The Prospector

by J. M. G. Le Clézio

  At daybreak I am gradually able to make out the shapes around me. Then with great relief, I slowly understand that, without realizing it, I’ve slept in the remnants of an old Manaf campsite. Digging into the earth with my bare hands, I discover among the stone, the traces I was looking for: bits of glass, rusted cans, shells. Now I can clearly see the circles of the corrals, the bases of the huts. Is this all that is left of the village where Ouma lived? And what became of them? Did they all die of hunger and fever, abandoned by everyone? If they went away, they didn’t have time to cover their traces. They must have fled the death that was swooping down upon them. I stand still in the middle of these ruins feeling utterly discouraged.

  When the sun is again burning high in the sky, I go back down through the thorn bushes on the slope of Mont Limon. Soon the screw pines, the dark foliage of the tamarind trees, appear. Out at the end of the long Roseaux River Valley I can see the sea gleaming like steel, the vast stretch of sea that holds us prisoners.

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  Summer, winter, then the rainy season again. I’ve been dreaming all of this time in English Bay, with nothing to go by, unable to understand what is going on inside me. Little by little I’ve begun my explorations again, measuring the distance between rocks, tracing new lines in the invisible network that covers the valley. I live and move around on that spider web.

  Never have I felt so close to the secret. Now I no longer feel the febrile impatience I did in the beginning, seven or eight years ago. Back then I would discover a new sign or symbol every day. I’d go back and forth between the banks of the valley, leaping from rock to rock, digging probe holes everywhere. I was burning with impatience, with impetuosity. Back then I couldn’t hear Ouma, couldn’t see her. I was blinded by this stony landscape, I was waiting for a shift in the shadows that would reveal a new secret.

  Today all of that is past. There is a faith within me that I wasn’t aware of. Where did it come from? Faith in those blocks of basalt, in this ravined earth, faith in the thin trickle of the river, in the sand dunes. Perhaps it comes from the sea, the sea that encircles the island and makes its deep sound, the sound that breathes. All of that is in my body, I’ve finally understood that in coming back to English Bay. It’s a power that I believed was lost. So now I’m no longer hurried. Sometimes I sit still for hours in the dunes near the estuary, looking at the sea on the coral reefs, watching for the mangrove herons and the gulls to fly over. Or else in the shelter of my hut, when the sun is at its place in the noonday sky, after having had a few boiled crabs and a little coconut milk for lunch, I write in the school notebooks that I bought at the Chinaman’s store in Port Mathurin. I write letters to Ouma or to Laure, letters they won’t read, in which I talk about things of little importance, the sky, the shape of the clouds, the colour of the sea, ideas that pop into my head out here deep in English Bay. Nights also, when the sky is cold and the swollen moon prevents me from sleeping, sitting with my legs crossed in front of the door, I light the storm lamp and smoke, while I draw exploration maps in other notebooks to keep track of my progress towards the secret.

  As I walk aimlessly along the beach of the Bay, I collect odds and ends that have been washed up on the sand, seashells, fossil sea urchins, shells of tek-tek shrimp. I tuck these things very carefully away in my empty biscuit tins. I’m collecting them for Laure, and I remember the things Denis used to bring back from his treks. Fritz Castel and I are sounding the sand in the back of the bay and I find strangely shaped stones, mica schist, flints. One morning, as we’re taking turns digging with our picks, in the place where the Roseaux River makes a bend to the west, following the course of its original outlet to the sea, we uncover a large, soot-black basalt rock that has, at its top, a series of notches made with a chisel. Kneeling before the rock, I try to decipher the marks. My companion is observing me with a look of curiosity, of fear on his face: what in God’s name have we brought out of the sand in the river?

  ‘Look! Look close!’

  The young black man hesitates. Then he kneels down beside me. On the black stone I show him each of the notches, which correspond to the mountains that are before us here on the floor of the valley.

  ‘Look, this is Mont Limon. That’s Mont Lubin, Patate. This is the towering Mont Malartic. Here, the two Charlots, and there, the Commander’s Garret with the watchtower. Everything is marked on this stone. This is where he landed back then, he used this stone to tie up his pirogue, I’m certain of it. These are all the landmarks he used to draw up his secret plan.’

