‘THAT! DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING!’
Young M. Hogan yelled into her ear:
‘AND THE TOWN! I DON’T UNDERSTAND! WHY ALL THESE PEOPLE! ARE TOGETHER! THE OTHER DAY! I CLIMBED! TO THE TOP OF A BUILDING! TO SEE! AND I DON’T UNDERSTAND! WHY! ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE HERE! I MEAN! WHAT KEEPS THEM HERE! WHAT DO THEY DO! WHY ARE THERE! ALL THESE BLOCKHOUSES! AND THESE CARS! AND THESE BARS! HERE RATHER THAN SOMEWHERE ELSE! HERE! AND NO ONE! WANTS TO TELL ME! THE PEOPLE SAY NOTHING! NOTHING SAYS NOTHING! THE STREETS SAY NOTHING! EVERYTHING IS CLOSED! THERE IS NO EXPLA! NO EXPLANATION! ONE NEVER MANAGES! TO FIND OUT!’
The girl made a loud-hailer out of her hands:
‘WHY DO YOU WANT! TO KNOW?’
‘BECAUSE! IT INTERESTS ME!’
Young M. Hogan gulped some beer straight from the bottle.
‘I’D LIKE TO KNOW! WHY THE PEOPLE! ARE HERE! I DON’T UNDERSTAND! HOW THEY MANAGE! NEVER TO SAY ANYTHING! IT’S AS THOUGH! THEY WERE MADE OF WOOD! THEY ARE ALL! THEY ARE ALL EXTERIOR! NO WAY! OF KNOWING WHAT GOES ON! INSIDE THEM!’
The girl brought her lips forward. Her eyes were two lumps of coal.
‘NOTHING!’
‘NOT TRUE! OTHERWISE! THEY WOULDN’T STAY! TOGETHER!’
Then:
‘WHAT KEEPS THEM! TOGETHER?’
It was good to yell like that, across the uproar of the music. It was like standing on top of a mountain, and calling out to a woman standing on top of the mountain opposite.
‘I DON’T UNDERSTAND! WHAT’S MEANT BY THE WORD COUNTRY!’
‘I DON’T KNOW!’
‘WHY! DON’T THE PEOPLE EVER SPEAK?’
‘NOTHING TO SAY!’
‘THEY ARE HIDING!’
‘THEY ARE SCARED!’
‘SCARED OF WHAT?’
‘DON’T KNOW!’
‘DON’T YOU CARE?’
‘NO! ALL THIS YELLING! IS MAKING ME TIRED!’
‘DO YOU WANT! SOME BEER?’
‘YES!’
‘TELL ME! WHY THE PEOPLE! NEVER SPEAK!’
Young M. Hogan yelled one last time:
‘I DON’T UNDERSTAND! WHY! WHEN ALL THE NOISES! HAVE BEEN TAKEN AWAY! EVERYTHING BECOMES! SO SILENT! THERE IS NOTHING! UNDERNEATH! PEOPLE LIVE LIKE THAT! TOGETHER! THEY DON’T KNOW WHY! THEY DON’T WANT! TO KNOW! WHY!’ THEY SAY NOTHING! THEY ARE! RIGID! THEY ARE!’ TONGUE-TIED! THE CARS! SAY NOTHING! EITHER!’ THIS SILENCE! HURTS ME! IMPOSSIBLE! TO HEAR A WORD! THERE IS! NO ONE! NEVER ANYONE! I DON’T UNDERSTAND.’
His voice stopped yelling. He lurched to his feet, and stumbled toward the exit, through the noise and the crowd. The girl with coal-black eyes hung on to his arm, and together they entered the other still bigger cave in that street which sagged under the weight of sunlight. There, there was no longer even time to ask questions. The important thing was to walk quickly and watch out, because from all sides the street was massing its walls for offensive action against him.
PERHAPS THE ANSWER was this: a floating island, on the water’s muddy mass, in the centre of the stream, in the stifling heat, and on this island the trees and plants grow in wild profusion. The huge leaves with upturned edges, the flowers giving off pungent odours, the roots thrust into the red earth, the outstretched branches, the broken branches, the soft dust filling up the hollows, the boulders, the fossils buried five feet deep, the haze that rises slowly from the ground, around three in the afternoon, when the sun in the centre of the sky scorches fiercely.
