The Breakers

by Claudie Gallay

  He did not bat an eyelid. He only remained silent for a moment, and then he nodded.

  “I’m sorry things happened the way they did … To save a few birds, those people dying … I wanted him to believe it was the sea, and only the sea that was to blame, it would have been easier for him.”

  He had changed the subject, going back to Lambert as if to avoid still more difficult words.

  “Easier for him to blame the sea?” I said.

  “Yes … We forgive the sea more easily than we forgive men … I told him everything about that night … It’s what he wanted. At one point, he went outside to sit on the steps, among the cats’ bowls. I thought he had left. He was smoking. After that, he came back. He wanted me to tell him more, from the start, everything … He asked the same questions.”

  He raised his hand, fatalistic.

  “I don’t know where he went.”

  He gave a half-hearted smile. He was tired. The somber face of someone who has slept badly, or not enough. Was it remorse? No doubt my presence was making his fatigue worse.

  Lambert had needed to hear the truth. Was that also why Théo had agreed to tell him? So that he would not go to his grave with his miserable secret? I wanted to ask him if he knew why Nan had stolen the photograph from the Perack grave. I thought that probably it was not very important.

  The cat began to purr.

  Théo got up. He went to the desk, lifted up some papers, put them down again, he was looking for something in his inextricable mess.

  “From time to time, Florelle would spend the night with me, at the lighthouse …”

  That is what he said. Wooden crates were piled on top of each other, as shelves. Inside, there were a few books, their blue covers reminding me of old schoolbooks. At the very top of the crates were dusty knickknacks, and an old wireless radio.

  Another more modern radio was on the windowsill.

  “There was a fisherman who brought her over. He liked us … The sea had to be calm and he had to come at night. He would pick Florelle up again in the morning, when he went home.”

  He had found what he was looking for.

  He said, “On those nights, Ursula slept at the Refuge.”

  That was what he said.

  He put a sheet of paper on the table. A4 format. Folded.

  “You give this to him …”

  He left the room. I could hear him going down the hall and then nothing more. I do not know where he went. Perhaps he went up to the attic, to the skylight where he could see the sea, the lighthouse, and Nan’s house.

  I unfolded the paper. It was a typewritten document, with the stamp of the harbormaster’s office in the upper left-hand corner.

  I read it.

  Report of the wreck of the Sphyrène in the sector of the Cape of La Hague, dated October 19, 1967.

  Place of the accident: le Raz Blanchard

  Type of Vessel: sailing boat.

  Nationality: French.

  Number of occupants: three.

  Number saved: none.

  As reported by Captain Cristian Gweener

  On October 19, 1967, at 23:07, the coastguard station at La Hague received an S.O.S. coming from a sailing boat that had just struck a rock in the middle of the Raz. We were informed that there were three occupants on board. Westerly wind. At 23:30, the lifeboat was launched. Poor visibility. Strong seas, with an ebb tide running against the current.

  At 23:40, we entered the search zone, three nautical miles to the northeast of La Hague. At 23:55 we sighted the sailing boat Sphyrène. The jib and mainsail were torn. We came alongside with great difficulty. There was no one on board. Wind from the west force seven, gusting. The sailing boat was drifting rapidly, driven by the wind and tide. We concentrated our search in the zone, and then further west. At 00:30, the body of one of the sailing boat’s occupants was found. It was a man of 40 years or more, lifeless. Our inflatable dinghy took him back to Goury. We stayed in the zone to try to find the two other members of the crew. The sea was still rough with strong winds and poor visibility. After long hours of fruitless searching, we decided to go back. We were able to tow the sailing boat, but halfway there, the boat began taking on water and sank deeper and deeper. We were obliged to cut the tow line. A quarter of an hour later, the sailing boat disappeared into the water. At 4:10, we were back on land, exhausted by the long night searching.

  The lifeboat was back in its shelter at 4:30.

  A second lifeless body, that of a woman, was found the next morning on the beach known as Écalgrain.

  To this day, the body of the third occupant has not been found.

  Raphaël had begun to sculpt a figure who resembled the Stork.

  “What do you think?” he said, leading me into the studio.

  The body was waiflike, the legs disproportionately long. The Stork in her cape. Raphaël had gouged with his thumbs, to hollow out her belly, to make it a void. All the rest, her head, her arms, seemed to vanish in comparison to the strength of her belly.

  He sat down on the sofa, his knees folded in front of him.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything about it?”

  “No.”

  He smiled.

  “That means it can’t be all that bad, then …”

  He stuck a cigarette between his lips. Everything he used to make his sculptures was spread around on the floor, bits of wood, wire mesh… He did not throw anything away, he liked the mess, he said the bits of wood were the traces of his work.

  “I’ll call her ‘Dying of Hunger.’”

  I curled up next to him on the sofa.

  “When I see you with your eyes like that, I reckon I ought to sculpt you. You look as if you’d swum to get here.”

  “On a raft,” I said, “with two oars.”

  My neck was burning.

  “Oars are what make the difference, especially if you’ve got two of them,” I said, running my hand over the back of my neck.

