Malicroix

by Henri Bosco

  From time to time, the mysterious life of these depths rose to the surface, troubling it, and a wave lifted the high waters and propelled them shoreward in powerful rolls. Two hundred yards from shore, a strange current raised a liquid crest above deep, swift waters. Darker than the surrounding water, it looked like the fin of a huge shark, rushing with the river to the sea. Here ran the water beast, the monster’s spirit, swollen by the winds and rains of autumn. As it passed, its black back and brutal flanks tore off chunks of silt, eroding the island. The river was conquering its banks. Overflowing through the reeds, it was beginning to eat into the lowlands, as, in the livid light, tongues of water glimmered ghostlike through the wan samphire. Everywhere, the banks were ceding to this rising force; it was clear that the levees upstream had burst. Black wrecks floated by—trees torn from the ground with their roots all twisted; an armoire; a chest; beams; a multitude of planks, all tied together; large dead animals. On its side, a mule drifted close to the island, turning slowly as if about to founder; then, taken up again by the irresistible movement of descent, it veered back toward the center of the river, where it disappeared into a whirlpool.

  That was when I became truly fearful. With a mysterious fear. Aside from the threat of danger, this fear, which invaded me like a body slipped into my own, brought cold. It was as if an infiltration of icy, sad waters had entered me, and that one branch of the river was already flowing toward my barely warm heart.

  Standing at the tip of the island, on that prow where the wild waters split, I had only the water’s vastness in front of me. The entire landscape was nothing but water in motion, and I was alone, immobile at the center of this liquid rush, surging with torrential floods that moment by moment swelled at my feet. At the same time, I felt within me the slow ascent of an impersonal force, as if the power and grandeur of the river had suffused me with their own wildness, so much so that I was becoming a river creature. Even my terror had become inhuman, as the current already coursed through me. I was water; water moved within me; and I no longer felt the viscous ground of the island, vanished, along with me, beneath this moving liquid mass. I nearly lost myself. But suddenly, at my feet, a point foamed, and I saw on the water’s surface, within an eddy, the flat top of a reef. It was a rock, the only rock of this alluvial bed around which, little by little, the island must have been constructed from silt and great vegetal remains. The flood had already submerged this stone, but the current, in breaking against it, dug brown waves around it, and so the redoubtable stone appeared.

  Although battered and submerged, it was the one strong point, the spur that protected the island, and its presence brought me back to myself. I lifted my gaze higher, into the distance. Night was falling. Near the center of the river, I could see a boat. It was heavy, black, yet it glided swiftly. It presented its robust flank to the headlong current, and it was crossing from one bank to the other in a perfectly straight line through the first mists and shadows. In front, it was covered with a tarp. In the back, a thickset man held the rudder. Barely visible in the growing darkness, a wire, which I finally made out, linked the boat to a cable stretched between the banks. It was a ferry. The distance and the little bit of daylight let me see nothing more of the man but a massive silhouette. He was not moving from the stern. He was alone in the boat. When it reached the center of the river, it stopped. The rain began to fall again and enveloped this astonishing sight in a shadowy fog. It all disappeared.

  I returned home in haste.

  •

  The lamp had already been lit. My meal was keeping warm in front of the fire. But my search for Balandran was vain. I did not find him.

  I ate. And then I waited. No Balandran. I put the tray away and stepped toward the bed.

  As I lifted the coverlet, I saw that fresh sheets and a large pillow smelling of soap had been placed on the old Malicroix mattress.

  I lay down and put out the lamp. But I was not sleepy. The river haunted me, but, even more than the river, the boat. What was it doing there, as night fell, amid those wild waters? A simple steel cable held it to the uncertain shore.

  Had I not already entered the outline of a disturbing dream? Hanging by a frail thread at the center of the ravenous river, the boat seemed an improbable memory. Yet it was more than a dream, for my eyes had truly seen it, and in my sleeplessness I was tempted to interpret it as an emblem of a lonely thought—man on the water, awaiting night and death.

  I remained wakeful for a long time, meditating on this vision. The fire burned. At midnight I saw Balandran enter the room. He placed some wood on the hearth. Then he removed the tray and went into the storeroom. He probably slept there, for I did not hear him again.

  DROMIOLS

  FOR SIX days, from November 13 to November 18, the rain fell without stop. Its intensity varied, but, rough or gentle, it held the entire expanse beneath its waters, constantly fed by new clouds that drew from the depths of the bottomless sea, whose distant surf, breaking on lonely beaches, I sometimes thought I heard in the wind.

  I rarely left the house. I lived there on fire and dreams. The fire never died; the dreams never failed.

  Balandran, wonderfully regular, appeared at dawn; he brought a steaming breakfast, swiftly but thoroughly cleaned the house, then vanished. Each day, Bréquillet kept me company from noon until four. At four, he would go and sit, his muzzle raised, in front of the door. I would open it. And then he would calmly go out into the rain.

  In the evening, after serving me in front of the fire, Balandran would shut himself up in the storeroom. He would not come out until close to midnight, when he would remove my tray and replenish the fire with a few logs. I always saw him, for I could not fall asleep until he appeared.

