All around us, bombed-out streets, ruined, gutted houses. Bodies like ragdolls hanging from machines. In the fields around the village there are dead horses as far as you can see, bloated and black like dead elephants. The crows dip and swoop over the carcasses, their piercing cries make the living wince. Cohorts of pitiful prisoners come into the town, wasted with disease and wounds. With them, mules, lame horses, emaciated donkeys. The air is foul, the fumes, the smell of cadavers. Effluvia of a musty, cellar-like odour. A German shell has sealed up a tunnel where some French soldiers had sought shelter for the night. A man is lost, searching for his company. He clings to me, repeating, ‘I’m from the 110th Infantry. The 110th. Do you know where they are?’ In a mortar crater, at the foot of the ruins of the chapel where the dead and dying are piled one on top of the other, the Red Cross has set up a table. We sleep in the Frégicourt trench, then the following night in the Iron Doors trench. We pursue our march across the plain. At night the tiny lights of the artillery posts are our sole points of reference. Sailly-Saillisel is ahead of us, enveloped in a black cloud like that of a volcano. Cannon thunder very nearby, to the north, on the hills of Batack, to the south, in the Saint-Pierre-Vaast Wood.
Battles in the village streets by night, with grenades, rifles, revolvers. Blackened basement windows, the LMGs spray the intersections, cutting down men. I listen to the heavy pounding, breathe in the smell of sulphur, of phosphorous, shadows dance in the clouds. ‘Hold on! Don’t shoot!’ Along with men I don’t know (French? Haig’s Englishmen?) I’m huddled up in a ditch. Mud. We’ve been short on water for days. Fever is burning in my body, I’m seized with a fit of vomiting. The acrid smell fills my throat, in spite of myself, I shout, ‘The gas! The gas is coming…!’ I believe I see blood gushing out incessantly, filling the holes, the ditches, rushing into the toppled houses, trickling into the ravaged fields just at daybreak.
Two men are carrying me. They drag me, holding me up by the shoulders, over to the Red Cross shelter. I lie on the ground for such a long time I feel as if I’ve turned into a hot stone. Then I’m in the van that is bumping along, zigzagging to avoid the bomb craters. In the lazaretto in Albert the doctor looks like Camal Boudou. He checks my temperature, palpates my stomach. ‘Typhus,’ he says. And then adds (but I think I must have dreamt that), ‘It’s lice who win the wars.’
Heading for Rodrigues,
summer 1918–1919
Freedom at last: the sea. For all of these grim, lifeless years, this is what I’ve been waiting for: the moment I would be on the deck of the liner with the crowd of demobilized soldiers heading back to India, to Africa. We gaze out to sea from dawn to dusk, and even at night, when the moon lights our wake. Once past the Suez Canal, nights are so very mild. We sneak out of the holds to sleep on deck. I roll up in my army blanket, one of the only souvenirs I’m bringing back from the army, along with my khaki jacket and the canvas duffel bag my papers are in. I’ve been sleeping out of doors, in the mud, for such a long time that the wooden deck and the star-filled dome above me seem like paradise. The other soldiers and I talk in Creole, in Pidgin, we sing, tell each other interminable stories. The war is already a legend, transformed by the storyteller’s imagination. On deck with me there are Seychellois, Mauritians, South Africans. But not a single one of the Rodriguans who answered the call to arms with me in front of the telegraph office. I remember Casimir’s joy when his name was called. Could I be the only survivor, having escaped the massacre only by the grace of lice?
