Just After the Wave Read online

  When Madie’s thoughts took this turn, she would begin to hum, overcome with joy. The kids came to listen and she sang nursery rhymes, and they joined in, they knew them all, sang them in the evening to fall asleep in their bedrooms, where they left the doors open so that light, sounds, and life itself would move around them, never mind if they were late to bed. Their father would come closer, too, drawn by their joyful cries, and he’d lead their mother in a farandole, and they’d instantly do likewise, in such a way that all together they performed a strange disorderly dance. From a distance it might have looked like some shamanic rite or a slightly demented procession, when it was nothing more or less than a very short and very wonderful moment of happiness.

  * * *

  And so, to prove the mother right, and destroy all their hopes, on the seventh day the waters began to rise.

  * * *

  It began with the look in the father’s eyes.

  Just one look, and Madie knew. She closed her eyes, he didn’t need to say anything.

  Because on that seventh morning, when she looked outside, the rock she used as a landmark had vanished. She didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want to look again, either, she preferred doubt and anxiety to any terrible certainty. That would come soon enough.

  It would come from the father: she knew that, too.

  Just a murmur, maybe because things seem less terrifying in a hushed voice:

  “Oh, bother.”

  And even though Madie knew, she couldn’t help but repeat what he’d said, also in a murmur, Oh, bother, what?

  Looking out at the dawn that day, Pata had felt the shock right to his heart. He had come away pale, his legs trembling: of course he had to tell the mother.

  And she went and repeated it, because he was being so stubbornly silent:

  “Oh, bother, what?”

  “The water.”

  He didn’t say anything more. He placed his hand thigh-high to show her the water level and Madie stared eyes bulging at his hand. She put her own hand on his to lower it, to conjure fate, in a way, as if the waters might subside at the same time as the father’s hand, if there was a god, if only.

  The father lowered his hand and nothing else happened.

  And so they kept an eye on the sea’s advance. On the ninth day, the big boulder at the bottom of the garden vanished. The tenth day, the twenty-eight hens and the rooster that had survived the tidal wave awoke with their legs in water, the chicken coop flooded. Louie opened the gate to let them roam free across the island; in any case, the foxes had died long ago.

  On the eleventh day the weather began to change. The August heat was stifling, but finally relented during a storm. When they saw the first lightning bolts, and the thunder rumbled far on the horizon with sinister crackling, the children cried for joy. Louie and Perrine, however, glanced at each other, then looked at their father, who was sniffing the air.

  “The clouds are yellow,” said Louie.

  Pata replied, I know, and the two children knew they had to keep quiet, that the sky was abnormally heavy and the clouds were a threatening ochre: things were not as they should be. Louie dared to ask:

  “What shall we do?”

  “Get inside the house, all of you. There’s a storm coming.”

  “Liam and Matteo aren’t here. They went with the raft to see if the Turpins’ house was underwater, you know, they live on a little hill, too.”

  Liam and Matteo: their father was searching for them on the horizon. He had let them go on their own, without telling Madie, the sea was choppy, but they were used to it. And besides, the Turpins’ place wasn’t far. But they must have gone a bit further, to look for the corner of a roof, or a chimney-top, or to play. Teeth clenched, and angry with himself, Pata muttered, Damn kids. But they’d be back. Maybe they’d seen how the sky had filled and were right nearby, hidden by a treetop still piercing the surface, their raft was about to appear—yes, God, make sure they had see the sky.

  But the father had every reason to believe that Liam and Matteo were still far away when the clouds gathered and the rumbling of thunder startled him, because the storm arrived in no time at all; from where he stood he could see gray whirlwinds of crazed wind and torrential rain. Ten minutes more and the gusts would arrive at their hill. Pata could already feel his hair clinging to his face, and he parted it with both hands to try to make out something on the surface of the water, hatched with black waves. He had to keep wiping his eyes because of the spray.

  Then he saw them.

  At first, for a second or two, he hoped it wasn’t them. But who else could be afloat in a rubber raft, when they had not seen a soul since the tidal wave—and the father let out a long cry which Madie and the children heard through the closed shutters in the house, despite the roaring wind, and it made them cluster together at the paneless windows and look through the cracks. It’s them, it’s them, shouted Noah.

  The rubber raft was dancing on the waves. Liam didn’t know what to do, with the paddles that no longer obeyed, the waves pounding against them, and the hill just there, out of reach, the water was playing with them, the raft was nearly taking flight, too light, too much wind.

  Onshore the father began to bellow.

  “Hang on behind, and swim! Swim, otherwise you’ll never get back!”

  But neither Liam nor Matteo could hear him. They could hardly make out their father’s figure one hundred yards from there, his eyes full of tears and rain, his figure shouting something else in vain, then spinning round and running.

  The father yanked the ropes from their hook on the side of the house.

  When he came back to the edge of the water, the raft was almost vertical on the raging sea.