  I waited for him patiently. His appearance filled me with wonder. I never heard him coming; he slipped between the fire and me like a shadow anxious not to break the silence. After very gently arranging the ashes, he would set the wood down without a sound. On his knees, his body stretched forward, he would blow on the hearth. Cautious breath that caused brands to glow and tiny golden sparks to glimmer. The fire nipped at the dry wood, and the hearth would begin to smolder with a well-banked heat that would last until dawn to keep me warm.

  Balandran departed as he had arrived, through a mysterious disembodiment. Having first materialized beside the fire as if by miracle, he suddenly evaporated from the self-same spot. Imperceptibly, he withdrew from my admiring gaze. Just where I thought I still saw him, he gradually replaced his body (in truth, itself almost unreal) with only his memory, which in turn vanished into the nighttime void, barely lit by gleams from the hearth.

  During the day, in front of me, he completed the household chores silently and with astonishing agility. He was expert at it, which surprised me—his rustic look made him seem little suited to such tasks. Careful, precise, he fulfilled the needs of a very modest household economy with a fine sense of order and thrift. Neither the meals nor the fire lacked for anything, but nothing was wasted either. He never spoke while he worked. At first, I tried to help him. He dismissed me abruptly. I was not offended, for I understood that his efforts conformed to an order established in the house before my arrival. He was maintaining ancient customs, those of old Cornélius; it was clear that he performed his duties in remembrance of the dead, with a sort of fierce, silent piety that brooked no intrusion. These were his personal rites, his religion—he seemed to be worshipping the Manes of a private, perhaps primitive, cult.

  Every now and then, his work done, he would approach the fire, draw out his black pipe, and, with furrowed brows, study the glow of the terebinth and tamarisk roots’ short, oily flames.

  It was then that he would speak a little. Never to no end. But I would have to question him patiently, and his responses were always couched in a few narrowly constrained words.

  Beneath the brevity of those words, his thought remained hidden. Although filled with meaning, the words retained a muffled ambiguity. It was not deceit, but mo
st likely natural reserve and, perhaps, caution. I never knew how to proceed; nothing was more difficult than to hold a conversation with Balandran. From the outset, his abrupt manner put you off. Or else his reply came in a carefully weighed, definitive sentence. There was nothing more to say; yet you were left with an uneasy feeling, as if some abstract allusion lurked beneath those four quite concrete words. You spoke to him of yourself, of him, of the very place where you found yourselves, and he responded from elsewhere. His responses came from another world, prior to you, apart. It was the inaccessible world of old Cornélius; of this world, the sole heir would always be Balandran. He had lived there, he lived there still, and nothing of it could be transmitted orally.

  Still, during the course of this forced seclusion, I pried some scraps of information from him. I knew nothing of my great-uncle, and the little I learned from Balandran had to be dragged out of him. It was painful for me to question him on this subject that interested me so deeply. I was in the pathetic role of the ignorant, nearly illegitimate heir. Balandran saw my discomfort but did nothing to assuage it.

  “He was much taller than you,” he told me one evening while looking at me.

  I was annoyed. But Balandran had said this in an ordinary tone of voice, without contempt. He had simply stated a fact.

  About Cornélius’s life, he was almost mute. It was useless to approach the subject from an angle; he eluded me.

  In the end, I hardly knew how to talk to him, except in commonplaces. I asked if Cornélius had remained robust despite his great age.

  He replied, “Hardly, Mr. Martial, as he is quite dead.”

  This answer troubled me. Balandran had uttered it almost gently, with a muffled affection. “And how did he die, Balandran?” I asked.

  He stretched his hand toward the fire and seemed to be remembering. Then, in a more ordinary voice, he said, “Like all those gentlemen, neither more nor less.”

  And that was all.

  •

  Another time, he informed me that Cornélius had not left the island for ten years.

  “So he liked it here, Balandran?”

  This question must have surprised him, for he replied, “To tell the truth, whether he liked it here or not, I’ve no idea, Mr. Martial. It makes no difference. He stayed.”

  That was how I came to learn that, before his retreat, Cornélius had made several long overseas journeys to distant lands (Asia perhaps, then Africa), but Balandran could not tell me why.

  “And his affairs, while he was away?”

  He shrugged, as if to say, “There’s so little . . .”

  We spoke about the flock. One hundred thirty head, to be exact: rams, sheep, ewes, lambs, plus a billy goat and six nanny goats. Two small horses and a donkey. Two dogs, not counting Bréquillet. A sheepfold. Several hundred acres of cropped grass on stony ground, broken up by mastics, wild olives, and spindly thorns growing beside springs and small lagoons.

  As he gave me this inventory, Balandran, less sparing with his words, grew somewhat animated. “The animals are in good shape,” he said solemnly.

  He paused in his pipe-scraping. Then he added, satisfied, but without changing his tone, “It’s a living, Mr. Martial. Along with some hunting . . . a few fish . . .” His flock had built his confidence, and he concluded with a promise: “After the rains, you’ll come with me to see them . . .” But he suddenly seemed anxious about having made such a solemn commitment. He reflected and decided to add, “But first, the wind must blow.”

