“We can go in, now.”
Go in, and flee. There could no longer be any doubt. This land—or what was left of it: they didn’t want it anymore; it terrified them. The father looked out the window. It wasn’t really a land, to speak of: a little island in the middle of the water, a rock condemned to vanish. There was an urgency, now. Madie had put the children to bed after making them some crepes with the hens’ eggs, and now she was on the sofa, waiting silently.
Pata didn’t speak; he was gazing out at the night.
Of course he couldn’t see anything. It was just so it wouldn’t show. So that he wouldn’t worry the mother, or pass his fear onto her, because she would have been upset to learn that he felt this bad, and besides it was stupid, she’d find out soon enough, he was going to tell her. He had to. This evening, the storm that had nearly cost them their lives had brought the water level up to the threshold of the house. And even if this storm, which had taken the raft from them, suddenly brought it back, tossing it onto the shore in a furious gust of wind, this was of no consolation to anyone, because no one would ever have the courage to head out onto the sea in such a flimsy vessel again; they’d put it away in the back of the barn, where you could hardly see it.
Madie had been saying, from the very morning after the tidal wave, that they had to get ready to leave; Pata had sworn they wouldn’t need to, all they had to do was wait for the waters to recede. She’d been right, and he’d been wrong.
Which meant that the time had come.
Only problem was.
How to tell her.
She could see, just as he could, she must have figured it out. Why didn’t she bring it up first, ordinarily she had a ready tongue, why didn’t she open her bloody chatterbox mouth, for once he wouldn’t have minded. She wanted him to get bogged down, that was it, and she wouldn’t mind shouting that it was all his fault, he was the one who’d decided to stay, he’d sworn to her that the waters would depart as surely as they had come, that they’d do better to hang onto their land. And she, the bird of ill omen, who looked at him askance with doubt in her eyes: she should be jubilant now, and yet.
Pata let out a long sigh. Yes, it was all his fault, Madie was right. He’d been stubborn, he hadn’t wanted to listen, to see the obvious signs. Hadn’t been afraid. The imbecile.
And now?
The mother was still silent, and all of a sudden the father could no longer stand her silence. He would have preferred a good fight, in the end, a shouting match, like when he was convinced he was right. But now… He didn’t even dare look up at her. And it was as he turned his head one more time toward the window with its broken panes, toward the darkness that showed him nothing, that he murmured, “We will have to leave.”
Madie didn’t answer. So he added:
“We will have to leave the island, and soon. The water is going to flood everything.”
And because she still did not whisper even half a word, he let his wretched gaze slip toward her, in vain, because she would not forgive him, ever, and in her eyes when they met his he saw her answer.
Leave.
Yes, but.
“I know,” he stammered.
He didn’t say, It will be fine. This time he couldn’t.
It would be a long trip, they had to gather supplies. Nearly two weeks’ worth.
No, that wasn’t what was worrying him. The fact that it would be a long trip, they’d get used to that. They’d hardly eat, they’d ration themselves. The little ones would understand.
Maybe if Liam and the father rowed hard, they could make it in twelve days. But twelve days still wouldn’t solve the problem. The problem was something the father couldn’t bring himself to say and it was tearing his throat out: they had only one boat.
And the mother grasped it immediately, as he had known she would, because just then she looked at him with fire and hatred and despair all at the same time, a look that condemned him now and forever—and she murmured, as if it was because of him, just him, as if it were all his fault, the sea, the storm, and misfortune:
“Who are you going to leave behind?”
ON THE ISLAND
The morning of August 19
-
There was always noise in the big house, and it woke them at dawn, one after the other, with a smile. There were good, warm, toasted smells. Madie, since the tidal wave, had been making French toast in the morning with the stale loaves they had put aside. Of course she was parsimonious as she sprinkled the bread with sugar, because she didn’t know how long they would be there on that stump of earth without any help. The children didn’t mind, they realized the situation was exceptional and when it wasn’t raining too hard they made their own fun baking rolls with flour and water on a fire outside, stuffing a square of chocolate into the middle to make them less insipid. Then Madie had decreed that they had to save on the food, and on the wood she was keeping for the old stove they’d retrieved in haste from the barn where it had been languishing, and by the third day they were no longer allowed to cook their soft, sweet pastry. As it happened, it was on that third day that the restrictions began. Madie was getting organized, it was a siege, she said, the sea had surrounded them, they had to resist. Pata and the older children had already started putting aside the cans, jars, and bottles they found in every nook of the most hidden cupboards—but how long would they be on the island? The rough seas meant flight was impossible, or only at great risk, they didn’t dare think of it, there was only the need to survive on their hill from one day to the next and hope the house would stand. The sea is getting calmer, murmured Pata, and Madie wondered what her man had between his ears, because with the naked eye you couldn’t see it getting any calmer, not as far as she could tell, not according to the children, either; she could do nothing but shrug in response to their questioning looks.
But the fact remained that in spite of the mother’s decision to ration everything it still smelled good when they woke up in the morning. When Madie didn’t feel like using up her vanilla and sugar anymore, all she had to do was fry her pancakes, which they used as bread; even the slightest burning on the stove and the smell filled the room, wove its way down the corridor, up the stairs, and into the bedrooms.
Yes, Louie would recall those mornings for a long time, those dawns that had enchanted his taste buds and lured him spellbound into the kitchen.
Until the thirteenth day.
He would never forget that, either.
It had started the same as any ordinary morning. But it wasn’t a morning like the others: there was no smell in the house.
At first he didn’t really notice, it took him a few seconds to emerge from sleep, feeling calm, drowsy. In the bedroom, Perrine and Noah were still asleep. For a few seconds he listened to their breathing, watched their blankets rising and falling rhythmically. He pushed back his sheets.
He wasn’t thinking about anything just then. Or maybe only that it was hot. He could leave his shirt off. Open the door, quietly.