  “This way!” shouted Pata at the top of his voice. “Liam, this way!”

  He threw the ropes as far as he could across the water. He didn’t know if he’d managed to fling them far enough, but clearly he hadn’t, and Liam couldn’t even see them, and he shouted again, waving his arms, because the kids had to understand.

  “Go over to the rope! The rope!”

  This time the elder boy must have seen him because he waved to signal to him, and the father’s heart sank. It wasn’t a sign that the boy had understood; and if the father could have heard Liam, he would have faltered at his words, Pata, help, Papa, we’re going to die—and instead he went on shouting for all he was worth, The rope, the rope, over here!

  And when at last he had to accept the boys were doomed, that they would never manage to find the ends of the rope, too far away, that the wind was scattering his useless cries, he moored the rope to a tree on the shore and flung himself into the water, following the rope.

  It took considerable energy to fight his way through the waves. Fairly quickly he was in over his head and he fought the current, his terror, too, a little voice in his head whining, What are you doing, you are going to die, all three of you, and he thought of the mother who must have seen him from the window and repressed a cry of horror as he dove in, and of the seven children still in the house and who needed him, the rope was getting in his way, tangling in his legs, ten times over the waves submerged him and he thought he wouldn’t make it, then he struggled upward yet again and just had time to raise his arms to protect himself from the raft which loomed like a black orca above him then slapped down on the water, knocking him on the shoulder.

  The father clung on, found a handhold. Liam and Matteo were hanging onto the raft, almost upright with the storm-shrieking wind. For a moment time was suspended and all the father could see was the boys, and behind them the black and yellow sky, this was how he had pictured the end of everything, the roaring hurricane, the furious, yawning waves, all of it in a strange muffled sensation devoid of sound; then the fracas came to strike him head on, he nearly lost the rope, and coiled it around his wrist.

  “Liam!”

&n
bsp; He gave an almighty shove to hoist himself on the raft with them.

  At that very moment a wave knocked them all over, Liam, Matteo, the raft, and the father. With a burst of energy Pata grabbed his sons, swallowed water with them, and brought them back to the surface, spitting and coughing. The raft bounded on the sea like a mad horse. The father reached for it, even though it was already beyond his grasp, he didn’t think he’d catch it, it was just a reflex, panic, too.

  “Hang onto my back!” he shouted to Liam. “And you, Matteo, hang onto Liam. And don’t let go. Don’t ever let go!”

  He tightened his grip on the rope, still fastened to the tree. His head was roaring: We are going to make our way along this rope. The moment Liam and Matteo fastened themselves to his shoulders, he felt their fingernails on his skin, the resistance of the current and their weight dragging him ever lower into the water, obliging him to make a colossal effort. And he began to doubt.

  But it was not far to land, he could see the hill beyond the curtains of rain, a black shape rising up to the house, his island, his refuge—the waves buffeting him, furiously, his arms burning in the water, making hardly any progress. Suddenly he knew he wouldn’t make it, his strength would give way before he reached the shore, even if he let go of one of his boys, or both of them, half strangling him as they clung on. He was swimming, on the verge of collapse, gripping the rope inch by inch to help himself, but the tension was exhausting, he was sinking, so that was what it was, he was drowning, gradually, and with him his sons who were panicking and could not help him, he was foundering, he could no longer move forward along the rope and it was dropping deeper into the water, he would have to go faster, have to pull hard, as he used to say to the boys when he was teaching them how to row, but his arms were no longer moving, he had nothing left. Still full of rage at how weak he was he struggled for a last burst of energy, but all he could do was hang onto the rope, and yet what was the point of clinging to it for dear life if they were all going to drown, Liam, Matteo, and him; despair tightened his throat, there he’d gone and rushed into the water, so sure he’d be able to bring his boys back safe and sound, so smug, and the storm was coming down on him even harder, a fraction more and it would tear his arms from his body, something inside him was surrendering, shouting for mercy.

  Then for a second the rope went taut and he thought he’d caught it on a tree trunk that would take them back out to sea. He struggled for a few seconds, already vanquished, the line wrapped around his wrist. And he felt that they were moving forward.

  At first he thought it was an illusion, dizziness taking over, his head knocked about in the cold waves. But it wasn’t: the rope was pulling him toward the hill. The current pounded at him, furiously, eager to pull him back, hurling pieces of wood and lumps of turf at him, but he was slowly progressing toward the house, which he could now see a bit more clearly. He didn’t try to understand. He let himself slip through the water, Liam and Matteo still on his back, half drowning him, it was enough to make him weep, but he had no strength left to say anything to them—just stay afloat, on the surface despite these waves coiling around them and the wind driving them back, the rope was holding, and when the father had one last hope that they might make it after all he raised his head and, ravaged and incredulous, he saw them.