  Fritz Castel straightens up. The same expression of curiosity mingled with fear is still on his face. What, whom is he afraid of? Of me or of the man who marked this stone so long ago?

  Since that day Fritz Castel hasn’t come back. Isn’t it for the best? In this solitude I can better understand the reasons for my being in this sterile valley. Now I feel as if nothing is separating me from the stranger that came to leave his secret here before dying almost two hundred years ago.

  How could I have lived without noticing what was around me, seeking only gold here, planning to flee once I’d found it? The soundings in the earth, the heavy work of moving boulders around, was all a profanation. Now, in my solitude and abandonment, I understand that, I see. This entire valley is like a grave. It is mysterious, wild, it’s a place of exile. I recall Ouma’s words, when she spoke to me for the first time, her ironic, hurt tone when she was dressing the wound to my head.

  ‘Are you really all that fond of gold?’

  At the time I hadn’t understood, I was amused by what I took for naivety. I didn’t think there was anything else to be had in this harsh valley, it never occurred to me that the strange, wild girl knew the secret. Isn’t it too late now?

  Alone amid these stones, with nothing to fall back on but these bundles of documents, these maps, these notebooks in which I’ve written down my life!

  I think back on the time when I was gradually discovering the world around Boucan Embayment. I think of the days when I would run through the grass, chasing the birds that circle eternally over Mananava. I’ve started talking to myself again, just like I used to. I sing the lyrics to ‘The Taniers River’, the refrain we used to sing with Old Cook as he slowly rocked us.

  Waï, waï, mo zenfant,

  Faut travaï, pou gagne so pain…

  Yeh, yeh mi pickney,

  Haffi wuk fi get yuh bread…

  That voice is inside me once again. I watch the water in the Roseaux River flowing out to the estuary as everything melts into the dusk. I forget about the burn of day, the fretfulness of the exploration at the foot of the cliff, the probe holes I’ve dug for nothing. When night settles with that barely perceptible rustling of the reeds, that gentle murmur of the sea. Wasn’t this the way it used to be over by the Tourelle de Tamarin, when I’d watch the shallow valleys being drowned in shadow, when I’d try to spot the wisp of smoke over by Boucan?

  At last I have found the freedom of night again, when lying on the bare earth, eyes open, I used to communicate with the centre of the sky. Alone in the valley, I watch the world of stars opening out and the still cloud of the Milky Way. One by one I recognize all the patterns of my childhood, Hydra, the Lion, the Larger Dog, proud Orion wearing his jewels on his shoulders, the Southern Cross and its followers and, as always, the Argo, drifting in space, its stern to westward, lifted on the invisible wave of night. I remain lying in the black sand near the Roseaux River, not sleeping, not dreaming. I can feel the soft light of the stars on my face, I can feel the rotation of the earth. In the peaceful summer silence, with the distant lowing of the breakers, the patterns of the constellations are legends. I see all of the routes in the sky, the points that shine brighter, like beacons. I see the secret trails, the dark wells, the traps. I think of the Mysterious Corsair, who might have slept on this beach so very long ago. Maybe he’d known that old tamarind tree that now lies dead under the ground. Did he not avidly study this sky, which guided him out to the island?
Stretched out on the soft sand after violent battles, murders, this is where he was able to savour peace and repose, sheltered from the sea winds by the coconut trees and the hyophorbes. I’ve leapt over time, vertiginously, in gazing at the stars in the sky. The Corsair is here, he is breathing within me, and I’m contemplating the sky through his eyes.

