When Flaubert arrives dripping with perspiration, no one pays any attention to him. He’s been running, convinced he was going to miss the boat. Tall, slender, his eyes shining, he can’t stand still, and talks loudly. ‘The day I found out the return boat was waiting in Tarifa, I dropped everything and hit the road. Took a good week to get here. I had to run, lost a few pounds, but I feel fine. So, where are we going? Why doesn’t anyone answer?’ He looks for a familiar face. Everyone is off in a private world. There’s nothing for him to do but follow their example. Flaubert has an idea, though: ‘What if this ship were just a fiction, a novel cast upon the waters, a book in the form of a bottle tossed into the sea by all those weeping mothers so sick of waiting? If I’m right, now I finally understand why my parents named me Flaubert. So, all I have to do is enter the novel. But how does one become a fictional character? What’s the way to slip between the pages and settle comfortably into the most beautiful chapter in a story of love and war? Madame Bovary — there’s no more room for me, it’s full up, and anyway there’s no black guy in that story… Where can I find a hideout, a cushy spot? There’s always Gone with the Wind, but who’d want to be in that? If I could only find it, this novel where I could be a character, I wouldn’t need to work anymore: the novelist would take charge of me, give me a role, fit me into the story, make me live, love, yell, and die in the end because he wouldn’t know how else to wind up the story. But I don’t want to die, not even as a paper character; I don’t want to burn or get pulped, that happens a lot, when books that haven’t found their readers get sent to a paper factory or shredded into papier-mâché to make cardboard boxes. Can you imagine! My character, multiplied in thousands of copies only to be thrown into a grinding machine that squishes my head over here, my balls over there, now it’s the feet, in short — it takes a mere few minutes to subdivide me into millions of tiny paper scraps: I wind up as confetti! Or writing paper or a movie poster or even toilet tissue. No, forget it, better I should look for an epic novel that’s still in the works, and sneak in among the main characters — as a museum guard, for example — and watch the amorous goings-on between the heroine and her lover, a diplomat hounded by his wife who’s two-timing him with the head of the diplomatic corps… What if I asked that English woman who wrote the book everyone’s reading now, it’s about a magical character — that guy, no question, his book won’t end up in the shredder! That novel would suit me; problem is, it’s already written, so how could there be a new version for me to appear in? Shouldn’t I start by reading it? Someone on this boat must have it, millions of copies were sold, so I’m sure the rats have one in their nests for the hard times of winter, definitely — rats stock up on summer novels for those long cold nights. The only difference from us is, rats don’t read, they nibble the paper to get all those vitamins in the ink. That’s what my cousin Émilzola, a librarian in Douala, told me one day. Now that I think about it, becoming a character in a novel is the best thing that could happen to me. My cousins and so forth in Nde won’t believe me, they’ll think the horrors of exile have driven me round the bend. I can just see them chuckling. ‘Flaubert? Ho yes! He escaped! Right out of this world! Found fictional work in a work of fiction! He prances around in books, sleeps in pages perfumed women open daintily to read. You get it? All day he sleeps in the purse of some fabulous woman, follows her everywhere, even when she’s taking a bath: she reads him, he ogles her, licking his lips, while here we are still wondering what to do about this inheritance, since there’s still the matter of the tontine… What a guy, that Flaubert — he found a way to avoid dealing with reality, yes, real reality, the kind that sticks to us like glue, and hurts. Him, he’s an old fox, got it made, sitting pretty on a library shelf waiting for some hand to reach for him, open him, flip through him, then put him right back because there’s no sex, nothing erotic in the novel, just politics that won’t interest hardly anybody, leastways that’s what we heard …”
And now it’s Flaubert’s turn to find himself a small space, next to the lemon tree where, lulled by its subtle scent, he falls asleep like a child. The lemon blossoms take only a few moments to waft him on their perfume all the way to the terraces of Fès, to the old city where women spread the aromatic flowers of citrus and jasmine trees out to dry on big white sheets, after which the blooms are steamed to extract the essential oils that make the finest perfumes.
The captain is sitting in a large wicker armchair. He’s smoking his pipe and reading an old newspaper reporting on the landing in Normandy. Wielding a fan from Seville, Toutia is cooling him and keeping the flies away. Now and then, with a sort of silver holy-water brush, she sprinkles him with rose water. He looks up from his paper only to keep track of the new arrivals. The ship will sail as soon as its twenty-five passengers are aboard; three are still missing. A big fellow turns up suddenly, claiming to be one S. Panza. After consulting with Toutia, the captain asks him about his master, Don Quixote. ‘He’s coming, he’s coming, Captain; he was detained by the border police because his papers weren’t in order. Actually, he hasn’t any papers at all! Plus, customs confiscated that sword of his he’s so fond of, so, you see, things are a bit complicated … but don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll finagle his way out of all that.’
The captain is astonished. ‘So your master travels as if this were the sixteenth century, sans passport, sans laissez-passer? But, where does he think he is? And you — how did you manage to get through?’
‘I told them I would go let you know that my master had been delayed.’
Flaubert, who always keeps one eye open, wakes up when he hears Panza’s footsteps.
‘Flaubert, at your service!’
‘Please, don’t get up,’ Panza apologizes. ‘Just tell me what documents you used to come aboard.’
‘Documents? My name is Flaubert, and that’s enough. No need of papers here. We are the guests of destiny. So what use would documents be? Go, go fetch your master: tell him that Flaubert awaits him, standing firm with a vigilant eye, his wits about him, head squarely upon his shoulders, and above all — ready to go adventuring upon the high seas!’
Without a word, the captain continues to smoke his pipe and check the horizon every so often with his ancient binoculars. Flaubert asks Toutia to lend him her fan. She doesn’t reply. When Don Quixote appears — or at least he claims that’s his name — the captain rises to stand at attention.
‘Welcome, Monseigneur! We were waiting just for you in order to set sail. Your wish is my command.’
‘My thanks, dear sir! And yet, I do believe we lack one person more, or rather, I would say, a personage. This ship was conceived especially for this mission, with room for five and twenty passengers precisely; she will not leave without every last one.’
Consulting his lists, the captain agrees.