Silence. The question surprises the three of them, even Louie who asked it, and they can’t find an answer.
“To cook the fish?” says Perrine after a few seconds.
“Just to have a look?” suggests Noah.
“And see what?”
“If there are people there who can help us.”
Louie frowns; he is so sure they are the only survivors that he hasn’t thought about that. No, the world has become… a desert. Emptiness. Nobody. Just the eleven of them, or the three of them, with nothing around them, only water. But if they can find the higher ground, that will change everything. They will see that life has not vanished and there are still thousands and millions of them, on the mountains, and surely they’ve rebuilt society the way it used to be, before, something he has already almost forgotten about.
“Oh.”
Noah laughs.
“You don’t think there’re any people over there?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“So shall we go and see?”
“Okay. Let’s go and see.”
May as well lug reality around with them: this is what Louie keeps telling himself as he paddles with Perrine, whose eyes are shining, and he cannot understand what it is that is driving her and Noah, their wide grins, this joyful air of theirs, the thought that they might find people they don’t know, he cannot help asking himself over and over: what for?
So they won’t be alone?
Do they think it will heal the wound of abandonment.
Do they think that through some inexplicable miracle their parents might be there—then that would mean that they, too, failed to find the way to higher ground.
And are they not enough, just the three of them?
Apparently not.
Nothing but bad thoughts in his head, Louie, so he keeps quiet, and rows, and pulls on his arms, heave. A little later, he raises his head to stare gloomily out at the island in the distance.
But there’s no more island.
He rises halfway to his feet.
“Hey?”
Looks at the others.
“Where is the island?” asks Noah in a little voice, reaching for Perrine, she’s the one who saw it first, so he grabs hold of her as if to a last hope.
And Perrine murmurs:
“I don’t see it anymore. There’s nothing there now.”
-
Louie got back on what he thought must be the right course, and now he is rowing again, without haste. Sitting across from him, the two younger ones look dejected. The water is playing tricks on them, creating mirages. Since the vanished island, there was one time they thought they saw a boat, another time the leaves of a tree. And each time, they held out their arms and stamped their feet and cried with excitement, launching into a song of celebration; and each time the boat got closer it banished the images and shapes, and they lowered their heads, pointing to a spot on the sea: It was there, right there. Louie, too, has visions. But he knows they’re false, and he forces himself to look elsewhere, to ignore the glimmer and the hope; if there was something real, he’d go right by it, for sure, with that way he has of frowning because the sea is playing tricks on them. He’d rather miss an island than head for one all full of joy only to realize, as he sails through it as if it were a fogbank, that it doesn’t exist. He’d rather die, yes: he doesn’t want to be disappointed. So he carries on, his eyes glued to his hands gripping the oars, and time seems to stretch to infinity, everything the same, hot and slow and painful, today, tomorrow, he can’t recall, all he knows is that nights have gone by.
At dawn on the fifth day, the hens cluck and rouse them from sleep. They eat a little, pull up the anchor; the day has begun. Louie, Perrine, and Noah take turns rowing, and the worst is when the two younger ones are at it together. Leave it, murmurs Louie, massaging his palms, I’ll row again, we can just stop for fifteen minutes. The day is spent between the meager meals they have to share with the hens and the boat that has to be propelled relentlessly across the water. After lunch, Perrine and Noah fall asleep, from heat and fatigue, and Louie on his own curses the sun, but not too much, just to let it know, because it’s better to burn to a frazzle than to get caught in a storm, which is bound to happen sooner or later. But he complains all the same, because of the sweat stinging his eyes and dripping down his brow, and the feeling he has of being burned all over, suffocating, his throat dry.
Because they’re making no headway, and the days that last forever.
Because of his back and his arms, his belly and his legs, all aching.
Because the younger ones are taking naps.
He shouts. Shit!
Perrine wakes with a start.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just shit.”
Shortly before nightfall they stop and drop anchor. They eat, drink, feed the hens, gather the eggs they continue to lay, share them out among the birds and themselves, swallowing them whole and trying not to let anything dribble down their chins. Then they lie down; at last, thinks Louie.
Too hot under the blankets—but with these damned mosquitoes.
Fall asleep like the dead.
And every day it’s like this.
How long has it been? They can’t agree, is it five days, or six. Seven, said Noah, but Noah will say anything just so you listen to him. Every morning is the same, with the creaking of the anchor being raised, and the soreness in their muscles that make their movements stiff.
Not seven, no, can’t be.
“If it’s six,” says Noah, “then we’re over halfway there, especially as in the beginning we had the motor and we went fast. We should be there soon, don’t you think?”
Louie shrugs.
“We’re not rowing all that fast. We’re losing some of the time that we made up.”
Noah graciously adjusts his reasoning: Only halfway?
But the thing is, all the days are alike—and basically they ought not to complain, thinks Louie, if something were to change, it would mean bad weather, wind and rain.
“Or land,” adds Perrine.
“No, it can’t be land. Not yet.”
Still…
Suddenly, all three of them give a start. They look at each other without daring to look up again. Perrine has even closed her eyes tight, murmuring, It’s just another mirage, right? So Louie turns to the side where the apparition is coming from. He says to Noah:
“Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
“What about you, Perrine?”
“I think so.”
“Right.”
He scratches his head. This is the first time they have all thought they’d seen the same thing. He asks them again, to be sure:
“An island?”
“That’s right,” says Perrine.
“There it is,” says Noah.
“So maybe we should go take a look, then.”
An hour later, the island has grown larger. They let the boat glide as they hold onto the gunwale, astonished: this time, it’s for real.
“Let’s stop!” exclaims Noah.
“And we can make a fire and cook the fish. We have to catch some,” says Perrine, already looking forward.
They threw away the first fish they caught long ago, since there was no way to cook them; the hens pecked at them with their tip of their beaks, and they tossed the rest into the sea, because of the smell. This time, Perrine and Noah hastily take up their fishing poles, while Louie returns to his oars.
“How long have we got?”
“Gosh, more than an hour. You have time to catch loads!”
Noah laughs, spreading his arms.
“This much?”
“If you can.”