Across the surface of the island, almost everywhere, the trails of tiny animals, the paths of insects and floating seeds, the passages of the wind, cool, warm, cold. It is an occupied speck of the earth, a speck like millions of others that are scarcely similar, scarcely different. In the centre of the brown river the island floats indolently, as though resting on a suspension of hundreds of silent, flexible springs. A bed, perhaps, a big double bed with very white sheets, containing a man and a woman, naked and asleep. A love bed, a platform on which two frenzied bodies sweat and gasp as they grapple. Or else a deathbed, hard and cold, driving its rows of sharpened needles into the flesh of an old woman.
That, then, is the speck of land that is to be visited, for one day, as though by a god descended to inspect his creatures. The disembarking traveller must study this island’s green blob for a long moment, examine each feature of this compact shape in the middle of its river, attempt to possess the landscape of this place, buy it, allow himself to be seduced by it. After which, there is no reason to hesitate. The river’s movement carries you peacefully toward the bank, the invisible winch hauls you in, gently.
The river goes on flowing downward, and its long gliding indifference hollows a path through the arid earth. It comes from the mountains somewhere to the north, and flows toward the sea, somewhere to the south. It is long. It is peaceful. It possesses no intelligence, and its power means nothing more nor less than this: to flow.
The river’s bulging, opaque mass sweeps along within it bits of earth, tree trunks, corpses, bubbles. The river descends, calm, free of hatred, free of desire, for ever deepening and broadening its frothy-banked channel.
And, without budging, the island proceeds upstream, wedging its stem into the centre of the water, just like that, easily, but painfully too, like a submarine trying unsuccessfully to dive. The sheer weight of solitude is here, in the obstinate isolation of this block of earth, this ancient mountain that the water has reduced to the present lump of mud and trees. One slides slowly into this ancient body, one assumes its ovoid shape, one stretches out on its liquid mass, and one fights against the movement that descends purposelessly, mindlessly. The waves part continually to follow the contour of the island’s flanks, creating a series of eddies in the process.
It was exactly like the eye of a cyclops, or the centre of an extinct volcano, or the stranded carcass of an enormous black-boned whale. One approached the monster, gliding along in the flat-bottomed boat, pushing the water-lilies’ plates aside, one after the other. One followed the current’s curved path, skating silently over the flow of mercury that reflected the sky. One descended. The heat vibrated between the reeds, there were birds, and passages of wind, cool, cold, warm. In the centre of its aquatic prison, the island’s bulging mass was perfectly still. Imperceptible shivers went through it in all directions, the trails of constantly oozed, constantly absorbed drops of water. The rasping of brambles, the scratchings of bushes and great trees, all these grids, dotted lines, prickles, heads of hair, advancing rapidly, extending their ramifications indefinitely over the earth. And then fading away immediately, shrouded once more in silence and shadow.
This was life, the island of life, with countless tastes and stinks; there was really nothing to be said about it. The best thing would have been to concentrate, smoke a cigarette, take a ballpoint pen, and write down on a bit of paper a few words and figures:
KOH PEIN’ TUA
ME PING
18° 50 N.
99° 02 E.
to be followed, on the same bit of paper, by the words:
beauty
heat
dirty water flowing
and
cries of birds
and
water lilies
and
reflections of the sun
black-bellied insects
snakes
empty sky
cries of horned toads
beauty
beauty
while thinking, at each word, death, death, death. There was so much beauty on this island, so much tranquillity and sweetness everywhere here. Where was this place? Why had all these trees taken root here, why had they grown tall here, aged here?
One was on board the ship, now, drifting aimlessly. Paths crisscrossed the sand in every direction, bearing footprints that led to secret places. Signs had been planted there, no matter how, to deceive you, to make you believe that life existed, that it was in full swing somewhere. One was forging ahead. One was walking up the path, passing ceaselessly
through the wall of heat. To left and right, the leaves of the trees were attached to their twigs like labels. Yes, that was it, labels bearing nothing but an eye that watched you. Impossible to forget anything. Danger was intensely present, invisible, inaudible. Nothing but the cries of fantastic birds, the droning of insects, the quick flight of stiff-necked lizards, and the enveloping water, the water tightening its leaden sheath. The sun, too, but no one raised his head to look at it.
