of the body varied according to the surface. I concentrated on my movements so I wouldn’t have to think about anything else, wouldn’t understand the significance of those moments. I was just dragging a body, that was all. I took a break in front of the dune. All was calm. Oscar was very calm. The air was cooler now, almost pleasant. It must have been the middle of the night. We climbed even more slowly, sinking into the sand, getting caught on thistles. Many people hurt themselves here, running barefoot. Finally the beach appeared. It was deserted, the sand strewn with trash that would have to be cleaned up the next morning. I thought about leaving Oscar in the water and letting the backwash take him. But the tide was too low. The sea was a long way off and I was already out of breath. I decided to stick with the hole. I left Oscar where he was, walked around the dune, and found it easily, near the lifeguard’s flag. It was too small. I crouched down and made it big enough to fit a teenage boy. I didn’t like the feel of the sand under my fingernails or the rasp it made when I scooped it up, but I forced myself to keep digging anyway. When I was satisfied, I went back to fetch Oscar. I dragged him to the hole and pushed him in, his legs folded to the side. His face was dirty, covered with dust. I wiped it off with my fingertips. Then I threw sand over it, and all over his body, too. This took a long time. I didn’t think about anything. I listened to the waves and the sound of my breathing.
At last the hole was just sand, and Oscar, underground, weighed less heavy. He even disappeared a little. I stood up and looked at the clear sky. Music rose quietly into the air. I realized that the sound was coming from under the sand. I got down on my knees and dug, undoing all my work. He was well buried. The music kept playing, on a loop. At last I reached Oscar—his cell phone was ringing inside his swimming trunks: Luce calling. I turned it off and stuffed it into my pocket. Nobody had heard it. There weren’t any people nearby. I caught my breath and filled in the hole again, just as carefully as I had the first time.
It must have been very late. I was alone and everything seemed in its right place. The beach and the campsite, on either side of the dune, were silent under the stars. I wanted to do something again. On all fours, like a dog, I retraced my path and erased my footsteps. When that was done, I still didn’t dare go back to my tent. I thought about my parents, who were sleeping now, about my sister and my brother, also sleeping. All the parties were over. I decided to go for a walk on the beach. I went along the shore, my feet in the water. The low tide reveal
ed rocks I had never seen before. Little by little, I felt as if my body were going numb, bruised by my exertions. I tried to think about what I’d done and to feel something. But my eyelids were heavy. I staggered toward the sea. The sky was starting to lighten.
I went back to the campsite. On the way, I passed a jogger who went into the forest. Inside my tent, I fell asleep fully clothed. I was about to live through the last day—and the hottest day—of my vacation. In fact, it was the hottest day the country had known in seventeen years. That was what the forecast had said. They’d made the announcement through the loudspeakers attached to the pine trees, one of which was just above my tent. It woke me every morning.
“WELL, HELLOOOO CAMPERS! This is your pink bunny! It’s Saturday already! Many of you will be leaving us this weekend, so make the most of your last day. Have fun! Be happy! As for me, I’ll see you all in thirty minutes at the pool for water aerobics!”
I opened my eyes, already furious. It was eight o’clock, and inside the tent, the heat was becoming unbearable. The sun beat down on the canvas, forcing us outside, where it could really get to work on us. But the campers were happy. Sometimes they complained, they collapsed with exhaustion, their skin flaked and peeled, but they were still happy, still believed that summer was the best season of all.
Suddenly everything spiraled. My body tensed and I saw Oscar again: the playground, the hole. I didn’t move. I stared vacantly at a stain on the canvas and tried to imagine the dune in broad daylight, people running and laughing, kites flying. I couldn’t hear anyone outside. My family and my dog were in Dax, the nearest town, and would not return until lunch. I remembered that now. I was alone. It was my lucky morning, when I could sleep until noon, gaining half a day without my parents forcing me to make the most of it. But I got up. I took a few steps outside the tent. My parents had left a bowl of cereal for me on the folding table. Our colorful towels hung from the line that my father had tied between two pines. I didn’t see the point of this: they were dry within seconds anyway. I left our camping spot. As soon as I was past the first hedge, I started running—straight to the dune.
The campsite was waking up, the machine juddering to life. Heads poked out of tents. Children ran along sunbaked paths, and their mothers’ arms caught them, plastering them with sunscreen to make sure they didn’t burn. Old people met at intersections without a word and walked to the pétanque courts, just as they did every morning of every day of their vacation. A flood of campers poured toward the beach. It was a well-known campsite in the Landes, in the southwest corner of France. Three stars. Surrounded by pine forest. Close to the ocean. Swimming pool with slide. Children’s playground. Karaoke, gym, special events every night. There were lots of teenagers who were there for the partying; there were large families, old Dutch couples, kids learning to surf. Dogs were allowed.
I climbed the dune. The sand burned my feet. I wasn’t wearing my flip-flops; I must have lost them, here, last night… I tried to remember. It wasn’t the same place anymore, with the colors and the smiles. It was all too bright, too cheerful, for someone to be dead. As long as I didn’t see the hole, the hole did not exist. But I found it quickly, and instantly I saw myself dragging, digging, burying, like a shadow among the happy campers running down to the beach. It was there, in the middle of the dune, a hole filled in, with Oscar at the bottom. For me, it was a hole filled in. For the others, it was just sand, a hole filled in with sand among all the other filled-in holes of the majestic sand dune, the campsite’s pride and glory. The lifeguard’s flag stood next to it like a marker. Children ran over, walked on, trampled Oscar.
