The Breakers

by Claudie Gallay

  THE BREAKERS

  THE BREAKERS

  Claudie Gallay

  Translated from the French by Alison Anderson

  An imprint of Quercus

  New York • London

  © 2008 by Claudie Gallay

  Translation © 2011 by Alison Anderson

  Originally published in French as Les Déferlantes by Éditions du Rouergue in 2008

  First published in the United States by Quercus in 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of the same without the permission of the publisher is prohibited.

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  ISBN 978-1-62365-279-1

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by Random House Publisher Services

  c/o Random House, 1745 Broadway

  New York, NY 10019

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.quercus.com

  For Lucile

  You will know me, I am

  the one who passes by …

  RENÉ-PAUL ENTREMONT

  CONTENTS

  A Note on Prevert

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  A NOTE ON PREVERT

  Jacques Prévert was born on February 4, 1900, at Neuilly-sur-Seine on the outskirts of Paris, and died of cancer at Omonville-la-Petite on April 11, 1977. Associated with Surrealists like André Breton and Louis Aragon in the 1920s, he made his name with humorous anarchic “song-poems” about street life in Paris, collected in Paroles (1946), Spectacles (1951) and Imaginaires (1970). Many of his poems, such as Les Feuilles Mortes, were set to music and sung by French singers including Yves Montand, Juliette Gréco and Edith Piaf. He was also well known as a screen-writer, his most celebrated films being Les Enfants du Paradis and Le Jour Se Lève. He was described in 1959 as “a short, white-haired man with blue eyes, blunt expressive fingers, cigarette dangling from his lips like a corny Apache dancer.” With Paul Grimault and others, he adapted fairy stories by Hans Christian Andersen as animated films, including Le Roi et l’Oiseau, on which he was working when he died and which was dedicated to him. At the opening night Grimault kept the seat beside him empty for Prévert.

  I

  The first time I saw Lambert was on the day of the big storm. The sky was black, and very low, and you could already hear the waves pounding out to sea.

  He got there just after me, and sat down outside, at a table in the wind. He was facing the sun, and wincing, as if he were crying.

  I looked at him, not because he had taken the worst table, nor because of the face he was making. I looked at him because he was smoking the way you used to, with his eyes staring off into space, and rubbing his thumb over his lips. Dry lips, perhaps even drier than yours.

  I thought he must be a journalist, a storm at equinox, you can get some pretty good photographs. Beyond the breakwater the wind was plowing the waves, driving the currents over by the Raz Blanchard, black rivers that had come a long way, from seas to the north or from the depths of the Atlantic.

  Morgane came out of the auberge. She saw Lambert.

  “You’re not from around here,” she said, when she had asked him what he would like.

  She was sullen, the way she could be when she had to serve the customers in bad weather.

  “Are you here for the storm?”

  He shook his head.

  “For Prévert, then? Everyone comes here for Prévert.”

  “I’m looking for a bed for the night,” he said.

  She shrugged.

  “We don’t do rooms.”

  “Where can I find one?”

  “There’s a hotel in the village, opposite the church … or in La Rogue. Inland. My boss has a friend, an Irishwoman, who has a pension. Would you like her number?”

  He nodded.

  “And can I get something to eat?”

  “It’s three o’clock …”

  “So what?”

  “Well, at three, all we’ve got is ham sandwiches.”

  She pointed to the sky, to the bar of clouds rolling in. Below them, a few rays of sun filtered through. In ten minutes it would be dark as night.

  “It’s going to chuck it down!” she said.

  “That won’t change anything. Six oysters and a glass of wine?”

  Morgane smiled. Lambert was on the handsome side. She felt like giving him a hard time.

  “On the terrace we serve only drinks.”

  I was drinking a black coffee, two tables behind him. There were no other customers. Even inside it was empty.

  Tiny plants with gray leaves had taken root in the cracks in the stone. With the wind, they seemed to be crawling.

  Morgane sighed.

  “I have to ask the patron.”

  She stopped at my table, her red fingernails drumming on the wooden edge.

  “They all come here for Prévert … Why else would anyone come here?”

  She glanced over her shoulder and then disappeared inside. I thought she might not come back, but a moment later she was there with a glass of wine, some bread on a saucer, and the oysters on a bed of seaweed, and she set it all down in front of him.

  Along with the Irishwoman’s telephone number.

  “The patron said, alright for the oysters, but outside, no tablecloths… and you’ll have to hurry because it’s going to pour.”

  I ordered a second coffee.

  He drank his wine. He held his glass awkwardly, but he was a chewer of oysters.

  Morgane piled up the chairs, pushed them all against the wall, and enclosed them with a chain. She waved to me.

