by Henri Bosco
• • •
He did not come back the next day.
But she was here. Always that scent of water, of plants. And always that slow, almost impersonal movement of her hand on my brow, my cheek, my still frail shoulder. Her hand is not burning like mine, but liquid, like air. Peace flows from it; or rather, now that my strength is returning, more than the peace of the first days, an ease mingled with languor spreads through me at the approach of her unseen palms.
For I deliberately keep my eyes shut whenever I sense the gesture of peace arising in this soul. And so, huddled within my heart, alive to the power of her approach, I await my blood’s response with a sort of anguished pleasure that melts, little by little, into an unearthly calm. It is perhaps time to exert myself a bit, for although this nighttime languor is sweet, should I not emerge from it and live again? . . . I am hardly more than a moment of well-being, thoughtless. The time has come when I must know and, perhaps, suffer . . .
• • •
I spoke to her tonight.
“Of you, I know nothing. And of myself, I have lost almost all recollection. I remember only water, a heavy fog, a long illness. I must have fainted at nightfall in the damp. How did you find me and bring me back?”
Would she reply? She did it so simply I was a little disappointed. She said, “You were being watched. They had been prowling for some time along the shore.”
“Who?”
“Uncle Rat. Dromiols. But on that day, Dromiols had left. Uncle Rat found you. They were expecting a distress signal from you, I think . . .”
“And you?”
“I was watching them.”
“Why?”
She was silent.
“Where do you come from?” I asked gently.
Gently, she murmured, “I don’t know.” And she rose in the shadow, reluctantly. She said, “It’s almost dawn. I need to go. No one must see me here.”
“Who? Uncle Rat?”
“No, Uncle Rat loves you. You owe him your life.”
I wanted to hold her back. She fled.
I waited for evening.
And, in the evening, she returned.
• • •
I had taken a seat in front of the fire. I am strong enough now to move around the room all alone.
She came in. I had my back to the door. I heard nothing. She slipped slowly between the fire and me. And then she remained standing, leaning against the chimney. The flame quietly lit her. You could clearly see the lower part of her face, but her eyes remained in shadow, and her forehead appeared only when a gleam rose from the fire.
She was silent. Beneath their dark lids, her eyes were closed. Were it not for the light movement of her loins quickened by her heavy breathing, her strange stillness would have made her seem not humanly alive.
But, dark and lithe, her whole body was here. Under the coarse dress that enfolded her in its narrow pleats, her shining, firm body could be sensed; and her hair, twisted above her strong brow, gave off a warm fragrance thanks to the fire’s heat. It troubled me.
Yet she was still silent. I did not dare, by word or gesture, draw a precise thought from this charm. Fully given over to her stirring presence, I wanted nothing more than to look at her. Perhaps secretly within this desire, another desire, even more troubling, was growing—of approach or ineffable trust. An entire mute life awoke in me for this creature whose watchful shadow seemed silently to await my heart’s secret sign. Between us, all words are mysteries.
•
The next night, we spoke.
She told me, “Balandran is ill like you.”
“Where?”
“At La Regrègue.”
“Ill with what?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he drank some bad water. They were around. When they are around, the water is not always good . . .”
I shuddered. She continued. “They are keeping him now.”
“But Uncle Rat? He has some love. You told me.”
“For you. But he hates Balandran. He is afraid of him.”
“He’s also afraid of Dromiols . . .”
She bent her head. “Yes, he hates him.”
“Yet he serves him?”
She gazed at me and gently said, “You are still alive . . .”
Her eyes had suddenly opened, with a wide gaze; between the stern forehead and the two high cheekbones, they lit up the shadow of her face.
I must have said, “Come.”
She came.
And then she laid her wild head on my shoulder.
• • •
My strength is growing rapidly; but (she has told me), I must feign weakness. Hence these closed shutters by day, these nighttime talks . . .
It was Uncle Rat who had sought her after he found me stretched unconscious by the water. In secret, the two of them had brought me back to La Redousse.
They cared for me; they watched over my delirium.
•
Dromiols is there, on the shore. He lives at La Regrègue.
“Alone?” I asked.
“No. He has three cowherds with him. His men. Rambards.”
I remembered . . .
She said, “They’re holding Balandran captive. Balandran (Uncle Rat admitted to me the other night) must know something; he has a secret . . .”
“And they want to tear it from him?”
“Yes.”
Dromiols’s desire, so suddenly evoked, chilled me.
“Balandran is alone, and much sicker than you . . .”
The voice had grown solemn. We were standing on the doorstep, shoulder to shoulder. In front of us, the winter sky shone, motionless and clear. Streaming toward us was the message of fullness and glory that travels on the astral light, brightening the worlds of night.
“Soon,” murmured the voice whose breath I felt on my cheek, “you will be strong enough to cross the river with me and to go there, my friend . . .”
My convalescent blood, sweet with youth, rose from my life’s depths toward my soul, whose outline, taken up again by my body’s flesh, grew firmer.
“Friend,” I murmured in turn, “you must tell me your name tonight, for everything is calm . . .”