Beneath him, the patches of shadow moved imperceptibly. They crept over the ground’s dull surface, spread out, extended their transparent membranes. And it was a little as though a wind had blown continually in the same direction, flattening the blades of grass side by side. No one noticed this. From somewhere beyond the river the night was advancing, and no one paid attention to it. The moon emerged from a thornbush and stretched like a bubble, no one ever gave it a thought. All this happened mechanically, hour after hour, day after day, and it might just as well have been happening on a strange planet.
But, on the island itself, certain things were becoming clearer. There was a village, now, a village like any other village, its streets lined with identical little houses, cubes of white concrete pierced by the holes of two windows and a door. In front of each cube was a little garden of flowers and foliage, and above each door a name was written. The successive names were all different, WARAPHOL, T. E. SIMMONS, CLARKE, BRUCKER, NIELS, YOUNG, HOKEDO, and all said exactly the same thing. It was a camp, a neat, prosperous labyrinth. Streets radiated in straight lines from the centre of the floating island, sandy corridors flanked by white cubes, along which one progressed noiselessly. One advanced as though imprisoned within a bubble at the bottom of the sea, floating through the vestiges of a forgotten city. One did not stop. Where could one stop? It was an endless duplication of the same blocks of concrete, the same empty sockets of windows, the same doors, the same bunches of red and gold flowers, the same names written on the wooden plaques, MATTHEWS, AH SONG, DORIAN, as though it had always been the same word written in black letters, in the middle of the spectacle of beauty, of silence and of life with its delicate movements: DESTINY, DESTINY, I. M. DESTINY, DESTINY & CO., DESTINY, GEORGE F. DESTINY. So there was no choice but to go on walking along the narrow streets, peering into the depths of the empty houses in the hope of seeing an image, a face, a hand.
Dust settled on the petals of the red and gold flowers, the patches of shadow wandered over the ground, heat was ever present. The island was as big as a continent, one could spend years exploring it at leisure.
Faces without noses, hands without fingers, fingers without nails, eyes without lids, ears torn off, mouths without lips or teeth, feet cut off, legs cut off, arms cut off, stumps, bodies pitted, ruined, obliterated, earth-coloured, and the patches of shadow had settled on them, continuing a snail-like progress from left to right.
They said nothing. They were standing stock-still in the sun, or else squatting in the sand, waiting. There was no kind of fear in their faces; age and youthfulness mingled, poverty, stupidity, impotence. The inhabitants, the island’s only inhabitants, had gathered together in a sandy sort of plaza, in front of a tin shack. They were talking in low voices, without looking at one another. They were there, for no compelling reason, prisoners of the river’s circle, prisoners of the odours of the hyacinths, the red and gold flowers, the houses’ concrete cubes. Perhaps they no longer had names; they were the property of MEREDITH, DRAD, KOHLER, DELACOUR and the others who had bought the wooden plaques so that they could have their names engraved on them.
Something had brought them together there, something incomprehensible, a disease wearing a leonine mask, and displaying swollen hands with fingers that were rotting away painlessly. That must have happened a very long time ago, and now no one remembered anything any longer. The labyrinth with its white cubes was ready, each dim cabin awaited its body, each earthenware bowl awaited its mouth. It had really been very simple. All that was necessary was to cross the river. On the island, the masses of green foliage, the nodes of twigs and leaves, the flowers, the raucous cries of birds were ready, too. They had set their traps of beauty and delight, they had opened their mouths to the intoxicating fumes, they had offered their silence and their peace; and human beings had decided to start living there. They had been there, now, for something like eternity. They worked. They had passions, loves, children. They talked. They ate. In the evening, they drank a little, then fell asleep. They fetched water from the river, they cooked their meals over log fires, they smoked the American cigarettes that people gave them. From time to time they went into the big white house, and people gave them injections, made tests. That was all quite easy, no one was afraid. From time to time, too, they stopped because people were approaching them on the sandy path, a man dressed all in nylon, and a young woman with long hair and a sun-tanned body. The young woman was walking awkwardly because of her high heels, and the young man was wearing dark glasses. He came to a halt, there in the sun, gripped the young woman by the arm, and said in a low voice:
‘. . . And that one over there, did you see?’
‘Ghastly, yes, absolutely ghastly.’
‘And the old woman over there hasn’t any nose at all. Wait, don’t look round right away.’