  “What happens if you’ve only got one?”

  “You go round and round, Raphaël, round and round.”

  He rubbed his hands together and placed his palms against the back of my neck.

  “You’re not exactly tense, are you?” he said.

  He massaged my neck, a regular back and forth motion. I tried to resist, then I closed my eyes. I thought of you. Your smile came back to me. You had said, We’ll part on an odd-numbered day, for a laugh, that is what you said.

  “Your muscles are like cables.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “Did you have an accident?”

  “Of a kind.”

  “What do you mean, of a kind?”

  “Two months spent wandering about with loonies.”

  “On the medical staff side?”

  “No, the patient side.”

  His fingers stopped moving. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Loonies—truly insane people?”

  “Truly insane.”

  “With straitjackets?”

  “Chemical straitjackets. Don’t stop.”

  I had a nerve somewhere that was trapped, blocking the back of my neck. The pain ran all the way along my arm, to the tips of my fingers, I could feel the bar of fire. At night it woke me up.

  “And you got free doses so that you could get high?”

  “Free doses … Pretty good doses, too …”

  “What’s that got to do with your neck?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s since that time.”

  He went on massaging, not speaking.

  “You’re good at it …” I said.

  It made him laugh. He readjusted my collar. He stretched out, both his hands behind his head. He looked at me. He reached out a hand.

  “You coming?”

  He insisted, a quick jerk of his head.

  “Come on …”

  I stretched out, five centimeters between his body and mine. His hand closed again.

  “Relax …”


  There was no more space between us. My head was against his shoulder. I could hear his heart beating. Or perhaps it was mine.

  “Raphaël?”

  “Mmm?”

  “You’re not in love, are you?”

  I could sense he was smiling.

  “No. And you?”

  “I’m not either.”

  He put his lips against my forehead.

  “That’s all right then. No need to worry.”

  M. Anselme had been away for a few days, he had gone to Paris. When I got to Lili’s, he was waiting for me, with a book about Prévert.

  “To be handled with extreme care …”

  I leafed through a few pages. My thoughts were elsewhere. He showed me the letters, photographs, a drawing by Picasso dedicated to Prévert, a postcard from Miró, Prévert with Janine, Prévert with André Breton, Prévert in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

  He was boring me. It was the first time I had felt it so strongly. I saw myself, at this table, with this aging, obsessive man.

  “The first time I met him was at La Colombe d’Or … That same day, he dived fully clothed into a sort of pool that was on the terrace.”

  “A fountain, M. Anselme … You usually call it a fountain …”

  I was annoyed with myself for being unpleasant. I turned my head. Lambert’s house was still closed. His car was no longer outside the house. It was no longer by the quay. The garden had been cleared of its brambles, but Max said that behind the house there was still plenty of work to do.

  The FOR SALE sign was still on the fence.

  “A fountain, yes, you’re right … You must come and see me in Omonville. I’ll show you the house at Le Val, the house where Prévert decided to spend the last years of his life. You will like the place, I’m sure of it!”

  He turned to Lili, and ordered two strong liqueurs from a bottle without a label. He rolled the glass between his hands. It was a transparent liqueur with a good taste of plums. He took a swallow.

  “It’s a stiff concoction,” he said, gasping with surprise. “But sometimes we need it.”

  He looked at me.

  “Am I boring you? My daughter tells me that sometimes, that I’m boring.”

  He closed the book and put it to one side of the table.

  “What is it that is troubling you so today?”

  “Did you know that Théo loved Nan?”

  He looked at me, apparently somewhat surprised by the question.

  “Of course I knew. Everyone knows that here …”

  “And that sometimes she joined him when he was out at the lighthouse?”

  He pointed to Lili and Old Mother.

  “I’ve heard such things said, but … perhaps this is not the best place to speak about them.”

  He put his hands together, his lips against his fingers. His smile, amused. He leaned toward me.

  “You know, the emotions of love … What is it that makes us fall, just like that, at first sight, when we’ve never seen each other before? Sometimes an encounter takes place, then there are all the others that we miss, we are so inattentive … Sometimes, we come upon someone, all we need is to exchange a few words, and we know we are going to experience something vital together. But it wouldn’t take much for these things not to happen at all, and for each of us to go on our way all alone. So, if those two fell in love …”

  He had been speaking in a hushed voice, glancing hastily at Lili.

  “Théo gets letters,” I said.

  “What sort of letters?”

  “I don’t know … There are lots of them … Envelopes all with the same handwriting, in purple ink.”

  “And what is in them?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t read them … They come from a monastery near Grenoble.”

  “Might Théo have family among the monks? I’ve never heard that he does.”

  He settled back into his chair.

  “We could ask Lili, but something tells me that to ask her anything about her father is not exactly wise.”

  He thought for a moment. “Do you have a good rapport with Théo? The simplest thing would be just to ask him. Or, you find a discreet way to borrow one of those letters, you read it, and put it back in its place.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “In that case, let’s talk about something else … Promise me you’ll come and see me in Omonville. Could we agree on tomorrow? No, tomorrow is Friday, my children come on Fridays … They need fresh air. Although they do arrive rather late in the evening. If you come at the beginning of the afternoon, we might be able to arrange it … Or perhaps Monday, on Monday they’ll be gone.”

