Malicroix

by Henri Bosco

  I arrived, nevertheless, and early enough to see a big black boat adrift. It looked empty, carried by the current. It disappeared. I waited, huddled under a bush dripping with damp.

  Gusts of wind brought the scents of muddy silt and willow toward me. A few yards from shore a tree trunk drifted by and was lost in the distance, in mist. My mouth was acrid, my wrists feverish; my palms burned. I stretched out on a bed of moss, my eyes shut. But a confused, faint flood of visions invaded me; unable to withstand them, I resumed my watch. The fog was growing thicker by the minute; my sight blocked, I was reduced to spying sounds through the river’s vapors. Muffled sounds. Still, not far from the island I heard the splashing of oars, and, beyond the water, long mournful cries, nonhuman voices that, on the other shore, seemed to be seeking one another and lamenting through the trees and reeds. No doubt some animal, seeking his lost refuge, to whom another animal responded from the depths of the fog; two large waders, perhaps, or some other sad migratory birds, strangers to these shores, caught unawares by fog between two flights. Now they were lost on the marsh, where with terror they felt the night’s descent. For night was falling, and I was cold. A cold deep within my flesh, that gripped my legs and deadened them. Through the bracken, my burning hands felt the viscous soil that breathed the sweetish scent of damp clay. My body grew heavier, and the numbness in my loins slowly moved up my sides and into my sore shoulders. Frequent chills rippled my sagging back and furrowed my skin. An acrid saliva struggled to moisten my scaly mouth, and the taste of bile made my tongue shrink. Unable to rise, my chin in the grass—crushed by fatigue, heavy, leaden—I sensed the river’s passage through the fog, as if in a nightmare. Its dull movement made me nauseous, dizzy. Sometimes I shivered; sometimes a sudden, single wave of fire burned my cheeks. A sharp blade of grass pierced my cheek. It hurt me, but I could no longer turn my head. Soon the awareness of this pain melted into the enormous unease spreading all around me through a tangle of countless bodies. It was an unease greater than my fatigue: it was the unease of the island, the river, the shoreline, and the entire countryside weary of trailing its fever-infested fogs. This thought helped and sustained me for a long time. It kept me bound to myself; then it slowly unwound, and I felt only the unease. In turn this dissolved into a torpor where I thought I heard voices speaking at length, until the final sign of life, a moist warmth, melted into nonbeing, whose immobility I gradually reentered.

  • • •

  I do not know what happened next. But someone came. Someone touched my shoulder. A hand turned my head and moved my mouth from the earth to which it was glued. Someone grabbed my feet. My body was pulled and I was dragged; then I was lifted, and for a long time I endured a sickening, repetitive rocking. Finally, my awareness slipped away and trailed these last traces of life into utter weariness. Nothing in me connected me to myself except this unconscious state where I continued to live without even knowing if I was alive. I lost all sense of the sequence of things; I was suffocating under an oppressive feeling of thickness. Mountains of heavy, uneasy matter lay on me. I was alive, enshrouded, paralyzed, covered, lost. At times I even disappeared under this faint feeling. After having forgotten all of myself, I forgot even more. But I do not know, nor am I ever likely to know, what was being abolished beyond my annihilated memories. I must have sunk deep and far into my sick being’s dissolution, far enough perhaps to graze the borders of that land without light or shadow. Where was I, if I even existed? What realm had I crossed, without seeing or hearing, before reaching a state even beyond the annihilation of myself, where, still, I recall (though with an ineffable recollection) that I was sinking? Passage of I know not whom, I know not where, toward I know not what indefinable regions. I was nothing but a faint movement, a movement with no speed, that, while leaving me where I was, lifted all of nonbeing in an obscure displacement of the voids that open beyond the vastest void of space.

  At least, when I think today about that time of annihilation, I have, instead of memories, an incomprehensible feeling of pure displacement; this was perhaps the last gasp of my inner life, at the limit of its strength. Yet I went further still—no longer what I had been, I slowly stopped becoming. I lost everything . . .

  • • •

  I was drawn from this abyss by a fragrance of plants and water, in which I did not recognize the earth. Cut off from my memory, this initial sensation filled me with such freshness it possessed me completely. It was, at first, my soul.

