Jean-Marie Le Clézio - The Flood

Besson took a few more steps down the centre of the church; then he stopped, sat down in a pew, and listened to the silence. The bustle of the streets could not penetrate these stony ramparts. And yet it was not really silence: there was too rich and dense a quality about it. Rising amid the floating particles of incense, sliding through the shadows like a thief in the night, there came a muted yet resonant murmur, a continual hum like the roar of a distant waterfall, vibrating in the ground underfoot. It was exactly as though some terrifying full-dress quarrel had taken place inside the church just a few seconds before Besson entered it, and what remained now was the mere memory of the shock-waves, the last fading tremors, the atmospheric disturbances that follow any seismic upheaval. Though silence had replaced the previous deafening uproar, it was still quivering, muttering under its breath, filling dark nooks and corners with whispered blasphemies and stifled oaths and obscene phrases.

Besson glanced around him, and, for the first time since he had walked in, saw that there were other human beings with him in the church. A number of old women, gathered round the pillars because they were near the radiators, sat mumbling incomprehensible prayers; some of them wore large black headscarves which completely hid their faces and hair, and were on their knees at the prie-dieu , quite still. Their bodies, swathed in black dresses and old coats, bent forward; their heads were bowed towards the ground. In the side aisles one or two old crones were lighting candles before the images, with slow, meticulous gestures.

Not far from Besson, in the same row of pews but half-hidden by shadow, a woman was sitting, and Besson examined her attentively. She was, he saw, about sixty years of age, with grey, almost white hair tied up in a mauve headscarf. Her dress was mauve too, but of a somewhat darker tone than one ordinarily saw. Her rounded back was pressed against the seat behind her; her legs, swollen by varicose veins, were set squarely on the ground; her hands lay clasped in her lap. She sat thus, staring straight ahead of her, not moving her lips. Besson could just make out her pale, deeply lined face, with its strong nose; beneath the eye there was a dark stain, as though she had been crying and mascara had run down with the tears. These brown smudges came very low, following the line of the cheek-bone, and her eyelids seemed to be a curious purplish colour, as though someone had given her a couple of shiners. She remained absolutely immobile, looking almost translucent in the gloom; all that could be seen of her now were the pale patches denoting face, neck and hands. She moved once only, to push away a strand of hair that had fallen over her forehead. She simply looked straight ahead of her with those dark-ringed eyes, indifferent to anything going on around, as though into a mirror. Besson tried to deduce, from the direction of her gaze, just what she was looking at. Her eyes were focused a little above the horizontal, he decided. If one prolonged this line of vision it came out at the top of the altar, against a kind of gilded ornament in the shape of a double palm-leaf. There was nothing above or below it. Both the Cross and the altar-piece were away to one side, where she could not see them. The Tabernacle stood to the right of her, and it seemed clear enough that it too stood beyond her range of vision. Then what was the explanation? Why did she sit there staring at this piece of decoration, with its vague resemblance to a double palm-leaf, as though it were a mountain of gold? What was it about this piece of stucco moulding that attracted her?

After some time the woman rose to her feet, picked up a handbag, and walked along the row to the aisle, her gentle, melancholy face an expressionless blank. As she passed Besson her eyes met his, and he felt his heart beat faster. Then they slipped away again, brown aureole and all, not really looking at anything, like two smooth drops of dark water in the middle of that white face.

Then Besson turned back towards the luminous hole shining at the far end of the church, and let the fear rise up in him. He breathed in the saffron-scented air, and listened to the silence throbbing around him. He was inside a boat now. On every side a wide expanse of ocean pressed against its stone hull, so that it groaned gently. A slight rolling motion rocked the marble pillars, and made the vaulting move up and down. Chandeliers swung from right to left, with a clash of crystal pendants, and on countless candles the tiny point flickered perilously. The hum of the great ship’s engines was counterpointed by Besson’s heart-beats, thudding in his chest and on either side of his head. Under the smooth wooden pews the floor stretched away, a vast bare grey expanse, feebly reflecting both daylight and lamplight, a lake that had frozen over. The great flagstones lay snugly side by side, so granite-hard, so peaceful, that one wanted to climb right up into the roof and then hurl oneself into empty space, come smashing down on this platitude, arms outspread in the form of a cross, to founder in a mess of blood and pulped-up flesh and bone.

Or perhaps one was imprisoned in the belly of a whale, still alive, and free to move around inside one’s living captor. Piping and cavities, rucks and folds of oozy wall — these suddenly began to multiply as one watched. Clustering glands sprang from its side, pink-and-green garlands swimming in gall and shadow. Soon one would be digested. The burning lava flow would come spurting through minuscule holes in the middle of each wall, and overwhelm one. Then the frenzied dance would begin, hurling its cramps and spasms from one end of the empty sac to the other. Beyond this activated corridor came the point of final absorption: swallowed up in gold and tinkling crystal, sucked out at one stroke by this gaudy cupping-glass, one would disappear into the void.

This was it, in fact: the building had a driving urge to engulf you. You couldn’t run away, you couldn’t shout or make a fight of it. The cold stone weighed down on you with its millions of years, the deathless gold mocked you with the laughter of madness. It was like being a fly, trapped in that abominable flower which slowly closes its clawed and curving petals over its victims; and the perfume that issued from those hidden mouths spread like some deadly poison. Marble, amber, rubies, incense, porphyry, all were ready to hook you.

The universe had been swallowed up. Streets, cars, cafés, sky and sun, trees, pigeons — nothing of this now remained. The world had suddenly become a cavern, an underground cathedral full of huge stalactites, a concrete air-raid shelter.

Besson knew he had to act fast. He knelt on the wooden kneeler and bowed his head. He tried to say a prayer, but the words would not come any more. Then, while vaulting and walls and floor danced in fury about him, he closed his eyes and submitted himself to God.

When the danger had passed, he got up again. A sudden vast tiredness came over him, as though he had just finished an all-night train journey. He left the pew and walked down the side aisle. The black-clad women were still there, silently moving their lips. Near a painted statue of John the Baptist administering baptism, a grey-clad figure knelt, head in hands. A little further on, close to a big candelabra with half a dozen wax tapers burning in it, a group of three or four women sat waiting. Besson joined them, and took his place in the queue. He looked at the candles burning on the tray of the candelabra; the wax had run down all of them, producing the most curious excrescences. At the top of each little column, attached to the wick like a banner, was a little tongue of yellow light, burning with stubborn persistence, more ephemeral and tragic than the life of a butterfly.