Just After the Wave

by Sandrine Collette

  But the parents had taken most of the bottles with them; they had left only thirty or so to last until Pata’s return.

  Empty out the bottles to turn them into floats, and they’d have no more water. It’s either or.

  Thirty bottles to sail a door?

  Louie sighed and looked at the five-gallon jugs his father used to store all sorts of things, and which might have worked—yes, if they’d had the lids. With Perrine and Noah he turned the barn upside down looking for them—upending crates, digging in the drawers of moldy old wardrobes, in boxes of rusty nails, in vain, well, they did find just one, under a pile of newspapers, broken in three pieces; they gave up.

  No jugs.

  They threw three or four logs into the water, just to see. And they stayed afloat, but as soon as they put their hands on them they sank, and Louie shook his head—if they sink with the pressure of just one finger . . .

  What floats, dammit?

  The three of them are sitting in the grass in the sun. Before them lies the expanse of sea, without a wrinkle, blue as the sky. They dream of going swimming, of thinking about nothing, it’s just that there’s this goddamn water that keeps rising and spoiling all their fun, and the days on Perrine’s paper are crossed off too slowly, making the parents’ return seem improbable, or worse still, pointless. Louie doesn’t know whether his siblings realize this, if they too are afraid but don’t dare say so, or if it’s over their heads and he, Louie, is the only one who suspects the terrible future ahead—in the end, maybe it is better this way.

  “And that?”

  Noah points to the dozens of bits of wood the storm brought to shore and which are washing back and forth against the land. Louie sits up and looks. What could they do with those stupid dead branches—but now he remembers. Father used to call them driftwood.

  Driftwood.

  He is thinking out loud.

  What if we make a mattress of branches all tied together, and we put the door on that?

  “Yes!” shouts Noah.

  So they hurry over, bend down, grab, pull. They go all around the island and bring back enough to make a huge pile, and they’re a little frightened at the thought they will have to put it all together, a gigantic mattress of gray, twisted wood, like some giant crown of thorns, they hesitate, wonder where to put their hands and how to interlace the branches, which catch and resist being brought together, a tangle of recalcitrant spiny pitchforks, refusing to be disciplined, ending up in a chaotic cluster. Perrine best expresses their bewilderment when she stands back to gaze at the vaguely rectangular mass, rubbing her chin:

  “That?”

  Louie bites his lips. But if he runs a rope through, here, here, and here . . . ? Try. It wobbles every which way, it comes together, it comes undone, but he pulls and winds, sends Noah to fetch every last rope, he’s making them a sausage, a roast so well trussed that they won’t even be able to get a finger in it, it takes time but he is rather proud of the job he’s done. The three of them set about tightening the last ropes, the last knots, and Louie wipes his brow, with a smile.

  “There we are.”

  “There we are,” echoes Noah.

  “Do you think it will hold?” asks Perrine in her clear little voice.

  They decide to put the mattress in the water on its own: for a start, it will be a test, and besides, they won’t have the strength to lift it once the door is fastened to it. Louie ties a line around a bush so they won’t risk losing their strange float. They shove it to the edge of the water.

  “ . . . two, three!”

  They let go.

  There’s a loud splash.

  “Shit,” says Noah, as the mattress sinks like a stone.

  Louie gazes wide-eyed at the ripples of water, the gray and black hole. He can’t believe it: everything has vanished. On the trunk of the nearby shrub, the rope is taut, the leaves rustle. Then suddenly, like some creature emerging from the bowels of the sea, a huge shadow appears all at once, lacking only the powers of speech—and they are convinced they can hear a terrible roar just as the branches that are no longer branches break through the surface, they look as if they are clinging to the waves to stay afloat, and Perrine lets out a shout, or is it Noah, or even Louie, who has his hand in front of his mouth, a monster, yes, it is a monster rising there before them.

  “Oh, my, God, that scared me!” shouts Noah, to banish his fear.

