The Prospector

by J. M. G. Le Clézio

  ‘Jamque dies auraeque vocant rursusque capessunt

  Aequora, qua rigidos eructat Bosporos amnes…’

  I take up the letter where I’d left off. But am I really writing to Laure? In the blistering silence of the harbour, surrounded with glitters and reflections, with the grey shoreline and the tall blue shadows of the mornes in front of the ship, other words pop into my mind: why did I leave everything behind, for what pipedream? Does the treasure I’ve been pursuing for so many years in my dreams really exist? Is it really in some vault, jewels and gems just waiting to reflect the light of day? Does it really hold the power to turn back time, to wipe away the misfortune and the ruin, the death of my father in the shabby house in Forest Side? But I am perhaps the only one who holds the key to the secret and I’m getting closer now. Out there at the end of my road is Rodrigues, where everything will at last fall into place. My father’s former dream, the one that guided his research and haunted my entire childhood, at last I’ll be able to fulfil it! I’m the only one who can do it. It’s what my father wants, not me, for he’ll never leave the earth of Forest Side. That’s what I would like to write now, but not in order to send it to Laure. When I left, it was to stop the dream, so that life could begin. I’ll go to the end of this journey, I know I have to find something.

  That’s what I wanted to tell Laure when we parted. But she saw it in my eyes, she turned away and left me free to leave.

  I’ve been waiting for this journey for so long! It seems as if I’ve never stopped thinking about it. It was in the sound of the wind when the sea washed up the estuary in Tamarin, it was in the waves running over the green expanse of cane, in the plashing sound of the wind in the needles of the she-oaks. I remember the solid blue sky over the Tourelle and its dizzying drop down towards the horizon at twilight. In the evening the sea would turn purple, dappled with reflections. Now darkness is filling the harbour of Port Victoria and I feel as if I’m very near the place where the sky meets the sea. Wasn’t that the sign the Argo followed in its quest for eternity?

  Since night is falling, the watchkeeper has come up from the hold where he’s been sleeping naked all afternoon in the muggy heat. He’s simply wrapped a loincloth about his waist and his body is shiny with sweat. He squats down in the front, facing a scupper, and urinates into the sea for a long time. Then he comes over to sit by me, leans his back up against the mast and starts smoking. In the half-light his sunburned face is eerily lit by the whites of his eyes. We sit side by side for a long time without speaking.

  Friday, I believe

  Captain Bradmer did the right thing in not trying to fight against the south wind. As soon as the cargo was unloaded at dawn the Zeta sailed through the pass and picked up the west wind that will enable us to return. Lighter, sails filled, the Zeta is faring along at a good speed, listing slightly like a true clipper. The dark sea is rough with long waves coming from the east, maybe from a distant storm on the shores of Malabar. They come crashing up against the stem and stream over the deck. The captain has battened down the fore-hatches, and the men who are not taking part in deck manoeuvres have gone below. I was able to obtain permission to stay on deck at the stern, maybe simply because I paid for my passage. Captain Bradmer doesn’t seem worried about the waves that are washing over the deck all the way up to his armchair. The helmsman, legs spread, is holding the wheel and the sound of his words is lost in the wind and the crash of the sea.

  For half of the day the ship rushes on in that way, listing under the wind, streaming with spume. My ears are filled with the sounds of the elements, they fill my body and vibrate deep down within me. I can no longer think of anything else. I glance at the captain clutching the arms of his chair, face reddened from the wind and sun, and it seems as if there’s something foreign in his expression, something violent and stubborn, something disturbing like madness. Hasn’t the Zeta reached the limits of her resistance? The heavy waves slamming the portside are making her heel dangerously, and in spite of the roar of the sea I can hear the entire framework of the vessel creaking. The men have taken shelter at the stern to avoid the high waves shipping onboard. They too are staring straight ahead, towards the bow, with a fixed gaze. We are all waiting for something, without knowing what, as if the act of turning our eyes away for a second could be fatal.