  Nothing was clear to me yet, and still I was returning to my self. A drift of warm air and the smell of clean cloth at my bedside created signs of rest and healing above my fever. I could hear the sound of the fire crackling. It brought life back to me, and my eyes gradually opened. And so I saw a shadow, a shadow that lived—it had a gaze . . . I cautiously closed my eyes again and almost at once, against my cheek, I felt the slow approach of a cheek of snow. I was thinking of Delphine d’Or, and then, very gently, I fell asleep . . .

  A NAME OF THIS EARTH

  I HAVE tried, as faithfully as possible, to recapture and reconstruct my recollections. But a memory scorched by fever does not offer a precise guarantee of the past. Reason cannot draw clear or accurate pictures from it. My imagination may unwittingly have invented lights and shadows to fill the unavoidable gaps. Still, without even trying, I see again with surprising clearness what I describe. And not just the things and people that surrounded me, things and people whose existence I can affirm with almost ordinary certainty. Even more than these concrete sights, I rediscover in myself today the mental, hallucinatory world of my delirium. My thoughts and feelings from that time are still alive, woven into a seamless fabric that shimmers anew at the least inward call. What was imprinted on me then marked me so deeply that whenever I think back to it, the sense of its pastness disappears. I forget memory. I see, I hear, I feel, I think. I am where I once was, but I forget that I was there in the past, so fully am I there now, as if for the first time. I see, not memories, but presences. And often despite myself; for I avoid such evocations, whose effects I dread. To recover your delirium intact can be disturbing. If I have traced its detailed image here, I have done so, I confess, to concretely represent its power, and thus somehow to exorcise it.

  I know that I am taking myself back, but I must take myself back to make the exorcism effective . . .

  And already, as I think about it, I am no longer the one who describes or recounts what he has seen and how he has acted in the past. I am the one who sees and acts, at this very moment . . .

  •

  I open my eyes in a white room, where a face comes into focus right beside me, a face with copper skin and high cheekbones. The chin is pointed, the lips full, the forehead low, wide, firm; strangely, the eyes are closed. This face is bent over mine, somewhat slanting, as if to watch my breath. And it is I who feel the healthy, fresh scent of her face on mine. My chest swells and I breathe it in. An animal sweetness is transmitted to my still-feeble blood. From her very dark hair fall other slow perfumes of grass and trees, pulsing with life. The body, whose firm arm leans against my shoulder, is so warm I can feel it; and what comes from it to me of new strength melts into that half-dim, healing languor that wakes and then hesitates before the thrill of returning life.

  •

  She is here (I cannot doubt it), that creature about whom I have dreamt; but it is not Delphine d’Or . . . What does she want from me? . . .

  • • •

  Much later, I saw only her eyes. They are clear. I can see nothing in them except that clarity. They opened slowly in her dark face. They gazed at me. Since then, there is nothing more beautiful to me than that face. It unsettles me. I feel alone. I recognize the room, the white wall, the little reed cross. I can hear the fire and the kettle’s song. The vapors of sweet and bitter plants come from it, and I feign sleep.

  • • •

  . . . Shadow suits me. With eyes half-shut, I can observe this familiar room. It is not hard to be patient. Most like
ly some sign will enlighten me about this creature who watches over me. A step, a word. Since she is alone, she might speak to herself in an undertone, say something, let some secret slip.

  • • •

  Two days have passed. At least if I can trust the light and shadow. She is silent. I continue to feign torpor, illness. But is she fooled by this lie? . . .

  I barely hear her moving through the room. She is alone. Yet sometimes I think I hear whispers in the storeroom, and, very early in the morning, a furtive, gliding step. It prowls around, outside the house. She stays here, near the bed, and does not rise when she hears it. Who is it?

  But she herself, who is she?

  • • •

  I got up tonight. Deliberate movement, willed. As I expected, a sudden dizzy spell. I clung to something; I staggered four times, weak, flustered. The fifth time, I was able to walk by leaning against the wall. I reached the fire. At the end of my strength, I sat down. I was safe . . .

