Just After the Wave

by Sandrine Collette

  “Yes, we are hungry.”

  “We are,” adds Noah, holding his tummy.

  Louie looks at the sky, the low gray clouds, the wind hustling them along. Maybe today he can: he is thinking of the island where the potatoes grow. With the swim ring they hid in the barn he can bring back enough to make a gratin, or mashed potatoes, an entire potful. But the waves will have to behave, the gusts have to stay calm so as not to tip him over, he remembers how Liam and Matteo nearly drowned a few days ago.

  “Potatoes!” shouts Noah when he tells them.

  Noah’s eyes are shining, and he gazes out at the horizon, where the other island is, he wants his brother to leave right away. Louie looks at him out of the corner of his eye then, no, don’t look it him, don’t feel your heart sinking when you see this little boy with his scrawny arms, already out of breath from running to the shore—what did they do to him, the parents, the air, the earth; where did they fail, what did they forget?

  Noah sits by the sea.

  “Is that it, out there? The island? Can I come with you?”

  “No. It’s dangerous.”

  “And what if you sink?” asks Perrine.

  Louie laughs, showing off a little. Course I won’t sink. Deep down, he’s not so sure.

  “If there’s blue sky, I’ll go this afternoon.”

  The little girl turns to look up with her good eye.

  “For the time being it’s all gray.”

  She stands with her head tilted, her nose up to the clouds. Sometimes Louie puts his hand in front of one eye, too, to be like her. With only one eye he can still see, of course, but it bothers him. To the left there is a big black shadow, he waves his other hand, cannot see it, yet he knows it is there. After a few minutes his right eye gets tired and his vision blurs. He closes his eyelids, rubs them, opens then again. He doesn’t say anything, so as not to make Perrine sad. She is surely used to it.

  She was born with two big blue eyes. But one day the accident happened. Louie doesn’t remember, because he was taking his nap just then, and afterwards no one talked about it. No one ever talks about it. It’s like a closed metal shutter; the eldest ones keep the secret. Louie knows instinctively that the guilty party is among them, that it is either Pata or Madie, Liam or Matteo, but who, and how, the words have never been said. What sort of error, or negligence, or misplaced gesture. Perrine has a blind eye, and no one will ever restore the sight in that eye to her: he has stopped wondering.

  But she can see, all the same, both the gray sky and the blue sky that slowly arrive over the course of the morning and make her happy: they will have potatoes, Louie promised. She loves them sautéed; she explains to Noah, as he stares at the empty frying pan, how to peel them, and how to let the oil get hot; she sends him to fetch two little logs so that the stove won’t go out, it mustn’t, they can make an omelet as well, but they’ve been eating omelets for four days. Just potatoes, nicely browned but not burned, soft but not crumbly, with salt and pepper—they have run out of butter or cheese to melt, never mind, they’ll add a bit more oil. Noah smells the herbs and spices left in the kitchen: rosemary, curry, basil. He wrinkles his nose. Thyme. He hands the jar to Perrine: this should do. All right, she says.

  Louie is on the watch tower, still looking out at the horizon, studying the sky as it continues to turn blue. For a long time he hoped the weather wouldn’t improve, that the waves would stay black until evening; but now. He knows his siblings will come to him and ask. And he swore he wasn’t even afraid; from where he stands, he can see the little mound straight ahead, twenty minutes if he swims hard, forty minutes there and back, plus the time it will take to dig up a dozen plants, he is breathing hard as if he were already swimming, yes he’s scared. So he makes up his mind, without waiting for Perrine and Noah to pester him. He jumps down from the tower and runs up to the house:

  “I’m on my way. Noah, you’re on watch.”

  * * *

  And it’s not the sky that betrays Louie that day, not at all, even if it is the sky the boy keeps looking at as he swims, then as he digs frenetically to unearth the potatoes, a strange late afternoon impression, time to go home, but there’s only blue up there and the clouds have headed north; were it not for that strange alarm ringing in his mind Louie would just think that it has suddenly gotten too hot. He tries to keep calm as he counts the potatoes he has thrown into the bag. When he reaches forty he wipes his hands on his shorts, ties the bag with the string, and fastens it to the swim ring, his feet already in the water.