  We remain standing there like that for a long time, for hours, clinging to the ropes, to the rail, watching the stem plunge into the dark sea, listening to the crashing of the waves and the wind. The sea is tugging so hard at the rudder that the helmsman has a hard time holding the wheel. The veins in his arms are swollen and there is a tense, almost painful expression on his face. Above the sails clouds of sea spray are roiling, steaming, glinting with rainbows. Several times I think about getting up to ask the captain why we are pursuing in full sail like this. But the hard expression on his face and also the fear of losing my balance dissuade me from doing so.

  Suddenly, for no reason, Bradmer gives the order to douse the jibs and the stay sails and reef. To make the manoeuvre possible the helmsman turns the wheel to portside and the ship rights itself. The sails fall slack, snap like banners. Everything has gone back to normal. When the Zeta returns to its heading, it’s sailing slowly and no longer heeling. The powerful roar of the taut sails is replaced by the shrill whistling of the rigging.

  And yet Bradmer hasn’t moved. His face is still red, closed, his gaze hasn’t faltered. Now the helmsman has gone to lie down in the hold to rest, eyes opened unblinkingly on the blackened ceiling. Casimir, the Rodriguan sailor, is at the helm and I can hear his sing-song voice speaking to the captain. On the drenched deck the crewmen have taken up their game of dice, their conversations again, as if nothing has happened. But has anything really happened? Just the madness of this blue sky, of this dizzying sea, of the wind that fills your ears, the solitude, the brute force.

  The Zeta moves along easily, barely slowed by the waves. In the burning noonday sun the deck is already dry, covered with salt sparkles. The horizon is immobile, sharp, and the sea furious. Deep down inside me thoughts, memories are coming back to life and I realize I’m talking to myself. But who’s paying any attention? Aren’t we all the same, crazed with the sea, Bradmer, the black helmsman, Casimir and all the others? Who listens to us talk?

  Deep within, memories are coming back, the secret of the treasure at the end of this road. But the sea wipes time away. These waves, what age are they coming from? Aren’t they the same waves that existed two hundred years ago, when Avery fled the shores of India with his fabulous bounty, when Misson’s white flag floated over this sea with gold letters reading:

  Pro Deo et Libertate

  The wind never grows old, the sea is ageless. The sun, the sky, are eternal.

  I gaze out into the distance, at each crest of foam. I think I know now what I’ve come in search of. I think I can see inside myself like someone who’s been visited by a dream.

  Saint Brandon

  After these days, these weeks of having nothing other to look at than the blue of the sea and the sky and the clouds slipping their shadows over the waves, the man on the lookout at the bow sights – barely distinguishes, rather than sights – the grey line of an island and a name is whispered around the deck: ‘Saint Brandon… Saint Brandon!’ And it’s as if we’d never heard anything so important in our lives. Everyone leans over the rail, trying to see. Behind the wheel the helmsman squints his eyes, his face is tense, anxious. ‘We’ll be there before nightfall,’ says Bradmer. His voice is filled with childish impatience.

  ‘Is it really Saint Brandon?’

  My question surprises him. He responds gruffly, ‘What else do you think it could be? There’s no other land less than four hundred miles from here, except Tromelin, which is behind us, and Nazareth, to the north-west, a pile of rocks lying at surface level.’ He immediately adds, ‘Yes, it’s Saint Brandon all right.’ The helmsman is the one who’s peering most intently at the islands and I recall what he’d sai
d, the sky-coloured water where the most beautiful fish in the world swim, the tortoises, the seabirds that people them. The islands where women never go and the legend of the girl the tempest swept away.

  But the helmsman isn’t talking. He’s steering the ship towards the still dark line that can be seen in the south-east. He wants to get there before nightfall, go through the pass. We are all gazing impatiently in the same direction.

  The sun is touching the horizon when we enter the waters of the archipelago. Suddenly the sea bottom is clearly visible. The wind dies down. The sunlight is soft-hued, diffused. The islands draw aside before the bow of the ship, they are as numerous as a pod of whales. In fact it is just one large circular island – a ring – from which a few barren coral islets emerge. Is this the paradise the Comorian spoke of? But gradually, as we enter the atoll, we can feel the strangeness of this place. The peacefulness, the languor that I’ve never felt anywhere else, that stems from the transparency of the water, from the purity of the sky, from the silence.