Now I’m thinking about Laure. When it’s authorized, I go all the way up to the end of the prow, near the capstan and look out at the horizon. I think of Laure’s face as I gaze at the dark-blue sea, at the clouds. We’re just off Aden, then we’ll be sailing around Cape Guardafui, towards the large ports whose names Laure and I used to dream of back in the days of Boucan: Mombasa, Zanzibar. We’re heading for the equator and the air is already searing, nights are dry, illuminated with stars. I keep an eye out for flying fish, for albatrosses, for dolphins. Each day it seems as if I can see Laure more clearly, can hear her voice more clearly, see her ironic smile, the light in her eyes. In the Sea of Oman a magnificent tempest comes upon us. Not a cloud in the sky, a furious wind pushing the waves against the liner, a moving cliff wall that the wild rams of the sea are battering up against. Pushed sideways, the vessel is tossing violently, waves are sweeping across the lower deck, where we’re standing. Whether we like it or not we’re forced to abandon our holiday spot and descend into the nauseating, oven-hot holds again. The crewmen inform us that it’s the tail end of a storm passing over Socotra and, sure enough, that very evening torrential rains come driving down upon the ship, flooding the holds. We relay one another to pump out the water as rivers wash through the holds between our legs, sweeping garbage and trash along with them! But when the sea and the sky have grown calm again, they are so resplendent! On all sides the blue immensity of the sea with the long waves trimmed in foam moving slowly along with us.
Stopovers in the ports of Mombasa, Zanzibar, the journey out to Tamatave, have all gone by very quickly. I hardly left my spot on the deck, except when the sun grew too hot in the afternoons or when there were showers. I almost never took my eyes off the sea, I watched it change colours and moods, sometimes smooth, without a wave, riffling in the wind, other times so very hard, horizonless, grey with rain, roaring, heaving its billows at us. I think about the Zeta again, about the journey to English Bay. It all seems so far away, Ouma slipping over the sand in the river, harpoon in hand, her body sleeping close against mine, under the glittering sky. Here, thanks to the sea, I’ve finally found the rhythm, the colour of dreams again. I know I must go back to Rodrigues. It’s a part of me, I have to go. Will Laure understand?
When the long pirogue that makes its way to and fro in the harbour of Port Louis finally moors at the wharf, I’m dazed by the crowd, the smells, just as I was in Mombasa, and for a second I feel like going back on board the big liner that will cast off and pursue its journey. But suddenly, in the shade of the trees of the Intendance, I see Laure’s silhouette. The next instant she’s hugging me in her arms, dragging me through the streets to the train station. Even though we’re both very moved, we’re talking quietly, as if we’d parted only yesterday. She asks me questions about the journey, the military hospital, she talks about the letters she wrote to me. Then she asks, ‘But why have they cut your hair like a convict’s?’ At that I can answer, ‘Because of the lice!’ And there is a moment of silence. Then she starts questioning me again about England, about France, as we walk towards the station through the streets that I no longer recognize.
After all these years Laure has changed, and I don’t think I would have recognized her if she hadn’t been standing off to one side, wearing the same white dress she had on when I left for Rodrigues. In the second-class passenger carriage, heading for Rose Hill and Quatre Bornes, I notice her pale complexion, the rings under her eyes, the bitter wrinkles on either side of her mouth. She’s still pretty, with that flame in her eyes, the wary alertness that I love, but with an added touch of weariness, weakness.
I feel my heart sink when we near the house at Forest Side. In the rain that seems as if it’s been falling for years, it is even darker, sadder. At first glance I notice the veranda that is collapsing, the little garden overrun with weeds, the broken window panes that have been replaced with oil-paper. Laure follows my gaze and says very quietly, ‘We’re poor now.’ My mother comes out to meet us, she stops on the steps of the veranda. Her face is tense, worried, unsmiling, she’s shading her eyes as if trying to see us. Yet we’re only a few yards away. I realize she’s almost blind. When I am next to her, I take her hands. She hugs me very close to her breast without saying anything for a long time.
In spite of the hardship, the neglected state of the house, that evening and the days that follow I am happier than I have been in a good while. It’s as if I’ve found myself at l
ast, as if I’ve become my old self again.