Or else it was a group of sweaty-faced men trying to locate the empty-eyed face of some new concrete cube, and they pumped each other’s hands, and they congratulated each other, CAMPBELL, THORNTON, after you, please, yes, W. C. ZIEGLER, really very interesting, PIENPONG SANG, magnificent enterprise, LEOPOLD, GALLI, PORTER, GEORGE F. DESTINY. Sometimes, too, there was a thin-faced, bright-eyed man who came running as far as the village and insisted on trying to embrace everyone within sight, men, women, old folk, children. And he held lovingly between his hands the deformed stumps blotched with white scabs, and there was something very ugly, a nasty sort of excitement smouldering in the depths of his eyes.
So much for that. Meanwhile, the shadow has slid a little farther toward the right. It has entered the concrete cabins and it can be seen swelling gently inside the empty orbits. The heat is grey and drab, like ash. Sleep will soon come, on this ship navigating its stationary voyage. Sleep will overcome the destroyed faces, one after the other, will lay the scarred bodies to rest on the ground. As everywhere else, there is no waiting here. Two children run barefoot over the soft ground, which retains strange prints from which the outlines of two or perhaps three toes are missing. A young woman has raised her head, and the two eyes in her flat, noseless, mouthless mask are perfectly tranquil. Her gaze reflects nothing beyond what she sees. The secret of the catastrophe is lost in time, it does not even exist any longer. Neither forgotten nor conquered, but the secret has become illegible upon the petrified flesh. The wound has closed its lips, and one can no longer see what had once been displayed for a brief moment. The body’s sac. All these skin surfaces are tightly sealed, leaving no escape route for the blood.
Once upon a time, elsewhere, there had been this vision of crime, of war, of violence, against the human race. A gigantic foot shod with a gigantic slipper had slammed down on the earth, crushing everything. Then the insects had picked up their remains, preened their wings and legs, stretched their antennae. The monstrous foot had raised itself and vanished.
On the island, beauty continues to deal out blows. It strikes with its leaves, with its red and gold flowers, with its heat, its bird cries. Lizards run across the sandy clearings, rearing their rigid necks. Wasps skim the ground. The little patches of shadow gradually reunite, and night sets in from left to right. So much useless beauty, so much beauty, so much strength, so much
So many acrid perfumes rising from the ground, so much suppleness in the earth, so many colours, signs, names everywhere. Everything has come here to inscribe itself. Life’s great spasms, its joys and memories. There was a day when a funnel sprouted up from this speck of the world, and every last ounce of power flowed down into it. How is it possible? How can the walls of this place sta
nd the strain? It is possibly the final load to be carried within the swollen sides of the ark floating above the water. The boat is going nowhere. It has no destiny. It has simply risen higher than the mass of forgetfulness, with its cargo of leaves, earth, insects and men. Corrupt beauty, but the odour of corruption is itself a new beauty. Plenitude, danger, death everywhere, in each of these twigs, in each of these flowers. Concealed eyes spying on you when you pass, and these are not the eyes of self-awareness. They are life’s millions of ocelli, all its quivering antennae, all its undeviating cells; here is surely the place to live, with a gnawed nose in one’s face, and stumps in place of hands and feet. Inhabiting a concrete cube with a name inscribed above the door: George F. Destiny. It would be a way to become swept up in the world’s fever, a way to bring one’s flight to a halt. During the day one would sharpen pieces of wood with one’s knife, and when evening came one would watch the sun setting over the muddy river.
And one would float all the time. Or else one would listen to the angry shrieks of the birds in the trees, one would watch ground-beetles exist. And all the time one would be the prisoner of the extraordinary beauty, the calm, the thrill of a kind of pleasure, everywhere one would sense the presence of the drama. And it would be like inhabiting a cemetery on an island, moving around among the tombs, reading the names, smoking cigarettes, proffering one’s sweat for the flies to drink. There would be women and children, and the children’s children, it would go on like that for ever. Life would pass very quickly, or else very slowly, impossible to tell. But it would pass, it would saunter along.
Everything was nearly over. Time now to leave the island, or the room; at the present moment, the shadow was smeared everywhere. Explosions of cries came from the trees’ bushy tops, followed by silences. Above the doors the names gradually became illegible, then faded away altogether. The sky was hollow. One was thousands of miles from anywhere, closed in, peaceful. Alone. It was a raft floating on one’s memory, surrounded by the ramparts of the moist heat, or perhaps it was a volcano smoking in the centre of a plain. One did not leave. One turned back, one became lost in the corridor of time, and, right in the background, the white door became smaller and smaller.
The Book of Flights Page 12