  The helmsman steers the Zeta straight towards the line of the first reefs. The bottom is very close, dotted with coral and seaweed, turquoise-coloured, in spite of the deepening night. We slip between the black reefs where, from time to time, the open sea casts misty sprays. The rare islands are still far away, like so many sleeping marine animals, but suddenly I notice that we are in the middle of the archipelago. Without realizing it, we’ve reached the centre of the atoll.

  Captain Bradmer is leaning over the rail as well. He’s observing the bottom, which is so close we can make out each shell, each branch of coral. The sunlight that is fading out beyond the islands cannot dim the limpid sea. We’ve all fallen silent, so as not to break the charm. I hear Bradmer mumbling to himself. He says, ‘Land of the Sea.’

  Off in the distance we can hear the faint rumbling of the sea on the reefs. It must never stop, like in the old days around Tamarin, the sound of eternal toiling.

  Night settles over the atoll. It is the gentlest night I’ve ever known. After the burning hot sun and the wind, night here is a reward, laden with stars piercing the purple sky. The sailors have taken off their clothes and are diving from the ship one after another, swimming silently in the light water.

  I do likewise, I swim for a long time in the water, which is so soft I can barely feel it, like a soft flutter around me. The water in the lagoon cleanses me, purifies me of all longing, all anxiety. For a long time I glide along on the surface, smooth as a mirror, until the muffled voices of the sailors reach my ears, mingled with the cries of birds. Very near to me I see the dark shape of the island the helmsman calls La Perle, and a little farther off, surrounded by birds like a whale, Frégate Island. Tomorrow I’ll visit their beaches and the water will be even lovelier still. The lights shining through the hatches of the Zeta guide me as I swim. When I climb up the knotted rope hanging from the bowsprit, the breeze makes me shiver.

  No one is really sleeping tonight. On the deck the men sit up, talking and smoking all night long, and the helmsman remains seated at the stern, watching the reflections of the stars on the waters of the atoll. Even the captain stays up, sitting in his armchair. From my place next to the mizzen mast I can see the tip of his cigarette glowing from time to time. The sea breeze sweeps away the words of the sailors, mingling them with the rumbling of the waves on the reefs. Here the sky is immense and pure, as if there were no other land in the world, as if everything were about to begin.

  I sleep a little, my head resting on my arm, and when I awaken it’s dawn. The light is transparent, just like the water in the lagoon, azure-coloured, iridescent. I haven’t seen such a beautiful morning since Boucan. The rumour of the sea has grown louder, it’s as if it is the very sound of the broadening daylight. Casting a look around I see that most of the sailors are still sleeping, just as they had dozed off, lying on the deck or sitting with their backs against the bulwark. Bradmer is no longer in his armchair. Maybe he’s writing in his alcove. The black helmsman alone is still standing in the same place at the stern. He’s watching the day break. I draw nearer to him to speak, but he speaks first, saying:

  ‘Is there any place more beautiful in the world?’

  His voice is gruff, like that of a man who is deeply moved.

  ‘When I came here for the first time I was still a child. Now I am an old man, but nothing has changed. You might think that not a day has passed.’

  ‘Why did the captain come here?’

  He looks at me as if my question doesn’t make any sense.

  ‘Why it was for you! He wanted you to see Saint Brandon, he was doing you a favour.’

  He shrugs his shoulders and says nothing more. He undoubtedly knows I didn’t accept the offer to stay aboard the Zeta, and that’s why I no longer interest him. He sinks back into his contemplation of the sun rising over the immense atoll, of the light that seems to be springing from the water and rising up towards the cloudless sky. Birds are flitting around in the sky, cormorants grazing along the surface of the water where their shadows glide, petrels high up in the wind, tiny silvery specks whirling about. They loop up, pass one another, squawk and cackle so loudly they awaken the men on deck, who begin to chat in turn.

