by Henri Bosco
La Redousse was shut. I pushed the door open. On the beaten earth, muddy footprints were apparent. They had been here. But not Dromiols. I would have recognized his huge foot. The cowherds had entered; perhaps Rat as well. The fire was still burning. I added a log and went out. I know the island well, and I was able to orient myself right away. I took the path to the landing. No one was there. But I could hear the sound of the boat that, from time to time, dully banged against the pilings. So Dromiols was on the island. I thought it best first to find his trail and that of his men. After that, hidden and unknown to them, I would be able to watch their movements and escape. To disappear was my only defense. But to remain on the island. That need fully possessed my whole soul. I understood what power I had just obeyed in abandoning both Balandran and my only friend.
From the landing, I headed back south. The island is large, with many paths, but all of them, although they diverge from La Redousse, meet again at both ends of the island. In the north, at the Ranc; in the south, opposite a lagoon called La Calame. Dromiols, being neither at the Ranc nor at La Redousse, must be beating the southern end of the island in search of me. That part of the island is wide, overgrown, largely inaccessible. Balandran has four huts there, the largest of which is hidden in a hollow, surrounded by brush and hundred-year-old trees. It is his favorite spot, his “winter planet” as he calls it. A house, a planet—such is his imagination, poor Balandran! I thought of him as I approached his hut, and my heart was torn with remorse. Alone, over there, perhaps dying; and in my ear, that cry, the Sacristan in distress on the riverbank, calling wildly into space, calling for God knows whom, with that trust animals have in their plaintive cry, and perhaps in man, occasionally responsive to their pleas. I was painfully responsive, and at every step that pain increased my shame at having abandoned my man Balandran—I, the master, whom he loved, because I was a Malicroix. But was I? . . . I had fled; and I was still fleeing, irresistibly, as if to flee had become my vital function, my self’s true action, despite shame, remorse, the call of love and friendship. Yet all the sure, swift steps that led me away from pity and honor were my steps, my steps alone, the steps of my soul. I never hesitated as I moved through the darkness where my whole being carried me in one impulse. I had to be here. I had to occupy this earth, to breathe this air, to face the blowing of this wind, to take this rain on my body; for this air, this earth, this wind, and even this rain were my ancestors’ legacy. The island—I wanted it; I had become its spirit; I haunted it like a ghost; my soul depended on its possession, and in the auspicious darkness through which Dromiols vainly searched for me, I moved ahead toward my destiny, tormented by a growing anxiety, but lucid, my head lowered, like a blind force.
I knew they were in the hut I was approaching, unsure of myself, weak, alone, gripped with fear. For I was afraid. Beneath my clothes, I felt my body’s infirmity, and, within that body, very little courage. I could already see the enemy in their strength, bulk, number, and cunning; their hatred rose before me, in the flesh. I moved forward. What would I do? Face them?
This thought chilled me. And yet, all my steps were leading me toward them. I did not fear death; it was seeing them that filled me with horror. Still, nothing broke the momentum of my walk. I was going. No struggle, no effort to conquer my fear—just this blind impulse, this unstoppable thrust from within that, despite myself, led me into darkness.
The darkness was thick that night and I had some trouble finding the little overgrown valley that hid the hut. A glow beneath the trees faintly signaled its presence, and I approached it cautiously.
They had left the door open and kindled a fire. An oil lamp hanging on the central post lit up the room. Inside, facing the door and with his back to the fire, Dromiols was heavily seated on a stool, hands on knees, thighs spread. His head was bare. Uncle Rat, standing beside him, was holding the top hat; his eyes were lowered. Behind them, two cowherds, short but stocky, stuffed into their sheepskin jackets, waiting, motionless.
In front, a third cowherd was tersely answering Dromiols’s questions. I remained outside in the shadows, near the door, and I clearly heard every word they said.
They were talking about me. The cowherd was making his report: I had left, most likely with that girl. (Balandran, a good bait to lure me from the island: the absence, the separation, the illness, the death throes perhaps; how could I have resisted? . . . )
“He has a heart,” Dromiols remarked with satisfaction, almost kindly. That I should have a heart seemed entirely natural to him. “The girl too has played her part well,” he added, turning his baleful eye toward Uncle Rat. “We lacked a girl in this story. The good servant was there, but without a girl, we get nowhere, isn’t that right, Uncle Rat?”
