The Flood

by J. M. G. Le Clézio

  ‘Decent of him.’

  ‘Decent?’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Why d’you suppose he’s doing it? He’s scared. He’s afraid of gossip. Don’t you see it? He’s—well, he’s a very respectable citizen. He’s afraid of what people might say. He feels a certain responsibility for his son. He’s fallen out with his wife—mistress, if you like. All right. But he still sees to his son’s upbringing. He’s a good father, I’ll admit it. And he doesn’t act that way purely out of self-interest. It comes naturally. That’s the way he is. He’s respectable. He has responsibilities. It really is funny. All right by me, though—the cash certainly comes in handy.’

  ‘You should have refused to accept it.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I ought to have sent his money-orders straight back to him. I did, the first time. But I wasn’t having any luck finding a job. It’s tough getting work when you really need it. Then, the next month, he sent more money. After all, I thought, what odds does it make? He can’t buy me back this way.’

  ‘You ease his conscience for him.’

  ‘Well, fine. But that one’d have a good conscience anyhow. Besides, I’m no heroine, I’m telling you.’

  Besson was silent for a moment or two. He sat there, hands resting on the oilcloth, rounded back hunched into the tubular metal chair, staring at the dirty plates and half-filled glasses of water that still littered the left-hand side of the table. The electric light beat harshly down on them, and the brightness reflected from each object pierced through his eyes to the inmost recesses of his mind, or body. A sense of fatigue, a drowsy stupor began to steal over him. He felt himself drifting far away from the immediate situation—the remains of supper, this bright-walled kitchen, this table, the harsh gleam of unwashed dishes. Yet the redheaded girl sitting opposite him was so close that he could almost fancy he had her in his arms, was clasping her roughly to him, a mere object.

  He said: ‘I want to hear about your father. Tell me what he does, what kind of man he is.’

  She smiled. ‘He’s just an ordinary sort of man, like anyone else.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Louis.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. He must be a bit over sixty. Sixty-two, I think.’

  ‘What does he look like? Describe him to me.’

  This time she laughed quite openly. ‘What does he look like? Wait a moment, let’s think. He’s tall, and grey-haired. He’s got very pale eyes, but that’s a symptom of old age—every time I see him I’m astonished by the colour of his eyes. They’re translucent, grey-blue, touches of green as well. Oh, and he’s got lines there, on each cheek. And another vertical one between his eyebrows. Maybe he’s got rather too strong a nose, but I think he’s very handsome. No, really, it’s true, for his age he looks pretty good.’

  ‘What’s his character like? All right?’

  ‘Some people would say No. Some people would call him very bad-tempered. But he’s always been terribly gentle with me. He let me do just as I liked.’

  ‘Then why don’t you live with him?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I couldn’t before, because—well, because of him. And now I’ve got used to living here. But maybe I’ll go back to him one of these days. I just don’t know.’ She eyed him with some curiosity, and added: ‘Now what about you? Tell me about your father.’

  ‘He’s a very reasonable sort of man,’ Besson said, simply. ‘I suppose you’d call him a disciplinarian, but I’m very fond of him. He’s got his fads, but then so has every—’

  ‘And your mother?’

  Besson hesitated. ‘My mother? She’s my mother, that’s all. What else is there to say about her?’

  ‘Don’t you like her?’

  ‘I love her to distraction, I loathe her guts, I despise her, I believe in her. She’s—well, she’s my mother, don’t you understand?’

  ‘You live with your parents, and you—’

  ‘Yes, I know. You’re right. But it’s only a temporary arrangement. As soon as I get a new job I’ll rent a bedsitter somewhere in town. Unless you felt like offering me bed and board.’

  She looked at him quite seriously. ‘Why not?’ she said. She began to trace a pattern on the oilcloth with her nail, in a mechanical fashion. Besson saw that she drew a series of parallel lines, and then filled the spaces between with them crosses.

  ‘Maybe it would teach him a lesson,’ she added, as an afterthought.

  Besson said: ‘He wouldn’t send you any more money-orders.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure. He’d be rather proud of a situation like that. He’d look as though he was thinking: Well, there you are you see, what a woman—but my son’s my son, regardless. Let her do what she likes, it won’t make any difference.’

