Jean-Marie Le Clézio - The Flood

‘You have faith,’ the voice whispered. ‘But you do not know it.’

Besson shrank into himself at this. Then the voice broke silence once more. ‘You must humble yourself, my son,’ it said, ‘Humble yourself both in body and spirit. Renounce idle things. Kill your pride.’

The words came in groups, punctuated by that somewhat sibilant breathing. Besson let them enter him like so many tiny darts aimed at the nervous centres.

‘Do you not realize that intelligence is of no use to you? You judge people and events, and think you have understood them. But you have not understood them at all, because you do not love them. Learn to question your own achievements. Feel a little self-doubt. As you did today, or else you wouldn’t be here. Realize that you’re not alone. Your sufferings are shared by the rest of mankind, and God is well aware of them. You are going to change your way of life. You will renounce your pursuit of self and prostrate yourself before Our Lord. It is a hard decision; but this is the price you must pay for peace of mind.’

‘It is a hard decision,’ Besson said.

‘Humble yourself. Humble yourself, and be contrite.’

‘What if I have no faith?’

‘What do you know about it?’ the voice said. ‘Do not be presumptuous. Perhaps God had chosen you.’

‘Then why — why does He not manifest Himself?’

‘He manifests Himself. But you do not know how to see Him.’

‘Yet He knows—’

‘You are free within His will. Your life belongs to you. But you are free within the will of God.’

‘You mean it’s an illusion, then?’

‘No. This is no illusion, but truth. Beyond you there exists a plane of reality which no one will ever be able to comprehend, but in which you nevertheless have your place. You are inside the circle, yes: but you are free there. If you bow to His will, if you submit yourself, then you will be free. Otherwise you will remain a slave to yourself. Root out pride from you, since pride is the prisonhouse of evil. Become as a child again. Learn anew that you are only one of God’s creatures.’

There was a last period of silence, broken only by tiny creaking sounds in the wooden structure of the confessional. Besson listened to the breathing from beyond the grille: it wheezed a little, probably because of a blocked nasal passage. Then the voice continued, in a more solemn tone: ‘I am going to give you absolution. While I pray I want you to repeat, several times: O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love.’

The voice began to murmur behind the grille, and Besson, kneeling alone before the wooden partition, repeated in a low gabble: ‘O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. O my God … heartily sorry … having offended Thee … who art all good … all my love … detest all my sins because they offend thee … O my God … O my God … sorry … all good … all my love … sins … sins … offend Thee … my God … all good … deserving of all … sin … good … my love … good … O my God … O my God … all good … all my love … all my love …’

‘Go in peace,’ said the voice.

As Besson was walking back down the church towards the exit a sudden burst of organ music crashed out, and began to echo round the marbled walls. Besson stopped for a moment to listen to the crystal clear flow of notes from far above him, notes that rippled down into the very depths of one’s soul, flooding eyes and throat with their clear, pure water, each individual drop hanging fixed and motionless like a minuscule diamond. Then the notes descended from the heights, became a ’cello, a woman’s voice, stirring words that yet said nothing, that wove in and out, unbroken by any interrution till at last inexorably the music plunged down and was lost in some deep subterranean abyss, and the thunderous climax sounded so deep and solemn, so slow, so full of terrifying cavernous echoes, that it seemed on the brink of fading into total silence. Overwhelmed by this great chord — so agonizingly held at the lowest limit of the human ear’s capacity to receive it — and bowed down beneath the organ’s vast and unleashed power, Besson once more, for the last time, muttered those magic words of repentance and oblivion: ‘… O my God … who art all good and deserving of all my love … all my love … because they offend Thee … all my sins …’

Then he pushed open the leather-bound wooden door, and went out into the street.

By way of penance, François Besson decided to do a stint as a beggar. He strolled through the town at random for a while, to find himself a suitable corner. He examined several different sites, but none of them really satisfied him. If they were not too dry, they were too rain-sodden. Either they had not enough light, or else far too much. Here the pavement was on the slope, and would be uncomfortable to sit on; there the potential pitch was right by a bus-stop. Another was too near a police-station. In one place there was somebody already installed, an old upturned hat in front of him, displaying his empty eye-socket.

Finally Besson found a corner that he liked. It was on a very busy street, with wide sidewalks, and rows of smart shops and expensive cafés. At widely-spaced intervals, on either side of the street, leafless chestnut trees rose from their protective metal cages, the mouths of which resembled radiant suns. Cars drove by, or stood parked at the kerbside. Everything shone and glittered, and the gleam of the neon signs and the streets-lamp was reflected on the tarred asphalt, with clear-cut, clean patterns of light, as though they had been washed down.

Besson settled himself on the pavement and leaned back against the wall. He put the beach-bag down beside him. Then he sat watching the crowds go by. It got dark very quickly. People became dim shadows, suddenly illuminated by the white light streaming out of cinemas and bars. Women walked along swivelling their hips, tripping on high-heeled shoes. The eyes up there in those white, mask-like faces were dull and vacant: they gave a quick glance at Besson, then moved away with indifference. The incessant flurry of footsteps made the ground vibrate, a sound both witless and somehow menacing, like a mass exodus of rats. Besson curled his legs up under him and tried to ignore it. But this proved impossible: the vibration passed right through him, like an electric current, and set him shivering. He found himself wishing he could melt into the roughcast wall behind him, shrink back into the core of all the plaster and rubble, flatten himself, become a mere membrane, a pale splash on the reddish distemper.

The crowd swam past, swag-bellied, a crazy fish opening and shutting its mouth. Faces, faces, faces — weakness and cruelty, glances from under heavy half-closed lids, thick lips opening to reveal decayed teeth, greasy hair slicked down with sour sweat, the smell of tallow, the smell of wet feet, dirt under the fingernails, more faces, degenerate faces, swollen and murderous, the sort that might have come out of hell to gibber round your skylight, yes, there , pale grey shadows, all in step, men, women, children, fat and thin, young and old, bald, bearded, lame, short-sighted, sexless — oh, what slugs they are, what jellyfish, what wretched uncivilized clowns! Here they come, waves of them, rolling and dribbling up to my window, their cheeks all a-bounce and aquiver, materializing out of the darkness, crouching there in great heaped-up masses, then suddenly, frighteningly, springing up like so many huge elongated black rags, gliding through the air to usurp my domain: the terror of the Tongs, moaning sirens, like some black and muted nightmare of life after death these ranks of human jelly come pressing and fluttering at the glass. They keep peering at me, besmirching me with their eyes, endlessly, pale ghastly creatures, cruel glances, snickers of laughter. My body is emptied like a trussed chicken’s, the looks and the laughter run through it, draw blood.