Uncle Rat made an effort to smile. He managed only a grimace.
“Oh,” sniggered Dromiols, “Uncle Rat does not like girls. He knows them poorly. They’re good for something . . .”
I ached.
Dromiols made a sign to the cowherds.
“Go wait for us at the landing. In fifteen minutes, we will cross the water; we’ll catch them like rats at La Regrègue. Then we’ll draw up the report before three witnesses, three Rambards!”
The cowherds left the hut. I hugged the wall. They moved away without speaking. I went back to the door.
Neither Dromiols nor Uncle Rat had moved.
They were silent. The fire continued to burn; Uncle Rat held the hat; Dromiols solemnly warmed his back. The lamp lit up his yellow face. The light emphasized the large bones, the thick folds of his flesh. Into this mask had flowed a massive thought whose immobility revealed savagery, stubbornness. It fascinated me. For this thought was me, and most likely Dromiols was actually seeing me, inside himself. Troubling impression of presence. I was there. I was solely there. Did I have a life, a will, outside that savage head whose slow meditation revolved around my weak figure? I obsessed him; I was his anxiety, what haunted him.
He sighed and said, “After all, what counts is that he has left the island. It was only a matter of time, Uncle Rat. Exactly one week. If he had held on for seven more days, he would inherit.”
“He would inherit,” repeated Uncle Rat, like an echo.
Dromiols’s face darkened. This too-faithful echo dimly disturbed him. He went on in a harsher voice. “Now, here he is, fallen, truly fallen—legally fallen, a serious fall, fallen in front of a notaire.” He sneered. “Oh! The notaire! The notaire! Dromiols! Who is Dromiols? Who, Uncle Rat?”
Uncle Rat crushed the hat against his chest. He did not answer.
“Hmmm! Uncle Rat, you don’t dare say it? But the blood, the true blood, the direct blood, the blood that flows through the men, not women’s blood, the blood that has transmitted the strength, the will, the courage, where is it?”
He struck his muscular thighs. Uncle Rat, hunched over, was looking at the hat, still silent, suffering, waiting perhaps, but for what?
“Fallen,” roared Dromiols. “Completely fallen! So, what becomes of the motto?”
MOI!
He beat his chest heavily, then emphatically repeated:
MOI!
MAL Y CROIT QUI TOUT N’Y CROIT!
I!
Who believes not all believes but ill!
He sneered.
“Laugh then, Uncle Rat! Isn’t it funny? Look! This pride ready to laugh! I! . . . They! . . . Who are they? . . . This puppet, this Mégremut!”
Uncle Rat began to tremble. Dromiols noticed.
“Are you afraid? . . . Of whom? . . . Of sacrilege! But the true master here, who is it?”
He had risen.
“We’ll change the motto; but we will leave the I, the I of the master . . .”
Again, as at La Redousse, his shadow outlined a bird on the screen, the startling profile of a sparrow hawk’s beak that belied his flat face.
He was standing, and his bare skull, lit by the lamp, gleamed. He grew calmer.
“Now, no matter what Balandran does,”
he growled, “everything is in order. Let him hide his codicil. Mégremut has failed. For him the testament is dead. No more inheritance for Mégremut. As for Balandran, we will see about him later; and, along with him, Le Grelu and the girl—I’ll treat them like Rambards.”
He began to laugh, and he snorted. Then he turned toward the fire, stretched out his hands, and said, “I will keep this hut. I like it . . .”
It was still raining. I was cold. The damp was seeping through my wool coat. It grew heavier, and a slow, aching weariness fell onto my shoulders. My soul was hardly alive. I was no longer afraid; I was cold, but with a fleshly cold that penetrates you to the core, freezing your spirit and strength. Inside, by that fire, it must be warm. But I could not see the fire; Dromiols’s huge body was between me and the flame. Still, I drew some faint comfort from a few gleams and warm drafts. I would have liked to have seen the hearth, to see how, lit by these intruders from the mainland, this simple island fire burned for the enemies of my blood, here in this poor wooden hut, where I, the master, did not dare enter to warm my numb, feverish body. All I could see of Dromiols was his monumental back, the thick neck, the yellow skull. Uncle Rat, crouched in his shadow, was disappearing. The rain streamed into my eyes, wet my cheeks; every so often, I shivered from head to toe. Suddenly, Dromiols spoke.