  ‘Anyway, you can’t stop yourself thinking about him, can you?’

  She looked at him, her eyes still serious: but this time there was something almost tragic about her expression. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s true. I can’t. Let’s talk about something else.’

  They went on chatting, with intervals of silence, still sitting at the kitchen table, arms on the green oilcloth. At one point she got up to go to the toilet, and Besson heard the solemn sound of flushing water. Then she came back and made some more coffee. Besson watched her moving close beside him. Her tawny hair was tousled; there were dark smudges under her eyes, and a strange light gleamed in the pupils, something akin to impatience. Her fine, slender hands moved nervously, with glints of yellow reflected light flashing off the ring marked J.S. From one unidentifiable source—perhaps the neon strip-lighting that flickered in the middle of the ceiling—a halo of quivering, palpable radiance had descended on her, permeating every last inch of her body, electrifying her hair and nails, the outline of her face, each movement of her fingers. Harsh light sparked continually from the fuzzed woollen surface of her beige dress, as though it were a second skin. Every element in her was dry and clearcut. Neither hot nor cold: electric. Faintly, as in a dream, Besson heard her voice speaking. It was different now, it had become fierce and raucous. Without rising from his chair he took the hand with the golden ring gleaming on it, and drew it towards him. The rest of her body followed easily, it was like pulling a go-cart. It hung poised and motionless for a moment, at the point of balance: then, suddenly, they slid down together, dropping softly and easily on to the linoleum flooring, where the harsh light was reflected like the sky in a pool of water. Before he plunged into the abyss Besson heard the voice whispering, close to his ear yet at the same time immeasurably distant: ‘We mustn’t … No, don’t … Mustn’t …’

  ‘My name isn’t Paul Thisse,’ Besson said. ‘My name is François—François Besson—’

  But it was already too late. She did not hear him. So Besson entered the sphere of action, alone amid a gigantic rosette of expanding hieroglyphs, all of which bore the same identical message.

  During this time night had fallen over the town. Darkness had covered the high relief of the buildings and the deep crevasse-like streets. Wrapped in silence, the ruins rose straight into a sky where clouds scudded invisibly past. The sea had become opaque, impenetrable, with the hardness of a vast polished steel ball, so that the earth could no longer slip softly by along the strand which divided them. Street-lamps glowed steadily amid a halo of mosquitoes and butterflies. Far away, over the roof-tops, the beam from a lighthouse intermittently slashed through the curtain of rain and darkness. The night was teeming, black, rich with the smell of smoke and momentary glimmers of light. Nothing could break down its barriers. Occasionally something would happen—a car travelling slowly through the streets, a bat flitting after a swarm of insects. But such moments did not last. The blind, heavy mass, like a tide of jam or molasses, would close over these brief points of action and at once obliterate them. One was caught in the trap, and nothing one could do would get one out of it. This whole sector of the earth was wrapped in the same vertiginous and glacial abyss, was held captive by its static immensit
y. No landmarks, no lights, no scintillating warmth: nothing but the dryness and barren expanse of the desert, crystalline hardness, opaque transparency, the diamond quality of utter nothingness, the void.

  What difference did it make if there were a few patches of moisture here and there, one or two small warm humid droplets? They would not last long. Soon, too soon, they would be absorbed by that gigantic ever-thirsty mouth, always sucking, consuming. Minuscule sparks were born in the darkness, and floated swiftly away into space, so swiftly that they might have been mere illusions. What mattered, the only reality, was this eternal blackness, this silence, this unfathomable and all-engulfing infinity. Blackness. Blackness. An ocean of boundless shadows, where invisible waves surged to and fro from one edge of eternity to the other; an ocean activated by a slow, constant ground-swell; the great black flag ceaselessly covering all moving objects with its folds, gathering in and appropriating everything. An indescribable flux, the breathing of some never-to be-recognized giant. In the space of one-tenth of a second he could consume everything, so greedy was he for living sustenance. Water, fire, rocks, pale stars and red stars, disintegrating suns, delayed explosions and torrents of lava—all this he would devour without ever being satisfied. Time, the dimension of attrition, was made out of these elements. Seconds, seconds—grains of salt falling gently on top of one another. Whole years of honey, fat centuries dissolved magically in floods of acid. Nothing remained. Nothing here was left in peace any longer. Meals chased one another interminably, the process of digestion never reached an end. And in this expanse of darkness there was no more measure or proportion. Continents, whole galaxies were as grains of dust. High and low merged indistinguishably into one another: circles and angles, parallel straight lines and spirals, colours, distances, weights—all these, even when you examined them closely, were reduced to tiny identical points. Things that had been really hard-textured, like concrete or marble floors, opened up under the pressure of foreign bodies and engulfed them gently, like a quicksand. Everything had been reduced to a common, formalized identity, and the world might just as well have been nothing but a page of writing.

