Jean-Marie Le Clézio - The Flood

All the rest of the display-window was the same. Left and right, top and bottom, there was nothing to be seen but women’s faces, women’s bodies, bright and supple figures — sometimes naked, clad only in their own pink and satiny skins, sometimes wearing exotic dresses full of gold and purple, their folds merging and overlapping, forming great blocks of shading that threw the rest into high relief. And everywhere the same kind of face staring out from the paper, ablaze with freshness and youth: rich deep hair, a tawny mane cascading down over the neck, a blonde fringe concealing the eyes, jet-black curls and tresses, luxuriantly alive, blue-tinted waterfalls in which countless captive points of light glittered. Smooth foreheads, arching eyebrows, fine retroussé noses, full lips parted to reveal a row of seven pearly white teeth — or sometimes set in a smile which produced two oval dimples at each corner of the mouth. Ripe breasts, fixed in a pose of tranquil uplift, sweetly curving necks and shoulders, arms and legs, dimple-soft navels, cheeks almost invisible against the light, or hidden altogether behind faint shadowy graining. And the eyes: so enormous, tranquilly displaying the classic almond-shaped outline, edged by feather-thick lashes: unfathomable eyes, with changing colours, liquid precious stones that brought to life endless minuscule universes, shut in and self-contained, full of echoes, changing facets where one could lose oneself completely in the magical fluctuations of hope and despair.

There was nothing ephemeral about these faces; these bodies held no illusion. Their printed substance would hold the same pose for ever, or very nearly. Some might moulder at the bottom of a drawer, or be used to line a dustbin; but at least one of them would survive, in all her vivid, flashy beauty, to testify how enjoyable life on earth had been at the time. These women would never grow old. Despite the passing years, their skulls would retain the mask of flesh that covered them; their parted lips would continue to smile, hopeful for kisses, revealing the same row of seven pearly, undecaying teeth; their multicoloured eyes would gaze through the glass for ever, without pity or irony or malice, at the world of those who deluded themselves they were alive. Love unbounded shone in their expression, an abundance of love for the entire world.

Besson strolled round the kiosk. Behind the second window there were foreign newspapers and one or two pornographic magazines. The third was devoted to children’s comics, mostly of the strip-cartoon variety. Besson stared at these little mannekins dressed up as cowboys. One of them, a great hulking fellow with a black scarf tied round his neck, had a white balloon issuing from his mouth which proclaimed: ‘Hey, kids, look — Apache tracks, still fresh! I’ll bet it’s Walking Stick and his band again! Let’s make tracks for Fort Elmer!’ The fourth window was crammed with a collection of miscellaneous periodicals, and had a hole in it. Through the hole Besson could just see the head of an old woman. She looked at him and said: ‘Yes? What d’you want?’

‘I — er—’ Besson stammered.

And bought a paper.

It was with a certain sense of regret that he left the kiosk, and walked on down the street, the paper under his arm. He passed a long row of shops, and saw that the crowd was still pressing close up against the display windows, just as before. Besson felt a kind of numb fatigue stealingover him. It was important not to meet other people’s eyes, and to ensure this meant walking either with one’s back bent, looking at the ground, or else very upright, eyes on the far horizon. But this couldn’t go on for ever.

The rain began to come down a little harder: it was getting cold. Traffic continued unabated. Walking like this, Besson was afraid he might reach the outskirts: after all, it was not all that big a town. If he just walked straight on for long enough the houses would begin to thin out, gardens would give way to waste lots, and the pavement would vanish altogether. Suddenly, without realizing it, one would be in the countryside, brushing through grass, losing one’s way on sharp, stony paths. To avoid the risk of reaching the town-limits, Besson decided to walk round and round the same block.

During each of his first three circuits he took shelter for a little under the awning of a radio repair shop to get himself warm. Occasionally he lit a cigarette and stopped to smoke it in some doorway or garage entrance. On his fifth time round he began to worry in case people recognized him. At this point he crossed the street and went into a café.

It was a large café, lined with mirrors. Customers, both men and women, filled nearly every table in the place. The air was loud with canned background music. Besson settled himself in a corner, near the door to the lavatories. Then he opened out his paper at the page which contained most printed matter, in order to avoid having to move more than was necessary. It was the small-ad page. He read:

WANTED: Young girl as family help. Maret, 34 Boulevard Lamartine.

ENGLISH FAMILY seeks maid general duties, knowledge cooking. Ring 381.541.

WANTED: Part-time pastrycook, apprentice pastrycook. Blés d’Or, Rue du Pontin.

WANTED: Mechanic qualified panel-beater/sprayer. Canavèse, Rochefort.

HOSPITAL CENTRE seeks laboratory assistants (male or female) to undertake night duty on roster system. Box 2126.

WANTED: Jobbing workers ferro-concrete erection. Box 800.

YOLANDE’S DOLLS LTD seeks needlewomen dressmakers dolls’ clothes. 4 Rue Gauthier.

The next ad was in English:

STENOGRAPHER WANTED 1–2 days week, knowledge English-French, for U.S. sales organization’s Monte Carlo office. Reply with photo, salary requirements, past positions held, date available for interviews and commencing work. Write Box 2581.

WANTED: General maid, fond of children, non-resident, meals found. Mme Tomasi, 1 Rue du Ray.

ROOM AND KITCHEN offered in villa, plus wages, to childless couple in return normal hours housework, husband req’d spend hour or two weekly gardening. Bourgoin, 20 Avenue des Bosquets. Tel. 88.65.42.

And so on. When Besson had finished reading both pages of ads he raised his head and looked about him. The waiters were hurrying to and fro between the tables: it was a long room, and by some accident they had failed to notice Besson sitting there behind his paper. But at any moment now they might look and see that he had not ordered anything. They would march up to him with that inquisitorial air, and demand, loudly: ‘What’s yours, sir?’

In order to forestall such an occurrence, Besson got up, collected an empty glass from a neighbouring table, and put it in front of him. But he did not go on reading his paper. Instead he let it slide gently to the floor, and put his feet on it.

The glass was a tall one, and still streaked with the remains of some foaming, yellowish liquid: beer, probably. A little ash had stuck to the rim. The man who had been drinking from it had probably gesticulated excitedly while still holding a cigarette. There the glass sat, on an expanse of canary-coloured formica, enthroned in solitary splendour, patched with its delicate lacing of foam. Besson stared intently at this transparent cylindrical object, and the patterns on it, lit by unwinking reflections from the neon strip-lighting. It was a glass like any other glass, no doubt, the hasty product of some factory which turned them out by the million, all identical. Yet to look at it was an intolerably moving experience. It was an object, a thing , nothing more, a superb and basic object which stood there on the table like a tower, unseeing, never grating on the senses, with no desire to find utterance in speech. It was so lovely and so tranquil that one would have liked it to stand there for all eternity, without anyone touching it, dirtying it, or breaking it. Men had no idea of what they were doing when they placed such objects on a bare table. It never occurred to them that they were setting beautiful deadly traps, ready to close on anyone who beheld them in all their dazzling presumption. They had no idea that for people such as François Besson, so desperately in need of immobility and silence, they and their transparent objects were, quite simply, flinging wide the gates of hell. But how could they have known it? People like them, with their nervous hands and voluble tongues and impatient twitching limbs, could never have let themselves become so hypnotized by the sight — at once soothing and terrible — of one empty glass standing in the middle of a yellow table.