  How can it be I didn’t think of it earlier? The lay of English Bay mirrors the universe. The very simple layout of the valley never stopped expanding, filling with signs, with landmarks. Soon that crisscrossing hid the truth of this place from me. Heart racing, I jump to my feet, run over to my hut, where the night light is still burning. In the flickering light of the flame I look through my bag for the maps, the documents, the grids. I take the papers and the lamp outside and, sitting facing southwards, I compare my maps with the patterns in the night sky. In the centre of the map, the place where I put the boundary stone long ago, the intersection of the north-south line with the axis of the mooring rings corresponds with the Cross that is shining before me with its magical glow. To the east, above the ravine whose shape it describes exactly, Scorpius curls its body with red Antares at its heart, throbbing in the very place where I discovered the Corsair’s two caches. Looking westwards, above the three points that form the ‘M’ of the Commander’s Watchtower, I see the Three Marys of Orion’s Belt that have just appeared over the mountains. Northwards, in the direction of the sea, there is the Chariot, light, elusive, showing the entrance to the pass, and, farther out, the curve of the Argo, which depicts the form of the bay and whose stern reaches up the estuary to the edges of the olden shore. I need to close my eyes against the reeling. Am I the victim of another hallucination? But these stars are living, eternal, and the earth beneath them mirrors their patterns. Thus, the secret I’ve been seeking has always been inscribed in the heavens, where no error is possible. Without realizing it, I’ve been seeing it ever since I used to look up at the stars, back in the Alley of Stars.

  Where is the treasure? Is it in Scorpius, in Hydra? Is it in the southern triangle that joins the points ‘H’, ‘D’, ‘B’ that I located in the middle of the valley in the very beginning? Is it at the stem of the Argo or at the stern, marked by the lights Canopus and Miaplacidus, which gleam every day in the form of the two basalt rocks on either side of the bay? Is it in the gem Fomalhaut, the solitary star whose brightness is disconcerting – like a sharp stare – the star that rises to the zenith like a night sun?

  I’ve been keeping watch all night, haven’t slept a minute, tingling from head to foot with this heavenly revelation, examining each constellation, each sign. I remember the starry nights in Boucan, when I used to slip noiselessly out of the hot bedroom, seeking the coolness of the garden. Back then, like now, I thought I could feel the patterns of the stars on my skin and when it was daylight I would copy them in the dirt or in the sand of the ravine, using little pebbles.

  Morning has come, paling the sky. Just like in the old days I’ve finally fallen asleep in the daylight, not far from the mound were the old tamarind tree lies.

  Ever since I unlocked the secret of the Corsair’s map I no longer feel hurried in the least. For the first time since I came back from the war it seems as if my quest has taken on a different meaning. Before, I didn’t know what I was looking for, who I was looking for. I was stuck in an illusion. Now I’ve been relieved of a great weight, I can live freely, breathe. Now, just as I used to when I was with Ouma, I’m able to walk, swim, dive into the water of the lagoon to fish for sea urchins. I made a harpoon with a long reed and an ironwood point. As Ouma taught me, I dive naked into the cold, dawn sea just when the current of the rising tide is running through the opening in the reefs. Swimming flush with the coral, I look for fish, for breams, groupers, emperors. Sometimes I see the blue loom of a shark and I remain motionless, not letting any air out, turning to face it. Now I can swim just as far as Ouma, just as fast. I know how to grill fish on the beach, on racks of green reeds. Near my hut I’ve planted some corn, some fava beans, sweet potatoes, christophines. I put a young papaya tree that Fritz Castel gave me in a tin pot.

  In Port Mathurin people are beginning to wonder. One day when I go in to withdraw some money, the director of Barclay’s says, ‘Well there? You don’t come into town very often any more, do you? Does that mean you’ve lost all hope of finding your treasure?’

  I look at him, smiling and answer firmly, ‘On the contrary, sir. It means I’ve found it.’

  I went out without waiting for any further questions.

  In fact, I go down to the sea wall every day, hoping to see the Zeta. It’s been months since it came into Rodrigues. The transporting of goods and passengers is now provided by the Frigate, a steamer from the all-powerful British India Steamship of which Uncle Ludovic is the representative in Port Louis. That’s the boat that brings the mail, the letters Laure has been sending me for several weeks in which she talks of Mam’s illness. Laure’s last letter, dated 2 April 1921, is even more pressing. I keep the envelope in my hand, not daring to open it. I wait under the awning of the landing stage, surrounded by the agitation of sailors and dockers, looking at the clouds gathering over the sea. There’s talk of a storm coming, the barometer is falling by the hour. Around one o’clock in the afternoon, when things have calmed down again, I finally open Laure’s letter, in reading the first words, I’m grief-stricken:

  My dear Ali, when this letter reaches you, if it ever reaches you, I don’t know whether Mam will still be alive…

  My eyes grow blurry. I know that this is the end of everything now. Nothing can keep me here, since Mam is so ill. The Frigate will be here in a few days, I’ll sail with it. I send a telegram to Laure to inform her of my return, but silence has crept into me, it accompanies me everywhere.