  That’s when it begins.

  With a sudden little noise: psssshhhh.

  Louie freezes, refuses to believe it, finally gives a start, No, no. He listens. His fingers tighten on the swim ring, and it seems to him to be getting softer. With an extreme effort, he turns it over: the roots of bushes growing on the shore, laid bare by the waves, have made a hole. Now he shouts: “No!”

  A reflex. He slams his hand over the leak. Without thinking, he begins kicking his feet. He can see his island, their island, just over there. Twenty minutes with his hand over the hole. It has to work. In haste, he considers untying the bag on his right, to rid himself of the weight, but he would need both hands.

  Never mind.

  Swimming fit to burst his legs and his heart. After a few minutes he has to stop, breathless. He rests his chin on the swim ring: it deflates slightly. He wants to get going again, he can’t, he’s out of breath, mouth open, gasping for air. Putting one arm around the air pump, he waits. He can hear the faint sound of air escaping under his hand.

  He thinks, easy now.

  He looks at the sky as if it were the horizon: there, it’s over there. He mustn’t look for his island, it will seem too far away, and make him want to cry.

  Then he sets off again.

  Feet kicking rhythmically, slowly, his legs burning inside.

  And the swim ring.

  When he is fifty yards from the shore he knows he will make it, even if the swim ring sinks.

  It doesn’t sink.

  Out of breath, he steps on the island, collapses to his knees. And he immediately notices that there is something wrong. Before the words even take shape in his mind, it surges through his body, a discharge of shock and fear. He leaves the punctured swim ring to the waves, the sack of potatoes on the shore, and leaps to his feet.

  For a start, there is no one on the watchtower.

  And there is blood on the ground.

  His breathing, hoarse and heavy, at the foot of the deserted tower. Louie puts one hand on the cinder blocks to support himself. He can see the blood ten yards away.

  The blood, but not only: the lump of flesh next to it.

  He knows what it is. He recognizes it. That’s why he’s holding on to the tower. Once again he is gasping for breath, in shock, he ought to sit down but there’s nothing, so he collapses on the ground and is afraid he won’t be able to get up. His nails scratch the warm cinder block, and gradually he gets his breath back.

  At the same time, tears. The only thought he has is, I’ll kill them.

  A manner of speaking. But those really are the only words that spring to mind at that moment.

  One step, then another. He glances around furtively, then turns away without stopping: yes, it is indeed one of the hens lying there. Well, its head. He imagines that the rest of it is in the pot.

  I’ll kill them.

  The fact they took advantage of his absence, when he was going to get potatoes in order to feed them, to make them happy, to be able to spare his hens. He had told them he didn’t want to. They weren’t hungry enough, not yet. He can’t help but see the image of the severed head again: which one did they take? Chosen at random, of course. The one that was easiest to catch. A black one. He goes through their names in his mind.

  Rage.

  Which hampers his breathing, enough to
cause the walls to tremble when he goes into the house and roars:

  “What have you done, shit!”

  Bent over a body of feathers, Perrine and Noah give a start. Noah begins screaming, jumping from one foot to the other, “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me!”

  And Louie: So what are you doing?

  Perrine is trembling and sniveling; she lets go of the hen and it falls to the ground.

  “I can’t get rid of the feathers.”

  Oh, what a sight. They have been trying to pluck the feathers just like that, because they didn’t know you’re supposed to scald the hen to make it easier to pluck. In the end they took scissors to shear the bird, and Louie is horrified by the sight of blood on Perrine’s hands and on the hen’s neck, this hen that looks like a strange hedgehog, pricked with hastily pruned stalks, a battlefield, a massacre. For a few seconds he stands with his mouth open on a word that won’t come out. The two children watch him, paralyzed.

