The Breakers

by Claudie Gallay

  I went to sit down across from her.

  “He must have found someone to have a chat with …”

  “He doesn’t have chats!”

  “With me, he does …”

  Her old eyes lit up. She was full of questions inside, of wanting me to tell her.

  “The piece that Lili makes for him, I’m the one who takes it up to him,” I said.

  I told her about the house, the smells, the big tree with its shadow in the courtyard. All the details I could think of, I gave her. The curtains, the old wood stove, the knife marks on the kitchen table.

  At one point, I no longer knew what to say. She leaned toward me.

  “I remember …” she said.

  Her eyes were shining.

  She grabbed hold of my hand, and squeezed it hard. Her skin was icy.

  “We had cows, we took the buckets and went to milk them. The old man was good at it! I was happy.”

  That is what she said, I was happy …

  Her voice was trembling. I sat back a bit, and pulled my hand away.

  “Do you still love him?”

  I saw her blush beneath the dry thickness of her skin.

  She grabbed her handbag, and held it up against her chest. One hand on the handle. Ready to leave. To go back there.

  I wanted to hear more from her, to question her about this very particular love. Théo did not love her. Probably he had never loved her.

  But she, on the other hand …

  “What have you got in there?” I asked, pointing to the bag.

  She looked down. Her fingers fiddled with the catch. Awkward gestures. An old woman’s gestures, half-crippled, yet loving still.

  Eventually she opened her bag, and spilled everything out on the table, the bottle of perfume, Parfum de Paris, still in its dark-blue box. A photograph: she showed it to me, it was her and Théo. There was a pen, a packet of tobacco, a key … A tin box, the shape of a matchbook, with coins rattling in it. They were francs. A lock of hair.

  It was Lili’s hair, she told me. The photograph had been taken outside their house.

  “Those were the good days,” she mumbled.

  “Because you were young?”

  She looked at me, suddenly agitated, trembling all over.

  “Because I was with him!”

  She groped about for something with her hesitant fingers. How long had it been since she had opened that handbag?

  “The old man …” she murmured, because of her memories.

  And she pushed her chair, abruptly. The back of the chair hit the wall, she was lost in this prison of legs, table legs, chair legs, the legs of the walking frame too, that she had to hold on to even to get as far as the door. She was out of breath. Out of strength. Her body could not even make it round the table.

  “She’s a bitch!” is what she said, her lips pursed. One hand on her heart.

  She had no choice but to sit down again.

  “She used to come here, at night …”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  She pointed with her finger over toward Lambert’s house. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “That thief …”

  “That’s the Perack son’s place across the way, do you remember him? He used to come on holiday.”

  She wanted to scream. Even her voice had no more strength. So she began to whimper.

  “She stole all the toys. She said they came from the sea, but it’s not true. I know, I do, she came to take them …”

  It was pitiful. At her most desperate, she grabbed my hand.

  “She took everything from me … Even dogs, they don’t do that.”

  “You’re talking about Nan, is that it?”

  She nodded. I could see her face a few inches from mine, I could see how she was struggling with memory, trying to summon up what she wanted to tell me.

  “She did things … That’s why she’s mad, you always pay …”

  “What things?”

  She answered, a few words, her jaws clenched too tight, and then a flood of sentences, more and more incoherent, murmuring that the sea would not bring them back, that it never brought them back.

  I could hear Lili’s footsteps overhead. I wished she would come back down. I thought of calling to her. I put Old Mother’s things back in her bag.

  I got up, I put the bag on her lap, and her fingers round the handle.

  Touching the handbag, she fell silent. Her gaze vacant.

  I went to my usual place, further along, by the window. A moment later Lili came back down, a laundry basket under her arm.

  “She’s been shouting,” I said, pointing to Old Mother.

  She shrugged.

  “She shouts all the time these days.”

  She went behind the bar, and plunged her hands in the soapy water. She began scrubbing.

  “If we take out her dentures, she stops shouting, but then she sucks her tongue, that’s no better …”

  A smell of cooked cabbage spread through the room. A bit nauseating. I could hear the pressure cooker hissing.

  “Haven’t you got a machine?” I asked, pointing to the pile of laundry she had to wash.

  “I do, but I don’t like using it for so little. Have you got a machine, over at La Griffue?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you use it?”

  “Of course!”

  She looked at me. I was having a bad day, and it showed. I thought about what Old Mother had told me. Had Nan stolen toys from Lambert’s house? Toys … Why should that matter?

  “What was she talking about?” she said, nodding to her mother.

  “Nothing … It was muddled, I didn’t understand.”

  She put the “Bambi” tape on. Old Mother began to wail again, her gaze riveted on the door handle. When Lili walked by, she grabbed her sleeve.

  “The old man …”

  “What about the old man?”

  “It’s time for him to come …”

  “And so what?”

  “Isn’t he coming?”

  “No, he isn’t coming.”

  She went back to the bar.

  “You’d think he hadn’t made her suffer enough already, she’s asking for more!”

