The Prospector

by J. M. G. Le Clézio

  When I sit down next to Ouma she wraps her arms around me, lays her head on my shoulder. I can smell her odour, sense her warmth. There is a twilight breeze blowing in, ushering in the darkness. Ouma shivers against me. The wind is what’s troubling her, it’s troubling the birds as well and making them leave their roosts and sail high into the sky, calling to the last glimmers of sunlight over the sea.

  Night is settling quickly. Already the horizon is vanishing and the sea foam has stopped gleaming. We go back to the other side of the island, the leeward side. Ouma prepares a pallet for the night. She lays out dried kelp on the dune above the beach. We roll up in our clothes to keep out the humidity. The birds have ceased their anxious flight. They’ve settled on the beach not far from us and in the darkness we can hear their cackling, the snapping of their beaks. Huddled close to Ouma, I breathe in the odour of her body and her hair, I can smell the taste of salt on her skin and lips.

  Then I can feel her breathing growing calmer and I lay still, eyes open on the night, listening to the crashing of the rising waves behind us, drawing closer and closer. The stars are so numerous, they’re as beautiful as they were when I lay on the deck of the Zeta. Before me, near the dark shapes of the mountains on Rodriques, is Orion and the Summer Triangle and at the very zenith, near the Milky Way, just like back in the old days, I search for the shiny specks of the Pleiades. Like in the old days, I try to make out the seventh star, Pleione, and at the extremity of the Greater Chariot, Alcor. Low down on the left I recognize the Southern Cross and slowly I see the great ship Argo appear, as if it were truly sailing out on the dark sea. I would like to hear Ouma’s voice, but I can’t bring myself to wake her. I can feel the slow movement of her chest against me as she breathes and it blends in with the rhythmic crashing of the sea. After this very long day, filled with light, we are plunged in the deep, slow night that is penetrating and transforming us. That’s why we’re here, to live this day and night, far from other human beings, at the entrance to the open seas, among the birds.

  Did we actually sleep? I’m not sure now. I lay still for a long time with the wind blowing over me, feeling the terrific pounding of the waves on the coral shelf, and the stars wheeled slowly round until dawn.

  In the morning Ouma lies with her back nestled into my body, she’s sleeping in spite of the bright sunlight shining on her eyelids. The sand, damp with dew, is sticking to her dark skin, slipping down in little trickles along her neck, mixing with the wallow of clothing. Before me, the water in the lagoon is green and the birds have left the beach: they’ve started their rounds again, wings spread in the wind, sharp eyes searching the sea bottom. I can see the mountains of Rodrigues standing out very sharply, Piton, Bilactère and Diamant – all by itself on the shore. There are pirogues gliding along with full sails. In a few minutes we’ll have to put on our clothes, gritty with sand, we’ll get into the pirogue and the wind will pull upon the sail. Ouma will remain half-asleep, lying up in front on the bottom of the pirogue. We’ll leave our island, set off, we’ll head for Rodrigues, and the seabirds won’t come with us.

  Monday, 10 August (1914)

  This morning, alone at the back of English Bay, I’m counting the days. I started several months ago, following the example of Robinson Crusoe, but not having a stick to notch I make marks on the covers of my notebooks. That’s how I’ve arrived at this date, which to me is extraordinary, since it means that it has been exactly four years since I first came to Rodrigues. The discovery has got me so worked up that I can’t stay put. Hastily, I put on my dusty shoes barefooted, for it’s been a good while that I haven’t had any socks. From the trunk I take out the grey jacket, a souvenir from my days in the offices of W. W. West in Port Louis. I button my shirt all the way up to the collar, but it’s impossible to find a tie, mine having served to tie down the side flaps of the sailcloth I use as a tent one stormy night. Hatless, my long hair and beard looking like those of a castaway, my face all sun-browned and wearing this bourgeois jacket and these old boots, I would have been the laughing stock of the Rempart Street crowd in Port Louis. But here in Rodrigues people aren’t so fussy and I go almost unnoticed.

  The offices of the Cable & Wireless are still empty at this hour. A sole Indian employee looks at me indifferently, even when, as politely as possible, I put my absurd question to him.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, what day is it today?’