  Perrine laughs, It came back up! It’s floating!

  They pay no heed to the fact it’s cracking and pitching and wobbling, they’re too happy, too noisy, as they observe this strange creature-like, almost-living shape, this entanglement swimming on the water like a giant fish, and if they really did look closer, with the critical eye of those who will have to trust the creature and climb on its back, they might see the ropes coming loose, the poorly tightened knots the water is already undoing, yes, they would know how fragile it is, this craft put together by children.

  * * *

  The three of them are lying side by side at the edge of the grass.

  Silence.

  Louie and Perrine, their eyes closed, so their tears will not overflow.

  Noah gazes at the sky and counts the clouds.

  A bit further away on the sea, out of reach, the raft is in the water, half-submerged.

  * * *

  Come on, come on! shouted Louie, elated, kneeling on the door they had tied to the branches, holding in his hand one of the two boards from which they had removed all the nails so they could be used as oars. Come on! And he’d pulled on the line, they’d climbed on board without getting their feet wet; Louie had had to help them, however, because the raft was listing.

  Once they were on it, they didn’t dare move.

  Perrine murmured, We made it.

  What she didn’t mention was the dull fear she felt at the thought of trying to sail anywhere on the thing.

  This time she heard the cracking and strange sounds, impossible to identify, which had settled beneath her, in the cluster of branches under the horizontal door. And she wasn’t the only one. Louie’s smile was unusually wan.

  “Shall we take it out?” Noah asked, waving the other oar.

  Wait.

  He had waited.

  Oh, not for long.

  First there was a branch that came loose from the float.

  Louie was paddling slowly in a circle, not far from shore. He could feel the raft sinking—rather, he could hear it. Gurgling sounds. Sucking noises, a sort of grumbling, the water making its way, sniffing the branches, clinging to the underside of the door. He knew already.

  But still, maybe.

  Just then he saw Perrine and Noah who, aware of the vanity of their efforts, were in one corner of the raft holding hands, crestfallen, and he cried, Don’t sit there, not on the edge! But they were already there, and they didn’t move, paralyzed by the sensation that, terribly slowly, they were sinking, and right there, the craft had begun to founder.

  “Jump!”

  Were they were, they could almost touch bottom, it was maybe not quite four feet deep, maybe a bit more. But the fear remained: the cavernous sea, eddies, the black bottomless water. No, no! whimpered Perrine, not letting go of Noah’s hand.

  And what if they were sucked down to the bottom?

  Jump!

  Finally they had let themselves slide, the edge of the raft nearly leaving them with a long gash to the head or the side. Louie had let go of the rope. Spitting out the water they’d swallowed, they struggled out of the water, slipping on the silty soil of the shore, clinging to tufts of grass. Once all three had managed to reach the top of the hill again, the half-drowned raft drifted further out, lopsided. Louie could have dived in to retrieve it before the current bore it away—he’d done far harder things over the years. But he didn’t. Like his brother and sister, he watched the s
mall craft drift away, not lifting a finger, not saying a word.

  And after that he lay down and closed his eyes because of the tears—the tears that welled up because he had failed, and the tears of relief that he would never, ever, have to get on that raft again.

  It’s the water that is driving them mad, Louie is sure of it. He has decided that every morning he will open the door to the staircase and measure the rising of the water level, in addition to the stakes he has been planting in the garden as benchmarks. Every morning his heart begins to beat faster, his hands tremble. He can sense the sea there in front of him, behind him. On either side. He can hear the seepage, sometimes the waves, the faint laughter. He can smell the odor of warm stagnant water on the land, slightly rank, slightly nauseating. Sometimes he is sorry he didn’t go after the raft to try and build something better; a split second later he remembers the gurgling sounds and the fear, and he is not sorry at all.

