The Breakers

by Claudie Gallay

  “Is it because he was abandoned that you are interested in that child? Or because he was adopted by Nan? Don’t tell me, let’s sum it up, rather … You saw the child in a photograph at Lili’s, a photo that Lili then removed. The same child that Lambert saw in the yard at Théo’s, walking a young calf. Is that correct?”

  “That’s it. But we can’t be sure it was the same child.”

  “Not sure, but you believe it to have been the same. And the child that Nan adopted went away. And you would like to know why.”

  A child born in a doorway, in a place that was a mass grave during the epidemics of the plague. How could you stand something like that, survive it?

  “I think that the person who is writing letters to Théo must be this same child.”

  He rubbed his hands.

  “If we can prove that the surname of the child is Lepage, then we may conclude that the person who writes to Théo and the child that Nan adopted are one and the same individual.”

  “Yes.”

  We had come to Prévert’s house among the trees, surrounded by a garden. We went through the gate. The vegetation was luxurious, the rosebushes, the sunflowers in bloom, plants with giant leaves and names that were impossible to pronounce. A little stream ran through the garden and under the little bridge by the entrance.

  “The plants you can see there, behind those high plumes, are called gynerium. And over there, you have gunneras.”

  A flagstone path led to the house. We went along the wall, looking at the garden. M. Anselme was thinking.

  He turned to face me, quite suddenly.

  “If it’s the same person, we still need to find out why Théo hasn’t told Nan where the person she’s looking for can be found.”

  He paused a bit longer to think, looking at the house.

  “The fact that Lili took away the photograph, that you can understand … If it was Nan’s adopted child … But you are right, there’s something strange about this story …”

  I still had the medallion in my pocket. I showed it to him.

  “This is Paul Perack, Lambert’s brother. Nan stole this photograph …”

  “So, that’s him … Poor child … Did you say Nan stole this photograph?”

  He handed it back to me.

  “Are you afraid of death?” he said.

  “Not death … But the idea of growing old … Becoming ugly and dirty and not being able to walk on my own—that, yes, that frightens me.”

  I put the photograph in my pocket. I wanted to give it back to Lambert as soon as possible, along with the official report of the shipwreck.

  “You can get old, you know, get so old that even dogs can no longer stand your caresses.”

  M. Anselme nodded.

  “If you look at it like that, indeed …”

  I found Lambert’s scarf on the bench in his garden. He must have left it there. Forgotten it. It had slid between the bench and the wall. The wool was damp. It smelled of earth. It smelled of water and sunlight.

  It smelled of the man and his sweat. A few hairs were caught in the wool. I left the scarf on the bench.

  I went behind the house. Max was right, the garden was overrun, there was still plenty of work to do.

  Two days went by. The scarf was still on the bench. On the third day, the wind lifted it up and flattened it against the wall. The sun dried it. I picked it up. I tied it around my neck.

  The following night, it rained.

  I remember that night. The first night on which I stopped thinking about you.

  Because of him.

  That first night I dreamt about him. Where I got lost, in a dream, with someone else.

  You had said, Forget me. You had made me swear to love again. My mouth, inside yours. You’re going to have to forget, that’s what you said, forget or forget me, I don’t remember which, you never took your lips from mine, you spilled that into me. You are going to have to live without me, swear to me …

  I swore.

  My fingers crossed. Behind your back. You were still standing. So tall. I put my hand on your shoulder.

  How can I love after you?

  In the morning, the beach was covered with dark seaweed.

  “Who was that bloke?” I asked Lili, referring to a strange fellow who had bumped into me on the terrace before I came in.

  “A son of a bitch,” she said, as she went on putting her bottles on the shelves.

  Then she put her hands flat on the bar.

  “I’m not joking, he really is a son of a bitch.”

  I could not find out anything more.

  It was Sunday. Teenage boys were gathered on the terrace. They wanted Lili to buy a football table. There was no room, she would have to do away with a few tables. Or the jukebox. Or use some of the kitchen space, but the kitchen was Lili’s private domain, she did not want anyone to touch it.

  “Go to Mass, that will keep you busy!” she told them when she saw how idle they were. “Go and do some charity work!”

  That just made the boys laugh. Eventually they went away.

  Lili turned to me, as if I were her witness.

  “They’d like nothing better, the old folk around here, and God knows there are enough of them, just a visit from time to time.”

  I looked outside.

  “He still hasn’t come back?” I said, pointing to Lambert’s house.

  Lili looked up.

  “Haven’t seen him.”

  “He didn’t say anything to you?”

  “What should he say to me?”

  I let go of the curtain.

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “I know what I see,” she said, “and I see that the shutters are closed. More than that, it’s his life.”

  I saw that she had pinned up another photograph to replace the one where you could see her with little Michel.

  “Where did you put the photograph that used to be here?”

  She glanced over at the wall.

  “In a box with the others, why?”

  “I’d like to see it again …”

  She shrugged.

  “I’ll have to go and look for it.”