To start with, I panicked. I paced around the hole. Like a dog, I stared at the people who approached it, and they looked at me as if I were crazy. Did I have sunstroke at nine in the morning? It wasn’t that hot, surely. It would be unbearable by noon. Everything would start to bake. I calmed down. Forced myself to think. Oscar had strangled himself with the ropes of a swing and he was dead. I had to tell them that. It was an accident. I had to call the police or an ambulance. But I didn’t remember the phone numbers. I was tired. I was numb. I wanted to sleep. And then I felt something that made me aware of my body again: a small rectangle of pressure against my thigh. It was Oscar’s phone, in the pocket of my trunks. I remembered now: the music in the night. I took it out. I saw my reflection in the black screen: dirty face, greasy hair, eyes puffy from the tears I wasn’t crying because I hadn’t understood yet, because I was still Leonard, so shy and nice, who didn’t like the heat and preferred gray days.
Louis came along and patted my shoulder. I smiled at him, an old reflex of politeness, my first smile of the day, twisting my lips into an unnatural shape.
“Hey, Leo, how’s it going? Coming for a swim? I’m going to meet this girl. You should see the ass on her…”
THE BEACH WAS already packed. Sun umbrellas, games of paddleball, people swimming… it was a hive of continual activity, a factory running at full power. The bodies piled up on the strip of sand and overflowed into the sea, swarmed, advanced, and gradually scattered into distant swimmers, surfers, floating heads, and stray yellow buoys. Sitting on the sand, I listened to the waves. I was beginning to understand what I had done. Nobody suspected me. Nobody even looked at me. I just seemed ill at ease. I’d always been a nervous boy, and now I was even more on edge; on the surface, that was the only change caused by Oscar’s death.
“What’s up with you? Are you sulking?”
“No.”
“What happened to you last night? I didn’t see you leave.”
“I was tired. I went back to my tent.”
The sentences came out on their own, cold and terse. Louis didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t have any other friends, so he put up with me. He’d wrapped his T-shirt around his head like a turban, slathered his stocky body with sunscreen, pulled the legs of his shorts higher up his thighs. He was smiling the way he always did when he wanted to talk about girls. And I was annoyed with him—I was annoyed with everyone on the beach—for failing to hear my silent screams, for failing to guess.
“This fucking sun… You should cover your head.”
“I’m okay.”
“Well, she should be here soon. She’s called Zoe. She looks nice in her photos, but who knows? She might be a real dog.”
He showed me the photographs of Zoe from her Tinder profile. He had laughed at me on the first day because I’d never heard of it. He’d explained how the app worked: you chose a few photographs of yourself and wrote a paragraph about your likes and dislikes; the profiles of girls and boys in the area appeared on your phone; if you liked someone, you sent a message; if they liked you, too, you could have a conversation and get to know each other, even meet up in real life. “It’s mostly for fucking, obviously, although there are always a few annoying girls who just want to chat, and some Korean girls on Erasmus or whatever who want you to take them to see the Eiffel Tower.” The app’s logo had a curious shape, halfway between an egg and a flame, and every time I’d wondered why, a small sharp panic had pinched my heart, so I preferred to keep my distance from it, just like I kept my distance from girls and dancing and all the other things that we were here for.
“Leo, listen. If I don’t get laid today, I’m giving up on the beach. I’ve had enough of this bullshit. HEY, GIRLS!”
I jumped. Zoe was arriving, with a friend.
“See, she hasn’t come on her own… Hang on, who’s that she’s with? Luce? Do they know each other? That’s funny.”
They were laughing as they came toward us, because Luce had recognized us. I’d recognized her, too; the night before, Luce had been dancing with Oscar, and I’d watched her kiss him on the dune. She was wearing a red sarong. She stood out starkly against the sun.
“All right, back me up here,” Louis said in my ear. “She likes you, too, you know.”
They stood in front of us. “Hi.” Zoe was smoking a cigarette, taking little puffs as if she were nauseated but trying
not to show it.
Louis stood up to kiss them on the cheeks and make the introductions. “I’m Louis. And this is Leonard. So you know each other, Zoe and Luce? That’s funny. Small world.”
Zoe frowned. “This campsite is hardly the world.”
“Figure of speech.”
“Hungover, Leonard?” Luce asked.
I shook my head, smiling weakly. Louis clapped his hands. “I’m going to swim. You coming, Zoe?”
“Why not?”
He winked at me and they set off together.
Luce sat down next to me. “Were you on the beach, too, last night?”
“Yeah, but I went back early.”
“How come? You didn’t like the party?”
“Not that much.”
I didn’t dare turn to face her. I kept staring at the sea. I watched sailboats, a liner in the distance. Beyond that, the waves were wilder, higher. People were maybe drowning. Luce’s hand brushed some sand off my knee. I thought I was going to faint. She couldn’t see how pale I was because the sunlight made everything pale. Sometimes it revealed imperfections in the skin, sometimes it erased them, making the ugliest people more beautiful. I knew how to position myself to look my best. I still had that much pride. I’d had time to look carefully at the sky while the others were moving around below. Louis didn’t do that. He let the sun expose his zits and the blond fluff on his upper lip. He never paid attention to the little things: after lunch, he didn’t brush his teeth, and he smelled of fries; he didn’t take a shower after swimming in the sea, either, so his skin stayed salty. He took none of the precautions that punctuated my days, and yet he was at ease in the water with a girl, and I watched him splashing in his joy as I lay there, motionless on the beach, with a vast emptiness inside my chest.
“What are you thinking about?” Luce asked.
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