The Breakers

by Claudie Gallay

  Lambert smiled.

  “It’s Francis, Saint Francis of Assisi.”

  “Saint Francis, yes, I suppose …”

  “Don’t suppose, it’s a fact.”

  He put the two little horses on the game board and threw the dice.

  “Are you a teacher?”

  “You don’t have to be a teacher to know that.”

  She gave a little pout.

  He moved his horse and handed me the dice. I threw it. The dice stopped against the ashtray. Somewhere between one and six.

  I threw again.

  “If the dice comes up six, you start over and you’re not allowed to stop a rolling dice,” Morgane said without looking up.

  M. Anselme got up. This was our game. He no longer belonged. He said goodbye.

  “Chelone, you see …”

  He had not drunk his wine.

  Morgane shrugged. She made two piles of cards, put them down opposite each other, and shuffled them. She formed the deck again, tapping the edges on the table.

  “So, do you feel like a tarot? Raphaël’s good at it. Raphaël is my brother,” she said, turning to Lambert. “He’s a very great sculptor.”

  She put the cards back in the drawer. She got up and put on her jacket.

  “Shall we go?”

  Morgane opened the car door, leapt into the front seat of the Audi. She bent down to rummage in the glove compartment, going through the C.D.s, Lavilliers, Beatles, Julios Bocarne …

  “Who is Bocarne?”

  She slotted in the C.D. After the first notes, she made a face. She put on Lavilliers, full blast. Night was falling. There was a moon. Rays of light on the sea. At midnight, you could see as if it were broad daylight. It is said that a moonlit night works on a woman’s body. Opens it. Empties it from inside. I had known that, with you. I looked at them. I should have let them go off, the two of them. Let them have their moon. I looked up. I met his gaze, briefly, in the rearview mirror.

  His jacket was next to me on the seat. I ran my hand over the collar. I do not know if he saw my gesture.

  It did not take long to reach the harbor. He drove slowly. Morgane jumped out before he had even finished parking the car. She ran on ahead. She wanted to tell Raphaël.

  It began to rain.

  The headlamps lit up the streaks of rain. There was a light on in Raphaël’s kitchen. In the pasture behind the auberge, the cows were preparing to spend the night outside. I said something about it, I cannot remember what.

  Lambert stopped the C.D. and put it back in the case.

  “Shall we go?”

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  A pipistrelle bashed against the car, disoriented. I wondered why.

  We spent part of the night playing tarot in Raphaël’s kitchen. We ate sandwiches. We drank wine.

  We smoked, too.

  In the morning, Lambert left.

  Morgane said that before leaving, he went into Raphaël’s studio, and stayed for a long time in there, all alone. When he came back out, he did not say anything. He drank a last coffee and went home.

  The next morning I took Raphaël’s car and went to Cherbourg. I bought two liters of green paint in a hardware shop. They had to mix up three other greens to get the color I wanted, a Hopper green. I had shown them the postcard. I also bought a bottle of white spirit to clean the brushes.

  I withdrew some money from a cashpoint and did my shopping at the supermarket.

  When I got back, I started painting, from the right angle of the window.

  I covered an entire wall. To paint the top of the wall, I had to stand on a chair.

  That was what I did, climb up, get down, climb up again and move the chair any number of times.

  While I was spreading the paint, drops splashed on to the newspapers. When I got down off the chair, I walked in the splashes. Afterward I saw I had left traces on the steps.

  Hopper-green footprints.

  I left the brush on the newspaper. The paint dried. I kept the paper. I reckoned I would go on painting the other walls.

  That evening it was Max’s birthday. Lili had said, any time after six, the door will be open to everyone, and there will be music. When I got there, there were already records playing on the turntable, old singles, Claude François, Stone and Charden, Sheila.

  Lili had made biscuits. There were sandwiches on the tables. She had set out flowered tablecloths, and bouquets of flowers, and stuck candles in the ashtrays. Max was wearing a suit and tie that had belonged to Lili’s husband. The suit was much too big for him, he seemed a bit lost in it. He did not care. He watched all of us as we came in, one after the other, the postman, the priest, the neighbors, he did not want to miss anyone. Morgane was there. Even the young teenagers from the neighborhood. We had all clubbed together and Lili had bought a transistor so that he could listen to music on his boat.

  M. Anselme was wearing his linen suit. Lambert was by the door. He had not known about Max’s birthday. He apologized, he wanted to leave, but Morgane took him by the hand.

  The little red pebble I had found on the shore was in my pocket. I toyed with it in my fingers.

  “It’s a lovely evening, isn’t it?”

  M. Anselme sent Lili a little wave.

  “How did your little evening end?” he asked, when he saw Lambert was there.

  “We went to play tarot at Raphaël’s place.”

  He nodded.

  People were telling jokes, left and right, and after the jokes we all raised our glasses to Max’s health. M. Anselme leaned against me.

  “Did you know I proposed to Morgane? … She didn’t say anything to you?”

  “What should she have said?”

  He went on observing the people in the room.

  “I thought she would have said something … I want to marry her.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  He was eating her up with his gaze. “Why not?”

