Jean-Marie Le Clézio - The Flood

When Besson had finished his cigarette, he stubbed it out on the floor, beneath the bed, tucked the tab-end away out of sight, and blew on the tiny pile of ash to disperse it. An odd scorching smell hung in air for a moment, then everything returned to normal.

Slowly Besson turned towards the girl’s body, lying there so still under the bed-clothes, and studied this mountain range, with its folds and patches of shadow, its harsh hollows and spurs, its ridges and traverses. He watched the white sheet rise and fall with a regular, peaceful motion, disturbing one or two folds as it did so. Indefatigably, exuding a sort of confident energy that nothing could upset, the silhouetted figure continued to swell and sink, never jerking, very gently, like the sea rising and falling in a narrow inlet, with that dull booming sound compounded of wind and water, simultaneously alive and dead. It was indeed an extraordinary spectacle, and anyone might have stayed there, like François Besson, resting on one elbow, simply in order to enjoy it: to stare in fascination at the rising and falling of this white sheet in the chill prison that was a bedroom half lit by morning light.

The black hair visible above the sheet was spread out in a star-shaped mass, rather like an ink-blot on absorbent blotting-paper.

With infinite precaution Besson grasped the edge of the sheet and gave it a tug. Little by little more hair appeared, some of it lying in curls. The sheet edged down a little further. A warm and sickening smell rose from under the clothes. Then the forehead came into view, followed by the entire face and neck. The head was asleep, upturned towards the ceiling, resting on the white bulk of the pillow. On that pale brow, where the hair had been flattened down, there was no trace of any wrinkles. Her skin was taut, almost transparent, so much did sleep rob it of life. The double arch of her eyebrows lay peacefully above closed eyes, and a bluish-grey shadow marked the line of the orbital sockets. Her nose, straight and fine, barely quivered at the very edge of the nostrils. There was no flush on her cheeks, and through her half-open mouth, above the slightly receding chin, the upper incisors were visible, gleaming white against lips that were nearly as white themselves. The head lay there, quite motionless, as though weighing like a stone on the stuff of the pillow. Small, neat, rounded, it looked like the head of a casualty on a stretcher: a head, so to speak, that had been surgically separated from the rest the body, and through which the respiratory process operated as though it began somewhere quite different: a mask, perhaps, a plaster mask without any life of its own, not formed from bone and flesh, that neither slept nor dreamed, and was incapable of smiling. A sad, impenetrable death’s-head, all apertures closed, with some vague and woolly matter gradually crumbling away inside it; embalmed, wreathed in orange-blossom, the face of a saint, all the blood drained out of it, a smooth ivory ball lying balanced on the rough, crumpled sheets.

François Besson stared at this woman’s unknown face, and a feeling of doubt and uneasiness crept over him. He wanted to find out more about this calm, nostalgia-ridden case-history, this body now presented for his inspection in a deep-freeze compartment at the morgue. He wanted to learn this woman’s true nature and identity, to see how this alabastrine head fitted on to its body — always supposing there was a body. Gently, without making a sound, he drew the sheet right down. There on the bed, all covering now gone, head and naked body lay stretched out, still breathing.

The upper part of the torso, against which the breasts showed even whiter than the rest, rose and fell deeply, in a long, slow movement. When the rib-cage sank back, for about a second the heart-beat was visible on the skin covering the midriff. So the body was alive, beyond any doubt, preserved its internal heat, had air and gases passing through it, secreted smells, breathed through minuscule pores. These legs with their heavy thighs, these full hips, the sexual cleft, the long, rounded arms, the worn hands, clenched into fists — surely all these possessed life? Yet this pale, naked flesh, this woman, was nevertheless acting out a comedy of death, with Besson as spectator. The whole thing had been laid on for his benefit — the inert limbs, the bony vertebrae that seemed about to break through the skin; all for him, this slack and flaccid body, its head — a wretched ball too heavy for the neck to sustain it — lolling back as though on the point of breaking off completely. He had to look at her for a long time, with every ounce of concentration he could muster. Half gagging, tears of shame in his eyes, he knew he must scrutinize this embodiment of abomination and indulgence down to the smallest detail. He had to pay, yes, pay for his life: and the woman, rejected and miserable, must exact her own retribution. He had to bend down over her, listen to her powerful, mysterious breathing, hear the air rasp hoarse as a bellows beneath those white breasts, feel the warm odorous exhalations gather above her dilated nostrils, there , inside this room, while outside, beyond the barrier of the shutters, people trudged down the damp street, to and fro.

With a kind of glum intensity he bent over the outstretched body and began to examine it. He studied every square inch of pale flesh, each separate hair, each brownish line scored across the skin, every mole and pimple. Then he made what might be called a mental map of it all, to ensure that he never forgot what he had seen. When he had taken in every visible detail, he got out of bed, leaving the girl’s body as it was, exposed to the cold air. When Besson left the apartment she was still lying there on the stripped bed, still breathing, utterly alone, ghastly in her pallor, deep in that heavy sleep, as though after some act of profanation.

Besson walked along the street just as he had done on the previous days, between groups of pedestrians and passing cars. It was Saturday, or Sunday perhaps, and a great deal of activity was going on. The rain had almost completely stopped, leaving large muddy puddles everywhere, so opaque they reflected nothing. People had rolled up their umbrellas, and the windscreen-wipers were enjoying a rest. Wind-blown clouds scudded across the sky, high above the roof-tops, and from time to time the pale disc of the sun glided into sight from behind them.

Besson passed a church where some kind of funeral procession was assembling. Then he walked down towards the sea, and came out on a square jam-packed with stationary vehicles. A removal van had broken down, and as a result all the traffic had ground to a halt in the adjacent streets. Besson found himself caught up in a dense crowd, and did not even attempt to extricate himself from it. He simply let himself go with the tide. When he had reached a point near the sidewalk someone asked him what was going on.

‘I have no idea,’ Besson said.

‘An accident, most likely,’ the man remarked. He was a short person with a cloth cap and a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth. Then a movement of the crowd separated them.

It was at this point that the noise made itself heard over the square. It began in the far distance, with one or two warning signals. The roar of engines seemed to increase in volume, and from somewhere only a few hundred yards away there came an incomprehensible explosion. Besson shrank back against the wall, mustering all his strength in preparation for the approaching din. He felt it steadily mounting as it got nearer, like a hurricane. The shining cars that blocked every corner of the square had all begun to sound their horns by now: the separate notes merged in a single ear-shattering cacophony. Deep and shrill simultaneously, vibrating in the bass register at ground-level while drilling shrilly through the upper air, like a jet engine, the sound-waves surged outwards, bouncing off the surrounding buildings, until they filled every last cubic inch of empty space. Beneath their metal coverings rows of engines were revving up, and the sound of their exhausts swelled and intensified, echoing all around. Human voices were drowned by this collective uproar, faces grimaced inaudibly: it was as though the entire world had become deaf, or dumb, or perhaps both at once.