Adele spreads her arms in a gesture of resignation. A faint smile.
“It’s not enough.”
Louie looks at her. He doesn’t understand. Or only just an inkling, because there are three of them, Louie, Perrine, and Noah, until they find their entire world—which will mean all eleven of them, Pata and Madie and their six brothers and sisters who left before them on the sea. If they were alone, would they feel the same? Who is waiting for Adele? Maybe no one. If he had no one, thinks Louie, would he confront the sea?
Yes he would, dammit. Because of drowning. Feeling the sea rising until there’s nothing left under your feet on which to climb any higher. Having to resist, and keep on resisting until you have no more strength. And then giving in. To Louie there can be nothing more frightening—not even setting out for a second time on the gray, menacing water in a leaky old boat.
The thought of being drowned in her house: she must have realized, Adele, she can’t not care. The vain struggle against the water, against fear and asphyxiation. Has she ever experienced anything as awful as the waves submerging you, and the water filling your throat all the way to your guts, and the fear taking your breath away, paralyzing your arms and legs, when you’re just a dead weight hanging on your heart—that’s what happened to him when the man on the island toppled him into the water and tried to cling onto him, then went after him, and he only got away at the last moment, hanging onto the boat like a fish on a hook, he was, and he is sure that if Adele had ever experienced anything like that, she wouldn’t want to stay here, in this house that is about to be engulfed.
But he doesn’t say anything.
He just looks at her.
In fact, there is no solution.
No one has one.
And that is what is suddenly driving Lucette half-crazy, this helplessness, because none of them can convince Adele, none of them can oblige her—to be sure, if Lucette were strong enough, she’d grab hold of her and drag her onto the boat, they’d all leave the island together and speak of it no more, that is what Lucette is thinking, but she is only too well-acquainted with her flabby arms and aching back, how every morning she has to roll over to the edge of the bed to get up without it hurting too much.
And still: she shouts, Lucette, and weeps, too, she doesn’t want Adele to die, and she flings her hands about as if she were about to move, to let the sorrow out, to hit her, of course she won’t hit her, but she will vent all her anger and sadness and despair. Adele gets annoyed, Hush, stop it! Then Lucette takes her by the shoulders and shakes her.
“Do you realize what you are doing? Do you realize? The scene we are making in front of these children? How selfish you are being? What a coward? And me, have you thought about me? I’m all alone, too!”
Furious, Adele shoves her aside with her outstretched arm. But Lucette hangs on, this time: she grabs her by the sleeve, and yanks hard—too hard, and both of them suddenly lose their balance. For a moment they look weightless, tilted in an impossible position like two old trees twisted by the wind, and Louie springs up, because he can see what is about to happen, he opens his mouth to shout and nothing comes out, and nothing would help, anyway, Adele and Lucette are reeling, tilting and unsteady before the eyes of the three petrified children, they are no longer arguing, there is just this look of astonishment in their eyes, and some fear, too, and then time moves forward again and the trajectory of their bodies speeds up, they take a step, stumble, that’s it, they’re entwined, entangled, and they fall to the floor.
There is the sound of something hitting the wood, a dull crack.
A moan that is silenced.
At last, Louie hurries over to them.
No one speaks, on the boat. Gripped with fear, perhaps, or tense with the effort and attention required to travel by night: Louie has a candle next to him, lighting the compass on the seat. Sometimes he meets Noah’s gaze. They remain silent.
Put distance behind them.
Don’t think about—
At the stern of the boat, Lucette is bundled in a blanket.
Perrine is sleeping next to the hens, defeated by weariness and emotion. She rowed the first hour with Louie.
Louie tries not to think about anything.
“It will be fine,” murmurs Lucette.
He prays it is true. Focuses on the compass, on the east they never found, before, and toward which he is now heading with the steady determination of a bloodhound, the compass placed on the map, which is open wide, to be sure. This curdling feeling in his throat, in his guts: he pays no attention to it, frowning, he channels all the fierceness into his arms as he rows with Noah.
Again the brothers exchange glances. The little boy whispers as quietly as he can:
“Do you think she’s dead?”
Louie replies in a similar tone: No. No, no.
They wish there was more noise coming from the stern, where Lucette is lying huddled.
Adele is lying on a blanket; Lucette regularly wipes a damp cloth over her face.