  He seems to think it over. Without moving from the place he’s standing on the stairs, he says, ‘Monday.’

  I insist, ‘But what’s the date?’

  After another silence, he announces, ‘Monday, the tenth of August, 1914.’

  As I walk down the path between the screw pines towards the sea I feel sort of light-headed. I’ve been living in this lonely valley in the company of the ghost of the Mysterious Corsair for such a long time! Alone with Ouma’s shadow, which sometimes disappears for such a long time I’m no longer certain she really exists. I’ve been far away from home, from the people I love, for so very long. My heart wrenches at the memory of Laure and Mam, like a presentiment. The blue sky is blinding, the sea seems to be on fire. I feel as if I’m from some other world, some other time.

  When I reach Port Mathurin I’m suddenly surrounded by a crowd. They’re fishermen going back to their homes in Lascars Bay or farmers from the mountains who’ve come to the market. Black children run along beside me, laughing, then hide when I look at them. From having lived so long in the Corsair’s lair I think I’ve begun to resemble him a bit. Quite an odd sort of Corsair, without a boat, coming out of his hideout all dusty and raggedy.

  Once past the Portalis cabin I’m in the middle of town, in Barclay’s Street. At the bank, while I’m withdrawing my last savings (enough to buy some sea biscuits, cigarettes, oil, coffee and a harpoon tip to fish for octopuses), I hear the first rumours of the war towards which the world seems to be hurtling frantically. A recent copy of the Mauritian tacked on the wall of the bank reveals the news received by telegraph from Europe: Austria has declared war on Serbia after the assassination in Sarajevo, France and Russia are mobilizing, Great Britain is making preparations for war. The news is already ten days old!

  For a long time I wander through the streets of the city, where no one seems to realize the destruction that is threatening the world. The crowd throngs around the stores on Duncan Street, the Chinese shops on Douglas Street, along the wharf. For an instant I think about going to talk to Doctor Camal Boudou at the dispensary, but I’m ashamed of my ragged clothing and my overly long hair.

  A letter is awaiting me in the offices of the Elias Mallac Company. I recognize the handsome, slanted writing on the envelope, but I can’t bring myself to read it right away. There are too many people in the post office. I keep it in my hand as I walk down the streets of Port Mathurin, all the while I’m doing my shopping. Not until I am back in English Bay, sitting in my camp under the old tamarind tree, do I open it. I read the date postmarked on the envelope: 6 July 1914. The letter is only a month old.

  It’s written on a piece of India paper – light, thin and opaque – that I recognize simply from the way it crackles between my fingers. It’s the paper our father used to enjoy using for writing or drawing his maps. I thought all of that paper had disappeared when we’d moved away from Boucan. Where had Laure found it? I think she must have kept it all this time, as if she’d set it aside for writing to me. Seeing her slanted, elegant handwriting so disconcerts me that I’m unable to read for a moment. Then I read her words, half-whispering to myself.

  My dear Ali,

  You see, I am incapable of keeping my word. I had sworn to write to you to say only one thing: come back! And here I am writing to you without even knowing what I shall say.

  First, I will give you some news, which as you might guess is not excellent. Since you left, everything here has grown even bleaker. Mam has stopped all activity, she does not even want to go to town any more to attempt to sort out our affairs. I have gone there several
times to try to make our creditors take pity on us. One Englishman, a certain Mr Notte (one could not invent a name like that!), is threatening to seize the few pieces of furniture left to us at Forest Side. I succeeded in stopping him, but for how long? Enough of that. Mam is quite weak. She still talks of taking refuge in France, but news from there is all about war. Yes, everything is quite gloomy these days, the future is hardly promising.

  My heart sinks as I read those lines. Where is Laure’s voice, she who never complained, who refused to take part in what she called ‘whining and moaning’? The worry I’m feeling is not about the war that is threatening the world. But rather about the gap that has deepened between me and the people I love, that separates me from them irrevocably. I press on and read the last line in which I feel I briefly recognize Laure’s voice, her mockery.

