Сандрин Коллетт - Just After the Wave

“Madie doesn’t want you to have an ATV,” says Louie. “It’s too dangerous.”

Noah shrugs.

“I’ll get it all the same.”

“Oh, yeah? And why’s that?”

“Because… they’re gonna give it to me because… they left us here, that’s why.”

Louie turns to Perrine.

“And you, do you think you’ll get your kitten?”

“Oh, yes.”

He scratches his cheek; his trip to the racetrack doesn’t seem like much in comparison to what the others are asking for, so he tries to come up with a better idea. A new bike? A dog? A game console. Or nothing at all, if they are stuck on this island the way Perrine said, until they’re old.

“We’ll have beards,” he murmured to Noah.

“And we’ll walk with a cane.”

They giggle and look at each other out of the corner of their eye. In the end they know perfectly well that it isn’t funny.

Boredom. Never before have they sat for so long doing nothing. No inspiration, no desire: when one of them suggests something, the other two sigh and shake their heads. It’s driving Noah crazy. He jumps to his feet.

“Okay, what do we do now?”

“Stop saying that all the time!”

“Yes but we’re not doing anything. I’m bored.”

“There’s nothing to do,” says Louie, spreading his arms to encompass the house and the island. “Where do you want to go?”

“I’m sick of being here.”

The little boy goes out to walk along the shore; initially Louie and Perrine can see him, then he vanishes from their field of vision. They go back to gazing at the sea, hoping to see Pata arrive.

“How many days has it been?” asks Louie.

Perrine, who crossed off a Thursday on the sheet, replies without hesitating.

“Seven.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Louie raises his eyebrows and suddenly stifles a laugh.

“What is it?” says Perrine.

“So that means we haven’t had a wash in seven days.”

The little girl smiles in turn: It’s not as if we were really clean, after the storm.

“It stinks,” adds Louie, sniffing his T-shirt, which he hasn’t changed, either.

And then:

“Shall we go for a swim?”

“In the sea?”

“Well sure, it’s nice weather, there’s no waves.”

“Somewhere where we can touch bottom?”

“All right.”

They call Noah and he comes running. In the beginning they probe cautiously for the bottom. And yet they know this spot at the end of the garden, not even a week ago it was still grass, and they can feel it tickling their ankles; a gentle slope, and they move fifteen yards or so before they’re able to let themselves go into the water and swim and splash. Before long they’re shouting and splashing one another, they forget that initially they swore to keep an eye on the horizon, on the sky and the sea. They stay there for maybe two hours, not a cloud, no fear, no twinge in their bellies. Sometimes they spot an object the sea has brought to the shore and they pull it up, shouting. They have found a ball, and pieces of wood, and a plastic chair. When they’re not interested they toss the item back into the sea.

“And what’s that!” screams Noah, pointing.

A thick tarp floating a few yards away. Louie dives in to retrieve it.

“There’s something inside it!”

“Treasure!”

“It’s heavy. Come and help me.”

The three of them tow the tarp until it beaches on the shore. Impossible to pull it any further.

“Shall we look?” says Louie.

Noah is jumping up and down: Go on, go on! Wading by the water’s edge, they struggle over the rolled tarp, in vain, it’s stuck. Perrine runs to fetch a pair of scissors and hands them to Louie.

“I’m sure it’s a safe!” says Noah, fidgeting as he tears off the bits of plastic his older brother has cut away.

Then all of a sudden they recoil.

The smell.

“Yuck,” says Perrine. “What is it?”

“Dunno.”

Louie cautiously removes the tarp, keeping an arm’s length.

“Well?” asks Noah.

“I can’t tell but I don’t want to go on.”

He wrinkles his nose. Noah tries: One last time. Leaning forward, he yanks at the plastic.

“Oh!”

All three of them leap away.

“What is it, what is it?” cries Perrine, who knows but—

“Oh, shit!” exclaims Louie.

“It’s a dead body!” screams Noah.

At first they thought of pushing it back into the sea. But without touching it, now that they knew. Louie sent Noah to get a long stick so they could shove it in. Impossible. Too heavy, high and dry. They are shivering all over, as if the corpse might infect them, or the island, along with the air and the sea around them.

“We have to make it go away!” cries Noah, stamping his feet.

“I’m going to be sick,” gasps Louie, turning away and vomiting the entire contents of his stomach.

Afterwards they give up. They managed to roll the body over once or twice, and the ocean has half covered it.

“The sea will take it away,” murmurs Louie, wiping his mouth. “With the tide it will go away again. Let’s just not stay here.”

Because they feel even dirtier now than when they first went into the water, when they go back up the house they rinse off with a bottle of fresh water; they have a big enough supply, and tonight they’ll drink orange juice.

“Yuck, yuck,” says Perrine, over and over.

“It was disgusting,” whispers Louie, remembering the swollen skin he saw briefly under the tarp.

They haven’t stopped shaking, although they are standing by the walls of the house, away from the sea—but still too near, and they’d rather be where it’s safe, as if the corpse might suddenly pop up next to them otherwise.

“Who was it?” asks Noah. “Was it Liam?”

“Of course not, don’t say such a thing.”

The little boy shrugs.

“Well, it could have been.”

“Stop talking nonsense.”

“It wasn’t someone we know, then?”

“Of course not.”

“So they’re not dead.”

“I don’t think so, no.”

Louie was right: by morning, the body has disappeared. They walk around the island to make sure the tarp didn’t get caught on a root or in an eddy, and they sigh with relief when they come back. They feel as if the smell is still there with them, in their noses, as if it is firmly planted inside them. They rub their noses, blow them. Even while they’re drinking their cold chocolate at breakfast and eating their melba toast, the memory of the smell is disturbing.

The weather has turned drizzly, and they look out the windows at the sullen sky, and the sea they cannot imagine swimming in and that is beginning to turn rough. In addition, the hens they let out early that morning have come back, a sure sign the day is turning stormy. At the end of the corridor they’re squawking, each one louder than the other. In the room where Louie locks his birds the children find eggs laid in odd little places, as if the hens were trying to hide them, thinks Noah; for the children every day is like a treasure hunt. It reminds them how at Easter Madie and Pata hid eggs in the garden, in the grass, under rocks, behind trees, for whoever could find the most—but those eggs were hard-boiled, painted all sorts of colors, decorated with drawings and stickers, not the white or brown eggs that break if you squeeze them too tight when you pick them up and which leave big gooey driblets all down your fingers.

Perrine makes a new pancake batter. Their eyes no longer glow with delight: eggs, pancakes, noodles, they’ve had their fill already for eight days. Even this is boring. They dream of grilled meat, the smell of rosemary and thyme, red peppers roasted on the barbecue. Noah nibbles on a potato left over from Louie’s escapade and grumbles, “I like sautéed potatoes better.”