She pressed against me. The light movement of her body, as pliant as a sapling against my hip, penetrated my still-feeble body, and she seemed to flow gently into me, as all my limbs quivered.
“My name, the one of this earth?”
I wanted to answer.
Suddenly, a bush moved. A footstep snapped a dead branch. A heavy footstep.
She fled.
• • •
The footsteps stopped. I slipped outside. A bird cried on the rooftop, then flew off heavily toward the river. I reached the underbrush. In the east the moon was rapidly rising. A light breeze was blowing over the island. The moon grew bigger, smooth and dazzling, and soon lit up the blue stretch of leafless woods. Beneath its icy glare the large clearing around the house shone. Close to Balandran’s hut stood a monumental human figure. It was not moving. I recognized it at once. Outlined beneath the moon, it was indeed the enormous carrick, the massive shoulders, and the droll, dreadful hat—black, flared. Pushed down low, its large fluted brim reached the carrick’s heavy collar and covered the thick neck. Dromiols had his back to me, and, still unmoving, he was contemplating the deserted hut. As he stood there facing the moon, he looked to me like a shadowy block. Only a tiny silver reflection glinted on his hat brim. Nothing was stirring, either in the air or on the ground; Dromiols was bathing in the silence. Not one sign of humanity came from him. I watched him. Perhaps he was dreaming; I held my breath.
This strange meditation lasted for some time. Then Dromiols took a step. I kept my distance and silently threaded my way between two willows. He turned slowly toward the house, approached the door, listened. I took this chance to move even farther away, toward the landing. I was thinking he had left his boat. It was in fact there. I was gripped by a temptation—to unmoor it . . . And then? . . . Drom
iols cut off, cloistered on the island, with me! . . . What vengeance! . . . But the others would come to his aid . . .
And she? . . .
I heard his footstep. Crouching, I hid in a bush. Slowly, he appeared on the path. He was advancing with a rhythmic step, his chin high, his whole face lifted up toward the dazzling moon. A strange, mineral face, with brutish cheekbones. His eyes wide open—large eyes that seemed blank and sightless—he was moving forward, heavy and huge, not seeing the ground. He seemed a stone, heading toward rapture.
I was motionless, afraid. It was cold. The river, silvered by the sky, flowed silently away between cold, sparkling banks. It was truly a river made for the wilderness. This wilderness could be seen beyond the icy water, vanishing into the west . . .
Halted at the landing, Dromiols, more monumental than ever, was contemplating the river and the deserted land. Enveloped in moonlight, he had become a huge white stone, a mesmerizing stone. I closed my eyes and waited.
The planks groaned, the water splashed, a chain creaked against the boat’s side. And so, I dared to look . . .
I recognized the boat—black, flat. It had left our shore and was drawing away across the current, downstream from the island. Dromiols, his hand on the oar in the stern, was steering toward the lagoons. Lost in his lunar contemplation, rapt, he was still visible; and so he became, at the heart of the river, a huge silver creature, a monster winter had drawn from the river to dominate its banks.
And then the light slowly absorbed him. He vanished into dust.
Numb, I returned, almost at a run, to La Redousse.
• • •
It was empty, cold. I searched for some twigs for the fire, but the bark was damp. The hostile hearth smoked, and I had to blow on it for a long time. The fire barely caught. It emitted only a scant warmth and a sad scent of wet fibers. I waited. But the island remained empty.
I grew hungry around ten o’clock. I ate some stale bread and drank a cup of coffee. I had found an almost full pot on the table in the storeroom. It was heavy, thick.
Still, I slept.
I did not dream.
The next day, I was strong enough to move around a little and do some chores on my own. As a precaution, I kept the door bolted, the shutters fastened. Only a skylight lit the room. A slow day. Outside, a thick fog. Inside, insufficient light through which I roamed, careful not to make any sound that might reveal an active presence.
I was patient, but toward evening I began to feel restless.
I had been thinking about evening since morning. I could see it already: anticipated, troubling, indefinable . . . Nightfall, darkness, and, suddenly enlivening the shadows, the approach, the hidden face, the confiding mouth, and the shoulder that comes and slowly throbs beneath the warm cloth against my unmoving shoulder; and she herself, the embrace of silence.
• • •
At eleven o’clock, Uncle Rat came in through the storeroom. He saw me beside the fire and stopped, as if forbidden.
I called him. “It’s cold. Come warm yourself awhile.”
He came but stood against the wall. He was silent for a long time, then said, “Time weighs on you . . .”
I answered, “Yes it does, I admit. And you are welcome here, Mr. Rat, on this night at La Redousse.”
He considered, hesitated. “If I dared, but may I? . . . Me? Uncle Rat?”
I encouraged him with a slight, friendly gesture.
Taken aback, he murmured, “Mr. Martial . . . !” His voice broke with emotion. He wanted to escape.
I held him back. Gently, I took his arm and led him to the fire. And then I asked him, “Tell me, what brings you here?”
He lowered his head, and, as if ashamed, said, “I loved Mr. Cornélius.”
