They did get lost, indeed.
They went round in circles.
A fine arc of a circle; they headed east the way they should, and then because of the sun, and daylight, or the lack of it, and the wind, and fate, and storms, and misfortune, and their parents who had abandoned them, and rain, and hens, and fear—they drifted south, and then random chance brought them back up, in a perfect and terrifying loop, and that’s it, from Levet to Tanat, they rowed fifty or sixty miles to end up with ten, and there they are, in a house that is taking on water, with two woebegone old ladies who are trying to console them.
“The main thing,” says Adele, “is that you’re all alive.”
But Louie shakes his head:
“All of that for nothing…”
“It’s never for nothing.”
And yet. Days of fear and suffering, watching the sea, trembling at the thought of storms, hands bleeding from the oars he had to hold from morning to night, the traps that might come their way, right down to men who hide underwater or the claws of terrified chickens. Days of sleeping badly and getting no rest, wondering if the weight of the anchor won’t pull them down with it when they lower or raise it. Days of waiting for the morning light, of rowing despite the fatigue that was like a dagger in his gut and his back. Days of doubting, silently weeping, not to frighten the others. Days that lasted for centuries: this morning, Louie is one hundred years old.
Do they know, Adele and Lucette, how they have stifled their terror and despair, do they realize, too, that the children no longer have enough food to leave again, or enough hope to believe that this time they will find their way, without a map or a compass? Louie hid his face in his hands so no one would see his distress. In his inner eye, as if indelibly, the map shows him again how they went astray, and his thoughts come tumbling, throbbing: what are they going to do now?
He wants to live, he doesn’t want to let himself die on an island, or in a house once the waters have risen, he doesn’t want to become resigned, even if everything seems to be conspiring against him, even if there are not enough supplies or water, even if they have to choose between having the eggs and eating the hens, even if it takes ten more days to reach the high ground. And that is exactly what comes out of him when he pounds his fist on the terrace, his eyes welling with tears:
“I want to live!”
Just tell him what to do, and he’ll do it.
It might be superhuman. It might be impossible.
He’s game.
But give him a second chance.
Perrine gropes with her hand, closes her fingers around his. Noah comes, too. They sit there in silence. They don’t know what else to do, other than to cling to each other, to show their love.
The old ladies have slipped away, soundlessly. They closed the door to the house behind them.
For a few days they fashion a strange existence together, the children and the grandmothers, made of bandages and care, waiting, impatience. Perrine’s eye is gradually getting better, Adele gives her half an aspirin when it hurts too much; after three days, Perrine removes her bandage. The sun still dazzles her, never mind, she can see. Sitting at the edge of the terrace, her feet in the water when the heat is stifling, she chirps the songs that Lucette hums when she’s not’s in too much pain—in those moments of pain, the old lady withdraws, they don’t know where, somewhere in the house where no one can see her or hear her, and then she reappears a few hours later, her features still drawn, but wearing that smile that makes their hearts leap, they run up to her but don’t hug her, not to knock her over, they take her hand and sit down next to her. Afterward, Noah looks out to sea.
“When are we leaving?”
Louie feels a lump in his throat every time he hears the question. Leave, yes, but he doesn’t know where. The old ladies have promised to point him in the right direction. Even to give him their compass; they’ll never need it again. But in spite of this he’s afraid. He’s lost his faith. And he already went astray once, so…
“I dunno,” he says.
“Here too, the water is rising. The terrace will be flooded soon.”
“Of course if the water is rising here, it’s rising everywhere.”
“Do you think our house still exists?”
“I don’t think so, no. It was flooded a long time ago.”
“But when are we leaving?” insists Noah.
“When Perrine is all better.”
“I’m better,” says Perrine.
“Not quite.”
A day or two more of respite—a sad respite, to be honest, because Louie feels a dull dread gnawing away at his guts, and every sunny morning is spoiled by the fear of the voyage they must undertake, the impossibility of finding landmarks once they’re alone again in the middle of the ocean; at the thought of the boundless blue-gray expanse Louie loses his appetite, cannot drink, a sort of bile simmers inside him, burning his flesh, Lucette ruffles his hair the way Madie used to and he turns his head the way a kitten does to heighten a caress, he’s upset, and lost, they have to help him, he doesn’t want to be the one who has to answer for everything, he doesn’t want to be the big brother.
-
Louie takes his fishing pole over to Noah and kneels once again at the edge of the terrace. They’ve been there for nearly three hours. Just behind them he can see shadows fluttering over the old ladies’ faces from the uneven torchlight. It reassures him to know that Adele and Lucette are sitting behind them; the night doesn’t seem as dark.
And yet: when he looks up, there is no moon. An ink-black night.
Perfect, said Adele happily a while ago.
Because they need fish, lots of fish.
“We tried,” said Noah when they started. “They don’t bite anymore. There aren’t any more fish.”
“But were you trying to fish in the daylight?” asked Lucette.
“In daylight?”
“Aha. So you do have a few things to learn.”
Yes, loads of fish, because they need to feed all five of them, Adele, Lucette, Noah, Perrine, and Louie, on the boat for days—they don’t know exactly how many. And since there aren’t enough hens anymore, and they have to be fed too, there won’t be enough eggs.
Thousands of fish, agreed Noah with a laugh, when they cast their lines.
Because they are going to leave together.
No, it wasn’t what they planned.
Yes, now, it’s decided.
They will go all five of them to the higher ground, that’s what the old ladies promised when they came out of the house this morning. You could see that the decision pained Adele; Louie looked at her on the sly and he could tell she was in a bad mood, he could tell that Lucette must have cornered her between the four walls of that room where they had heard their voices raised shortly before dawn, and she wouldn’t let her leave the room until she got her way. Louie knows this because Lucette whispered the secret to him, yesterday.
She didn’t picture it like this, the end of her life. She thought she would be on her own, a peaceful decline, until one day she would fall asleep and simply not wake up. And besides, she was sure it would go quickly. But instead, she is in pain, Lucette, her entire body radiates with a word that Louie can’t remember and that makes her cringe over her joints, she says, it feels as if everything inside her is shrinking and gradually drawing her in, and if this goes on, she won’t be able to bend her arms or her legs, you just can’t imagine how painful it is, this feeling of being sucked inward, it takes her breath away.