  A little later I learn why Bradmer has made the stopover in Saint Brandon. The pirogue is lowered into the sea with six crew members. The captain is at the tiller and the helmsman standing in the front, harpoon in hand. The pirogue slips noiselessly over the water in the lagoon, towards La Perle. Leaning over the front of the pirogue, near the helmsman, I soon glimpse the dark shapes of tortoises near the beach. We move silently nearer. When the pirogue is upon them, they see us, but it is too late. With a quick gesture the helmsman throws the harpoon that pierces the shell with a crunch and blood spurts out. With a savage cry the men pull on the oars and the pirogue lurches towards the shore of the island, with the tortoise dragging behind. When the pirogue is near the beach, two sailors jump into the water, pull the harpoon out of the tortoise and turn it on its back on the sand.

  We are already heading back out into the lagoon, where the other tortoises await, fearlessly. Several times the helmsman’s harpoon pierces the shells of tortoises. Blood flows in rivulets over the white sandy beach, clouds the sea. We must work quickly before the smell of blood attracts the sharks that will drive the tortoises towards the shoals. On the white beach the tortoises are finishing the process of dying. There are ten of them. Striking them with machetes, the sailors hack them into pieces, line up the hunks of meat on the sand. They load them into the pirogue to be smoked on board the ship, because there is no wood on the islands. Here the land is sterile, a place where creatures of the sea come to die.

  When the slaughter is over, everyone gets back into the pirogue, hands covered with blood. I hear the sharp cries of the birds fighting over the tortoise shells. The light is blinding, I feel dizzy. I can’t wait to get away from this island, this bloodstained lagoon. The rest of the day, on the deck of the Zeta, the men busy themselves around the brazier where the hunks of meat are grilling. But I can’t forget what happened, I refuse to eat in the evening. Tomorrow morning at dawn the Zeta will leave the atoll and nothing will be left of our passage, only the broken shells that the seabirds have already picked clean.

  Sunday, at sea

  I’ve been away for so long! A month, maybe more? I’ve never been so long without seeing Laure, without Mam. When I said goodbye to Laure, when I spoke to her for the first time about my journey to Rodrigues, she gave me her savings to help me pay for my passage. But I saw that dark flash in her eyes, the gleam of anger that said, we might never see each other again. She said adieu to me and not au revoir, and she didn’t want to go down to the harbour with me. I had to live through all of these days at sea, this light, the burning of the sun and wind, these nights, before I could understand. Now I know that the Zeta is carrying me away on an adventure of no return. Who can know what his destiny holds? The secret awaiting me, the one that I alone must discover
, is written here. It’s marked in the sea, in the foam capping the waves, in the bright midday sky, in the unchanging patterns of the constellations. How can I decipher it? I think of the Argo again, how it sailed on uncharted seas, guided by the serpent of stars. The vessel was fulfilling its own destiny, not that of the men on board. Of what matter were the treasures, the territories? Did they not have to find their own destinies – some in combat or in the glory of love, others in death? As I think of the Argo, the deck of the Zeta has suddenly changed, been transfigured. And the dark-skinned Comorian and Indian sailors, the helmsman always standing at the wheel with his lava-stone features and unblinking eyes, and even squint-eyed Bradmer with his drunkard’s face, haven’t they also been roaming from island to island for ever in search of their destinies?

  Are the reflections of the sun glinting off the dancing waves making me lose my reason? I feel as if I’m outside time, in some other, very different world, so far away from everything I’ve ever known that I’ll never again be able to find what I left behind. That’s why I feel this dizziness, this nausea: I’m afraid of giving up what I once was and never being able to turn back. Each hour, each day that passes is like the waves of the sea that come running up against the stem, lift the hull briefly, then disappear in its wake. Each of them is taking me farther away from the time I love, from Mam’s voice, from Laure’s presence.

  Captain Bradmer comes up to me this morning at the stern of the ship. ‘Tomorrow or the day after, we’ll reach Rodrigues.’