“We won’t get a second chance,” said Lucette, when she told them they had to leave right after the accident. “We’ll never be able to take Adele with us by force. It’s a sign, all this, so let’s go before she comes to.”
“Is it serious?” asked Perrine.
Lucette didn’t really reply. She shook her head:
“She’s sturdy.”
But how sturdy, wonders Louie. A little bit; very. Very sturdy, but for an old lady. That’s not as much as an adult like Madie or Pata. It’s enough for her to wake up, yes; he wants her to. He can feel it. There’s a stirring in his belly as it arches to row faster, and an empty echo in his ears as he listens out toward the stern. Adele saved Perrine, so he can think of only one thing: to help her in return. Revive her, take her with them to the high ground—she can live with them if she wants to, his parents are bound to welcome this old lady who helped their daughter. She won’t be alone, ever. And if she doesn’t want to live with them, he can build her a house of her own, with a bed of planks and a lop-sided table, that, yes, he could do. That much yes, really he could.
Louie savors the suspended time of the night, the boat moving under its own momentum, the absence of noise. Maybe something can begin again.
Maybe, yes… then suddenly he feels the boat hit against something, and he sits up with a start.
Bump.
It’s an impact that has caused it, Bump. All of a sudden, striking them dumb. He felt the tremor, the dull thump.
The boat comes to a sudden halt.
Against what?
They look at each other, pale. Restored to their fear of an ocean where they control nothing. Once again they realize: it is the middle of the night, they have stopped rowing and the boat is drifting.
“What is it?” says Noah.
He gropes his way together with Louie to the bow of the boat, where the impact was.
A rubbing sound.
There’s something there. A boat, bigger than their sorry skiff, and the hull is banging into it with this stubborn thumping, to the rhythm of the waves, thock thock thock—so it’s a boat, and inside it they can hear hoarse breathing.
Noah reaches for his brother’s hand. He won’t admit he’s scared.
But damn, is he scared.
Madie, too, felt the impact. But she doesn’t care. She’s not sure she fully understands, either, because she has been drifting in and out of consciousness for hours. She’s not even sure this boat where she has decided to die really has struck something, since she has been delirious for god knows how long now, yesterday, this morning; the end soon.
She cannot swallow, she has no more saliva. Her lips are dry, as if dead: when she opens her mouth, the skin cracks.
She licks the blood, instinctively.
The impact, then voices.
Is she raving?
Madie opens her eyes onto the night, thinks she is blind. She stretches out her hand along the floorboards to be sure. Yes, she’s still here.
So.
Voices again, children’s voices. To hurt her, to remind her of her lost little loves, Noah and Perrine and Louie crying, abandoned on their sunken island. Madie recognizes those voices.
An aberration.
She’s losing it.
And yet, the sound doesn’t go away. It’s even coming closer.
She swore she would not get up again.
Besides, she has no strength.
A little girl’s voice asking what is going on.
Little girl?
Madie trembles.
The boat is rubbing against something. Yes there really is something there.
A shout.
Not a shout: a scream. Of fear, but not only: there is joy there, too. So Madie tries. She has nothing to lose, after all. With a start she tears herself away, if she can just steal one last image of her vanished children, never mind if it’s not true, a mirage, a hallucination held out to her by death, laughing at her, playing with her just a little longer.
It’s as if her skin is glued to the boards of the boat.
There, she’s sitting up. Oh, such an immense, terrible effort. Her head is spinning but her eyes are wide open.
And she sees them.
Her children.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sandrine Collette was born in Paris in 1970. She divides her time between Nanterre, where she teaches philosophy and literature, and Burgundy, where she has a horse stud farm. She is the author of numerous novels. Nothing but Dust, winner of the Landerneau Prize for crime fiction, was her English-language debut.
ALSO BY SANDRINE COLLETTE
Nothing but Dust
Copyright
Europa Editions
214 West 29th St.
New York NY 10001
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.
Copyright © Éditions Denoël, 2018
First publication 2020 by Europa Editions
Translation by Alison Anderson
Original Title: Juste après la vague
Translation copyright © 2020 by Europa Editions
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco
Cover image: detail from a photo by Pexels, Pixabay
ISBN 9781609455682