  I think constantly about the time when we were happy in Boucan, about those unending days. I hope that for you, wherever you may be, there are also lovely days and, for want of treasures, happiness.

  She signs with only her initial, ‘L’, with no closing words of goodbye. She never did like handshakes or hugs. What remains of her in this old piece of India paper that I’m holding in my hands?

  I carefully fold the letter and put it away with my papers next to the writing case in my trunk. Outside, the noon light is glaring, making the stones on the floor of the valley glitter brightly, sharpening the leaves of the screw pines. The sound of the rising tide is floating in on the wind. The gnats are dancing at the entrance to the tent, maybe they feel a storm coming? It seems as if I can still hear Laure’s voice speaking to me from across the sea, calling out for me to help her. Despite the sound of the sea and the wind, silence is everywhere out here, the light is blinding with loneliness.

  I walk haphazardly through the valley, still wearing my grey jacket that is too big for me, my feet are being rubbed raw from the dried-out leather of my ankle boots. I walk on familiar paths, along the lines of the Corsair’s map and his clues, a large hexagon ending in six points, none other than the star of Solomon’s seal, which echoes the two inverted triangles of the mooring rings.

  I traverse English Bay several times, my eyes wandering over the ground, listening to the sound of my footsteps resounding. I see every familiar stone, every bush and, on the sand dunes at the estuary of the Roseaux River, my own footprints that no rain has washed away. I lift my head and see the blue, inaccessible mountains at the back of the valley. It’s as if I wanted to remember something very remote, forgotten, maybe the deep, dark ravine of Mananava, the place where night began.

  I can’t wait any longer. This evening when the sun is going down towards the hills over Venus Point I walk to the entrance of the ravine. Feverishly, I scramble up the blocks of rock that close off the entrance and dig, swinging my pick into the walls of the ravine, running the risk of being buried in a rockslide. I don’t want to think about my calculations, my markers any more. I can hear the pounding of my heart, the hoarse sound of my laboured breathing and the crashing of slabs of earth and schist tumbling down. I feel relieved, freed from my anxiety.

  Furiously, I throw blocks of rock weighing a hundred pounds against the basalt walls at the bottom of the ravine, the smell of saltpetre is floating in the overheated air. I believe I’m drunk, drunk with loneliness, drunk with silence, and that’s why I’m shattering the rocks, why I’m talking to myself, why I’m saying, ‘Here! Here…! There! Over there again…!’

  In the bottom of the ravine I tackle a group of basaltic boulders so huge and so old that I’m certain they were rolled down from the black hills. It would take several men to move them, but I can’t bring myself to wait for the black men from the farms, Raboud, Adrien Mercure or Fritz Castel. With a great deal of effort, having dug out a probe hole under the first basaltic rock, I am able to slip the point of my pick into it and I push on the handle like a lever. The block moves slightly, I can hear dirt falling into a deep cavity. But the handle of the pick cracks off and I fall heavily against the rock wall.

  I’m left half-dazed for a long time. When I come back to my senses I feel something warm running through my hair, down my cheek: I’m bleeding. I’m too weak to stand and I remain lying at the bottom of the ravine, leaning on one elbow, pressing my handkerchief against the back of my head to stop the bleeding.

  A little before nightfall I’m drawn from my torpor by a noise at the entrance to the ravine. Delirious, I grab the pick handle to defend myself in case it’s a wild dog or a starving rat. Then I recognize Sri’s slim, dark figure against the blinding light of the sky. He’s walking at the top of the ravine and when I call him he comes down the slope.

  There’s a wary look in his eyes, but he helps me get up and walk to the entrance of the ravine. Although wounded and weak, I say, like a frightened animal, ‘Come on, get on with it!’ Together we walk through the valley to the camp. Ouma is waiting for me. She brings some water in the pot and dips it out in the hollow of her hand to wash the wound where the blood has matted my hair.

  ‘Are you really all that fond of gold?’ she asks.

  I tell her about the cache I found under the basalt rock, the signs that point to those rocks and that ravine, but I’m belligerent and confused and she must think I’m crazy. For her, the treasure is meaningless, she scorns gold as do all Manafs.

