Just After the Wave

by Sandrine Collette

  * * *

  Emily was the first to see it. What were the others looking at just then, to miss it like that, when they’ve been looking for it so eagerly for days, when it’s been their ultimate goal, their salvation: land. Not an island, not a scrap of ground above the surface of the water in the middle of nowhere the way Pata briefly thought it was, no: real land.

  The coast. For hundreds of yards, even miles, like a long curving back above the sea, lost in the mist, a place to stand on, to walk for hours without meeting a barrier of water. For now it is only a very thin line at the far end of the horizon, and Pata rubs his eyes to make sure. It does not vanish.

  So there it is. He says so, his voice tremulous:

  “Land.”

  They all turn and strain toward it, as if the wind were driving them all in the same direction, on their knees on the boat’s damp floorboards, and Emily claps her hands, I saw it first. Madie kisses her, her eyes welling with tears.

  “How soon will we be there?”

  The father frowns.

  “Tonight, tomorrow . . . By noon tomorrow, I’d say.”

  His eyes meet Madie’s, and in the yellow light he can tell they are thinking the same thing: just one day, give or take, and Matteo would have reached the shore, too. They had been so close. They suffer in silence, everything seems vain. They curse the days that have gone before, the day that drowned Lotte, the day that took their boy from them. It does not help. The mother squeezes her clenched fists against her lips. They have to hold out until tomorrow.

  Liam on the left, Pata on the right, rowing regularly, for hours. They would like to go faster but their bodies refuse, their muscles seem paralyzed, their bones ready to snap. When the boat can drift all on its own, they let it go, resting their arms, closing their lids on their red, strained eyes, and when they open them again they are blinded by the glare of the sun, and they shield their eyes with the palms of their hands. Shortly before twilight the father motions to lower the oars.

  “We won’t make it.”

  The land has expanded before them, it almost seems they could reach out and touch it. A painful illusion, when Pata knows they will need at least several more hours to make landfall, just as this morning they thought the shore was within reach, deluded by the obliteration of distance on the smooth sea and their own desperate gazes, he doesn’t want to get lost during the night, he orders Liam to drop the little anchor. While they share some of the fish, the father steals glances at them. Their tired, dirty faces, tangled, filthy brown or blond hair, their clothes and skin smelling of silt and damp—they look like an army of beggars, and he shudders: not the sort of people anyone wants showing up at their door. And as they eat in silence, turned toward that land fading gray with nightfall, the sea rolling under them, Pata wonders what the future has in store, if there is a future, and who will give them a chance, so that his children might never tell him some day that, all things considered, they would have done better to drown back there, on their own island.

  All through the short night on the boat Pata is startled awake. He knows that bad luck always strikes at the last moment, just when you think you’re home safe at last, when you cry victory too soon, so when the little girls asked him, before they went to sleep, to tell them what life would be like on the new land, he put a finger to his lips. Sshh. Above all, when they’re so close, mustn’t rouse any ghosts or evil spirits, no making light of them until we . . . . A murmur, and a smile to the girls. We’ll find out tomorrow.

  “Yes but what will it be like?” said Sidonie again.

  Pata shook his head, not to be moved. Sshh.

  Sitting at the bow he dozes, opening his eyes abruptly when the swell passes underneath them—but they are only empty waves, currents rebounding from the depths, lullabies. Even though they have come closer, the father can no longer see the land, engulfed by night. He gives a regular tug on the anchor chain to make sure it is still holding; he is haunted by the thought that they might drift, that they might wake up all alone again in the middle of the ocean, just the six of them and the water all around them—and the coast made to vanish by some terrible magic. And of course Pata, on his boat in the middle of the night, could be glad they are about to reach their goal at last, and that tomorrow they will be sure of walking on solid ground, on infinite land, after twelve and a half days of nightmare. But he can’t bring himself to be glad, partly out of superstition, and partly because there is no joy left inside him, no triumph to celebrate, he’ll have to be glad of the little girls’ joy, that’s all, and accept that nothing more than that will ever show, just meet Madie’s gaze, or Liam’s, and carry the knowledge until the end of his life that he is the father who lost five children during the crossing.

  Two, he corrects.

  Five.

  He opens his eyes wide, Two, two. The other three, he wasn’t the one who lost them, and besides they are not lost—but he knows very well that they are. And in the darkness and the silence, incapable of happiness, Pata feels himself shrinking, his stomach in knots. Not even landed on the coast yet and already he is anticipating the next calamity, the one he will not speak of to Madie, who already thinks he’s a bastard, the proof of it being the fact that they fled the island, could it be he was the only one who knew? Was that why he didn’t want to sign the note they’d left for their abandoned children?

  There is no more island, no more hill, not a chance. If their house is still standing, it is under six feet of water. The level will have risen so much that it was a foregone conclusion before they even set sail: everything would be engulfed. And the father did not leave Louie, Perrine, and Noah only for the time it would take to save the others then go back for them; he doomed them to certain death. Whenever he thinks of it—every day, every night, every hour—he trembles, picturing them back there in their final moments, with no boat, no hope, nothing. And if they are clinging to a piece of wood—what for? For how long? Stop, stop. But the mother’s gaze is nothing if not truthful when she lets it fall on him with a silent accusation: Murderer.