  From where I sat, I could see the entire harbor. La Griffue, that’s where we lived, Morgane with her brother Raphaël on the ground floor, and me on my own in the flat above. It was a hundred meters beyond the auberge, you only had to cross the quay, a house built on the edge of the road, almost in the sea. Nothing else around. When there were storms, it was absolutely deluged. The local people said you would have to be mad to live in such a place. They had given it the name La Griffue because of the fingernail sound the tamarisk branches make when they scrape against the shutters.

  It used to be a hotel, before.

  When was before?

  In the 1970s.

  It was not a big harbor. An end-of-the-world sort of place, with a handful of men and only a few boats.

  La Hague.

  To the west of Cherbourg.

  East and west, I always mix them up.

  I came here in the autumn, with the wild ducks, so I had been here a little over six months. I worked for the Centre ornithologique in Caen. I observed the birds, counted them, I had spent the two winter months studying the behavior of cormorants on days of deep frost. Their sense of smell, their eyesight … Hours outdoors in the wind. When spring came, I studied the migrating birds, counted their eggs, their nests. It was re
petitive work, it was what I needed. I was also trying to find out why their population was declining in the region of La Hague.

  I was not well paid.

  But I had a roof over my head.

  And I had yet to see a true storm.

  Two huge gulls came to shriek by the boats, their necks outstretched, their wings slightly spread, their whole bodies yearning toward the sky. Suddenly they fell silent. The sky grew even thicker, it got very dark, but it was not night.

  It was something else.

  Something ominous.

  That is what silenced the birds.

  I had been warned. When it starts, best not be outdoors.

  The fishermen checked the moorings on their boats one last time and then they left, one after the other. A quick glance over our way.

  Men are strong when the sea rises, that is what they say round here. The women make the most of such moments to cling to them. They grab them wherever they happen to be, at the back of the stables or in the hold of a boat. They let themselves be taken.

  The wind was already howling. Perhaps that was what was most violent, even more than the waves. That wind, driving the men away.

  Only our two tables left on the terrace, and no one else about.

  Lambert turned. He looked at me.

  “Bloody weather!” he said.

  Morgane came back out. “Have you finished?”

  She picked up his plate, the bread, my cup.

  The patron had got out his reinforcing rods, and was bolting the door already.

  “We’re in for it!” he said.

  Morgane turned to me.

  “Are you staying?”

  “Two more minutes, yes …”

  I wanted to see, while I still could. See, hear, feel. She shrugged. A first drop of rain splattered on to the tabletop.

  “Put your chairs away when you leave!”

  I nodded. Lambert didn’t reply. She went off at a run, her arms wrapped around her waist, she crossed the space from the auberge to La Griffue, ran up to the door and disappeared inside.

  A first bolt of lightning clapped somewhere above the island of Alderney, a second one closer in. And then the wind came to smash against the breakwater, a first gust, like a battering ram. Boards of wood began to rattle under the shelter where Max was repairing his boat. Somewhere a poorly closed shutter was banging.

  The sea hardened, turned black as if something intolerable were knotting it up inside. The deafening howl of the wind mingled with that of the waves. It was oppressive. I pulled up my collar. I put my chair away.

  Lambert had not moved. He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He seemed calm, indifferent.

  “Are you leaving?”

  I nodded.

  The winds that blow when there is a storm are like the whirlwinds of the damned. It is said they are evil souls who sweep into people’s homes to take what they are owed. What we owe them, that is, we who have stayed behind, the living.

  “Can you sometimes see the stars?” he asked, pointing to the sky above us.

  “Sometimes, yes.”

  “Because in town, you can’t see them any more.”

  The wind tore at his voice.

  He had a slow voice.

  “In town, it’s because of the street-lamps,” he explained.

  He had kept his packet of cigarettes in his hand. He was turning it over and over, a mechanical gesture. His presence made the imminent arrival of the gale even more oppressive.

  “But it’s fairly rare, right?”

  “What’s rare?”

  He hesitated for a few seconds, then ran his thumb over his lip. I looked at him, his face, his eyes, him.

  That gesture he had just made.

  It was right after that, that I heard something whistling. I had time to step back. The shadow that slapped me was red. I felt something bite my cheek. It was a sheet of metal, as big as two hands. It flew over a dozen meters then the wind slammed it to the ground. It scurried it further along. I heard it scrape over the gravel. Like teeth against sand.

  I put my fingers to my face; there was blood.

  “What’s rare?” I heard myself say for the second time, my gaze still held by the metal sheet.

  He lit his cigarette.

  “The stars,” he replied.

  Then he repeated, “It’s rare, to see stars in the sky in town …”

  And then he pointed to my cheek. “You’d better do something about that.”

  In my room, later, with my palms flat against the windowpane, I saw my face, the red mark the metal sheet had left.

  It was hot where it was swollen. You can die from a scratch of loose sheet metal.