“And the mass, Uncle Rat, the mass . . . Cornélius’s mass, in July, at the Ranc, on the waters, the commemorative mass, the mass of Delphine d’Or . . .”
His voice suddenly changed, and he grew silent.
I waited, anxious. Uncle Rat gently came out of the shadows and turned his head toward the door. I took a step and he saw me. He cautioned me with a gesture. Dromiols began to speak again.
“The mass—I will preside over it. And from now on it will be said for the peace of two souls. Cornélius is there too. He has a right to peace. For the dead, peace! For the living—”
I was thinking: “For the living—death.”
I entered the hut.
He turned and saw me. I was small. I felt that I was small. Taking my time, I went toward the hearth. Dromiols was not moving. I crossed between him and the fireplace, and I stretched out my hand, streaming with water, toward the fire. The fire, which was fading, raised its clear point toward my palm and I felt the warmth of its flame.
I said, “Here is a fire about to go out, Dromiols. It needs wood.”
From beneath lowered lids, Uncle Rat was eyeing the fire with dread.
I took a log and knelt.
I placed the log on the hearth. It crackled and split in two. I was thinking, “Surely it will catch,” and I thought only of that.
I was very close to the fire. Never before had I seen the world of flames from so close. The heat from the embers burned the skin on my face and the ash breathed a healing, resinous scent. The ashes were shielding the soul of the fire, its heart, the very life of that strange creature whose warmth and light are drawn from who knows what wondrous source. I was not concerned about Dromiols; I was concerned instead about this disembodied being toward which I bent, eager to live. I was witnessing the birth of warmth and strength; I heard the growing murmur, the surge, the dawn. I knew very well that this fire was rising from the beaten earth toward me. It was my fire, the fire of the sign of strength; and it was already lighting up the peak of this primitive hut, from which it would chase the intruders with a single jet of flame. I took the burning log and lifted it to the roof. The roof ignited. The lamp fell. I heard footsteps, a groan; someone moaned. Thick smoke filled the hut. A call. Dromiols was crying out in search of Uncle Rat. The branches and dried leaves piled up by Balandran blazed all at once. The whole roof collapsed. I withdrew just in time. I fled. Where were they? . . .
. . . At the landing? . . . I ran to the landing. It was still raining. I saw them. The drifting boat held five men, five Shadows, including one colossal Shadow.
The current took the boat and carried it off. It disappeared. And so I made my way back to La Redousse.
• • •
It was still raining. The wind from the north, beating back the smoke, carried the smell of the burning hut. Filled with flammable logs, it had burned well at first. But the downpour must have slowed the fire, and now damp smoke was escaping from it. The smoke drifted at a man’s height through the island’s trees, gently wet by the rain. Melancholy scent that flowed northward along the paths. It accompanied my thoughts, of which only one stood out—the desolating sense of abandonment and despair.
Dromiols’s words came back to me, evoking the dear figure of that watchful friend about whom he had said that girls are good for something and useful in such affairs . . .
And so all those days of half-light and healing, of unspoken friendship, sank, forever shattered by the words of this cruel, cynical man. So many whispered words, so many silences, and that slow, loving hand which, all fresh with youth, had stroked me during my fever—were they solely the appearance of affection? Of this world of secrets and approaches, of ethereal steps, where our bodies’ warmth still affirmed life’s presence, nothing would remain from now on except trivial and painful images . . . That name impossible to repeat (because it would have freed a soul, I had foolishly thought) was thus neither a secret of the being who had drawn me from death nor a word through which love might have arisen before me, without naming itself, and which would have sufficed for all my earthly days. I ached. Now the rain seemed comforting, as it always does to weak people who discover how weak they truly are when faced with fate’s cruelty. The endless rain fell into the river’s fleeing waters and onto the damp island’s fluid silt, where both thought and the shapes on the bank were losing their solidity. I wandered long. It was very late at night when I returned to La Redousse.
It was, as always, closed.
• • •
I went in and bolted the door.