  “M. Anselme?”

  “Yes?”

  I looked at him.

  “You told me that Nan had adopted a child, isn’t that right? And that his name was Michel?”

  “That is so.”

  “What was his surname?”

  He opened his eyes wide.

  “I don’t know that! I’m not sure anyone ever told me.”

  He thought for a few moments.

  “If you are really that interested, I could ask Ursula.”

  “Does the name Lepage mean anything to you?”

  “Lepage? … No, I don’t think so.”

  “Or Tom Thumb?”

  “Tom Thumb? Gracious me, where on earth are you taking me? Forgive me … No, Tom Thumb doesn’t mean anything to me … Perhaps you could explain?”

  I said, “Tomorrow we’ll visit Prévert’s house and you’ll find the little boy’s surname for me.”

  I went to Omonville along the footpath by the sea. M. Anselme had described his house to me, a garden, a low wooden fence at the front. I had no difficulty recognizing it. When I arrived, he was perched on top of a stepladder, cutting the dead heads from a climbing rose that clung to the façade.

  “It’s a ‘Pierre de Ronsard,’” he said, coming down the stepladder.

  He took off his apron. “Did you come on foot?”

  “Yes.”

  He rubbed his hands.

  “I’ve made you some orangeade, one of my grandmother’s recipes!” he said, hurrying into the house.

  He came back out with a carafe. We drank a glass, talking about the garden. Flower beds full of irises bloomed all along the wall. Daisies. A large jasmine.

  He exchanged his gardening clogs for a pair of cream-colored shoes, and a little silk handkerchief which he pressed down into the breast pocket of his jacket.

  “Shall we go?”

  He held my arm, proudly, as if we were being seen, observed, spied upon.

  “There are shadows everywhere, behind every door, every curtain. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed them? You, for example, everything people say about you, you cannot imagine … The fact that you were seen having lunch the other day in the auberge with that Lambert fellow … All it takes is one person! I don’t know what you see in him either, he dresses badly, he doesn’t comb his hair, and that jacket he wears has no shape! Moreover, he has a very common way of walking.”

  He turned to me. “By the way, has he turned up again?”

  “No, he hasn’t, not yet.”

  The cemetery where Prévert was buried was very near. We planned to stop there and then go on to the house at Le Val.

  M. Anselme was smiling.

  “It’s really very nice that you are here …”

  He was making plans for another outing. He wanted us to go to Cherbourg to buy apple tarts.

  “At 5, place de la Fontaine! Prévert went all that way for that very purpose, every Wednesday! His tartan cap on his head. The patronne didn’t know who he was. When he died, she recognized him on the television. On the evening news. That’s my little Wednesday customer! she said.”

  He turned to me.

  “We shall go there, shan’t we?”

  “I don’t know.”

  That did not stop him from smiling.

  “If you don’t come, I’ll go alone and I’ll bring the t
arts back.”

  It was a beautiful sunny day. People were out in their gardens, on their doorsteps. Washing was drying on the lines.

  My thoughts were elsewhere, he must have realized, because at one point he asked me to tell him what was worrying me.

  I told him everything, about the photograph at Lili’s, the medallion I had found at Nan’s, the truth about the shipwreck. He listened attentively.

  “And now it’s been three days since Lambert disappeared, since his argument with Théo.”

  He thought about what I had said.

  “I’d heard he was boarding with the Irishwoman at La Rogue?”

  “Yes … but I don’t know if he’s still there.”

  “There must be a telephone there … why don’t you call?”

  He said, “The death of the Peracks, therefore, was the unforeseeable consequence of an act of love, a lighthouse keeper’s passion for his birds.”

  He said it again, the unforeseeable consequence.

  As for Michel, however, he knew nothing. He would have to speak to Ursula.

  We went into the cemetery. Prévert’s grave was close to the fence, a tall stone on which little pebbles from the beach had been laid. The pebbles formed a fragile pyramid that was collapsing under its own weight. M. Anselme caressed the stone.

  “The only time that these great men belong to us, in a way, is once they are dead. We can invite ourselves to visit without going through some great useless formality.”

  He laid the creamy-white flower he had taken from his rosebush on the grave.

  “Prévert himself chose this spot near the rubbish bins. He knew, and he didn’t care.”

  The two graves next to his, Janine’s and Minette’s. And behind, in the shadow of the wall, was the grave of his friend Trauner.

  “He died in April, on Easter Monday. Two days earlier, journalists had begun to camp outside his house. Janine cried a great deal. She threw her bouquet on to the coffin. It was such a lovely bouquet! We all threw flowers.”

  Ivy had taken root in the earth. I dug in my pockets. I brought out a smooth red stone and placed it with the others.

  M. Anselme took my arm. His step, in time with mine. We continued along the path. Large flowers grew among the brambles, giant fuchsias spreading their blooms all the way into the bushes. The flowers were seeking the light. The ones that could not break through the bushes were crawling along the earth.