Ocean Sea (16 page)

She was walking—and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever done.

She saw the Almayer Inn drawing nearer. Its lights. She left the beach, crossed the threshold, entered and closed the door behind her, that same door from which she had rushed out together with
the others, who knows how long before, still all unknowing.

Silence.

On the wooden floor, one step after another. Grains of sand crunching underfoot. On the floor, in a corner, Plasson’s cloak, which he had dropped in his haste to run off. On the cushions
of the armchair, the impression of Madame Deverià’s body, as if she had just got up. And in the center of the room, motionless, Adams. Who was looking at her.

One step after another, until she was close to him. And said to him, “You won’t hurt me, will you?”

You won’t hurt her, will you?

“No.”

No.

Then

Elisewin

took

that man’s face

between her hands

and

she kissed it.

In Carewall, they would never stop telling this story. If only they knew it. They would never stop. Each in his own way, but they would all carry on telling the tale of those two and a whole
night spent restoring life to each other, with lips and with hands, a young girl who has seen nothing and a man who has seen too much, one inside the other—every inch of skin a journey, of
discovery, of homecoming—in Adams’s mouth to savor the taste of the world, on Elisewin’s breast to forget it—in the womb of that deeply troubled night, black storm, flashes
of spume in the darkness, waves like collapsing woodpiles, noise, resounding blasts, raging with sound and speed, hurled onto the veined surface of the sea, the sinews of the world, ocean sea, a
drenched colossus, writhing—sighs, sighs in Elisewin’s throat—soaring velvet—sighs at each new step in that world that crosses mountains never seen and lakes with forms
unimaginable—on Adams’s belly the white weight of that young girl swaying to a soundless music—whoever would have said that by kissing the eyes of a man you could see so far
away—by caressing the legs of a young girl you could run so fast and escape—escape from everything—to see so far away—they came from the two farthest extremities of life,
this is the amazing thing, one would have thought they would never have met, if not by crossing the universe from one end to the other, and instead they did not even have to look for each other,
this is the incredible thing, and the only hard thing was recognizing each other, recognizing each other, the work of a moment, at the first glance they already knew, this is the marvelous
thing—this is the tale they would continue to tell, forever, in Carewall, so that no one might forget that we are never far enough away to find one another, never—but those two were far
enough away—to find each other, far away, farther than any other and now—Elisewin’s voice cried out, because of the torrents of stories that are storming her soul, and Adams
weeps, as he feels them slipping away, those stories, finished, finally, finished—perhaps the world is a wound and someone is stitching it up in the fusion of those two bodies—and it is
not even love, this is the amazing thing, but it is hands, and skin, lips, astonishment, sex, tastes—sadness, perhaps—even sadness—desire—when they tell the story they will
not say the word love—they will say a thousand words, but they will not mention love—all is silent around them, when suddenly Elisewin feels her back breaking and her mind fading into
white, she holds that man close inside her, clasps his hands, and thinks: I’ll die. She feels her back breaking and her mind fading into white, she holds that man close inside her, clasps his
hand and, you see, she will not die.

“L
ISTEN TO ME
, Elisewin . . .”

“No, don’t talk.”

“Listen to me.”

“No.”

“What will happen here will be horrible and . . .”

“Kiss me . . . it’s dawn, they’ll come back . . .”

“Listen to me . . .”

“Don’t talk, I beg you.”

“Elisewin . . .”

What can you do? How can you say what you have to say to such a woman, with her hands on your body and her skin, her skin, you cannot talk of death to one like her, how do you tell such a girl
things she already knows and yet it is necessary for her to listen, to the words, one after another, and that even if you know yet you must listen, sooner or later, someone must say them and you
must listen to them, she must listen to them, that young girl who is saying, “I have never seen that look in your eyes before.”

And then, “If only you wanted to, you could save yourself.”