  I did not insist.

  Judging by her tone, I was sure she would not do it.

  “Théo’s acting very strange these days,” I said.

  “He’s always been strange!”

  “I don’t think he’s feeling very well.”

  She plunged her hands into the sink. She put the clean glasses upside down on a cloth. One of them cracked when she banged it against the edge of the sink. She swore. And yet it was not the first time she had broken a glass.

  “Do you all have it in for me today, or what?”

  She stood for a moment behind the bar, bitching.

  “What the hell are you on about, anyway!” she said gruffly, looking at me.

  “Nothing …”

  “It’s not nothing, I can see it in your eyes!”

  I looked down.

  “Is it because of my father? Have you got a problem? Don’t I look after him properly?”

  “That’s not what I mean …”

  “Well, if you don’t know what you mean, keep quiet! Drink your coffee, fill in your charts, then get out of here!”

  I folded the newspaper. I picked up my things. “You will weep when he’s dead.”

  “I won’t weep. Not a single tear, d’you hear me!”

  She stood up straight, the cake slice in her hand.

  “He gave me nothing but grief, and her too, you can’t imagine.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “That changes nothing, whether it was a long time ago.”

  She turned toward her mother.

  “She put up with everything … Everything! So that he wouldn’t leave! And I grew up with a father who went away at night to sleep with another woman. Shall I tell you how I spent my Christmases? Everyone round here knows. My mother cried so much that she cried for her life and mine as well. What
drives me crazy is that she’s prepared to go back there.”

  “But she did end up leaving,” I said.

  “She did end up leaving, yes, but it took her long enough.”

  “Why are you shouting?” groaned Old Mother from the depths of her armchair.

  “We’re not shouting!”

  “You’re talking about the old man. What’s he done, the old man?”

  “He hasn’t done anything,” Lili said.

  Old Mother shook her head. Her eyes welled with tears. All her tears ravaged her face, bloating her skin, puffy purple bags under her eyes.

  I looked at her. Beneath the lamp, completely motionless, she looked like a dead woman breathing.

  The boys were still outside, revving the motors on their mopeds. All they were waiting for was to be old enough to get a car, so they could go further away, to Cherbourg or Valognes.

  It was always like this on Sundays, mopeds making the neighbors complain, the same ones who complained about the old men who went outside to piss. The same ones who complained about everything, anyway. The next day the kids were at school, during the week there was no engine noise.

  Raphaël had shut himself in the studio with the red stone outside the door. He was working, listening to Callas.

  It had just turned late afternoon. It was still daylight. I lay down. I pulled the blanket over my eyes, I did not want to see the light. I rolled the pillow against my stomach. The music came through the floor, it lulled me.

  I slept.

  When I awoke, it was dark. There was still light in the studio. The light came through the cracks, printing very fine streaks on the ceiling.

  I put my nose against the windowpane. The sea was calm.

  It was still very early in the morning. The Stork’s dog was waiting on the stone outside the house. The stable gave on to the street. I could hear the cows. I went through the door. The cows turned their heads. It was dark, almost night. There was a smell of straw, and milk dripping from udders. Heavy chains hobbled the cows by the neck. Chains scraping against the walls. I slid my hand over their soft bellies, their warm necks. There was hay in the mangers, and mash in the buckets.

  The Stork’s father was there, standing by the calves. Between shadow and light. Nearer the light. A pitchfork in his hand. No doubt he was already there when I came in. He was looking at me. A somewhat brutal smile.

  He rammed his pitchfork into a bale of hay.

  “Not good to go hanging about stables,” he said.

  He said it again in a duller voice.

  “Not good.”

  I took Raphaël’s car and I went to see the Irishwoman. I had Paul’s photograph, and the report about the shipwreck. I parked in the courtyard, outside the door. I went into the hall. I found Betty just as she had been that first time, lying on her sofa in front of the television.

  She did not get up.

  She told me that Lambert had left. That he had been gone several days already. That he came home late during the night on Tuesday. He had taken his things and gone.

  “He didn’t tell you where he was going?”

  “No … and I didn’t ask.”

  “How was he?”

  “What do you mean, how was he? No more smiles than usual, no chattier, either. Just his usual self, so to speak.”

  “If you see him again, could you tell him that I have … a photograph to give him?”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  She turned back to the screen, staring at the credits for a film that was starting. She paid no attention to me after that.

  I could have sat down. Watched the film with her.

  I went on to Cherbourg.

  The train station. I wandered all around. Trains that arrived here and went no further. End of the line, rails suddenly stopping not far from the sea. I thought of buying a ticket, going elsewhere. From here, every elsewhere is possible. Even going without a ticket. If they checked, I would pay a supplement. I did not care.

  A woman was waiting, hunched over on a bench, her bags gathered all around her.

  There was wind. Clouds piling up. I went back out. I found a dreary little street in a dark neighborhood. A café. The patron pointed to the poster above the bar.

  “No smoking here!”