  But now this is driving him crazy, this ocean creeping closer, especially at night when no one can see it, at dawn the sea surprises them with its silent waves, ever higher, and the hens squawk because there is hardly anything left to peck at on the last bit of land that is holding out—for a few days the children fed them potato peels but now there’s nothing left. They’ve begun to eat their own eggs, and the children have to collect them earlier and earlier if they want there to be any left.

  Louie thinks about the other island, full of potatoes. He could have taken the hens there, they would have found enough to eat—and he could have picked a pile of little potatoes, they could have had golden new potatoes in the pan, just the thought of it sets his stomach to rumbling. An entire island all to themselves, Louie, Perrine, and Noah, which they can neither reach nor eat, because the rubber raft was punctured and they cannot build a wooden one. This makes the older boy all the angrier on those mornings when the sea is licking at the land, ever nearer, and the hens leave the house, complaining. He can’t swim that far—or maybe he could, with a board to help him, God knows he’s thought about it often enough, but he’d have to be sure there were no storms or currents, and he cannot swear to anything anymore, the weather changes too abruptly and the summer has become treacherous. If one day the sky is an immense blue carpet, should he try his luck?

  A panful of potatoes before drowning.

  Stupid.

  In the end none of that changes anything, the water everywhere around them makes them say foolish things, makes their minds unsteady, and yesterday a red hen ran to the sea, jumped off the shore with a little rustle of feathers, splish splash, then swam away with the horizon in her sights, Perrine cupped her hands around her mouth and called, Where are you going? The hen didn’t turn back, didn’t try to come back. They saw no more of her. Louie wishes he too could just leave like that, so that the fear and abandonment would cease. No more feeling the tightness in his throat, his arms dangling by his sides because he’s run out of ideas, doesn’t know what to do anymore, what to hope for. Let it all go. No, he can’t.

  He is still here.

  All he’s good for is wandering around the island in the early morning to see if the red hen has come home.

  She hasn’t.

  Does a hen sink?

  —and what if they’d used the hens as floats.

  You see how it makes you go crazy.

  After a great deal of hesitation, Perrine and Noah again asked him to kill a bird so they could eat it. Perrine and Noah are hungry. But they don’t know how to wring a chicken’s neck, how to empty out it innards and pluck it. We have eggs, barks Louie, yet again. For them it’s not enough. They want meat, they want something roasted.

  Louie doesn’t tell them that he is hoping to keep the hens until Pata’s return, to hand his flock over to him like a good shepherd, a good boy.

  I’m a shepherd of hens.

  And whether he’ll make it? He doesn’t know.

  The parents left nine days ago. Nine days assiduously crossed off on Perrine’s sheet of paper, and there should be five or six left—if everything goes to plan. But everything has gone to pieces. His parents’ calculations are worthless now, don’t mean a thing, not a chance, they’re meaningless in light of the storm and the rising waters, the vast floods that are still poisoning the planet, they got it wrong from the get-go, because once there was the huge tidal wave it became obvious that this would never end.

  They got it wrong, Madie and Pata, because nine days ago they had to slip away in the middle of the night so as not to be seen.

  And because six days from now, with the onslaught of the ocean, there will be no more island and no more house, and there will be no more children.

  Louie constantly returns to this thought.

  In the beginning, he wanted to cry. Now, he is angry. He tells the others. This time, it is Perrine who cries—it is always fascinating to see her cry with her blind eye weeping like the good one, her white, dead eye you’d think must be all dried up, but it’s not, she wipes both eyes, little Perrine.

  There will be no more island: he’s not sure Noah understands what this means, and Louie explains with rare, chosen words, no abruptness, no rancor. Noah listens and doesn’t believe him, he shakes his head. Then Louie shows him the stakes he has been planting every day to mark the spot the sea has reached: stakes standing like little soldiers marching up to the house and past it, flooding the basement, making their way to the top of the hill. One stake equals one day. Louie has his feet in the water and he counts the steps between the most recent stakes and reproduces them on the ground: he puts a pebble at the tip of his big toe.

  This is where it will be tomorrow.

  And this is the day after tomorrow.