  “It was to have with the potatoes,” sobs Perrine.

  “I told you,” Louie begins. “I really told you . . . ”

  So this is how it starts, first with disbelief, and then he sees it’s true, the hen is there on the floor before him, half torn apart, and suddenly he explodes with rage, grabs Perrine and pulls her down onto the tiled floor, his hands raised, slapping her relentlessly, Noah screaming, pulling him back, blows, tears, all three of them in a fury. For several minutes they fight and scratch and bite, they shout. Their hearts are racing, their voices turn husky, their pleading, too.

  “Stop, I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding!” says Noah as he crawls away.

  For the first time there is no one to pull them apart, no Madie or Pata, no voices to contain them, no arms to send them to their bedrooms, what could possibly stop them—fatigue, it is fatigue which suddenly leaves them sitting on the floor in the kitchen, heads lowered, faces scratched, Noah is holding a handkerchief over his wounded nose, no other sound but that of tears and sniffles.

  Louie’s rage has yielded to a huge sadness, the one he has been hiding for days, and he looks at his little brother and sister and frowns, serves them right, and between two sobs he shouts:

  “And anyway, we’re all going to die!”

  But dying doesn’t mean anything to them just then, nothing more, nothing worse then the crushed hen in the middle of the kitchen. They sit around her in a circle, legs outstretched and spotted with blood. Die? So what. For all the difference it would make.

  “I don’t care!” shouts Noah.

  Louie slides across the floor toward him and kicks him; the little boy whimpers, shrinks. Then there is silence. Perrine is hiding her face in her hands. They look at one another on the sly, watchful, gradually their tears dry as time passes. Before long their cheeks are dry, they have wiped them on their sleeves. All that remains is rancor, and shame, they don’t want to forgive. Noah is the first to stand up, head high, acting the grown-up, doesn’t even hurt, not even afraid, he motions to the hen with his chin.

  “So, what are we going to do? Are we going to eat it or not?”

  Now Louie is on his feet, so close to hitting him that the little boy can sense it, and backs up to the wall, glaring at him, he doesn’t want to let go, after all. Perrine reacts:

  “No, no. We’re not going to eat it. And anyway, we don’t know how.”

  Noah stamps his foot. What the . . .

  “We’re going to bury it,” Louie interrupts. “You are going to bury it, since you killed it.”

  Perrine nods. She knows it’s better to be reconciled with her older brother, and that they were wrong to decapitate the hen, she tries not to think about it anymore—the terrified squawking, they had to start again four times over, she and Noah, before they managed to chop off its head, she almost gave up; but once you’ve made the first gash, you can’t let the creature die in agony, can you. She wanted to throw up. Then those damned feathers clinging to its flesh as if they were embedded in cement; how did Madie manage to bring out those platters of chicken with that smooth and crispy brown skin?

  So little Perrine goes out to the barn and takes the shovel. Louie follows her and Noah stays ten yards behind them to signal his discontent. She places the hen’s body in a basket, along with its head, which she went outside to fetch where the ants were already beginning to lurk around it.

  “Here,” she says to Noah, handing him the basket.

  He slowly steps closer, then balks. Perrine raises her voice. Go on! He obeys reluctantly, watching Louie and his hands that are only too ready to strike. He sulks. Not a word. Perrine has gone down to the lower part of the island, where the earth will be softer, she thinks. In silence, she digs a little hole, glancing at Louie for his approval.

  As for Louie, he is staring at the basket containing the hen. He is eager to get her buried. Not a pretty sight, a skinned creature, with the flies arriving in droves, drawn to the metallic smell of blood. He waves them away. After a while he looks up, because of the silence: still no one has said a word, and Perrine has stopped digging. He can see that she is waiting. Gazing into the hole. He too waits, perhaps a minute. The only sound the buzzing of insects. And then he says, “All right.”