December: despite the rain that falls every afternoon on Forest Side, this summer is the finest and the freest I’ve spent in a long time. Thanks to the bundle I was given on the day we were demobilized – along with the Military Medal and the DCM (the medal for Distinguished Conduct in the Field), and the rank of First Class Warrant Officer – we won’t be in need for some time and I can roam the region as I will. Laure often comes with me and we set out across the cane fields on bicycles that I bought in Port Louis, headed for Henrietta, for Quinze Cantons. Or else we take the road to Mahébourg, crowded with carts, out to Nouvelle France, then follow the muddy paths to Cluny, or cross the tea fields to Bois Chéri. Mornings, when we’ve come out of the mist around Forest Side, the sun shines down on the dark foliage, the wind makes the cane fields ripple. Carefree, we ride along, zigzagging between the puddles, me wearing my uniform jacket and Laure in her white dress and sporting a large straw hat. In the fields the women in gunny cloth stop working to watch us go by. Around one o’clock we pass the women coming back from the fields on the road to Quinze Cantons. They walk along slowly, long skirts swinging, hoes balancing on their heads. They call out to us in Creole, make fun of Laure, who’s pedalling with her dress bunched between her legs.
One afternoon Laure and I are riding out beyond Quinze Cantons and we cross the Rempart River. The path is so difficult we need to abandon our bicycles, which we hide hastily in the cane. Despite the burning sun, the path is like a torrent of mud and we have to take off our shoes. Just like back in the old days, we’re walking barefoot in the warm mud and Laure has hitched up her white dress to look like the loose pants Indian women wear.
With my heart racing, I head for the peaks of Trois Mamelles towering above the cane fields like strange termite mounds. The sky, so clear a little while ago, has filled with large clouds. But we pay no heed. Driven by the same desire, we are walking as fast as we can through the sharp cane leaves, without stopping. The cane fields end at the Papaya River. After that there are the vast, grassy fields with, here and there, those piles of black stones that Laure calls martyrs’ graves, in honour of the people who died working in the cane fields. Then, at the end of that steppe, between the peaks of Trois Mamelles, we come out before the stretch of coast land that runs from Wolmar all the way down to Black River. When we reach the pass, the sea wind hits us. Huge clouds are rolling over the sea. The wind is exhilarating after the heat in the cane fields. We remain standing still for a moment, taking in the view stretching before us as if no time has gone by, as if we’d left Boucan only yesterday. I glance at Laure. Her face is closed and hard, but her breathing is laboured, and when she turns towards me, I see tears shining in her eyes. It’s the first time she’s come back to see our childhood landscape. She sits in the grass and I settle down beside her. Not talking, we gaze out at the hills, the shaded streams, the rise and fall of the land. In vain, I look for our house near the banks of the Boucan River, behind the Tourelle de Tamarin. But all signs of an edifice have disappeared and in place of the thickets there are large swathes of burned land. Laure speaks out first, as if to answer the questions I’m asking myself.
‘Our house isn’t there any more, Uncle Ludovic demolished everything long ago, while you were in Rodrigues, I think. He didn’t even wait for the court to make a ruling.’
Anger strangles my voice, ‘But why, how could he?’
‘He said he wanted to use the land for cane, that he didn’t need the house.’
‘What a dirty trick! If I’d known that, if I’d been here…’
‘What would you have done? We couldn’t do anything. I hid everything from Mam, to keep from upsetting her even more. She wouldn’t have been able to bear such ruthless determination to destroy our house.’
Blurry-eyed, I look at the magnificent stretch of land before me, the sea sparkling as the sun draws near, and the shadow of the Tourelle de Tamarin growing longer. From having scanned the banks of the Boucan so thoroughly I believe I’ve spotted something like a scar in the brush, in the place where the house and garden once were, and the dark patch of the ravine where we used to go and daydream, perched in the old tree. Laure goes on talking, to console me. Her voice is calm, her pain has eased now.
‘You know it doesn’t matter any more that the house is gone. That was all so long ago now, it was another life. What counts is that you’ve come back, and anyway Mam is quite old, we’re all she’s got. What’s a house, after all? An old karya-eaten shack full of holes that let in the rain? There’s no reason to regret that it doesn’t exist any more.’
‘No, I can’t forget it, I’ll never forget it!’ Unrelentingly, I examine the still landscape under the skittering sky. I scrutinize every detail, every water hole, every stand of trees, from the Black River Gorges all the way to Tamarin. Fires are smoking on the shore, over by Grande Rivière Noire, by Gaulette. Maybe Denis is over there – like in the old days, in Old Cook’s cabin – and from having searched for so long in the golden light illuminating the shore and the sea, it seems as if I’ll soon be able to make out the shadows of the children we once were, running through the tall grasses barefoot with scratched faces, tattered clothing, in that limitless world, waiting in the dusk light for the flight of the two tropicbirds over the mystery of Mananava.