How do you tell such a woman that you would like to save yourself and, even more, you would like to save her along with you, and do nothing else but save her, and save yourself, for a whole
lifetime, but it’s not possible, everyone has his own journey to make, and in the arms of a woman you end up following a twisted road, which even you don’t understand that well, and
when the right time comes, you haven’t the words to tell her about it, words that sit well, there, between those kisses and on the skin, there’s no way around it, and it’s some
job searching for them in what you are and what you have felt, you can’t find them, they always have the wrong sound, they have no music, there, between those kisses and on the skin,
it’s a question of music. And so you say something, but it’s wretched.

“Elisewin, I shall never be
saved
anymore.”

How do you tell such a man that now it is my turn to teach him something and between his caresses I want to make him understand that destiny is not chains but wings, and if only he still had any
real will to live he could, and if only he really wanted me he could have another thousand nights like this instead of that one horrible night that he is heading for, only because it is waiting for
him, that horrendous night, and has been calling him for years. How do you tell such a man that becoming a murderer will not help and that blood and pain will not help, it’s only a way of
running at breakneck speed toward the end, when a time and a way to ensure that nothing finishes are here waiting for us, and calling us, if only we could listen to them, if only he could, really,
really,
listen to me.
How do you tell such a man that he is losing you?

“I shall go away . . .”

“. . .”

“I don’t want to be here . . . I’m going away.”

“. . .”

“I don’t want to hear that scream, I want to be far away.”

“. . .”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

The truth is that it’s the music that’s hard, it’s the music that’s hard to find, to say things, there so close to each other, the music and the gestures, to dissolve the
suffering, when there is absolutely nothing to be done anymore, the right music so that it may be a dance, in some way, and not a wrench, that going off, that slipping away, toward life and away
from life, strange pendulum of the soul, redeeming and murderous, being able to dance it would hurt less, and that’s why lovers, all of them, seek that music, in that moment, within words, in
the dust of gestures, and know that, if they had the courage, only silence would be music, precise music, a slow loving silence, glade of farewells and weary lake that finally runs into the span of
a tiny melody, learned since the beginning, to be sung in a low voice.

“Farewell, Elisewin.”

A tiny little melody.

“Farewell, Thomas.”

Elisewin slips out from under the cloak and gets up. Her young girl’s body, nude, with only the warmth of an entire night upon her. She picks up her dress and moves over to the windows.
The world outside is still there. You can do whatever you like, but you can always be sure that you will find it in its place, always.

It’s hard to believe, but that’s the way it is.

Two bare feet, young girl’s feet. They climb the stairs, enter a room, go toward a window, stop.

The hills are resting. As if there were no sea before them.

“W
E SHALL LEAVE
tomorrow, Father Pluche.”

“What?”

“Tomorrow. We shall leave.”

“But . . .”

“Please.”

“Elisewin . . . you cannot decide just like that, without warning . . . we have to write to Daschenbach . . . look, they’re not sitting there waiting for us every blessed day . .
.”

“We are not going to Daschenbach.”

“What do you mean, we’re not going to Daschenbach?”

“We’re not going there.”

“Elisewin, let’s keep calm. We have come all this way because you must get better, and to get better you must go into the sea, and to go into the sea you must go to . . .”

“I have already gone into the sea.”

“Pardon?”

“I no longer have anything to get better from, Father Pluche.”

“But . . .”

“I am alive.”

“Jesus . . . what the devil has happened?”

“Nothing . . . all you must do is trust me . . . I beg you, you must trust me . . .”

“I . . . I trust you, but . . .”

“Then let me leave. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow . . .”

Father Pluche stands there, twiddling his astonishment between his fingers. A thousand questions in his head. And he knows very well what he should do. Few words. Clear. A simple thing:
“And what will your father say?” A simple thing. And yet it gets lost on the way. There is no way of finding it again. Father Pluche is still there looking for it when he hears his own
voice asking, “And how is it? . . . The sea, how is it?”