  They were there on the shore, a hundred feet away, except for Lotte and Marion, whom the mother must have left shut in the house. His mouth open in a cry of panic, the father murmured their names in his head: Madie, Louie, Perrine, Noah, Emily, Sidonie. All pulling on the rope, even his one-eyed daughter, even his stunted son, pulling in time to the steady, formidable call of Heave! coming from the mother’s throat, crushing the roar of the wind, all of them breathing hard to pull the three drowning figures toward them, they didn’t falter, despite the gusts, the rain, the thunder, despite the waves’ attempts to make them stumble, they helped each other up, they went on winching, rolling the rope around the tree. And the terrified father watched them struggling against the storm and the sea, so tiny on their little wind-lashed patch of earth, heads down, backs rounded like animals huddled against bad weather, not one of them would yield, not even Sidonie who was not really much use but who gripped the rope as well, constantly slipping, what if she fell, and rolled down to the water—and the father murmured her name in a sob, prayed the mother would make them go back to the house, all it would take was one broken tree, one slab of earth breaking off and they would all be washed away. But they stood there shouting together for courage and to curse the heavens, the rope pulling constantly against the current, and suddenly the father felt the sludge beneath his feet, a few pebbles, and land, yes, it was land.

  The mother stopped the children from running toward them as they stumbled onto the shore: the storm was too violent to go near the edge of the water. Pata fell to his knees, his heart pounding, Liam still on his back, letting Matteo slip off behind him. The father took them by the hand, stood up, and with a superhuman effort walked the few steps that separated him from the others. The mother spread her arms. The father let go of the boys’ hands and embraced her, sobbing; then they all ran up in a clamor that for a few seconds silenced the wind, the little ones, the older ones, and they all held each other so tight they couldn’t breathe, a dense, drenched huddle in the midst of the storm, a warm, powerful heart throbbing with the children’s laughter, defying the waves, until at last the mother stood up straight, her eyes wide in the pouring rain, and she said, as if they had won a war:

  “We can go in, now.”

  * * *

  Go in, and flee. There could no longer be any doubt. This land—or what was left of it: they didn’t want it anymore; it terrified them. The father looked out the window. It wasn’t really a land, to speak of: a little island in the middle of the water, a rock condemned to vanish. There was an urgency, now. Madie had put the children to bed after making them some crepes with the hens’ eggs, and now she was on the sofa, waiting silently.

  Pata didn’t speak; he was gazing out at the night.

  Of course he couldn’t see anything. It was just so it wouldn’t show. So that he wouldn’t worry the mother, or pass his fear onto her, because she would have been upset to learn that he felt this bad, and besides it was stupid, she’d find out soon enough, he was going to tell her. He had to. This evening, the storm that had nearly cost them their lives had brought the water level up to the threshold of the house. And even if this storm, which had taken the raft from them, suddenly brought it back, tossing it onto the shore in a furious gust of wind, this was of no consolation to anyone, because no one would ever have the courage to head out onto the sea in such a flimsy vessel again; they’d put it away in the back of the barn, where you could hardly see it.

  Madie had been saying, from the very morning after the tidal wave, that they had to get ready to leave; Pata had sworn they wouldn’t need to, all they had to do was wait for the waters to recede. She’d been right, and he’d been wrong.

  Which meant that the time had come.

  Only problem was.

  How to tell her.

  She could see, just as he could, she must have figured it out. Why didn’t she bring it up first, ordinarily she had a ready tongue, why didn’t she open her bloody chatterbox mouth, for once he wouldn’t have minded. She wanted him to get bogged down, that was it, and she wouldn’t mind shouting that it was all his fault, he was the one who’d decided to stay, he’d sworn to her that the waters would depart as surely as they had come, that they’d do better to hang onto their land. And she, the bird of ill omen, who looked at him askance with doubt in her eyes: she should be jubilant now, and yet.

  Pata let out a long sigh. Yes, it was all his fault, Madie was right. He’d been stubborn, he hadn’t wanted to listen, to see the obvious signs. Hadn’t been afraid. The imbecile.

  And now?

  The mother was still silent, and all of a sudden the father could no lo
nger stand her silence. He would have preferred a good fight, in the end, a shouting match, like when he was convinced he was right. But now . . . He didn’t even dare look up at her. And it was as he turned his head one more time toward the window with its broken panes, toward the darkness that showed him nothing, that he murmured, “We will have to leave.”

  Madie didn’t answer. So he added:

  “We will have to leave the island, and soon. The water is going to flood everything.”

  And because she still did not whisper even half a word, he let his wretched gaze slip toward her, in vain, because she would not forgive him, ever, and in her eyes when they met his he saw her answer.

  Leave.

  Yes, but.

  “I know,” he stammered.

  He didn’t say, It will be fine. This time he couldn’t.

  It would be a long trip, they had to gather supplies. Nearly two weeks’ worth.

  No, that wasn’t what was worrying him. The fact that it would be a long trip, they’d get used to that. They’d hardly eat, they’d ration themselves. The little ones would understand.