  I said, “After the rain, Balandran, it always blows.”

  He admitted as much, but murmured, “There’s blowing and there’s blowing. I know the wind.”

  I could not extract another word from him about this mysterious wind, upon which, according to him, my visit to the flock on the mainland depended.

  About the neighbors, he was brief. “Some waterfowl, one or two poachers. That’s all. We’re on our own.”

  That was when I said, “I saw the ferry.”

  He did not flinch, but I sensed that I had just stirred a deep emotion. I could see nothing on his face, from which even the barest expression had disappeared. But I noticed that disappearance—Balandran’s face, from impassive, had grown inanimate. The soul had withdrawn, going inward under the shock, and nothing was left but an impersonal mask. This useless and inert face had become only matter, incapable of expression. The blow had penetrated deeply, and Balandran was a long time recovering. At last the soul returned and approached the old, immobilized face, barely animating it, and giving it a look of incontrovertible indifference. The pipe smoked, the voice grew gloomier, and Balandran announced, “That’s ‘Le Grelu.’”

  This was meant to say it all, and I understood. Balandran, satisfied with his explanation, looked at Bréquillet, who looked back at him; having come to an agreement, they went out together under the beating rain, as they did each day, slowly going God knows where.

  •

  As for me, having nothing else to do, I returned to daydreaming beside the fire. I did it so well that I spent the entire afternoon wandering through a purely imaginary realm; not until nightfall, when I needed to light a lamp, was I able to pull myself out of the reflections into which Balandran’s words had led me. Of those words I retained only an indefinable feeling. It was made up of a little anxiety—a vague expectation, as if I dreaded the approach of some strange event in the face of which I risked being unequal.

  Neither the expectation nor the anxiety was unpleasant. Idling in this house where the storm had confined me, I had nothing to distract me, and it may be that I invented danger as a pastime. But this invention was powerful; in my complete isolation, it possessed me with the imaginative force that shatters common sense. Still, I used my judgment to assemble the little I had learned about the place, the people, the things. Despite it all, I felt the need to see clearly, and, even as I let myself go, rambling in my reveries, I drew up an outline of the situation, making it as precise as possible.

  “Cornélius,” I thought, “besotted with his blood, has left me his worldly goods: the island, this house, his land, his flock, and perhaps his liege man, Balandran. Perhaps. But here the difficulties begin. For first I must determine if Cornélius could have bequeathed Balandran to me. If so, I enter easily into possession of his strange legacy. But this legacy gives me pause. One has neither the flock nor anything else without Balandran, and one does not have Balandran, I imagine, without giving oneself.

  “To give oneself is to perpetuate Cornélius, to reincarnate him, however feebly, to completely dedicate one’s life to these few hundred acres of stone and twelve dozen sheep—and to do so solemnly, precisely, right here, for all time, between this melancholy fire and this violent sky, between this fearsome river and the ghostlike memory of a morose old man. I am made neither for this fire nor for this sky, neither for this river nor for this ghostly grief. I am a Mégremut, a gentle man who loves books, quiet pleasures, and living people. Here I am among the dead. I feel it keenly. They are here, hidden, watchful. Reason tells me to go. Nothing good can come to me from the company of these taciturn beings—the dog, Balandran, the house, the invisible legatee. Out of curiosity and courtesy, I must await the notaire. He has a secret to disclose. We will listen to him. And then, having put the Malicroix family’s interests in as much order as possible (for it is their interests, not mine, most likely at stake here), we will take the road back to the hills, where, with heavy hearts, the Mégremuts impatiently await my return. It is settled.”

  That was what I thought, almost aloud.

  But I did not believe any of it. Even as I spoke to myself as loudly and as clearly as possible, I did not hear myself. Only the sounds of this very reasonable thought rattled my understanding; the thought itself did not reach me. My reason welcomed it, but the soul, impenetrable, remained deaf.

  The soul was living on the island, with this fire, this sky, this river, and these Shadows scornful of the common sense that dreaded them.


  • • •

  After six days of downpour, the rain diminished in intensity, and the sky slowly lifted its clouds from above the flat land. It remained overcast and gray, but daylight slipped through more easily, and the wind, which had died down, no longer wrung the rain into icy torrents. The rain grew finer and lost its stormy slant. It fell straight onto the muddy ground in countless threads. At times it was so light it melted into mist; when it stopped in brief moments of calm, large cottony clouds floated, unraveling above the woods and along the riverbanks. Sometimes they skimmed the river’s surface, which seemed to steam. I seized upon the slightest break in the weather to go out. The mud and puddles made the narrowest paths difficult. The whole island was little more than a lump of completely saturated yellow clay, ready to dissolve into the river waters.

  One evening, while returning to La Redousse, I glimpsed Balandran from afar. His back bent beneath a load of wood, he was hurrying. I tried to follow him, but I lost his track. A little later I heard loud hammer blows. I walked toward the sound, and suddenly found myself on the island’s right bank. The river here was not wide—less than a quarter mile from our shore to the mainland. But, narrowed, it had a terrifying look. It raced by, violent and wild; in some places, the ever-rising waters flowed over the island between bushes and huge trees.