But neither Liam nor Matteo could hear him. They could hardly make out their father’s figure one hundred yards from there, his eyes full of tears and rain, his figure shouting something else in vain, then spinning round and running.
The father yanked the ropes from their hook on the side of the house.
When he came back to the edge of the water, the raft was almost vertical on the raging sea.
“This way!” shouted Pata at the top of his voice. “Liam, this way!”
He threw the ropes as far as he could across the water. He didn’t know if he’d managed to fling them far enough, but clearly he hadn’t, and Liam couldn’t even see them, and he shouted again, waving his arms, because the kids had to understand.
“Go over to the rope! The rope!”
This time the elder boy must have seen him because he waved to signal to him, and the father’s heart sank. It wasn’t a sign that the boy had understood; and if the father could have heard Liam, he would have faltered at his words, Pata, help, Papa, we’re going to die—and instead he went on shouting for all he was worth, The rope, the rope, over here!
And when at last he had to accept the boys were doomed, that they would never manage to find the ends of the rope, too far away, that the wind was scattering his useless cries, he moored the rope to a tree on the shore and flung himself into the water, following the rope.
It took considerable energy to fight his way through the waves. Fairly quickly he was in over his head and he fought the current, his terror, too, a little voice in his head whining, What are you doing, you are going to die, all three of you, and he thought of the mother who must have seen him from the window and repressed a cry of horror as he dove in, and of the seven children still in the house and who needed him, the rope was getting in his way, tangling in his legs, ten times over the waves submerged him and he thought he wouldn’t make it, then he struggled upward yet again and just had time to raise his arms to protect himself from the raft which loomed like a black orca above him then slapped down on the water, knocking him on the shoulder.
The father clung on, found a handhold. Liam and Matteo were hanging onto the raft, almost upright with the storm-shrieking wind. For a moment time was suspended and all the father could see was the boys, and behind them the black and yellow sky, this was how he had pictured the end of everything, the roaring hurricane, the furious, yawning waves, all of it in a strange muffled sensation devoid of sound; then the fracas came to strike him head on, he nearly lost the rope, and coiled it around his wrist.
“Liam!”
He gave an almighty shove to hoist himself on the raft with them.
At that very moment a wave knocked them all over, Liam, Matteo, the raft, and the father. With a burst of energy Pata grabbed his sons, swallowed water with them, and brought them back to the surface, spitting and coughing. The raft bounded on the sea like a mad horse. The father reached for it, even though it was already beyond his grasp, he didn’t think he’d catch it, it was just a reflex, panic, too.
“Hang onto my back!” he shouted to Liam. “And you, Matteo, hang onto Liam. And don’t let go. Don’t ever let go!”
He tightened his grip on the rope, still fastened to the tree. His head was roaring: We are going to make our way along this rope. The moment Liam and Matteo fastened themselves to his shoulders, he felt their fingernails on his skin, the resistance of the current and their weight dragging him ever lower into the water, obliging him to make a colossal effort. And he began to doubt.
But it was not far to land, he could see the hill beyond the curtains of rain, a black shape rising up to the house, his island, his refuge—the waves buffeting him, furiously, his arms burning in the water, making hardly any progress. Suddenly he knew he wouldn’t make it, his strength would give way before he reached the shore, even if he let go of one of his boys, or both of them, half strangling him as they clung on. He was swimming, on the verge of collapse, gripping the rope inch by inch to help himself, but the tension was exhausting, he was sinking, so that was what it was, he was drowning, gradually, and with him his sons who were panicking and could not help him, he was foundering, he could no longer move forward along the rope and it was dropping deeper into the water, he would have to go faster, have to pull hard, as he used to say to the boys when he was teaching them how to row, but his arms were no longer moving, he had nothing left. Still full of rage at how weak he was he struggled for a last burst of energy, but all he could do was hang onto the rope, and yet what was the point of clinging to it for dear life if they were all going to drown, Liam, Matteo, and him; despair tightened his throat, there he’d gone and rushed into the water, so sure he’d be able to bring his boys back safe and sound, so smug, and the storm was coming down on him even harder, a fraction more and it would tear his arms from his body, something inside him was surrendering, shouting for mercy.
Then for a second the rope went taut and he thought he’d caught it on a tree trunk that would take them back out to sea. He struggled for a few seconds, already vanquished, the line wrapped around his wrist. And he felt that they were moving forward.
At first he thought it was an illusion, dizziness taking over, his head knocked about in the cold waves. But it wasn’t: the rope was pulling him toward the hill. The current pounded at him, furiously, eager to pull him back, hurling pieces of wood and lumps of turf at him, but he was slowly progressing toward the house, which he could now see a bit more clearly. He didn’t try to understand. He let himself slip through the water, Liam and Matteo still on his back, half drowning him, it was enough to make him weep, but he had no strength left to say anything to them—just stay afloat, on the surface despite these waves coiling around them and the wind driving them back, the rope was holding, and when the father had one last hope that they might make it after all he raised his head and, ravaged and incredulous, he saw them.
They were there on the shore, a hundred feet away, except for Lotte and Marion, whom the mother must have left shut in the house. His mouth open in a cry of panic, the father murmured their names in his head: Madie, Louie, Perrine, Noah, Emily, Sidonie. All pulling on the rope, even his one-eyed daughter, even his stunted son, pulling in time to the steady, formidable call of Heave! coming from the mother’s throat, crushing the roar of the wind, all of them breathing hard to pull the three drowning figures toward them, they didn’t falter, despite the gusts, the rain, the thunder, despite the waves’ attempts to make them stumble, they helped each other up, they went on winching, rolling the rope around the tree. And the terrified father watched them struggling against the storm and the sea, so tiny on their little wind-lashed patch of earth, heads down, backs rounded like animals huddled against bad weather, not one of them would yield, not even Sidonie who was not really much use but who gripped the rope as well, constantly slipping, what if she fell, and rolled down to the water—and the father murmured her name in a sob, prayed the mother would make them go back to the house, all it would take was one broken tree, one slab of earth breaking off and they would all be washed away. But they stood there shouting together for courage and to curse the heavens, the rope pulling constantly against the current, and suddenly the father felt the sludge beneath his feet, a few pebbles, and land, yes, it was land.
The mother stopped the children from running toward them as they stumbled onto the shore: the storm was too violent to go near the edge of the water. Pata fell to his knees, his heart pounding, Liam still on his back, letting Matteo slip off behind him. The father took them by the hand, stood up, and with a superhuman effort walked the few steps that separated him from the others. The mother spread her arms. The father let go of the boys’ hands and embraced her, sobbing; then they all ran up in a clamor that for a few seconds silenced the wind, the little ones, the older ones, and they all held each other so tight they couldn’t breathe, a dense, drenched huddle in the midst of the storm, a warm, powerful heart throbbing with the children’s laughter, defying the waves, until at last the mother stood up straight, her eyes wide in the pouring rain, and she said, as if they had won a war: