Jean-Philippe Toussaint - Reticence

It was a little after eight thirty when I went down to the port the next morning. The sky was very gray over the village, and several long black clouds drifted on the horizon over Sasuelo Island. The lighthouse had been out for several hours now, and I looked at its lofty silhouette standing out in the mist, wondering if anyone had been to Sasuelo Island in the last couple of days. Because even if there’d been no keeper on the island since the lighthouse was automated, it only stood to reason that maintenance visits were carried out from time to time and that someone tasked with keeping the lighthouse had to go over to the island on a regular basis. But what I couldn’t quite figure out was how often these visits took place. Was it every month, once a week, every two or three days? Because if it was that often, I said to myself, it was certain that someone must have been on the island in the last day or so. And then I started thinking that someone could have seen me leave the hotel on my way to the village that morning, someone who was still in the village and was watching me at this very moment.

I’d sat down on a stone block at the end of the jetty and was looking back at the square that stretched out on the other side of the port. It was empty and the wind blew steadily over the ground, swirling up whirlwinds of dust and old bits of paper. And it was then — as I was sitting all alone on the jetty and there was no one around — that I saw the old gray Mercedes enter the village. It had turned the corner at a very slow speed and was now driving slowly through the square. It seemed almost hesitant, and I thought for a moment that it would continue on its way, but it slowed down some more and stopped beside a bench near the telephone booth. I hadn’t made a move and could see an immobile figure in the car, but the distance was too great for me to distinguish who it could be. The car had parked facing the sea about thirty yards away, and the engine continued idling on the square while the silhouette inside seemed to be looking in my direction.

Because it was Biaggi in fact who was watching me from inside the car. Biaggi had seen me leave the hotel this morning when I’d gone into the village and followed me at a distance down to the port. And there he was now, watching me from the wheel of his car, whose engine he’d just switched off. A few seconds went by and a man I’d never seen got out of the car. He was massively built, with broad shoulders and closely cropped gray hair. Was he looking for me, this man who was now slowly walking across the square in my direction? He stopped in front of the little stone parapet at the edge of the gravel and started looking out over the horizon. Neither of us moved, and he couldn’t have failed to notice me on the jetty because I was right in his line of sight, with nothing but the softly undulating water of the harbor between us. He stood there across from me on the square with his eyes on the sea, not seeming to pay me the slightest attention. But in fact he had seen me, I knew full well that he’d seen me and that he’d been focused on me ever since he’d gotten out of the car. All the while looking out at the sea, he took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lifted it slowly to his mouth, pulling out a cigarette with his lips and lighting it while protecting the lighter with the palm of his hand. His eyes rested on me for a brief instant, as if he just wanted to make sure I was still on the jetty, and then he went into the phone booth.

Who did he want to call? Who did he want to tell that I was there on the jetty? Was it Biaggi, was it Biaggi he was calling? I could see his outline through the window of the telephone booth, picking up the receiver and dialing a number. But if it was Biaggi he was calling, I thought, if he was calling Biaggi to tell him I was on the jetty, no one was going to answer because the answering machine must still be on in the villa. Unless Biaggi had turned off the answering machine, unless Biaggi was at home right now waiting for this call. And it was then that someone answered, it was then that someone must have picked up the phone in the Biaggi’s villa because the man suddenly started talking inside the booth. I was still sitting on the stone block at the end of the jetty, and I could just make out the silhouette of the man talking on the phone in the telephone booth. He turned his head in my direction from time to time, and despite the distance I could see his look clearly behind the glass pane, a hard, somewhat empty look that was riveted on the port. Just before the end of the conversation he glanced over at me once more, and he must have seen that I was observing him because he twisted his body slightly in the booth, turning his back on me completely. He said one or two more words and finally hung up, leaving the booth and letting the glass door fall shut behind him. He got back into the car without taking another look in my direction or even looking out at the sea, and I watched the old gray Mercedes turn around on the square and slowly leave the village.

As soon as it disappeared I rushed over to the square, went into the phone booth, and dialed Biaggi’s number. Because if the man had just/ called Biaggi and Biaggi had answered, I said to myself, by immediately calling him back I would no doubt not leave him enough time to switch the answering machine back on, and, hearing the telephone ring again in the living room he would no doubt wrongly think it was the man calling again and he would pick up the phone, Biaggi would answer my call himself. I’d just dialed his number and stood there in the booth with my ear to the receiver waiting for the phone to ring. It rang once, then a second time, slightly shorter, and then I heard the phone connect and Biaggi’s voice in the receiver, Biaggi’s flat voice recorded on the tape. So in the brief interval between the man’s call and mine Biaggi had had enough time to switch the answering machine back on. Because, in fact, he must have gone back out immediately, Biaggi must have left the house immediately after receiving the man’s call to come meet me, and he must be on the road right now. No doubt I’d see him appear on the square any minute now. I looked over at the entrance to the village but the road was empty, the two houses towering over the bend in the road were closed and silent. I could see them clearly from where I was in the booth, and nothing moved all around, just the leaves in the trees swaying slowly in the wind. I hadn’t hung up yet and Biaggi’s voice could still be heard in the receiver, Biaggi’s monotonous voice coming from nowhere and talking into the emptiness. Then the voice was still and the higher-pitched, almost piercing beep sounded in the receiver and things were quiet once more. I didn’t hang up, but held my breath and didn’t say a thing. The magnetic answering machine tape must have been winding in Biaggis’ living room, it must have been turning slowly and recording all of the imperceptible variations of my silence. Because I kept perfectly still, I’d contracted the muscles of my hand and didn’t make the slightest movement in the booth, while the tape must have continued turning inexorably in the living room of the Biaggis’ villa, winding silently inside the machine as it recorded my silence.

When I hung up I realized that there was someone on the jetty. A man dressed in a blue sailor’s jacket was at the dock, I could see him in the distance through the window of the phone booth. Otherwise the port was deserted, and I watched as the man walked over to the stone block where I’d been sitting just a few moments ago and passed it without stopping. I was still standing in the phone booth, and I followed him with my eyes while he continued along the jetty without seeming to notice me or even suspect I was watching. He stopped in front of a fishing boat and took a good look at its hull, and after tossing the little knapsack he was carrying on board he jumped in with a single bound, rocking the boat for a few moments before it stabilized bit by bit alongside the dock. He remained standing in the boat while untying the moorings, and, tossing them onto the pier, he grabbed a big wooden oar that he then thrust vertically into the water to push the boat out to the middle of the bay. He was now much closer to where I was and I could almost make out his features, his dry, angular face was chiseled by the wind. I didn’t move in the booth and kept watching from a distance, my body half hidden by the gray mass of the telephone. He’d gone back to the stern now and, kneeling down on the bench to start the motor, he gave the cord three long pulls, lifting his arm high in the air. The motor fired up and, sitting down in the stern, he grabbed the rudder and left the port at an extremely slow speed, his body perfectly immobile in the back of the boat and his eyes fixed on the horizon. I kept watching him from behind the window of the phone booth and could only see his back now as the boat headed out into the open sea toward — there was no longer any doubt — Sasuelo Island.