  I smoked anyway. He did not want to make a fuss and besides, there was no one, just him and me. A match on television.

  The toilets, a door at the back of the room. A hole in the door. If you put your eye up to the hole from outside, you could see what was going on inside. And the opposite, too, from the inside, you could see out.

  “Are you the one who made the hole?”

  “What hole?”

  I pointed. He shrugged. He went on cleaning his tables, watching the match.

  On my way out, I stopped off at the pâtisserie on 5, place de la Fontaine, and I bought the apple tarts that M. Anselme had told me about.

  I found Morgane in the kitchen, finishing a bride’s tiara. It was a magnificent diadem that she had put together, with pearls shaped like fake diamonds.

  It was beautiful. It shone.

  The rat was sleeping curled up in its box in the middle of all the pearls. I touched its stomach. It rolled on its back, paws spread, and I went on stroking it.

  Morgane looked up at me. “He still hasn’t come back?”

  “No.”

  “He could have said goodbye.”

  “He could have, yes.”

  She went back to her work. “I’m sure he’s going to come back, actually.”

  We talked about him, about love, about desire. We talked about him again and about the men that Morgane had loved. Raphaël heard us. He came to drink a beer, standing by the window.

  “Where’ve you been, Princess?”

  I showed him the cake box, the tarts inside.

  He came over to the table.

  “Lambert has left,” Morgane said, her nose in the pearls.

  He looked at me, frowning. He took my hand and breathed on the inside of my palm.

  “And yet you stink of man …”

  Morgane tied the thread on her crown, held it up to check the overall effect, and placed it on her head. She was magnificent.

  She pushed the box to the end of the table. “You want to tell us about it?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know, a bloke in a café.”

  “That’s how you find the blokes you sleep with?”

  “I didn’t sleep with him.”

  Raphaël sat down next to Morgane. I looked at them. Their hands, their skin … They were brother and sister and they loved each other. In what way, I was not sure. I did not know if they touched. I had often seen Raphaël’s hand lingering on his sister’s neck. The disturbing way they had of smiling, of looking at each other.

  “Who’s the bloke who got you into this state?”

  “There is no bloke.”

  “That’s a good one.”

  I looked away.

  “There is no bloke, I’m telling you.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Have a good fuck, you’ll feel better afterward.”

  “I don’t want to feel better.”

  She handed me her cigarette. “Take a puff, then.”

  I looked outside.

  From the window, you could see the sea.

  We ate the tarts.

  Raphaël called Max. He told him that there were tarts, but Max was sawing planks for his boat. He didn’t want to come. The Stork was there, with both her feet in saddlebags. It was Max who had given them to her, when he changed them on his old bike. She didn’t want to come, either. We put two tarts aside.

  Morgane took out the rat and closed the box. We talked about Lambert again.

  Morgane wondered what he would do with all the money when he sold his house.

  We talked about his parents’ death and the disappearance of his brother.

  The Stork came to join us. S
he sat on a chair and began to pick at a bit of dried scab that was peeling off her knee. She was bending over it.

  “It will leave a scar …” I said.

  She didn’t care. She pulled carefully until she had got the entire crust.

  Max appeared a moment later.

  “I’m lapidated!” he said.

  “What do you mean by that, Max?”

  He bit into his slice of tart.

  “I don’t mean.”

  “Lapidate … That means when you throw stones at someone.”

  “I’m lapidated in a different way … without the stones.”

  “Without the stones!”

  “Yes … Lapidated … Annoyed, that is.”

  “Then say annoyed, it’s simpler.”

  The child was staring at him. Max was all that interested her. The gestures he made. What he was building, a marvelous boat.

  “Annoyed, it’s not as strong on the scale …” he said.

  I smiled.

  “You’re right … You are lapidated … Why not, after all?”

  And when I asked him why he was lapidated to such a degree, he did not know. He said he had forgotten.

  In the evening, a white mist caught on the masts of the boats. Over the harbor, the phantom murmuring of the chains restraining the hulls.

  A small black boat was gliding over the water, heading away out toward the pass. A man was standing in the prow. A nighttime fisherman. He was wearing a big black garment that looked like a cape. The boat seemed to glide across the water.

  I heard the lapping sound of the oar. I thought of the bodies the sea took and did not give back. The bodies imprisoned by the water.

  Tossed about, buoyed. The endless nightmares. I thought of Lambert’s little brother.

  La Hague is a country of legends, a place of beliefs. It is said that some of the disappeared come back at night, incapable of leaving this land behind. Of parting from it.

  I walked along the quay. The seagulls had gathered on the breakwater. Some of them were already sleeping, their beaks tucked under their wings. The mist absorbed the sound of my footsteps, of my own breathing. The church tower in the distance.

  It is said that on nights of a full moon you can see a man riding over the moor on a tall horse. The women dream of meeting him. They go out at night and leave their homes. They follow one of the very narrow footpaths that lead deep into the moor. They come back in the morning, and no one can say what they have done.