  Head wrapped in my bloody handkerchief, I eat the meal she’s brought me, dried fish and kir. After the meal she sits beside me and we remain silent for a long time, facing the translucent, twilit sky. The seabirds are flying across English Bay in flocks towards their roosting place. Now I don’t feel impatient or angry any more.

  Ouma rests her head against my shoulder like she used to when we first met. I can smell the odour of her body, of her hair.

  I tell her about the things I love, the fields in Boucan, Trois Mamelles, the dark and dangerous valley of Mananava, where the two tropicbirds always fly. She listens without stirring, she’s thinking of something else. I can sense that her body is no longer at ease. When I try to reassure her, caress her, she moves away, puts her arms around her long legs, as she does when she’s alone.

  ‘What’s the matter? Are you cross?’

  She doesn’t answer. We walk down to the dunes together in the gathering night. The air is so balmy, so soft at summer’s start, the cloudless sky begins to light up with stars. Sri has stayed back near the camp, sitting up straight and as still as a guard dog.

  ‘Tell me about when you were a child again.’

  I talk slowly, smoking a cigarette, smelling the honey-like odour of English tobacco. I talk about all of that, about our house, about Mam who read the lessons under the veranda, about Laure, who went to hide in the tree of good and evil, about our ravine. Ouma interrupts me to ask questions about Mam, about Laure mostly. She questions me about her, about her outfits, about her likes, and I believe she’s jealous. I find it amusing that this wild girl should pay so much heed to a young girl from the bourgeoisie. I don’t believe I can understand, even for an instant, what she’s going through, what’s tormenting her, making her vulnerable. In the darkness I can barely make out her silhouette sitting next to me in the dunes. When I make to get up and go back to camp, she holds me back by the arm.

  ‘Stay a little longer. Talk to me some more about over there.’

  She wants me to tell her more about Mananava, the fields of cane where Denis and I used to run, the ravine that opened in the mysterious forest, and the slow flight of the dazzlingly white birds.

  Then she talks to me about herself again, about her journey to France, the sky so dark and so low that you’d think the light would be extinguished once and for all, the prayers in the chapel and the songs she loved. She talks of Hari and Govinda, who is growing up amid the herd animals back there in her mother’s country. One day Sri made a flute out of a reed and started playing it all alone in the mountains and that’s how her mother had realized he was the Lord’s messenger. When she came back to live with the Manafs he
was the one who taught her to chase after and catch goats, who led her down to the sea for the first time to fish for crabs and octopuses. She also speaks of Soukha and Sari, the two birds of light who can speak and who sing for the Lord in the land of Vrindavan, she says they were the birds I saw back in the old days at the entrance to Mananava.

  Later we go back to the camp. Never before have we talked in that way, gently, in hushed tones, without being able to see each other, in the shelter of the tall tree. It’s as if time as well as everything else in the world except this tree, these stones, has ceased to exist. When we’ve talked far into the night, I lie down on the ground to sleep in front of the entrance to the tent, my head resting on my arm. I wait for Ouma to come and join me. But she remains sitting still where she is, looking at Sri, who is perched on a stone off to one side, and their silhouettes outlined against the sky are like two night watchmen.

  When the sun rises in the sky, above the mountains, I’m sitting cross-legged in my tent in front of my trunk, which I use as a desk, drawing a new map of English Bay, upon which I trace all the lines between the markers, thereby making a sort of spider web appear whose six anchoring points form the large Star of David that was first represented by the two inverted triangles of the mooring rings to the east and west.

  Today I’m not thinking about the war any more. Everything seems new and pure to me. Lifting my head I suddenly see Sri, who is looking at me. I don’t recognize him immediately. At first I think he’s one of the children from the Raboud farm who’s come down with his father to fish. It’s the look in his eyes that I recognize, wild, wary, but also gentle and bright, a look that comes straight over to me, unaverted. I leave my papers there and walk slowly in his direction, to avoid frightening him. When I’m ten steps away, the young boy turns and takes off. He goes jumping leisurely over the rocks, turning around to wait for me.