Ocean Sea Page 17

  That air. And the light.

  He had to half close his eyes, it was so strong, and pull his jacket closer around him against all that wind from the north.

  Ahead, the whole beach. He set his feet on the sand. He was looking at them as if in that moment they had returned from a long journey. He seemed genuinely amazed that they were there once more. He looked up again, and his face bore that expression which people have, every so often, when the mind is empty, emptied, happy. Such moments are strange. Without knowing why, you could commit any act of foolishness. He committed a very simple one. He began to run, but he ran like mad, at breakneck speed, tripping and getting up again, without ever stopping, running as fast as he could, as if he had the devil at his heels, but there was no one at his heels, no, it was he who was running and that was it, he alone, along that deserted beach, with his eyes staring and his heart in his mouth, it was the sort of thing that, had you seen him, you would have said, “He won’t stop.”

  Seated on his usual windowsill, his legs dangling out into empty space, Dood took his eyes off the sea, turned toward the beach, and saw him.

  He was running brilliantly, no argument about that.

  Dood smiled.

  “He has finished.”

  Beside him was Ditz, the one who invented dreams and then made you a present of them.

  “Either he’s gone mad, or he has finished.”

  IN THE AFTERNOON, everybody was on the shore, throwing flat stones to make them skip, and throwing round stones to hear them splash. They were all there: Dood, who had come down from his windowsill specially; Ditz, the one with the dreams; Dol, who had seen so many ships for Plasson. There was Dira. And there was the astonishingly beautiful little girl that slept in bed with Ann Deverià, and who knows what her name was. All there, throwing stones in the water and listening to that man who had come out of the seventh room. He was talking very slowly.

  “You have to imagine two people who love each other . . . who love each other. And he must go away. He is a sailor. He is leaving for a long journey, at sea. And so she embroiders a silk handkerchief with her own hands . . . she embroiders her name upon it.”

  “June.”

  “June. She embroiders it in red thread. And she thinks: he will always carry it with him, and this will protect him from dangers, from storms, from diseases . . .”

  “From big fish.”

  “. . . from big fish . . .”

  “From the bananafish.”

  “. . . from everything. She is convinced of it. But she doesn’t give it to him straightaway, no. First she takes it to her village church and says to the priest, ‘You must bless it.’ And so the priest puts it down there, in front of him, he bends over a little, and with a finger he draws a cross above it. He says something in a strange language, and with a finger he draws a cross above it. Can you manage to imagine it? A tiny little gesture. The handkerchief, that finger, the priest’s words, her eyes, smiling. Is that all perfectly clear to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right, then, now imagine this. A ship. Big. About to set sail.”

  “The ship of the sailor you mentioned before?”

  “No. Another ship. But she, too, is about to set sail. They have cleaned her very well all over. She is floating on the water in the harbor. And before her, miles and miles of sea are waiting, the sea with its immense strength, the mad sea, perhaps it will be kind, but perhaps it will crush her in its hands and swallow her, who knows? No one talks about it, but everyone knows how strong the sea is. And then a little man, dressed in black, boards that ship. All the sailors are on deck, with their families, the women, the children, all there, standing in silence. The little man walks about the ship, murmuring something under his breath. He goes as far as the prow, then he turns back, walking slowly among the cordage, the folded sails, the casks, the nets. He is still murmuring strange things to himself, and there is no corner of the ship that he does not visit. In the end he stops, in the middle of the bridge. And he kneels. He lowers his head and continues murmuring in that strange tongue of his, it seems as if he is talking to the ship, that he is telling her something. Then suddenly he is silent, and with one hand, slowly, he draws the sign of the cross above those wooden planks. The sign of the cross. And then everyone turns toward the sea, and they have the look of those who have won, because they know that that ship will return, she is a blessed ship, she will challenge the sea and win, nothing can harm her anymore. She is a blessed ship.”

  They had even stopped throwing stones in the water. By that time they were motionless, listening. Sitting on the sand, all five of them, and around, for miles, no one.

  “Have you got it clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can all of you see it, really well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then listen carefully. Because here it gets difficult. An old man. With white, white skin, lean hands; he walks with difficulty, slowly. He is going up the main street of a town. Behind him, hundreds and hundreds of people, all the people of the town, filing past and singing, they are wearing their best clothes, no one is absent. The old man keeps on walking, and he seems alone, completely alone. He arrives at the last houses in the town, but he does not stop. He is so old that his hands shake, and his head too, a bit. But he looks straight ahead, calm, and he does not stop even at the beginning of the beach. He slips between the boats hauled up above the waterline, with that unsteady gait of his that makes it seem as if he will fall at any moment, but he never does. Behind him, all the others, a few yards behind, but still there. Hundreds and hundreds of people. The old man walks on the sand, and it’s even more complicated, but it doesn’t matter, he will not stop, and since he does not stop, in the end he comes to the sea. The sea. The people stop singing, they stop a few steps away from the shore. Now he seems even more alone, the old man, while he places one foot in front of the other, so slowly, and walks into the sea, a man alone, in the sea. A few steps, until the water reaches his knees. His clothes, soaked through, cling to him and those terribly skinny legs, skin and bone. The wave slips back and forth and he is so slight that you think it will carry him off. But it doesn’t, he stays there, as if planted in the water, his eyes staring straight ahead of him. His eyes looking straight into those of the sea. Silence. All around, nothing stirs. The people hold their breath. A spell.