  Sheet metal, rust.

  He had talked about cities. He had said, There are places where you no longer see the stars.

  My bare feet on the floor. My fingerprints on the windowpane. I disinfected the scratch with a last drop of alcohol.

  I stayed at the window. My room looked out over the waves. A big bed with a quilt. Two sagging armchairs. On the table was a box with my binoculars, my chronometer, and books about birds. Detailed maps, with photocopies, charts.

  At the bottom of the box, a handful of pens. A logbook. I had been keeping the log for six months. I did not know how long I would be there. Before, I had been a biology professor at the University of Avignon. I taught ornithology. With my students we would go observing the birds in the Camargue. We would spend entire nights inside huts on piles.

  After you, I applied for two years of sabbatical. I thought I would die. I came here.

  The previous tenant had left everything one morning. Apparently he could no longer take the solitude. He had left tins of food in the cupboards, and packets of biscuits. Sugar in a box. Powdered milk, and coffee in little brown sachets. With a green tree on the packet, Fair Trade. Books.

  An old radio. A television. There was no picture, only sound.

  Two bottles beneath the sink. Undrinkable wine, the taste of plastic. And yet I did drink it, alone, one day when the weather was fine.

  I went from one window to the other. I had never seen such a black sky. The clouds formed a leaden cloak above the hills. The boats were rocking. Lambert had left his table, but he was still on the quay. He had buttoned his jacket, and had his hands in his pockets. He was pacing back and forth.

  It was not raining, but the rain was gathering, a frightening mass zigzagged with lightning, still above the sea, but it was coming closer. A first rumbling of thunder. Lambert took a few steps toward the breakwater, but the wind was too strong, it was impossible to go forward. I took my binoculars and focused on his face. Raindrops were lashing his cheeks.

  He stayed there for a long while, then there was a crash of lightning and the rain poured down.

  There were no other cars on the quay, only his. Not another living soul, only the three of us in La Griffue.

  The three of us, and him there, outside.

  He was in the rain.

  A first wave came over the breakwater. Then others. At the same time, an ungodly roar. A bird, caught unawares by the violence of the wind, came and crashed against my window, a huge gull. He stayed there, unable to move for a few seconds, his gaze astonished, and then the wind claimed him, lifted him up, took him away.

  The storm broke. Breakers crashed against the house. My face glued to the window, I tried to see outside. The street-lamps were not lit. There was no more light. In the bursts of lightning, the rocks circling the lighthouse seemed to be shattering in all directions. I had never seen it like this. I do not know if I would have liked to have been anywhere else.

  When I looked down on the quay, I saw that Lambert’s car was no longer there. It was heading toward the village. Taillights in the distance. And then nothing.

  It lasted two hours, a terrible deluge. To the point you could no longer tell earth from water. La Griffue was reeling. I could not tell whether it was the rain that was lashing the windows or the waves that had reached this far
. It made me feel sick. I stood there with my eyelashes against the windowpane, my breath burning. I clung to the walls.

  In the violence, black waves were entwined like bodies. They became walls of water, propelled, driven forward, I saw them coming, fear in my gut, walls smashing against the rocks and coming to dissolve beneath my window.

  These waves, the breakers.

  I loved them.

  They frightened me.

  It was so dark. Several times I thought the wind was going to tear the roof off. I could hear the beams cracking.

  I lit some candles. They melted, white wax dripping on to the wooden table. A strange burning film. In a flash of lightning I could see the quay, flooded as if the sea had risen over the land and swallowed everything. There were other flashes. Bolts of lightning like bars. I thought it would never end.

  Raphaël was in his studio, a huge room just below mine. Wooden floorboards separated us. I could hear him. I could see him, too, all I had to do was lie on the floor and look through a little space between the boards, beneath the carpet, a few millimeters.

  Everyone said it was impossible to live here, so close to the sea. So close, it was as if you were in the sea.

  Was it daytime? Nighttime? I tried to sleep. It was too warm under the quilt. Too cold without it. I closed my eyes. I saw the piece of metal. Its shadow. I heard Lambert’s voice mingling with the night, the horrid scraping sound of the metal. The ticking of my watch on my wrist, it all got mixed up. I woke up, I was sweating.

  The stovepipe ran through my room, heated the air and went back out through the roof. It was a tin stovepipe. The heat caused the pipe to vibrate.

  Raphaël was walking, his steps like those of a wild beast in a cage, he was afraid for his sculptures. Mere plaster, clay. He said all it would take was for one window to explode and everything would be under water.

  He was stuffing his stove with logs as if fire could hold back the sea.

  I could hear him shouting.

  “This house has held out before, it will hold out this time!”

  I went and peered through the crack. He had lit huge candelabras. With the statues, it made his studio look like a church.