“Good God, you were at Levet. No one has come from there in days, the few who weren’t drowned.”
Everyone thought they were dead, the people from Levet and the surrounding area, the land was too low-lying. Everything was inundated the day of the cataclysm, with the exception of the statues in Vallone and a few of the highest hills. Pata listens and begins to tremble: how do they know, how is this possible, he looks at Madie whose eyes are open wide, questioning, shaking her head, and yet, it is so simple. The early days after the tidal wave, the higher ground was overrun by refugees, half-drowned, exhausted, lost. Everything was reorganized to deal with the emergency, improbable shelters were found—sheepfolds, stables, garages; there were injured people to be tended, the dead that people had brought with them, to be buried; and then, very soon afterwards, rescue operations were set in motion to scour the new sea for survivors. With motorboats crisscrossing the flooded territory, they covered hundreds of miles over a star-shaped pattern, methodically, painstakingly sailing back and forth to find a few miraculous survivors, some of whom had gone mad. That is how they knew the statues in Vallone were still above water: they were there two days ago. And just when one of the men exclaims, But we should have seen you, which way did you go, how did we miss you, you must have drifted miles away, Madie lets out a wild cry, one hand to her lips, The children, the children!
The man in uniform frowns.
“The children?”
“On the island… there were three children.”
“No, madam, there was nothing.”
“Yes, yes! Three children, two boys and a girl! Didn’t you find them? Tell me you found them!”
“Madam, I’m sorry. In fact… there was no island.”
The father reaches out just as the mother collapses, holds onto her with all his strength. To make sure, he says:
“What did you say?”
Madie’s mouth is wide open, a huge cry inside her that cannot come out. Pata can feel it throbbing right into his flesh, then she repeats, almost inaudibly:
“What did you say?”
“Everything was flooded, madam. We did find the place where your village used to be, but it was completely covered in water. You say there were still people there?”
But Madie no longer hears them, she has turned to Pata who is still holding her, her eyes glued to him, horrified, The children—so the father begins to sob because he has understood, he knew all along, he just hoped his predictions would be wrong, that they would have time to go back. He spent his nights praying that he had been wrong once again, that the water would ease off and give them a chance. But it hadn’t. No one ever listens to him.
Softly, not looking at her, he murmurs to Madie, Sshh, sshh… wipes his own tears from her dirty hair, and when at last she realizes, when her terrifying lament first reaches her throat then bursts out, colossal, enough to cause the people around them to tremble, he buries his face in her neck, petrified by the pain he feels inside, outside, both of them there like ghosts, bags of bones that can barely stand, fragments. The mother feels her heart being torn to shreds, three more—three more gone, all at once, she was so sure she would see them again, Louie, Perrine, and Noah, a matter of one day at the most for a rescue boat, she had been so careful to leave them everything she could so they would not be hungry, honestly, no, she’d never wondered about them in that respect, never imagined she might not see them again, that they might be lost to her forever. Since yesterday when she had seen land she had been planning it, timing it; one hour for the fire department or the police to take charge of them, two hours to listen to their story and grasp the urgency, another hour to launch the boat to go to the island. Six or seven hours to get there. For what?
For a drowned land, and drowned children. Every time she comes up against these words in her mind, Madie lets out a scream, shrinks in upon herself, tears her hair. Later, a doctor will give her a tranquilizer and she will stop screaming. For now there’s just Pata holding her hand, saying nothing; he, too, is devastated, Liam is looking after the girls and moving beds into the place they have been allotted, the sun is high in the sky, it is hot, they don’t notice.
And that is how their life on the high ground begins, broken hearts and bodies, ravaged like scorched earth, this family who had been ready to repopulate the planet, only six of them left now, half of who they once were, half alive, skinned alive, and when they go to bed that night, in the house which also provides shelter for other refugees, Pata and Madie cannot help but think, separately, that they wish they had died all together, for all the good it has done and will do them, this half-life ahead of them, sometimes it’s better not to go on, isn’t it, if someone could have told them, if they had known, they would have stopped, laid down their arms—back in the days when they were still happy.
-
Madie has not gotten up for a week. Liam and the girls have been back in school for two days—as if they’d planned it, they arrived the day before classes started—and Pata has found work in the new port, loading and unloading ships with emergency goods. During the day, Madie and Marion stay alone in the house that had been found and offered them for a very low rent. Everything went very quickly—assistance, care, high school for Liam and primary and nursery school for Emily and Sidonie; a lease, a leg up for Pata so that he could earn their keep right away—he’ll see later on if he can find something better. For the time being he is just happy that his children can go to school like everyone else, even if Liam is rebelling—too little freedom, makes him tired, he’s been giving these dark looks over the last forty-eight hours, until Pata eventually says, Yes, son, but.
Not now. Let us get back on our feet. None of us has the strength to fight, neither me nor your mother, just keeping afloat with each new day, seeing how much is left at the end of the week to buy food and maybe an electric kettle, we can’t do anything more for the time being, just light a candle when we listen to the night at our window, and the sea lapping beyond the trees, we’re still numb with grief, so we’ll talk about it some-day, Liam, promise, it’s just that. Not now.
What Pata doesn’t say is how relieved he is to leave the house in the morning, to go and spend his time with people who shout and laugh, who slap you on the shoulder and spit on the sidewalk, people who are alive, dammit, loud and clear, who make him forget what he has lost for a few hours, and what he finds every evening when he comes home: the mother with her empty gaze and stringy hair, still unwashed, still in bed, the house smelling of despair and the absence of meals, he grabs a few vegetables, a piece of meat, the children come running and surround him. He could be angry with her, Madie, for deserting their life the way she has and leaving him to cope with everything, the return to an ordinary existence, work, the house, the girls’ homework, the need for money—and yes, Pata had truly forgotten what life was about during those twelve days on the island and those twelve days on the ocean, the world had become other, a suspended web, the expanse of a nightmare. It leaves him confused, he works overtime in the evening if they ask him to, at the harbor he is both worn out and relieved, and then the time comes when he has to lower his head and go home, and tell himself that he could hold it against her, only he doesn’t, he can’t, deep down he could easily let himself go and sink down there beside her to sleep and never wake up, and rest, at last.
Sometimes in the evening he takes her hand and tells her about his day, in a low voice as if he were at the hospital, because he has to admit he really feels as if he is, with that inert, silent body next to him, her eyes open on nothing at all, and even if he knows that during the day Madie must get up to take care of Marion, when he sees her empty of everything he wonders if anything will ever come back, if she will get better, if something will begin to resemble their former life. To not think about it, he chatters. Describes the ships, the sounds, the smells, the crane unloading the containers, the seagulls squawking. The construction sites sprouting everywhere to build houses for people like them, who have lost everything, left everything behind, maybe later they’ll be able to afford one, once he gets a better job. So, Pata is not angry with Madie, he talks to her. If he followed his inclination, he would even say, Come with me, missus, come to the bedroom, we’ll make some more little ones, but she’s already in the bedroom, and any more little ones are out of the question, because of the sadness that has paralyzed the house for a week or more, every hour, every puff of air. And Pata doesn’t know what else he can do.