“Do you think this was a good idea?” says Noah.
“I dunno,” murmurs Louie.
* * *
To leave just as night was falling, hastily cramming their supplies onto the boat, chasing down the hens to the end of the terrace; slowly lifting Adele’s inert body, as Lucette cried out, Watch out for her head, to the left, a bit more to the right, careful, now, careful! Getting her settled as comfortably as they could. Looking at each other, all of them: and casting off with one deep, long breath.
“We won’t get a second chance,” said Lucette, when she told them they had to leave right after the accident. “We’ll never be able to take Adele with us by force. It’s a sign, all this, so let’s go before she comes to.”
“Is it serious?” asked Perrine.
Lucette didn’t really reply. She shook her head:
“She’s sturdy.”
But how sturdy, wonders Louie. A little bit; very. Very sturdy, but for an old lady. That’s not as much as an adult like Madie or Pata. It’s enough for her to wake up, yes; he wants her to. He can feel it. There’s a stirring in his belly as it arches to row faster, and an empty echo in his ears as he listens out toward the stern. Adele saved Perrine, so he can think of only one thing: to help her in return. Revive her, take her with them to the high ground—she can live with them if she wants to, his parents are bound to welcome this old lady who helped their daughter. She won’t be alone, ever. And if she doesn’t want to live with them, he can build her a house of her own, with a bed of planks and a lop-sided table, that, yes, he could do. That much yes, really he could.
Louie savors the suspended time of the night, the boat moving under its own momentum, the absence of noise. Maybe something can begin again.
Maybe, yes . . . then suddenly he feels the boat hit against something, and he sits up with a start.
Bump.
It’s an impact that has caused it, Bump. All of a sudden, striking them dumb. He felt the tremor, the dull thump.
The boat comes to a sudden halt.
Against what?
They look at each other, pale. Restored to their fear of an ocean where they control nothing. Once again they realize: it is the middle of the night, they have stopped rowing and the boat is drifting.
“What is it?” says Noah.
He gropes his way together with Louie to the bow of the boat, where the impact was.
A rubbing sound.
There’s something there. A boat, bigger than their sorry skiff, and the hull is banging into it with this stubborn thumping, to the rhythm of the waves, thock thock thock—so it’s a boat, and inside it they can hear hoarse breathing.
Noah reaches for his brother’s hand. He won’t admit he’s scared.
But damn, is he scared.
* * *
Madie, too, felt the impact. But sh
e doesn’t care. She’s not sure she fully understands, either, because she has been drifting in and out of consciousness for hours. She’s not even sure this boat where she has decided to die really has struck something, since she has been delirious for god knows how long now, yesterday, this morning; the end soon.
She cannot swallow, she has no more saliva. Her lips are dry, as if dead: when she opens her mouth, the skin cracks.
She licks the blood, instinctively.
The impact, then voices.
Is she raving?
Madie opens her eyes onto the night, thinks she is blind. She stretches out her hand along the floorboards to be sure. Yes, she’s still here.
So.
Voices again, children’s voices. To hurt her, to remind her of her lost little loves, Noah and Perrine and Louie crying, abandoned on their sunken island. Madie recognizes those voices.
An aberration.
She’s losing it.
And yet, the sound doesn’t go away. It’s even coming closer.
She swore she would not get up again.
Besides, she has no strength.
A little girl’s voice asking what is going on.
Little girl?
Madie trembles.
The boat is rubbing against something. Yes there really is something there.
A shout.
Not a shout: a scream. Of fear, but not only: there is joy there, too. So Madie tries. She has nothing to lose, after all. With a start she tears herself away, if she can just steal one last image of her vanished children, never mind if it’s not true, a mirage, a hallucination held out to her by death, laughing at her, playing with her just a little longer.
It’s as if her skin is glued to the boards of the boat.
There, she’s sitting up. Oh, such an immense, terrible effort. Her head is spinning but her eyes are wide open.
And she sees them.
Her children.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sandrine Collette was born in Paris in 1970. She divides her time between Nanterre, where she teaches philosophy and literature, and Burgundy, where she has a horse stud farm. She is the author of numerous novels. Nothing but Dust, winner of the Landerneau Prize for crime fiction, was her English-language debut.
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