  “She’s not even thirty!”

  “She’ll be thirty in July.”

  I glanced over at Morgane. She was still talking to Lambert.

  She was wearing pink fishnet stockings; the reinforced heel showed above her shoe. From her ankle, a snagged thread in the weave rose behind her thigh and disappeared beneath the black cloth of her skirt.

  M. Anselme leaned over to me.

  “You see the ladder she’s got? Just imagine if she says yes.”

  A neighbor who had come to give a hand was passing out glasses of sparkling wine that she exaggeratedly referred to as champagne. I took a glass.

  He could not have asked Morgane any such thing.

  “One hundred and twenty-nine days exactly, in other words slightly more than three thousand hours, three thousand and ninety-six to be exact.”

  He glanced at his watch.

  “A bit less, because it was at five o’clock … Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “No reason.”

  Morgane was still talking to Lambert.

  He emptied his glass.

  “Surprising, the taste!” he said, making a face behind his hand.

  Someone turned up the volume. Deep in her armchair, Old Mother began to clap her hands. How long had it been since she had had a bit of fun? She tried to sing, it made her drool a little, her jaw askew. Almost unrecognizable, she was.

  M. Anselme turned round to put his glass on the table behind him.

  “I’ve heard that when Lili was born, Théo was on watch at the light. Apparently he finished his fortnight as if nothing had happened. Some say he’d have come back for the birth of a calf, but not for his own child.”

  He smiled at the postman’s wife, he smiled at all the women.

  “That Lambert, be careful not to love him too soon … Desire, you see, the need we have to assuage it, and the regret, once we have …”

  He looked at me questioningly. “What do you see in him? He’s common …”

  His tone, almost jealous, made me laugh.

&
nbsp; A moment later, there was a murmuring around the room and everyone applauded. It was Max’s present, little Stork was carrying it, but the package was much too big for her and she disappeared behind it. Max blushed, he hopped from one foot to the other, looking all round, he would have liked to kiss everyone. Finally he took the Stork in his arms and squeezed her very tight.

  “This is the big emotional squeezing …” he confessed, rubbing his eyes.

  “You can open it,” Lili said, pushing the package toward him.

  “Apparently his mother gave birth in a field. With a cow. There was a full moon. The cow was birthing her calf.”

  M. Anselme said that, looking at Max.

  “That’s how she did it, her woman’s eyes staring right into the cow’s eyes. The vet that came to help the cow also helped his mother. The two at the same time. He went from one belly to the other. Apparently at one point he no longer knew whose belly he was delving into.”

  I shrugged. In her armchair, Old Mother stuffed herself with everything they put before her.

  Max tore off the wrapping paper and pulled out the transistor. The children whistled. Lili opened more bottles. M. Anselme went on talking.

  “Max was born first. After that, the vet went back between the cow’s legs and brought out the calf.”

  Morgane went over to Max. She lifted her hand to his face.

  “This is your present,” she said.

  Max smiled.

  A caress.

  He closed his eyes.

  “I’ll bring you some flowers,” he said suddenly.

  We saw him shiver, as if there were hope. He lifted his hand toward her breasts. Everyone was waiting. Lili stepped forward and pushed him aside.

  “It’s your birthday, not hers.”

  Max shook his head. He wanted to go for the flowers right away. He said as much, “The cemetery is right next door.”

  “It can wait until tomorrow,” Lili said, pointing to the darkness on the other side of the window.

  Max closed his mouth. Tomorrow was a long way away.

  Lili pulled him by the sleeve back over to the transistor. The postman had found the radio waves. It was still crackling, but eventually they found some songs. Morgane went back and leaned against the wall.

  Some neighbors left.

  M. Anselme talked to me about a tree that was growing on the footpath beyond the coastguard station. He wanted us to go and see it together. It was a tree that was growing above the sea, a tree that Prévert had loved. Prévert had telephoned him a few weeks before he died, to find out whether the tree was still going to bloom. His breathing was already horrible to listen to. He died in the spring of that year, and the tree bloomed and still blooms.

  The cake arrived, three tiers covered with pink cream. There were candles stuck in the cream. Max’s name had been written in chocolate. When she saw the cake, Old Mother got up, and skewered herself to her walking frame. She moved forward, staring at the cake. It was not every day that she could stuff herself. Max blew out the candles and everybody applauded. You could not hear the radio any more, but the Stork went on dancing.

  Lili sliced up the cake.

  Lambert left.

  Old Mother was almost up against the cake. Her mouth open. Inside, her teeth were coming loose. She held out her hand.

  Lili shrugged. “Tomorrow, you’re getting leek broth!” she said.

  Everyone laughed.

  And suddenly, the door opened. In the middle of the laughter. At the same time. The two together, the laughter and the sound of the door. Heads turned and everyone who was speaking fell silent. The ones who were laughing. Because Nan was there. In her black dress. She had left her hair loose on her shoulders as if it were a storm day.

  She did not say anything.

  She came forward. Her face somewhat frozen. Her white hair falling all round her. Someone stopped the music.

