Jean-Marie Le Clézio - The Flood

They moved off again together, side by side, one couple in a multitude of men and women threading their way through the streets of the town, past endless rows of shops. Fine rain drizzled down on to their faces out of a black sky, and the drops were instantly absorbed by their skin, without trickling. They fell on their hair and foreheads and noses, sometimes even dropping through their parted lips. This rain was soft and cold, all of a piece with the wind and air and odours all around them. Cars swished by in the roadway, spattering their legs as they passed. Besson suddenly felt as though he were on a boat, or walking along a beach. With quiet persistence the falling water went about its tack of dissolution. Everything gleamed damply. Even the lights were misty and humid: the naked bulbs that contained each spark of electricity looked like grotesque globes of moisture.

The redheaded woman walked on beside Besson, wrapped in her blue raincoat, legs and hips moving briskly. Her leather handbag swung from curled fingers; she advanced as though she had a motor hidden somewhere inside her body. Her face looked straight ahead down the pavement, eyes very much alert, though half-hidden by drooping eyelids and lashes, mouth open to breathe, a regular palpitation fluttering her throat. Lower down the movement became clearly visible: her shoulders followed the rhythmic swing of her arms, her backbone oscillated to and fro, while from time to time her torso would bend either forwards, or — with an abrupt, twisting gesture — to the left or the right. The overall impression was of a powerful, smooth-running machine, working at full pressure. From its birth onwards this body had been taught the gestures and rhythms of life. These clumsy arms and crazy legs, these heavy hips — all had been permeated by some mysterious and subtle substance which now controlled them. From a mere mass of flesh and bone there had been created a woman.

Besson walked beside her, not saying a word; yet already it was as though he had been caught in the wash of some big steamer. Without even knowing it, she had taken him in tow. It was she who elbowed through the crowd, and followed a safe course down the middle of the pavement. Yet perhaps, at the deepest level, she was aware of it. It must be stamped all over her body, on every square inch of bare skin, on the moon of each separate fingernail. She was the dividing-line between life and death, a kind of figurehead that bore the distinguishing mark of humankind blazoned plainly across it. Her impassive and wellnigh immobile features, set like a mask above those thrusting shoulders, proclaimed to the anonymous, obscure and hostile mass of townsfolk that she was blazing a trail for humanity. Without either fear or hatred, simply in the awareness of her own unquestioned rights, she asserted her claim to a place among the rest; and they understood this instantly, making way for her as she approached, opening a small postern gate in their defensive ramparts to let this one small congeneric atom slip through. Sheltered by the mere proximity of the redheaded woman, François Besson advanced without fear. Eyes might stare at him now if they chose: they would not penetrate beyond the surface. The human territory he was traversing had become his domain also. He could take shelter and sleep in the houses, or drink with easy nonchalance in the cafés. He could book himself a room in any hotel. He could walk through the public squares or stare at the goods in shop windows, just as he pleased. It was a wonderful feeling not to be alone any longer.

When they reached the door of the nursery school, Besson let the girl go in alone. At this point he was so buoyed up by her presence that he found himself able to stand there motionless on the kerb, smoking a cigarette and watching the passers-by.

After a few minutes the redheaded woman returned, leading a redheaded little boy by the hand. When the child saw Besson, he scowled. Marthe pushed him forward. ‘He’s a bit shy,’ she said. ‘Say hullo to the gentleman, Lucas.’

Besson bent solemnly down and shook hands with the little boy. His small hand felt cold and crinkly, like a monkey’s paw.

Then all three of them set off the way they had come, Marthe holding Lucas’s hand and Besson walking beside them. They made their way through a good many streets, at an easy, unhurried pace. The girl talked to her son and Besson in turn. At one point the little redheaded boy said he wanted a chocolate ice, and Besson bought ices for all of them. They walked on, licking their ices as they went, making occasional little jokes. It was all very peaceful and harmless; it could have gone on like this for days, even weeks. It was like strolling down a long warm beach towards the sea, with a fresh breeze blowing in your face; or, again, like wandering round a fair, without a thought in one’s head, gazing at the shooting galleries and the merry-go-rounds, inhaling the resinous odour of pralines and toffee-apples. A little further on they met a group of little girls and boys, and Lucas stopped to stare at them. Besson heard what the children were saying: it was an argument to decide, yes or no, whether there were any Indians in this part of the world. At another point the girl decided to go into a shop and buy herself a girdle. She left the little boy with Besson and vanished, saying: ‘Won’t be a second—’

After a moment Besson followed her into the shop, bringing the child with him, and watched her look through an assortment of elastic girdles. He released the little boy’s hand to light a cigarette: when he finished, the child’s hand crept back into his, quite naturally, as a matter of course.

Besson looked at him and said: ‘What’s your name?’

‘Lucas’, said the little boy.

‘How old are you?’

‘Four and a half.’

‘And where do you live?’

Silence.

‘Come on, tell me where you live—’

‘Don’t know.’

‘You mean you don’t know where your house is?’

‘Over there….’

‘Or that one there, maybe?’

But the child turned his gaze somewhere else, and that was the end of the conversation.

When the girl had bought her girdle, they set off along the sidewalk again: but this time the little redhaired boy held Besson’s hand.

Later, about nine or ten o’clock, after dinner, when Lucas was asleep in his own room, Besson and Marthe still sat talking in the kitchen. Here, more or less, is what they said to one another.

‘He takes after you,’ Besson said.

‘Lucas? He’s got my hair, yes. But in every other way he’s the image of his father.’

‘Doesn’t he ever ask where he is?’

‘Where who is? His father?’

‘Yes.’

‘No, I told him his father was dead. That way he doesn’t ask any questions.’

‘What does he do?’

‘Him? Oh, he’s a lawyer. Pretty well-known locally, too.’ She began to shred the cigarette she was holding, rolling it between the thumb and index finger of her left hand.

‘I’m not sorry I broke up,’ she said. ‘Not even for Lucas’s sake.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh — he was a really seductive type, you know, everything a woman could want. All the same, he was just a plain stinker. I never had the guts to cut loose from him, though. In the end he ditched me . Bit of luck, I suppose.’

‘He — he ditched you when you became — when you had your child?’

She shook her head. ‘No, not then. It happened about a year ago. Oh, he used to go out with every woman he met. He’d set me up in a bedsitter with — with Lucas. He used to come and visit me every evening. But I never saw him during the day. And yet he was really fond of his son. Used to play with him, all that sort of thing. Brought him toys. Which didn’t stop him being a plain bastard. Money, that was the only thing that mattered as far as he was concerned, money, money. He wanted to make more and more, all the time. He lashed it all out, too. To make people admire him. He liked being admired, it gave him a kick. Trouble was, I didn’t admire him enough, to his way of thinking. I didn’t flatter him. That’s what he couldn’t take about me, I reckon.’