• • •
Everything here is a mystery, as I know only too well; but tonight a faint, fleeting light has been lit. Evasive for a long time, Uncle Rat confided little. I was careful not to mention Balandran, whom he hated. Of Cornélius, he said, “He called me Rat, simply, but in friendship.”
And so I spoke to him of the tender Méjans and Mégremuts; of Puyloubiers, which smells of cherries and almonds; of our family life, so peaceful and harmonious; of Aunt Philomène and Uncle Mathieu, sensible, good-natured, kind. He sighed.
Toward midnight, he asked me, “And the deeds, the old notarized deeds, where do you keep them?”
The question surprised me.
“Most of the time,” he added, with a sad look, “families consign them to the attic. By the end of twenty years, the mice destroy them.”
I answered carefully. “We keep them with Uncle Mathieu. All in order, preserved. The whole family is there, for three hundred years.”
He was reassured. “You understand, Mr. Martial, deeds are sacred. Among us, Maître Dromiols holds them in high esteem—” He lowered his voice. “It is his religion. He fears them.”
This fear must have secretly troubled him as well; he grew silent. Then he sighed again, and, in a still-lower voice he said, “It’s the one thing he fears on earth . . .”
He watched me with his keen eye. I shuddered. Then, more softly still, as if under his breath, he murmured, “Everything is there.”
He stayed with me until dawn but shared no other secrets.
• • •
An empty day, sterile . . .
How will I manage my idleness tonight?
Why does she not return? Is she afraid?
It is late. I have left the door ajar.
No moon tonight. The sky is cloudy, perhaps with rain on the way. A damp wind blows from the sea, a low wind that skims the water. It must be going against the river and making it rough.
Everything depends on knowing how to wait. Not one dream comes to turn me away from this emptiness whose futile void I survey in vain. Nothing within me moves.
And yet, I listen. Not one sound, not one creak, not one breath from the surrounding world escapes me. Within those faint vibrations I discover nothing that flutters like a furtive soul seeking another in the night.
Still, I must keep watch and stoke this simple fire out of piety and prudence. I have no friend but this fire that warms the central stone of the house, generous stone from which warmth and light rise to my knees and eyes. This is where the ancient pact of fire, earth, and soul is religiously sealed between man and his refuge. Amid the waters, on this island where fear of the river torments me, the only remaining signs of human presence are this hearth from my ancestors’ hands, and my vigil, waiting on this shore where she who haunts my thoughts perhaps wanders through winter’s desolation, anxious to return to me.
• • •
She rose before I did. (I must have fallen asleep, despite my wakefulness.) I saw her coming toward me in the middle of the room. She was wearing the heavy brown rain cape that I know well. She whispered, “They are coming. Follow me. Take a coat. The weather is bad.” We left through the storeroom. Outside, it was black, a night you could cut with a knife. It was raining. She took my hand and led me northward. We walked a long while on a muddy path. As we walked, she told me, “They have landed below. All five of them are here. But no one is left at La Regrègue. Balandran is alone . . .” She was moving cautiously through the mud with light steps, while I slipped at every instant. I did not see her, but through the pressure of her hand, now commanding, now gentle, I was joined to her body, her mind, her swift and furtive movements. Suddenly, she stopped. An almost-human plaint was rising from the mainland. “It’s the Sacristan. He’s weeping. The flock is scattered. Balandran might be dying. The animal is calling . . .” She was speaking to me, her mouth at my ear. I hugged her as gently as possible, and I felt her against me, warmer and more alive than I was, shivering beneath the rain. We could hear the passage of the river’s black water under the rain and the slow southern wind.
Even she shivered beneath this wind. She said, “My boat is here. I know the river; we can cross it. A quarter of an hour will be enough. Le Grelu is waitin
g for us on the ferry. We will hide Balandran there. But we’ll have to carry him. Le Grelu is old, and I cannot do it alone. A body is heavy. But together, you and I can manage.” She held me close as she spoke, and I felt her hands slowly tightening and untightening around my still-weak, submissive shoulders.
I yielded. Cautiously, she led me through the brush to the bank. The wind and rain had redoubled in strength. I sank into the mud. I could see neither the boat nor the river, whose murmur was sometimes drowned out by wind and rain. She tugged on a rope. A prow emerged from shadow. The hull’s bottom scraped the silt and the boat stopped just in front of me. She leapt in and reached her hand out to me. And then I fled.
• • •
I fled only a few steps; but those steps—I took them. Just then, a large hand reached me. I retreated to the top of the bank. The hand relaxed; I leaned against a tree and looked down at the river. But river and boat had entered shadow, the wind’s blowing, the rain. I wanted to call out; I could not. I wanted to go back down. The hand grew heavier and paralyzed me. I struggled with myself; perhaps I cried out in anger. The hand reached down into my heart. It was a gaunt, deliberate hand. My body stiffened, and my soul, in a brief whirlpool of despair, nearly broke its bonds; the hand held it back. A cruel force brought both soul and body back into the weak, troubled being that I am. When an anguished cry, a truly human plea, rose from the river’s darkness, I did not respond to its distress. I slowly sank back into the island, under the trees; I took the path that leads to La Redousse, in order to face—without any aid—the five enemies of my name and of my blood.