  She had left the house. I looked all around, turning my head slowly, afraid I might faint. Everything stayed in place. I rested for a moment by the fire. It was burning with its usual calm. And I loved it.

  I regained my bed a little later. I was drained, breathless. Happy, all the same.

  She came back a long time afterward. What time was it? Midnight, one o’clock, I think . . . I was awake, awaiting her return. I thought I saw a shadow appear. Perhaps she was coming from afar. She came in without a sound and paused for a moment just inside the door. With her, the house was filled with that scent of wind and fresh water she carries wherever she goes. It is her vital sign.

  She murmured a few words I did not understand, and then came beside me and touched my head.

  Her cool hand slid from my forehead to my cheek. I clutched it. She did not flinch. My palm was clammy, and I feared it would repulse her. I unclenched my fingers. She retrieved her hand, brought the sheet back over my shoulders, and silently withdrew into the storeroom.

  I listened for a long time. But she did not stir until morning. She went out at dawn, and a little later, I yielded to sleep.

  • • •

  I see the room again . . . It is dim despite its white walls. I always wake in darkness. The shutters are kept closed from morning, and day flows by in a strange twilight, no matter what the weather outside. Why this caution? . . .

  • • •

  The door of the room is never open to the woods. Yet air and light would come from there. I would breathe. Instead I am kept in a confined atmosphere, suffused with the floating fumes of medicinal plants. I rest here between waking and sleeping, as much by choice as on account of my body’s weakness. I want to know. Perhaps what I see while feigning torpor or sleep would be erased if I insisted on light. I relish this slow, ghostly life, whose meaning eludes me, but which still seems laden with thoughts . . .

  • • •

  Indeed, I have nothing but thoughts, and this girl is no more than a thought . . . Here she is, entering. Her tall silhouette stands at the door she opens barely halfway. Solemn, she waits; perhaps she listens; she dreams. From where does she come? What difference does it make? . . . Her lids lowered, her beautiful face presents me with only a mask. But her hand is light on my brow, my face. Calmly, she brushes my temple with her fingertips; moving down, she feels my face for fever; then her gentle palm encloses my warm shoulder. Life flows into me. I hold my breath. The hand withdraws. Peace spreads over my weakness, and I rest.

  • • •

  I am sure of it now—someone speaks every so often outside the house, but in a very low voice. Someone comes, whispers, leaves. As my ears have grown more acute in the darkness and solitude, I hear. I hear, if not the words, at least the accents and tones. It is a man speaking. His voice is reedy. I know that voice. Reticent, cunning, it explains, questions, glides.

  • • •

  Tonight, the door was accidentally left half-open. Air came in. It penetrated my sleep and I opened my eyes. Right away I smelled the fresh woodland scent. It was mild for the season. A bit of sky was shining on the other side of the door. No moon. But in the blackness, the sparkling stars. Thousands of them, ablaze with fiery signs. Caught between the doorposts, I could see their powerful stellar life, already exalted by the vast astral spring whose first vibrations the earth would soon feel. A youthful jubilation, along with a more muted nighttime languor, fell onto my eyes, and from my eyes into my entire body. It was night, and when renewal approaches, a voluptuous torpor always emerges from the shadows. To deepen this feeling, every so often a wind gust, blown from afar and having passed over warm shores, brought with it the perfume of an unknown plant or tree whose greenery, despite winter, filled the air with budding scents. This message from the forest touched the very roots of my being.

  •

  A few moments later she appeared on the doorstep. She placed her body between my eyes and the stars. Then she silently entered the room. This evening she had on her the unsettling scent of that unknown tree, that distant plant. For a moment, she stood beside me, unmoving. The night had filled her with its power.

  With her hand, as always, she sought my head.

  And so, I spoke. I needed a word. I asked her name. She listened to me, and then, very gently, said, “Sleep. The time will come.”

  • • •

  I have waited all day for her. Now I get up a little, but I am very weak. I have promised not to open the shutters.

  “You still need shadow,” she told me yesterday.

  We always speak to each other in shadow. When I question her, she waits. She does not answer until much later. Strange answer, tangential to my question. An answer all the same, but always allusive . . .