  He takes the basket and lays the hen on the black earth, arranging her head so that it will look as if it is attached to the rest of her body. He mutters a few words in a low voice, ending with a murmured Amen, he remembers that’s how you end prayers, then he gestures to Noah.

  “You can fill it in again.”

  The boy reaches for the shovel.

  Afterwards, all three of them stand there unspeaking in the waning daylight, hesitant, should they leave, should they wait some more. Perrine and Noah don’t dare move, but they sway from side to side. Finally, Louie sighs and walks away.

  “Now what do we do?” shouts Noah.

  The older boy doesn’t answer. Perrine has gone to fetch the bag of potatoes and is dragging it behind her.

  “We’re going to cook the potatoes,” she says. “I know how to do that.”

  During dinner they do not say much. Louie has locked the hens in one of the bedrooms and will keep the key on him at night and whenever he’s got his back turned. He’ll let them out during the day. Neither Perrine nor Noah complain about the squawking from the other side of the wall.

  “It was Little Black,” murmurs Louie suddenly.

  Silence.

  “You made such a mess of her I didn’t recognize her. So I counted them when we got back tonight. It was Little Black.”

  The two siblings bite their lips, bent over their plates, and they plant their forks in the overcooked potatoes. Louie looks at them.

  “I liked her.”

  And then:

  “You really are assholes.”

  * * *

  In the night, Noah shivers. Not from cold, he’s scared.

  Punishment.

  Louie said: Tonight you’re on watch. No point looking for support from Perrine, she has turned her head not to see her little brother’s wide open eyes.

  Nothing for it.

  There are sounds out there, all the time, sounds and mosquitos. Noah wraps himself in the sheet, then immediately tears it off—it’s too hot. He looks constantly toward the house behind him. There’s no light, they blew out the candles a long time ago. But the sky is clear, and there’s a moon; Noah gazes at the sea, darkness engulfing everything twenty or thirty yards from there. Even if a boat went by just then, he wouldn’t see it.

  A rustling sound, he jumps.

  Louie?

  He listens: nothing. He feels for the stick he put down next to him for reassurance. Earlier, he said to Perrine:

  “If there’s a thief, I’ll split him open.”

  A thief?

  Perrine said: There’s no one here. But just in case. Louie heard him, and he snickered.

&nbs
p; “With your shitty stick, sure. He’ll have a knife. Or even a rifle.”

  Noah trembles.

  Still not from cold; he wipes the sweat from his brow.

  Could Pata be on his way back already? He spreads his fingers one by one to count, gets a little mixed up. Five days? Six? In any case, he can’t keep watch on the sea, with his head constantly swinging left to right because of the sounds. What could still be on the island? What creatures, what monsters? Noah sits down, his heart pounding.

  He looks at the house. He looks at the sea.

  House. Sea.

  Which way lies the greatest fear?

  In the early morning, on leaving his bedroom Louie almost trips over the little boy. Noah is sleeping across the threshold, curled up in a ball, his head on a blanket. He is snoring gently—or has a draft given him a cold? Louie prods him with his toe the way you turn over a dead fish on the shore.

  Then leaves him.

  What’s the point.

  Noah lingers behind. From where he is, he knows he can run away if Louie tries to catch him. Run away, how far would he get, on this island which the sea is nibbling at a little bit more every day—but it comforts him to know that he can run a few dozen yards away. He watches for the older boy’s reactions, he and Perrine are by the shore, bending over, looking at something. He thinks: I don’t want to go there ever again, not ever, ever.

  Deep inside he feels a certain pride, in spite of his fear that Louie will beat him. It took him a while, last night, with his scrawny arms and little legs, to drag all those cinder blocks into the ocean.

  Destroy the tower: yes. So that he wouldn’t be sent there anymore. A once and forever solution. If he’d just taken it apart, the others would have told him to build it again. But this way. He threw the rubble in from the promontory, where the boat used to be moored. Where the water is six or eight feet deep.

  He left the door there: too heavy. And besides, what would they do with the door all on its own?