The four of them, now.
He feels as if he’s some sort of god there among them, as they go on gazing at him. Or maybe he’s an ogre, the way he’s gobbling down his eggs and pancakes, washing it all down with some bad wine he found in the barn and uncorked with delight: no more having to drink that damned water. But it annoys him to have to eat in front of these brats, are they going to watch him sleeping, too, and he slams his fist on the table:
“That’s enough!”
The kids hardly move. They’re not afraid.
It hasn’t happened often, Ades barging in somewhere so abruptly and inconsiderately, to find opposite him people who aren’t trembling.
On the contrary: at times he catches the gazes they exchange among themselves, little stolen sidelong glances at each other with a faint smile, as if they were pleased—yet if they only knew the true nature of his company, for sure their faces would fall, then.
“Where is the bedroom?”
He has asked Noah. He has realized the little one is the least fierce, even if he seems on the slow side now and again—that’s still better than the older silent one or the girl who always seems to think before she speaks.
“What bedroom?”
“My bedroom. I have to sleep. I’ve been on the sea for a week.”
“Well…”
Noah tries to answer, turning to Louie and Perrine, hesitant.
“There’s our parents’ room, but—”
“That’ll do.”
Ades stands up, grabs him by the collar.
“Move it, show me.”
He follows him down the corridor, opens the door cautiously, by instinct, what if there is someone behind it—after all this time?
No one.
Ades puts his bags on the floor and sits on the bed. Perfect. He motions to Noah.
“It’ll do. Scram.”
Once the little boy has left, he gets up to turn the key in the lock, then hesitates. Should he lock the kids up? But where would they go, and who could they warn; he gives a shrug and lies down.
As always, he starts counting to fall asleep. Usually by the time he reaches five, sometimes six, he’s out. Eight if something is really bothering him.
Three, four. That will do for today.
But when he wakes up, Ades isn’t pleased, not one bit. For a start, those damn kids made noise this morning, playing, or shouting, or something, while he was still contentedly sleeping between two dreams, until a plate smashed and he sat up with a start. And then nothing was ready. With his hair disheveled, looking like a bad-tempered giant, he walked over to the stove and looked at the little girl.
“Where’s the coffee?”
She pointed to a box.
“No,” he growled, shaking his head, “hot coffee, shit. Make me a mug.”
And he took advantage of the silence caused by his sudden appearance to say, very loudly:
“In fact, next person wakes me up in the morning will get a hiding they’ll remember until the day they die. And if that’s a problem, death can come real soon. Is that clear?”
No answer. Three pairs of eyes staring at him like frightened mice. Yes, kids, Ades is here now, make it snappy and I won’t ask twice. I want my coffee in my cup soon as I get up, and same thing for meals, the minute I snap my fingers.
And I want a map so I can find my way.
Until Noah says in a tiny little voice:
“There’s no more map. Pata took them all for their trip.”
Crap.
“Are you going to leave?”
Ades isn’t listening.
“Will you take us with you?”
This time he looks at the boy, and he hadn’t planned it, but it just takes hold of him, he bursts out laughing, a huge, monstrous laugh, he tries to repress it but can’t, he was right to think the little brother was a dimwit—as if he would take them. And what else? They can just stay on their island.
“We’ll die if we stay here. This morning the water is up to step number ten.”
Ades doesn’t know what he means and doesn’t care. Kids die every day of the week. The only thing on his mind is which way to go and how many days it will take to reach land.
“I need supplies.”
“We don’t have much.”
I’ll take it all. But he doesn’t say it. He opens the cupboards to make his own inventory. Goddammit, they’re right. A dozen eggs, a few pancakes. He looks at Perrine.
“You know how to make pancakes?”
She nods.
“Then get going, use all the flour that’s left.”
“But… then there’ll be nothing left for us?”
He doesn’t answer.
“And the chickens, we’ll kill those chickens and cook them.”
Louie looks up all of a sudden.
“I know where there are loads of potatoes. But you need a boat to get there.”
Ades stands still.
“Potatoes?”
“A whole field of ’em. Since we don’t have a boat anymore, we couldn’t go get any. There’s enough there to eat for weeks.”
Ades thinks. He figures he should leave the island two days from now. That way he should avoid running into the father—and by then the water will cover the land all the way to the second floor of the house, leaving only a few feet of land at the top of the hill. Two days should be more than enough to dig up some spuds and get the little girl to cook them all. If he leaves with forty pounds of cooked potatoes, he’ll make it. So he looks at Louie, who is waiting.
“All right. You show me and we’ll see when we get there. If they’re good, we’ll start digging them up.”
Perrine and Noah move closer, worried.
“What about us?”
“You stay here.”
On his way out Ades adds with an icy guffaw:
“You have to keep watch on the island. You never know, there might be burglars!”
He doesn’t see their terrified expressions, and even if he did, he wouldn’t give a damn.
But he doesn’t see the little black and yellow clouds forming on the horizon, either, or notice that the wind has gotten up, and is bringing those clouds toward them, inexorably.
-
As he steps foot on the potato island for the first time in days Louie feels a sort of exaltation. And yet the land here, too, has shrunk, eaten away by the water lapping all around the island, but at the moment it doesn’t matter, all Louie can think of is showing Ades the patch of potato plants, with a scarcely concealed pride, as if this were his domain, as he comments—They’re not quite ripe but they’re fine for sweet little new potatoes, they’re really good, and you can eat the skin—and he fingers the leaves that are beginning to go yellow, and takes the spade from the shed to dig up a plant—you see, I told you so. They’re good potatoes all the same. Ades is trying to work it out. But he’s never had a potato patch.
“How many pounds are there?”
“Where?”
“All together.”
“If we harvest them all?”
“Yeah.”
“Well… I don’t really know, it depends on whether all the plants are good or not. Four hundred pounds, maybe?” He chooses the figure quite at random, because Ades seems to be hoping for a considerable amount, and four hundred pounds is huge; he’s rather pleased with himself, four hundred pounds is pretty good.