  Murderer, yes. He did what he did in full knowledge of the facts. He knew he would never see Louie, Perrine, and Noah again, he chose them, thought for a very long time about the children he had to have with him for the voyage—the eldest—and the ones Madie would never forgive him for leaving behind because they would not survive without her—the youngest. In the middle of that terrible equation there were three left. And it wasn’t because Pata loved them less than the others, whatever Madie might say, or that he thought they were not as good as the others, with their damaged bodies: it was that he had to decide. Either they left all together and died all together, or they saved some of them—and it would not be those three. Of course the father thought about giving up his own place, as did the mother once it became clear to her, before they left the island. But Liam and Matteo wouldn’t have been able to take everyone, to deal with the storms, the currents, the hunger, and the monster that had been giving chase right from the start. They would have fought over the food. They would have been frightened when the wind got up, or the waves turned gigantic—they would have capsized, Pata is sure. They’re still children, he thinks. Corrects himself. Were. God.

  So there it is. He is the only one who knows, who is carrying this burden: Louie, Perrine, and Noah were doomed the moment the rest of the family took the boat to flee. He also tried to think of a way to cram more of them on board, how to tear doors or shutters from the house and nail them hastily to the boat to make some sort of cabin, but it wouldn’t hold, it would be too heavy, it would cause the boat to list, events have proved him right, they would have foundered all together, all dead, what was the point. Since there was no solution.

  Pata is on his knees, hands together, at the bow. Lying a few inches from there, Liam is looking at him through his half-open eyes, not a sound, not a gesture. He is not sleeping, either: the feverishness of knowing land is so
near makes the blood pound through his veins. Initially he was overcome by exhaustion, slept a few hours, and then his nerves got the better of him, he wishes he could row all night, get closer to the coast so that the mother and the little girls would have a surprise at dawn, to touch the meadow grass as they hold out their hands, dance a jig with cries of relief, they’re here at last, Liam knows the father wouldn’t want him to say it already but he can’t help it, deep down, they have arrived, at last. The fact that there are six of them and not eight: Liam puts that aside. There is absence, there is pain; but something else, too, even more powerful, that transcends his sorrow.

  The joy of rescue.

  And at that moment, even if Liam doesn’t put it exactly like this: for the others, tough luck.

  No remorse, he’s had his share of suffering and fatigue. Regrets, yes, and sorrow, intense. But tomorrow. For now, only the ones who are living matter—who are alive, he thinks with a smile, who are hardy. The fittest. And Pata, you can’t really tell which side he’s on, part dead, part alive, all his strength gone, Liam restrains a surge of tenderness, don’t get up, don’t show him you saw him at his weakest, collapsing, just acknowledge that you’ll have to take care of him, making landfall doesn’t necessarily mean being rescued.

  Pretends to stretch.

  “You’re not asleep?” murmurs Pata.

  “Not anymore.”

  “Not sleepy?”

  “I wish we were already there.”

  “Yes. Me, too.”

  “And I’m afraid, too.”

  “Afraid? Why?”

  “Of starting all over. We’ve got nothing.”

  “We’ll manage.”

  “ . . . don’t even have anything to buy food. Where will we sleep?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m sure people will help us.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “Okay.”

  “But for the time being we have to sleep and get some strength. Tomorrow will be anything but restful.”

  “We made it, Dad.”

  “Almost, son. A few more strokes of the oar, and we’ll surely be the last ones to have made it to land.”

  * * *

  The next day at eleven the coast guard finds them when they are only two nautical miles from land; they’d spotted them from the harbor. Initially—so they will tell them—they took them for some marine creature, once the alarm had been raised by some people out walking and watching the horizon with a telescope. The blue and white boat cuts its engine as it draws alongside them; the men have rifles. When they see the six wan figures in the boat, they immediately put down their rifles, astonished.

  “Who are you? Where are you from?”

  The father explains. He wonders if they will believe him.

  “Good God, you were at Levet. No one has come from there in days, the few who weren’t drowned.”

  Everyone thought they were dead, the people from Levet and the surrounding area, the land was too low-lying. Everything was inundated the day of the cataclysm, with the exception of the statues in Vallone and a few of the highest hills. Pata listens and begins to tremble: how do they know, how is this possible, he looks at Madie whose eyes are open wide, questioning, shaking her head, and yet, it is so simple. The early days after the tidal wave, the higher ground was overrun by refugees, half-drowned, exhausted, lost. Everything was reorganized to deal with the emergency, improbable shelters were found—sheepfolds, stables, garages; there were injured people to be tended, the dead that people had brought with them, to be buried; and then, very soon afterwards, rescue operations were set in motion to scour the new sea for survivors. With motorboats crisscrossing the flooded territory, they covered hundreds of miles over a star-shaped pattern, methodically, painstakingly sailing back and forth to find a few miraculous survivors, some of whom had gone mad. That is how they knew the statues in Vallone were still above water: they were there two days ago. And just when one of the men exclaims, But we should have seen you, which way did you go, how did we miss you, you must have drifted miles away, Madie lets out a wild cry, one hand to her lips, The children, the children!

  The man in uniform frowns.

  “The children?”

  “On the island . . . there were three children.”

  “No, madam, there was nothing.”

  “Yes, yes! Three children, two boys and a girl! Didn’t you find them? Tell me you found them!”

  “Madam, I’m sorry. In fact . . . there was no island.”

  The father reaches out just as the mother collapses, holds onto her with all his strength. To make sure, he says:

  “What did you say?”

  Madie’s mouth is wide open, a huge cry inside her that cannot come out. Pata can feel it throbbing right into his flesh, then she repeats, almost inaudibly:

  “What did you say?”

  “Everything was flooded, madam. We did find the place where your village used to be, but it was completely covered in water. You say there were still people there?”

  But Madie no longer hears them, she has turned to Pata who is still holding her, her eyes glued to him, horrified, The children—so the father begins to sob because he has understood, he knew all along, he just hoped his predictions would be wrong, that they would have time to go back. He spent his nights praying that he had been wrong once again, that the water would ease off and give them a chance. But it hadn’t. No one ever listens to him.

  Softly, not looking at her, he murmurs to Madie, Sshh, sshh . . . wipes his own tears from her dirty hair, and when at last she realizes, when her terrifying lament first reaches her throat then bursts out, colossal, enough to cause the people around them to tremble, he buries his face in her neck, petrified by the pain he feels inside, outside, both of them there like ghosts, bags of bones that can barely stand, fragments. The mother feels her heart being torn to shreds, three more—three more gone, all at once, she was so sure she would see them again, Louie, Perrine, and Noah, a matter of one day at the most for a rescue boat, she had been so careful to leave them everything she could so they would not be hungry, honestly, no, she’d never wondered about them in that respect, never imagined she might not see them again, that they might be lost to her forever. Since yesterday when she had seen land she had been planning it, timing it; one hour for the fire department or the police to take charge of them, two hours to listen to their story and grasp the urgency, another hour to launch the boat to go to the island. Six or seven hours to get there. For what?

  For a drowned land, and drowned children. Every time she comes up against these words in her mind, Madie lets out a scream, shrinks in upon herself, tears her hair. Later, a doctor will give her a tranquilizer and she will stop screaming. For now there’s just Pata holding her hand, saying nothing; he, too, is devastated, Liam is looking after the girls and moving beds into the place they have been allotted, the sun is high in the sky, it is hot, they don’t notice.

  And that is how their life on the high ground begins, broken hearts and bodies, ravaged like scorched earth, this family who had been ready to repopulate the planet, only six of them left now, half of who they once were, half alive, skinned alive, and when they go to bed that night, in the house which also provides shelter for other refugees, Pata and Madie cannot help but think, separately, that they wish they had died all together, for all the good it has done and will do them, this half-life ahead of them, sometimes it’s better not to go on, isn’t it, if someone could have told them, if they had known, they would have stopped, laid down their arms—back in the days when they were still happy.

  Madie has not gotten up for a week. Liam and the girls have been back in school for two days—as if they’d planned it, they arrived the day before classes started—and Pata has found work in the new port, loading and unloading ships with emergency goods. During the day, Madie and Marion st
ay alone in the house that had been found and offered them for a very low rent. Everything went very quickly—assistance, care, high school for Liam and primary and nursery school for Emily and Sidonie; a lease, a leg up for Pata so that he could earn their keep right away—he’ll see later on if he can find something better. For the time being he is just happy that his children can go to school like everyone else, even if Liam is rebelling—too little freedom, makes him tired, he’s been giving these dark looks over the last forty-eight hours, until Pata eventually says, Yes, son, but.

  Not now. Let us get back on our feet. None of us has the strength to fight, neither me nor your mother, just keeping afloat with each new day, seeing how much is left at the end of the week to buy food and maybe an electric kettle, we can’t do anything more for the time being, just light a candle when we listen to the night at our window, and the sea lapping beyond the trees, we’re still numb with grief, so we’ll talk about it some-day, Liam, promise, it’s just that. Not now.

  What Pata doesn’t say is how relieved he is to leave the house in the morning, to go and spend his time with people who shout and laugh, who slap you on the shoulder and spit on the sidewalk, people who are alive, dammit, loud and clear, who make him forget what he has lost for a few hours, and what he finds every evening when he comes home: the mother with her empty gaze and stringy hair, still unwashed, still in bed, the house smelling of despair and the absence of meals, he grabs a few vegetables, a piece of meat, the children come running and surround him. He could be angry with her, Madie, for deserting their life the way she has and leaving him to cope with everything, the return to an ordinary existence, work, the house, the girls’ homework, the need for money—and yes, Pata had truly forgotten what life was about during those twelve days on the island and those twelve days on the ocean, the world had become other, a suspended web, the expanse of a nightmare. It leaves him confused, he works overtime in the evening if they ask him to, at the harbor he is both worn out and relieved, and then the time comes when he has to lower his head and go home, and tell himself that he could hold it against her, only he doesn’t, he can’t, deep down he could easily let himself go and sink down there beside her to sleep and never wake up, and rest, at last.