  M. Anselme took me gently by the elbow.

  “At last a little bit of excitement …”

  She was holding a little package in her hands.

  “This is for you,” she said, going up to Max.

  The package was wrapped in blue paper.

  Max smiled. He looked at all of us, and showed us the package.

  He held Nan against him, his large arms folded round her, and he kissed her. Only then did he open the package.

  Inside, there was a woolen cap with Max’s name embroidered in red letters, and an anchor.

  “A fisherman’s cap,” he said, showing the knit anchor.

  He was happy. He was laughing. He put the cap on his head, and went to see his face in the mirror.

  “This is a very fine present.”

  His eyes were wide open, and he looked all around him for a plate for a slice of cake. A glass of wine, too. He had to give everything to Nan, give Nan as much as the others. More, perhaps. While he was filling her plate, Old Mother came forward. The two women looked at each other.

  M. Anselme leaned over to my ear without taking his eyes off them.

  “Between the two, the legitimate and the mistress, which one would you rather have been?”

  “And in your opinion?”

  He thought, and went on staring at the old women.

  “To be honest, I can’t see you as the legitimate. But I can’t see you as the mistress either … no doubt these established norms are just as inhospitable to you as they are to me.”

  He laid his hand on my arm. “We are obliged to swim in troubled waters …”

  The old women stood facing each other. They looked like two monsters who had risen out of the water and landed there, ready to fight. Two madwomen, fueled by hatred. All around, there was silence. No one moved.

  Finally Old Mother hissed, “When you’re dead, I will go and dance.”

  They were too old to hit each other. But not too old to hate.

  Nan shrugged her shoulders. She turned away, slowly.

  “You won’t be able to …”

  A smile lingered on her lips. She looked at Old Mother.

  “You won’t be able to, because you’re going to die before me.”

  The shadow of her smile. Or something that had been her smile.

  She went out.

  Her silhouette, for a moment, on the terrace.

  Lili took the plate from Max’s hand. She removed the cap from his head, too.

  “You’re not on your boat,” she said.

  Someone started the music again.

  “To friendship!” Lili shouted, raising her glass very high.

  Glasses were filled. Others were emptied.

  “M. Anselme …” I said. “Your hand on my arm … You’re hurting me.”

  He removed his hand. “Oh yes, forgive me …”

  Old Mother’s head was nodding up and down. The postman helped her to sit down. He brought her the big flower made of almond paste that had been on the top of the cake. She looked at it. She was trembling, her eyes still in chaos. Her face paler than usual.

  Max demanded a moment of great silence to thank everyone.

  This is what he said: “I proclaim a generous thanks to all.”

  He explained that his boat was nearly finished, and that he was going to go fishing for the porbeagle. Everyone turned to look at Max. I went up to Old Mother. I sat down next to her. I took her hand. It was cold, repulsive.

  At my touch, Old Mother raised her head. Her eyes were bloodshot, her pupils burning. As if everything living in her had collected there, in that very fragile space.

  “She’s a thief … that’s why she went in the house.”

  I let go of her hand, but she took it again, roughly. She pointed to the house across the street, on the other side of the road.

  Old Mother, her head leaning over me.

  “She went there, at night … She stole all the toys.”

  “Are you talking about Nan?”

  “But nobody knows what she did! Nobody … I saw her, the toys in her arms, I saw her take them awa
y, she held them like this.”

  She showed me, her arms folded.

  An unpleasant wheezing was coming from her chest.

  “What did she want to do with them?” I said.

  “She stole from the house of the dead, after the accident, when the boat capsized. She came here.”

  Her voice had become a hoarse murmur. She was talking quickly, I could not understand everything she was saying. If Nan had come to get the toys, perhaps it was to give them to the children at the Refuge.

  I told her that.

  She frowned. She was scratching with her fingernail on the wood of the table, and shaking her head.

  “That’s something else …”

  She ran her hand over her forehead, several times, as if she were trying to remember this thing she was trying to find. This thing that had got away from her. Relentlessly. As soon as she seemed about to find it, the image shied away. She fretted over it for a while.

  Lili realized. She came over to us.

  “What’s going on?”

  She looked at her mother’s face. Her expression, almost vacant. She was muttering incoherent things. She was trying to hold on, to find the memory of that thing that she absolutely must find and that she had forgotten. I do not know what Lili understood, but judging from her expression as she looked at me, I could sense she was reproaching me. I apologized. I went back to M. Anselme.

  “A problem?” he asked.

  I said, “No, nothing, everything is fine.”

  Behind me, Max was continuing his speech. His words reached me, from a distance. I was thinking back over what Old Mother had said.

  Max was saying that for the color of the cabin, he was still hesitating between blue and white, but the boat already had a name, La Marie-Salope. That was its Christian name. Max said it was a fine name, and he did not want to change any of it. He also said that he would give us each a tooth, a tooth from the first shark that he killed.

  He promised.

  When I left, Lili was still with her mother. I turned my head, and I saw that she was looking at me.

  The little donkeys always came back with the fine weather. No one knew when or how they would arrive, but we knew they would be coming.