  The blackness of the night, blackness fallen from the uttermost depths of the empty heavens, had descended on earth, and was implementing the true reign of matter: sleep, chill non-being, mastery over death. Under its sway days and months had fallen silent, had increased their numbers in darkness, and now there was nothing left to cover the minuscule activities of life but this profound eternity, its dull and constant sound-waves expanding all around, ecstatically unfolding its sumptuous petals of dying light and mingled colours, to reveal, at last, the face of darkness.

  Night had spread its substance evenly over the town. Out in the streets the cold air stirred from time to time, and blew along the rows of closed shutters. Bright white or red holes in the darkness, near the bottom of buildings, formed words such as: CAFE CINEMA BAR PIZZA MOTEL. Pigeons slept in corners of ledges, each with its head tucked under its left wing. There was also, running through the middle of the town, a river, its wide bed choked with stones and thorns. The night had poured into this

  channel, and now it was a mere carbonaceous crevasse that looked as though it went right through to the centre of the earth. The sound of its waters rose up with the mist, and it was a noise of blackness and terror. Not far from the sea a bridge, with three still arches, spanned the river. Cars sped over the damp macadam, each with two red, mistily shimmering stars of light behind it. Far away to the north the mountains blended with the vast yawning gap of the sky. And in the country, not to mention along the boulevards, countless trees were sleeping where they stood.

  They were not the only sleepers. Men and women slept too, inside their little private castles, lying on their flat beds, in numbers past counting—many millions, probably, stretched out stiff and chill, eyes turned up, breathing lightly. Jacques Vargoz, for instance. Or Sophie Murnau. Noëlle Haudiquet. Hott Ben Amar. Infinity had descended upon them, and they were gently breathing it in without knowing it. They were savouring the calm of eternal being, and their bodies were sliding perilously on the slippery slope of peace. Tomorrow, perhaps, when the feverish day began its course once more, some of them would remain prisoners of the night, and never wake again. Children, curled up in their cots, would begin to dream of monsters. One of them, torn abruptly awake for no particular reason, open eyes trying vainly to brush away the veils of darkness, began to scream, all by himself, drilling his red point of life in the heart of the void, making an act of creation, standing up against the flatness and emptiness, taking chisel and hammer and carving into that vast indifferent wall the words that liberated him: I AM ALIVE I AM ALIVE I AM ALIVE.

  Chapter Seven

  François Besson watches the sun rise—The vegetable market—Besson looks at the river-bed—Brief discussion with the man with the cigarette-stub—Besson packs his bag—The adventures of Texas Jack: Episode 26: The fight against Rattlesnake the Indian

  ON the seventh day, the rain more or less stopped. Besson had not slept at all. Very early in the morning, before first light, he left the flat. The redheaded girl and the little boy were still asleep. He went into a truck-drivers’ café and had a hot espresso to keep out the cold. Down the far end of the bar, near the door to the W.C., was a very old man, all covered with wrinkles, and dead drunk. A group of three or four men, plus a woman who looked like a tramp, were standing by the counter, talking, laughing, shouting, singing. Suddenly a corpulent, elderly man began a row with a bearded youngster, and after a preliminary barrage of insults, began to beat him over the head with both hands. The bearded one backed away, holding up his arms to protect himself. A general brawl ensued, and while it was going on the young man slipped out of the bar. Besson waited a few minutes, until things had quietened down again. Then he walked out and sat down on a bench facing the sea.