The elation of homecoming soon passes. First of all there is the post in the offices of W. W. West, the post I’d occupied long ago, which they feigned belief that I’d left in order to go to war. Once again the dusty smell, the moist heat that filters through the shutters along with the brouhaha of Rempart Street. The indifferent employees, the clients, the merchants, the accountants… For all of those people, nothing has changed. The world hasn’t budged. Yet Laure told me that one day in 1913, while I was in Rodrigues, crowds of starving people, reduced to poverty by cyclones, had gathered in front of the train station, a throng of Indians, of blacks from the plantations, women in gunny cloth with their children in their arms, they’d all come together there – not shouting, not making any noise – in front of the station, and they waited for the arrival of the train from the highlands, the one that brings the whites, the owners of the banks, the shops and the plantations from Vacoas, from Curepipe. They waited for them a long time, patiently at first, then gradually – as time went by – with growing resentment, growing despair. What would have happened had the whites come that day? Having been warned of the danger, they hadn’t taken the train for Port Louis. They’d stayed home and waited for the police to take care of the problem. So the crowd was dispersed. There were perhaps a few Chinese shops looted, stones thrown at the windows of Crédit Foncier or even those of W. W. West. And then everything blew over.
My cousin Ferdinand, Uncle Ludovic’s son, lords over the office. He pretends he doesn’t know me, treats me like his servant. I feel anger mounting within me and the only reason I resist the temptation to lay into him is because of Laure, who would so like me to stay. As in the past, I spend every free second walking around the wharves among the sailors and dockers, by the fish market. What I would like more than anything else is to see the Zeta, Captain Bradmer and the Comorian helmsman again. I wait for a long time in the shade of the trees of the Intendance, hoping to see the schooner arrive with its armchair screwed down to the deck. It’s already inside me, I know I’ll go away again.
Every evening in my room in Forest Side I open the old trunk, rusted from its days in English Bay, and look at the treasure papers, the maps, the sketches and the notes I accumulated and sent back from Rodrigues before leaving for Europe. When I look at them I see Ouma, her body diving suddenly into the sea, swimming free, holding her long harpoon with its ebony tip.
Every day the desire to return to Rodrigues grows stronger, the longing to get back to the silence and peace of that valley, the sky, the clouds, the sea that belongs to no one. I want to flee the ‘upper crust’, spitefulness, hypocrisy. Ever since the Cernéen published an article a
bout ‘Our World War Heroes’, in which my name is cited and I am credited with purely imaginary acts of bravery, Laure and I are suddenly on all the invitation lists for parties in Port Louis, in Curepipe, in Floréal. Laure accompanies me, wearing the same worn white dress, we converse and dance. We go to the Champ de Mars or have tea at the Flore. I think about Ouma all the time, about the cries of the birds that fly over the bay every morning. The people from here are the ones who seem imaginary, unreal to me. I’m fed up with these false honours. One day, without telling Laure, I leave my grey clerk’s suit at Forest Side and dress in my old khaki jacket and trousers that I brought back from the war, stained and torn from life in the trenches. I also put on my officer’s insignia and decorations – the MM and the DCM – and after the offices of W. W. West have closed in the afternoon, still in the same accoutrement, I go sit in the tearoom at the Flore, after having had a few glasses of arak. From that day on, as if by magic, I stopped receiving invitations from the chic set.
Yet the boredom I feel and the yearning to flee are so intense that Laure can’t be blind to them. One evening she’s waiting for me when the train arrives at Curepipe, as in the old days. The thin drizzle in Forest Side has dampened her white dress and her hair and she’s standing under a large leaf for shelter. I tell her she looks like Virginie and that makes her smile. We walk along the muddy road together among the Indians, who are returning home before nightfall.
The Prospector Page 26