  “My name, why my name?” she breathed.

  • • •

  Now the shutters are partly open when night falls.

  “Think of your eyes,” she says. “We must take care of them.”

  Hers, as far as I can tell in this half-lit world, are sometimes clear, sometimes dark; they are but the threshold of her thought. Behind their inexpressive gaze, what is the dawn, what the light where her hidden being meditates—that being whose watchful presence can still be sensed, but which, perhaps, hesitates to appear before my burning face, barely wrested from delirium?

  • • •

  Still, little by little, I see her. Little by little, she lets in more light. But her precise shape is only slowly granted to my gaze. She clings to the night from which she is born. When a glimmer releases her from darkness, the fleshly outline I see is still only a sign. It marks her soul’s dwelling place.

  Soon perhaps, beneath the lamp, she will look more human. But when the lamp appears and, after that, the day, will I know her?

  She thinks about it, or at least I believe she does. Has she not told me, “You dream; but soon you will see clearly”?

  I was standing by the door and I opened it onto a night white with moonlight. She came beside me and I stopped her.

  “It is impossible,” she told me, “to awaken from a sleep such as yours. And yet I have done what I could . . .”

  Then she drew away and disappeared into the shining woods.

  • • •

  Now I am sure of it—she is not the only one who haunts the island. A visitor (the one I had already heard) returns almost nightly. Softly, through the outbuilding. I barely hear him. Always whispering, furtive, light. But I have an invalid’s fine ear. And there is only one man I know who can create, at night, such a secret presence, creeping out with such keen yet anxious curiosity. All it took was his murmur to reveal him. He is here, around eleven. I suspect he comes from the river. The waters these days are gentle and easy to cross. He leaves a little later. I have not seen him. But I would swear it is him. What is he doing here? . . . Sometimes they meet in Balandran’s hut. Then he stays with her longer. She accompanies him when he leaves. I do not see her again until early morning. She moves without a pause through the room’s gray half-light; afterward,
I am alone until night . . .

  •

  I am still afraid of light. I need shadow in order to live, and this shadow casts onto me a very strange fear about people and events. I am afraid to ask questions; I am afraid to know. And yet this placid ignorance where, through weakness, I dangerously linger, healing, can be disturbed by just a scent or by the call of a wild animal in the night. Then anxiety grips me, and I call in turn, but so softly within myself that no one hears.

  • • •

  This solitude weighs on me. Ever since my legs, grown stronger, have let me rise and take a few steps in this still-darkened room, I have been stirred at times by a desire (despite my fear of knowing) that drives me toward the door separating me from the night, the woods, the river. The one who watches over me senses this desire. Yesterday she said, “Above all, don’t go out. It’s still cold . . .” I know very well this is not true. The wind is blowing from the south. It is mild. What is she afraid of? . . . I sense that she is often attentive to concerns she hides poorly . . . She stops speaking; she listens. I listen too; but I know the island’s sounds. I say, “It’s just a branch of the big elm, creaking in the wind.” She waits; she motions me to be silent; then, solemn, she replies, “It sounded like someone heavy walking near the house.” But Uncle Rat is not heavy . . .

  • • •

  He is most certainly the one who comes. This time, I saw him. I heard a sound in the storeroom, a sound that only his presence could create. I pretended to sleep. He must have watched me for awhile. Reassured by my body’s stillness, fearful, he took a hesitant step forward. The calm fire burning in the chimney lit him from behind. Outlined against the light, all in shadow, he cast his sharp outline onto the wall; he had two shapes. It was easy to recognize him. I did not move. He was emboldened. His neck bent toward me, he studied my breathing and drew closer. Once at my bedside, he bent over me and, very gently, touched my forehead. His hands were frozen. I remained like a stone. He sighed. Outside you could sometimes hear a brief chirping in a tree. The sigh was followed by a murmur. Confused words, a thought, a regret perhaps; at least that was the tone. And then the shadow left, I do not know how, by flight or evanescence into space. With my eyes closed, I sensed his absence; nothing of that elusive man was still there when, surprised by his silence, I reopened my eyes to truly see him. What did he want from me?