  It was here that he saw the sun come up, very slowly, behind a mountainous rampart of clouds. At first, for an hour or more, there was the gradual retreat of darkness, as that great black vertical plane ceased, little by little, to be a hole, a nothingness, and objects began to fill it, one after the other, materializing imperceptibly, blocking in the void. The horizon became visible towards the east, a stretch of coastline, the surface of the sea. Far out from shore the white glint of the wave-crests became increasingly visible. Then, as the growing light continued to dilute that inky expanse, the water became progressively dirtier, its surface showed up harsh and wrinkled. The various points of light—yellow from the street-lamps, red from the light-house beacons—lost their former blinding intensity. Deep patches of shadow, till now so impenetrable and terrifying, gradually shrank in on themselves, retreated, like pools of water drying in the sun. Above the sea the clouds suddenly swam into view, rising palely from the darkness like troops of elephants or buffaloes. Minute by minute their outlines acquired more solidity and depth. Great balls of cottonwool hung motionless in the vault of heaven, and through their ragged edges shone glimpses of clear sky, midway between pink and grey, empty, limitless. With ebbing strength the night swung westward, in retreat now, so that more and more objects which had been limed in its viscous blackness were released, almost without one noticing. The blackness lost its intensity, became merely sombre, then grey; paler still now, the colour of milk, then skim-milk, till even this pallor began to fade, retreated beyond the visible limits of whiteness. It was as though the earth, stripped of the membrane that rendered it invisible, had nevertheless not, as yet, recovered its pigmentation, and was floating between these two violent extremes, undecided, ghostly-pale, almost non-existent. On the opposite side of the horizon, above the town and the mountains, there was a sort of dark funnel-shaped gulf into which the shadows were slowly absorbed.

  After a while the landscape emerged in every detail, but still lit by that unearthly pallor. Then the true light began to appear. It climbed the sky like rose-tinted smoke, with the majestic movements of some great bird taking flight, a g
reat pear-shaped mass that slowly spread out above the clouds. Everything, on land and sea alike, began to glitter as though dusted with thousands of tiny nacreous crystals. The concrete surface of the pavement, the balustrade, the pebbles on the beach, the troughs of the waves, the windows of houses and the topmost branches of trees—all lit up in a moment, and glowed peacefully, each with its delicate crust of pink icing-sugar.

  The boundaries of the sky receded further and further: everything seemed to expand, grow deeper, stretch out into vast and distant perspectives. Like a desert. For a quarter of an hour or so everything was tinged with pink. Then, one by one, the other colours returned—on chunks of scrap-metal, on rocks, in the middle of cloud-formations, at the bottom of clumps of grass. Shoe-polish brown, mahogany, straw-yellow, periwinkle blue, mauves, blacks, mouse-grey, Veronese green. Imperceptibly, as the minutes passed, these variegated dots of colour began to glow and expand. Pink was still the dominant motif, but a close scrutiny revealed the presence of these other colours, all jostling and struggling for precedence, streaming out in wild confusion. For a little while earth sky and sea resembled a gigantic confectioner’s counter. Then the sun came up over the horizon, transforming the landscape from sweetshop to abattoir.

  Behind a blood-red cloud, and haloed with garish radiance, the sun’s disc slowly swung up: Besson did not actually see it, but he could sense the circular shape, and felt the first rays of direct light strike home on his eyelids. The brightness spread swiftly over the earth’s visible surface, flushing the last shadow-bound objects from their hiding places: match-ends lying on the pavement, scratches in the paintwork of the iron balustrade, folds in clothes, hairs on the back of the hand, the reticulating branches of shrubs, the skeletal nerve-pattern on dead leaves. Though still hidden behind a curtain of mist, the sun was none the less there, huge and terrifying, pursuing its solitary course through a sea of radiant air. All darkness had vanished now. Despite the occasional fitful breeze, a kind of warmth began to disseminate itself everywhere, spreading over the earth and penetrating the substance of things.