  Then

  the old man

  lowers

  his eyes,

  immerses

  a hand

  in the water,

  and

  slowly

  draws

  the sign

  of the cross.

  Slowly. He says a prayer for the sea.

  And it is an enormous thing, you must try to imagine it, a weak old man, a trifling gesture, and suddenly the immense sea is shaken, the entire sea, as far as the farthest horizon, trembles, shakes, dissolves, as into its veins slips the honey of a blessing that enthralls every wave, and all the ships in the world, the squalls, the deepest abysses, the darkest waters, the men and the animals, those who are dying, those who are afraid, those who are watching, bewitched, terrified, moved, happy, transported, when suddenly, for an instant, the immense sea bows its head, and it is an enigma no longer, it is an enemy no longer, it is no longer silence but a brother, and a docile womb, and a spectacle for men saved. An old man’s hand. A sign, in the water. You look at the sea and it doesn’t frighten you anymore. The end.

  Silence.

  What a story, thought Dood. Dira turned to look at the sea. What a story. The beautiful little girl sniffed. Can it be true? thought Ditz.

  The man stayed seated, on the sand, and said nothing.

  Dol looked him in the eye.

  “Is it a true story?”

  “It was.”

  “And it isn’t anymore?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “You cannot say a prayer for the sea anymore.”

  “But that old man could.” />
  “That old man was old and had something inside that doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “Magic?”

  “Something of the sort. A beautiful magic.”

  “And where did it go?”

  “It vanished.”

  They couldn’t believe that it had really disappeared into nothingness.

  “Do you swear it?”

  “I swear it.”

  It had really disappeared.

  The man got up. In the distance you could see the Almayer Inn, almost transparent in that light laved by the north wind. The sun seemed to have stopped in the clearer half of the sky. And Dira said, “You came here to say a prayer for the sea, didn’t you?”

  The man looked at her, took a few steps, came up close to her, bent over, and smiled.

  “No.”

  “So what were you doing in that room?”

  “Although you cannot say a prayer for the sea anymore, perhaps you can still say the sea.”

  Say the sea. Say the sea. Say the sea. So that not all that was in the gesture of that old man is lost, so that perhaps a drop of that magic may wander through time, and something might find it, and save it before it disappears forever. Say the sea. Because it’s what we have left. Because faced by the sea, we without crosses, without old men, without magic, we must still have a weapon, something, so as not to die in silence, that’s all.

  “Say the sea.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were in there all that time, saying the sea.”

  “Yes.”

  “But to whom?”

  “It doesn’t matter to whom. The important thing is trying to say it. Someone will listen.”

  They had thought he was a bit odd. But not in that way. In a simpler way.

  “And you need all those sheets of paper to say it?”

  Dood had had to lug that big bag full of paper all the way down the stairs. It had stuck in his craw, that business.

  “Well, no. If someone were really able, all he would need is a few words . . . Perhaps he would begin with lots of pages, but then, little by little, he would find the right words, those that say in one go what all the others do, and from a thousand pages he would get down to a hundred, and then to ten, and then he would leave them there, to wait, until the excess words slipped off the pages, and then all you would have to do would be to collect the remaining words, and compress them into fewer words, ten, five, so few that by dint of looking at them from close up, and listening to them, in the end you would be left with one, only one. And if you say it, you say the sea.”

  “Only one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which one?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Any word?”

  “A word.”

  “But even a word like potato?”

  “Yes. Or help!, or etcetera, you cannot know until you find it.”

  As he talked he was looking around in the sand, the man from the seventh room. He was looking for a stone.

  “Excuse me . . .” said Dood.

  “What?”

  “Can’t you use sea?”

  “No you can’t use sea.”

  He had got up. He had found the stone.

  “Then it’s impossible. It’s an impossibility.”

  “Who knows what’s impossible?”

  He went up to the sea and threw the stone far away into the water. It was a round stone.

  “Splash,” said Dol, who was a connoisseur.

  But the stone began to skip, on the surface of the water, once, twice, three times, it just kept going, skipping wonderfully, farther and farther, it was skipping out to sea, as if they had liberated it. It seemed as if it never wanted to stop again. And it never stopped again.

  THE MAN LEFT the inn the following morning. There was a strange sky, one of those that scud along fast, in a hurry to get home. The north wind was blowing, strongly but soundlessly. The man liked walking. He took his suitcase and his bag full of paper and set off along the road that flanked the coast. He walked quickly, without ever looking back. And so he did not see the Almayer Inn detach itself from the ground and break up airily into a thousand pieces, which looked like sails and floated up in the air, going up and down, flying, and they took everything with them, far away, that sea and that land, and the words and the stories, everything, who knows where, no one knows, perhaps one day someone will be so tired that he will find out.