  Old Mother was holding her stomach, she was not watching Bambi.

  “I just don’t get it …” Lili said.

  She said it again, I just don’t get it … And then she turned to me.

  “She was pregnant, he was already cheating on her!”

  Old Mother began to moan. For Lili, it was too much. She went back over to her, grabbed her chin, opened her mouth, and with a straightforward gesture pulled out her dentures. An abrupt jerk. I could hear the clacking of the teeth.

  Old Mother had swallowed her lips.

  Without her dentures the entire bottom half of her face was nothing but a lipless chin, where a few long and surprisingly black hairs sprouted.

  “I’d still rather hear her sucking her own tongue than spouting all that rubbish.”

  Old Mother was right, it was time for Théo to come, and he was not here.

  He had fallen on his way down the path. I found out a bit later. The grass was slick, his foot slipped. The postman found him. He helped him up as best he could. A nasty injury to his leg. The doctor came, but Théo refused to go to hospital.

  “Who will look after my cats if I’m not here?”

  “If I see you hanging about the village, I won’t give you any choice,” the doctor said.

  No choice, that meant Cherbourg.

  And for Théo, Cherbourg meant death.

  I went to see him the next day, at the end of the afternoon. He was all alone, sitting at his table, somewhat downcast. The nurse had come. She would come every morning. The table was littered with boxes of medicine, a bottle of ether. He shoved it all to one side.

  He did not want to talk about his fall.

  He pointed to the cat whose eyes had wept tears like glue.

  “You see, its eyelids are clea
ner now, it doesn’t bump into everything the way it used to.”

  The bottle for the cat’s eyes was mixed in with all the other medication.

  He told me that Max had brought him some fish. And bread, too.

  Lili had given me some food for him in a sealed box. I put the box on the table. He peered inside. He made a face and pushed it away with a weary gesture.

  “That’s not fair, Théo.”

  He gave a short laugh.

  “What would you know? You think she does it for my sake?”

  He shook his head.

  “She just doesn’t want people to go saying she’s letting her father die of hunger.”

  He looked down.

  He did not want to meet my gaze. He blushed faintly, and tapped his fingers on the table. A nervous gesture, coming from him. It was annoying. I do not know if he realized he was doing it.

  The auberge in Jobourg was right up at the top of the cliff. All alone, somewhat squat, it overlooked the sea from the gigantic headland. I liked to anticipate when I would see it from afar, a sort of huge bear crouching on the hills.

  I had come here often, in cold weather, in snow, at night, too. Those early weeks, when it was impossible to sleep. That was what I did in the beginning. I walked. I talked to you. When I could, I screamed. The sea is not a wall, it does not send back an echo. I stopped screaming.

  This auberge was the refuge to reach after hours spent in the wind. At land’s end, a neat wall of flat stones lined the path. The earth was soft here, covered in short grasses. The auberge was nearby. The path continued, afterward, further, toward La Pointe des Becquets and Le Bec de l’ne. I could have kept going, headed south. I had heard that down by Biville the coast was beautiful. The beach. Dunes. I could have gone to Carteret.

  I did not give a damn about dunes.

  I did not want to go anywhere else.

  This land was like you. If I left it, it would be like losing you again. Your body was an obsession. I knew its contours, its imperfections. I knew all its strength. Every evening, I saw your face, the images, all our history playing back, yet again. Your smile, lips, eyes. Your hands. Your bloody hands, so much bigger than mine. You said, We’ll part on an odd-numbered day. For a laugh, you said.

  As if you already knew.

  They came to get you on an odd-numbered day and, since that day, I have been walking. I came up to the auberge thinking about you.

  It had begun to rain, and I knew I would get soaked, and it would not be for the first time.

  The waitress at the auberge knew me. In the winter months, I came here, and I put my mittens on the radiator.

  When I came in, she smiled. She saw my teeth were chattering. She poured me a glass of brandy, too strong. I drank it, looking at the sea. I ordered a crab. An enormous creature, with a red shell, I cracked its claws.

  The clouds drifted by.

  The sea was gray.

  The seagulls had to fly backward because there was so much wind.

  I saw Lambert again the next day, at the end of the morning, he was standing on the side of the road in front of the Stork’s house. A cow had just given birth in a pasture. The child’s father had loaded the calf into a wheelbarrow and was bringing it down.

  We met there, by chance. A birth, even that of a calf, brings people out on to their doorsteps. Makes them turn their heads.

  A strange parade it was, the cow moving along with this heavy viscous pouch still dangling between her legs. Immediately after the cow came the calf in the wheelbarrow, and then the Stork’s father, and then the Stork herself and finally the dog. The axle of the wheelbarrow was squeaking. Overhead the seagulls cried.

  “It’s a hard place, La Hague, huh?”

  He said it in an odd way, and it made me laugh.

  We looked at each other. The wind gave us the eyes of madmen.

  “And have you sold your house?” I eventually asked.

  “I’ve had a few visits.”

  I nodded.

  The pouch gave way. The cow stopped, turned round to look at what had just come out of her, a pile of phlegm and blood, still steaming.