  In three days, the sea will be here.

  “But”, says Noah, “that’s upstairs in the house.”

  Louie has his hands behind his back and he gazes thoughtfully out at the horizon.

  “So, you see. In three days we’ll be sleeping outside, at the top of the hill, and in six days, we’ll drown.”

  ON THE WATER

  The same morning, August 19

  The mother’s heart skips a beat the moment she steps into the boat to leave the island a bit before dawn, with Marion in her arms. She automatically counts the nervous children crowded on the small craft: from one to six. When she reaches six something snaps inside her, something that knows six is not the right number. A surge in Madie’s guts to hold back her cry. She sits down, too, trembling all over: hands, legs, her lips that want to say, seven, eight, nine.

  But don’t.

  It stops at six.

  Madie, in smithereens. She’s the one who is leaving. The one who is abandoning.

  She faces backward until the very last moment, the fraction of a second when, very precisely, the island disappears into the end of the night. Even her bulging eyes can no longer see.

  The little ones look at their mother. Before long, they fall asleep.

  Pata, Liam, and Matteo, as taut as animals on the hunt, oars in their hands, deciding whose turn.

  She is alone, Madie. Her throat and belly in a knot.

  She tells herself she should have jumped. Should have let herself sink into the ocean without a sound, undulating like an eel, or a tired mermaid.

  To go back to the island.

  Before Louie, Perrine, and Noah wake up, she would have had time to sweep the floor, clean the cooker, and make breakfast. As if it nothing had happened. There would have been the smell of hot pancakes. The glasses filled with orange juice, bright little suns at every plate and bowl.

  Madie didn’t jump.

  She just felt, very faintly, something tearing inside, right to the vibration in her body, part of her on the boat with six children, part of her staying on the island with the other three.

  But this is nonsense: nothing stayed on the island, she knows that very well. What is the p
oint of tearing herself apart, tossing her soul onto the shore to protect her little children? There is no point, none at all. To find comfort. To put a bit of balm on her heart, which does nothing to ease either the horror being born inside her, or her silent sobs. In a few hours the children, back there, will find out that they are alone.

  * * *

  Back to the burning, the one deep in her guts. The little girls woke up with the daylight, the sun already pounding on the sea and the overloaded boat rocking and slowly moving forward. Of course they asked where Louie and Perrine and Noah were. Madie answered. At home, she said. We’ll go back and get them afterwards.

  “Oh, I see,” murmured Emily.

  “I’m hungry,” whispered Sidonie.

  Liam and Matteo, on the other side of the pile of belongings, also heard.

  Madie would have liked for someone to worry, to ask questions, to shout. To make Pata turn around, build a tower on the boat, with different levels so they could put the little children everywhere, and she, the mother, would get that torn, painful part of herself back. She’d give the ocean a beating, she’d wave her fists in a threat. Quiet. Sit—as if she were giving orders to a dog.

  No one asks any questions.

  Madie waits, thinks she’s about to scream, But aren’t you going to ask why? Aren’t you going to say you’re not okay with this?

  I’m not okay with this.

  “What are we going to eat?” says Sidonie again, tugging on her sleeve.

  * * *

  So she had to resign herself, and stay on the boat, gliding across the sea with six children who don’t ask why. Madie has withdrawn into herself. Sometimes she looks around—but there’s nothing to see but water, and now that their island has disappeared, there’s really nothing, just the ocean as far as the eye can see, no trees, no stones to break the surface, no rooftop to make you think you could hang onto it. Madie supposes they are crossing the plain—God, she thinks, stiffening, we’re no further than that, in the car it took less than half an hour. Tomorrow, when they sail over what used to be the Duens hill, maybe they’ll see a little vegetation; for the time being she turns pale imagining the fathoms of water below them, ten or twenty or thirty, bottomless pits, abysses. The eddies she can sometimes sense, when the muddy sea makes ripples, and Pata, with one word, instructs Liam to avoid them.