Jean-Marie Le Clézio - The Flood

François Besson watched the landscape with eager curiosity. Through every window in the bus he could see it unrolling past them at a great rate, producing the oddest inverted reflections in the polished metal framework of each seat. The vehicle drove straight ahead, very smoothly on the whole, cleaving a path through the transparent air. They were caught in the still centre of movement, of advance without self-propulsion. What they had here was a small section of earth gliding across the earth, not in order to conquer anything at all, but simply floating on the level asphalt with four whirring tyres, cruising, drawn into the void, climbing hills, coming down faster the other side, skimming along on a straight flat road.

Sometimes the bus would stop by the roadside, generally beside a clump of houses; people would get up and leave the vehicle, and others would take their places. People stared at the newcomers for a moment or two, made fun of them in whispers, and then forgot them.

The conductor had by now worked his way down to Besson.

‘Terminus, please,’ Besson said, holding out a note.

The man counted out several coins, gave them to Besson, and turned the handle on his ticket-machine. With a ping! a little piece of paper emerged from the slot, and the conductor put it in Besson’s hand. ‘Next, please,’ he called.

‘Les Mimosas’, said the girl in the next seat, and the same process was repeated.

On his scrap of yellowish paper Besson read:

108576329

Route: A

F

00

325

1012

3

Thank you

He put the ticket in his raincoat pocket, and watched the conductor making his way along the central aisle. He was a man of about forty, with a heavy lined face and rounded shoulders. From time to time he would stoop down and peer through the window, and then whistle to the driver, who stopped the bus. When he whistled again, the bus would move off again, engine labouring.

It occurred to Besson that being the driver or conductor of a bus was by no means a bad job. You walked up and down inside this long metal tube, and turned the little handle which cut off so much paper a time. When you had collected all the fares you went up front and sat by the driver and kept a vague eye on the grey ribbon of road endlessly unwinding in front of you. Or else you were the driver, esconced in that little cabin-like enclosure of anti-glare glass, turning the steering-wheel, following the contours of the landscape. You pulled up at the halts, then let in your clutch and moved off again. You changed gear, first, second, third, fourth, down to third, up to fourth again. You braked violently to annoy the passengers. You could keep up a grumbling commentary the whole time on drivers who overtook you or pedestrians crossing the road, this sort of thing: ‘Well, get on with it, then — Jesus, will you just look at that! What the hell d’you think I was signalling for? Yes, you , want your face bashed in, then? Move yourself, you half-wit! And what about that clod on the island, is he going to cross or isn’t he? Come on , you stupid bugger, you clapped-out thing you—’ And so on. You could sound the horn, too, that clarion note which really made people’s hearts miss a beat if they weren’t expecting it. And you could look out for the pretty women all along your route, and whistle at them as you went by. There were the girls who hitched up their skirts as they clambered aboard at a stop, and those who just missed tipping over when you jammed the brakes on, and those who travelled standing, close to the door, and chatted you up, and were good for a laugh. In the evening you’d have a drink, and go to bed tired out, and dream all night of that never-ending road. You’d know the route by heart, of course, you could drive it without tiring yourself, and the days passed quickly. You made your own private map of this small section of the world. You learnt all the important things about it — the bits where you had to keep a sharp look-out, the bits where there were always lots of people around, the deserted stretches where you could relax. You knew every fountain and signpost and built-up corner and crossroads and bridge and level-crossing. You had your own landmarks. You knew exactly where you were going. Several dozen miles of wealthy and thickly-populated countryside, where something — the same sort of thing — was always happening.

The bus drove on through the countryside. There were large numbers following the same route, bowling along in the sunshine, glossy as cockchafers, leaving a small trail of whitish exhaust-smoke behind them. They came in all shapes and sizes — long automobiles with high tail-fins, in various pastel colours; squat rounded mini-cars with rear-lights like small portholes, and engines that roared loudly going uphill; light vans and heavy haulage trucks, vehicles old and new, some all chromium plating and shiny enamel that you could see your face in, others with smashed headlights and dented bonnets and patches of red-lead undercoat everywhere. The men inside these steel carapaces were more or less invisible. You might just catch a glimpse of them — pale ghosts lolling back on the seat-cushions, half-hidden behind dirty windows. Every make of car was represented. Volkswagens, stuffy and claustrophobic, like tiny armoured vehicles. High-riding Chevrolets, low-slung Panhards. Mole-like Citroëns, Jaguars built to resemble smart slippers. Narrow Austins, foreshortened Renaults; the Alfa-Romeo for women, the Mercedes Benz for men. Simcas looking like Prisunic toys, Skodas, NSU’s, BMW’s, Lancias. Fords straight from the hardware shop, funeral parlour Cadillacs. All were exactly the same in the last resort, fast, noisy, each with its load of feet and hands and heads, each like a railway carriage transporting its humble crowd of women in shawls and men with dark glasses, children, grandmothers, sleepy dogs. Life gleamed from their polished metal, diffused the smell of hot rubber. One day their journey would end in some vast scrap-iron dump, an old cars’ cemetery outside the nearest town, where the rust, season by season, would slowly bind their immobilized bodywork into one solid mass.

The road was straight as a ruler now, running beside the sea to the right of the railway track, and the houses were thinning out. Fields stretched away to the hills beyond. There were fruit orchards, rock-gardens, ruined buildings, clumps of cacti. The sun was high over the sea, and the sea was a dazzling blue, with small crisp ripples ruffling its surface.

Besson decided this would be a good point to get off. He rang the bell, waited till the bus stopped, and found himself out on the road. When the bus started off again without him, he watched it pass; but the windows were opaque, and he could not recognize anyone. He began to walk along the shoulder of the road, in the same direction.

In this manner he covered several miles. The ground was soft and covered with a kind of short springy grass that crackled underfoot. The sea was now completely out of sight, and the earth was beginning to crack and split under the effect of the heat. Everywhere insects were buzzing in the undergrowth, and the air was loud with the dry chirp of locusts. The landscape was completely deserted. Across this rough stretch of open countryside the road carved a furrow of noise and movement. The houses, set between sloping fields and surrounded by clumps of umbrella pine wore an abandoned air. There was nothing to do here except go on walking and survey the scene around you.

The sun was beating down fiercely, and Besson had to take off his raincoat. For a moment or two he carried it over one arm, but this hampered his movements, so instead he left it on a sheltered spot close to the roadside. A little further on he abandoned his beach-bag too, hiding it behind a bush so that he could pick it up again later if he ever had need of it.