I was, at first, enshrouded in black. The fire looked dead. No lamp. I took one step, then another; but, finding nothing in front of me, I stopped. Where were the flint, the matches? . . . An extraordinary silence reigned over the house. It was not the silence of emptiness, the stillness of vacant and abandoned houses, but a sort of mute expectation. My heart was troubled; my blood felt heavy; I was breathing poorly. I thought I was at the center of the room—I should, to my right, have the chimney, and, in front of me, the storeroom. The lamp was probably in the storeroom. So I should go there first. But as I was about to move, I was gripped by fear. Was I really where I thought I was? How could I be sure? Disoriented, uncertain, I did not dare move. A vague apprehension riveted me. I reached my arm out to feel for a table or a chair, to rediscover the known dimensions, the reassuring order of this room where nothing could be seen. I touched a wooden back, the back of the armchair that is always in front of the fire. In the shadow, under my fingertips, I recognized its familiar shape. This object of oak and straw made a hole in the shadow, pushed back the void, where all at once a real body took shape, which I was holding with a living hand.
And suddenly I had the feeling that someone was there, with me, in the room. A human being. Human presence amplifies the power of darkness. It came over me, and my feeling was so intense that the chill of death passed through me. Convulsively, I clutched the arm of the chair; then, shaken, I relaxed. Who was alive? And where—in this room? There was not one breath in the room’s extraordinary silence. Immobility. I was not moving; I pricked up my ears, but to no avail. Still, life was here. Neither breath nor thought, but that elusive emanation from a creature whose warmth persisted, and which, however faintly it burned, continued to emit its dull radiance. This life was spreading weakly now. Its presence, at first quite vague in the room, began to gradually take shape and situate itself within the shadows, most likely drawn by the magnetic power of my attention. Still invisible, it weighed down a portion of the darkness that had flowed into the room during my absence. I felt the thought of this weight behind me, in the corner that hides my bed; the whole house seemed to lean toward tha
t corner devoted to sleep, dreams, self-forgetfulness . . .
Sleep, forgetfulness, dreams perhaps—that life was most certainly there on that iron bed where I had been delirious, then lost all memory for who knows how many days and nights . . . Perhaps I was still there, and it was from me, not breathing, or breathing so feebly—or from some inert body stretched in my stead—that this vague vibration spread. Was it about to end? Now and then a mental glimmer came to me, a ghost of thought at once destroyed through lack of substance, but rekindled by an unexpected pulsation from the creature on the far frontiers of life, like a fragile beacon lost in the distance, on the verge of darkness . . .
Someone was dying on that narrow bed in the corner. I regained control of myself. I released my grip on the armchair and went to the storeroom. The lamp was indeed there, along with the flint. I lit the lamp and went back into the room. From the door, I saw. It was Balandran who was dying.
He was stretched out on my iron bed.
•
He had been wrapped in a wool blanket. His head on my pillow, he looked dead. I approached the bed. The bushy gray head was no longer breathing. In their sockets, the yellow eyelids were glued to his eyes. The waxen forehead shone beneath the lamp; his coarse hair gave off the smell of sick flesh. The whole body smelled of algae and damp earth. It was hollowing out the bed.
This heavy bundle of brown wool on the white sheet was no longer stirring. No breath. Death’s rigidity was paralyzing this frozen shape. Yet, if you looked carefully, you could see that it was still alive. What life did it emit? And from where? I could not have said, but once again the weak wave of this substance pulsated. This was all that was left of Balandran, and this clearly had neither thought nor feeling. Yet it had life; and, little as it was, it was Balandran. He was clinging to his flesh and to the earth solely through this lukewarm bit of phosphorous, this frail cell where the seed of life that had created him stubbornly endured and still sought to survive . . . The mother cell’s resistance to death roused all the forces of my own life, and, feeling the flow of my own quick blood, my heart thrilled. I sensed that this vital sign still responded to the love I had for this man, suspended by a thread of warmth over the abyss of darkness. Even separated from his clear soul, his mute life was clinging to the earth through faith alone. And, myself alive, I owed him faith; I needed to respond with some earthly sign to this faint fragment of love coming from the uncertain shores of death. I took Balandran’s head between my two hands and looked at the glass lamp.