Elisewin smiles.

“Very beautiful.”

“And?”

Elisewin does not stop smiling.

“At a certain point, it ends.”

T
HEY LEFT EARLY
in the morning. The carriage bowling along the coast road. Father Pluche let himself be jounced about on his seat with the same cheerful
resignation with which he had packed his bags, said good-bye to everybody, said good-bye to everybody again, and deliberately left a suitcase at the inn, because when one leaves, one should always
sow an excuse for returning. One never knows. He was silent until he saw the road turn and the sea getting farther away. Not a second longer.

“Would it be too much to ask where we are going?”

Elisewin was holding a sheet of paper firmly in her hand. She glanced at it.

“St. Parteny.”

“And what’s that?”

“A town,” said Elisewin, closing her hand over the paper.

“A town where?”

“It will take about twenty days. It’s in the country, near the capital.”

“About twenty days? But this is madness.”

“Look at the sea, Father Pluche, it’s going away.”

“About twenty days . . . I trust you have an excellent reason for making a journey of that kind . . .”

“It’s going away . . .”

“Elisewin, I’m talking to you, what are we going down there for?”

“We are going to look for somebody.”

“A twenty-day journey to
look for
somebody?”

“Yes.”

“Good heavens, then he must be a prince at the very least, or for all I know the king in person, a saint . . .”

“More or less . . .”

Pause.

“He’s an admiral.”

Pause.

“Jesus . . .”

I
N THE
T
AMAL
A
RCHIPELAGO
every evening a fog would come up that devoured the ships and restored them at
dawn completely covered in snow. In the Cadaoum Strait, at every new moon, the water would retreat leaving behind it an immense sandbank populated by talking molluscs and poisonous seaweed. Off the
coast of Sicily an island had disappeared and another two, not shown on the charts, had surfaced not far distant. In the waters of Draghar they had captured the pirate van Dell, who had preferred
to throw himself to the sharks rather than fall into the hands of the Royal Navy. In his palace, then, Admiral Langlais was still cataloging with extenuating precision the plausible absurdities and
the unlikely truths that reached him from all the seas of the world. His pen traced with immutable patience the fantastic geography of an indefatigable world. His mind was at rest in the precision
of an unchanging day-to-day existence. Identical to itself, his life unrolled. And his garden lay untended, almost disturbing.

“My name is Elisewin,” said the girl, when she stood before him.

It struck him, that voice: velvet.

“I have known a man named Thomas.”

Velvet.

“When he lived here, with you, his name was Adams.”

Admiral Langlais remained motionless, holding the look in the girl’s dark eyes. He said nothing. He had hoped never to hear that name again. He had kept it far from him for days, months.
He had a few moments in which to prevent its returning, to wound his soul and his memories. He thought of getting up and asking that girl to go away. He would give her a carriage. Money. Anything.
He would order her to go away. In the king’s name, go away.

As if from afar, that velvety voice reached him. And it was saying, “Keep me with you.”

For fifty-three days and nine hours, Langlais did not know what had persuaded him in that instant to reply, “Yes, if you wish.”

He understood one evening, seated beside Elisewin, listening to that voice recite:

“In Timbuktu, this is the hour in which the women like to sing and make love to their men. They draw the veils aside from their faces and even the sun moves away, dumbfounded at their
beauty.”

Langlais felt an immense, sweet fatigue steal upon his heart. As if he had wandered for years, lost, and finally found the road back home. He did not turn toward Elisewin. But he said quietly,
“How do you know this story?”

“I don’t know. But I know that it is yours. This, and all the others.”

E
LISEWIN STAYED
in Langlais’s palace for five years. Father Pluche for five days.

On the sixth he said to Elisewin that it was incredible, but he had left a suitcase down there, at the Almayer Inn, incredible, really, but there was some important stuff in there, inside the
suitcase, clothes and perhaps even the book with all the prayers.

“What do you mean,
perhaps
?”