  He was right, La Hague was a hard sort of place. I felt the smile return to my face.

  His leather jacket squeaked.

  “It hasn’t healed,” he said, pointing to the mark on my cheek.

  I touched it.

  “It always takes longer, with rust.”

  The cow vanished into the barn. Lambert turned to face the sea, his hands in his pockets.

  “I saw you up on the cliffs … Max said you go there to count the birds. He said you hide inside caves to look at the sea.”

  “Max talks too much.”

  He took a few steps along the road.

  “And what sort of birds are you counting?”

  “I count all of them.”

  “Is that why you have binoculars?”

  “Yes.”

  “And have you always done that?”

  I hesitated. I was no longer used to questions. The questions people asked, and that I had to answer. The other ones, too.

  “No, I used to be a biology teacher, in Avignon. I worked in partnership with the Centre ornithologique de Pont-de-Crau in the Camargue.”

  “Ah, yes … There are a lot of birds in the Camargue.”

  I looked at him. That way he had of expressing himself, so detached.

  “There are a lot, yes.”

  “And you left Avignon to come to La Hague?”

  I nodded.

  There was no one left on the path. The cow, the dog, the father, they had all disappeared. Then those few fragile seconds where we, too, could have left, each going our own way, as if we had merely met on the path. Two people who did not exist for one another, that is what we would have been.

  “Do you count robins, too?”

  “No, not robins …”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m only concerned with seabirds, migrating ones.”

  “Ah, so it’s not all birds …”

  He took a few more steps, slow steps.

  He was waiting for me.

  “Do you know why a robin has that red spot on its breast?”

  I had no idea. I turned. Behind me was the village, and the street that ran down the middle.

  Ahead of me was Lambert.

  I took a step.

  He raised his arm toward the sun. I looked at his hand, his strong wrist. The leather strap that held his watch.

  I took another step.

  He did not say anything more until I had come level with him. After that, he began to speak again. We went back down toward the harbor.

  “This story goes back to the time when humans did not yet have fire. A bird got the idea to go and steal some from the sun, it wanted to give it to mankind, but on its way back down, its wings caught fire and it had to pass the fire on to another bird. The other bird was a robin. It took the fire to its breast, but didn’t have time to reach the humans, and its feathers burned … That red spot they have on their breast, that’s what’s left. They never told you this story at school?”

  “No, but I learned other things … For example, I know that in real life, no one steals fire from the sun.”

  “So what do you suppose humans did in order to get fire?”

  I looked at him. I did not know whether I found him attractive.

  “They scraped stones, they rubbed sticks together. The lucky ones found flames brought by lightning.”

  He turned to me.

  “How long have you been at La Hague?”

  “Since September.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But … you will leave again?”

  I did not answer.

  That puzzled him for a moment. We had arrived at the quay, the road was coming to an end, a little bit of asphalt, the car park and the sea. We walked over by the boats.

  I asked him if Le Morvan was as beautiful as here, and he sa
id yes, that it might be even more beautiful.

  And then he looked at the sea for a long moment.

  “How do you know that I live in Le Morvan?”

  He said that quite evenly, and I felt myself blush. There was a hint of amusement in his gaze. I could hardly tell him that Morgane had been going through his pockets. I mumbled something.

  He pointed to the auberge.

  “Shall we go for a drink?”

  There was a light on inside, but the patron never served before eleven, it said so on the window.

  I told him that.

  He went up to the door.

  “Shall we try, anyway?”

  The patron was there reading his newspaper, sitting at a table. When we came in, he looked up, a quick glance, and then went on reading his article.

  Lambert chose a table by the window. He took off his jacket. I was still by the door.

  The patron did not move.

  Lambert motioned to me and I went and joined him. It was warm. It felt good. Outside, it was windy. You could see the boats moving.

  We talked about Le Morvan. He said that the snow there was so thick sometimes that it felt like a burying. He liked it. He also liked taking trains, never mind the destination, he liked hanging out in train stations and watching people live.

  I told him I was going to redecorate my flat, green.

  I took out the postcard.

  “It’s a special green … Hopper green.”

  We talked about snow again. And then about Paris, too. He had never been to the Louvre, he said museums bored him.

  We looked outside. There was mist. Fishermen had come to cast their lines.

  “I’ve also seen you hanging out,” I said.

  He nodded. He was going to add something, when the patron slammed his hand on the newspaper.

  “Those fucking Arabs, can you believe this!”

  He left his newspaper wide open on the table, and came over to us.

  “Can I get you something?”

  “Some wine … Some shrimps, bread, butter … Some good wine,” Lambert insisted, and the patron said, “We serve nothing but, here.”

  He brought us the glasses, the shrimps, the bread, everything Lambert had asked for, and set it down on the table.

  After that, he went back to his article.

  Lambert filled the glasses. We drank. We started on the shrimps. They were fresh, caught that morning, the flesh firm. We peeled them. I bit into the first one. A strong taste of iodine filled my mouth.