  The storm starts blowing during the night and I’m awakened by a feeling of anxiety: at first it’s a slow, persistent wind in the oppressively dark night. In the morning I see the torn shreds of clouds darting rapidly over the valley, the sun casting quick flashes between them. In the shelter of my hut I hear the roaring of the sea on the coral reefs, a terrifying, almost animal sound, and I realize a hurricane is sweeping down upon the island. I don’t have a second to lose. I take my duffel bag and, leaving my other belongings in the hut, climb up the hill to Venus Point. The only place to seek refuge from the hurricane is in the telegraph buildings.

  When I come up in front of the large grey hangars, I see the neighbouring inhabitants that have gathered there: men, women, children, even dogs and pigs that the people have brought with them. An Indian employee of the telegraph company announces that the barometer is already below 30. Around noon the howling wind reaches Venus Point. The buildings begin to shake, the electric lights go out. Torrential rains come pelting down on the sheet metal of the walls and roof like a waterfall. Someone has lit a storm lamp that lights up the faces grotesquely.

  The hurricane lasts all day long. In the evening we fall asleep, exhausted, on the floor of the hangar, listening to the howling wind and the creaking metal framework of the buildings.

  At dawn the silence awakens me. Outside the wind has died down, but we can hear it roaring out on the reefs. The people are gathered on the headland in front of the main telegraph building. When I draw near I see what they are looking at: on the coral reef in front of Venus Point is a shipwrecked vessel. At less than a mile from shore, we can clearly make out the broken masts, the gouged-out hull. Only half of the ship is left, the upright stern, and the furious waves are breaking on the wreck, tossing up clouds of foam. The name of the ship is on everyone’s lips, but at the very moment I hear it I’ve already recognized it: it’s the Zeta. On the stern I can see the old armchair screwed down to the deck where Captain Bradmer used to sit. But where is the crew? No one knows anything. The shipwreck took place during the night.

  I run down to the shore, walk along the devastated coast strewn with branches and stones. I hope to find a pirogue, someone who can help me, but in vain. There�
��s no one on the shore.

  Maybe in Port Mathurin, the lifeboat? But I’m just too anxious, I can’t wait. I take off my clothing, enter the water, slipping on the rocks, slapped by the waves. The sea is raging, washing over the coral reef, the water is troubled like that of a flooding river. I swim against the current that is so strong I make no headway. The roaring of the breaking waves is directly in front of me, I can see curtains of foam thrown up into the dark sky. The wreck is barely a hundred yards away, the sharp teeth of the reefs have cut it in two where the masts rose from the deck. The sea is covering the deck, swirling around the empty armchair. I can’t get any closer without running the danger of being crushed against the reefs myself. I want to shout, call ‘Bradmer…!’ But my voice is drowned out by the thundering of the waves and even I can’t hear it! For a long moment I swim against the sea, which is sweeping over the reef. The wreck is lifeless, it looks like it ran aground here centuries ago. Shivers are running through my body, cutting short my breath. I have to give up, turn back. Slowly I allow myself to be carried along on the waves with the debris from the storm. When I reach shore I am so weary and desperate I can’t even feel that my knee has been injured from having knocked against a rock.

  In the beginning of the afternoon the wind stops completely. The sun shines down on the ravaged land and sea. It’s all over. Staggering, on the verge of fainting, I walk towards English Bay. Near the telegraph buildings, everyone is outside, laughing, talking loudly: having escaped unscathed with nothing but a good fright.

  When I am just above English Bay I see the ruined landscape. The Roseaux River is a dark torrent of mud crashing loudly down into the valley. My hut has disappeared, the trees and screw pines have been uprooted and nothing is left of the vegetables I planted. On the floor of the valley there is nothing but gullied-out land and blocks of basalt that have sprung up from the earth. Everything I left in my cabin has vanished: my clothes, my cooking pots, but especially my theodolite and most of the documents concerning the treasure.