J. M. Le Clézio - Terra Amata

You ought to have started to struggle right away — to shout, run, or burst out laughing. Something funny ought suddenly to have happened, like someone slipping on a banana-skin or being seized with a fit of hiccups. But the mechanical crowd went on advancing, one foot after the other, solemnly, black and white, along that terrible furrow. You ought to have been able to give an ear-splitting whistle, or eat an ice-cream cone: but it was impossible.

In order to do something, Chancelade stared with hatred at the dark wooden coffin with brass handles and tried to imagine that it was empty. But that wasn’t amusing. It was more terrifying, even, because after all it was probably true. On the shiny wooden lid the ridiculous leaves and petals of the plastic wreaths and flowers bobbed lightly up and down.

Then, when the procession had been round the square for the second time, Chancelade imagined that he was inside the coffin. His hands were folded in front of him; eyes, nostrils, ears and mouth were closed. Lots of sheaves of flowers had been laid on top of the coffin, and on one of them was written in gold letters:

‘For my lamented self.’

Behind the woman in black, who moved forward as if on roller-skates, a man with black hair wore new shoes that squeaked as he walked solemnly along.

Then a few yards further on the boy thought of something else: it wasn’t a man lying in the coffin, it was a big green and blue lizard. The cat had killed it behind the kitchen door and now they were going to bury it. They’d laid it down on its back in the box among the crimson satin cushions, and folded its little paws on its belly, tied together with pink ribbon. It was being borne along inside the dark chest, slightly jolted by the movement of the hearse, and everyone was walking slowly after it dabbing their eyes. On the lid of the coffin were sheaves of flies threaded on wire, and on the ribbons was written:

‘To my beloved lizard’

‘Sadly missed’

‘To my reptile’

etc.

The procession would go up through the hills to the miniature cemetery. The box would be put into the ground and over it would be placed a slab of marble with the words:

LIZARD

Born May 1, 1951

Died August 21, 1952

Rest in peace.

There’d be graves everywhere for people who’d died and been changed into animals. There’d be the woman who turned into a cat, and on the tombstone would be written: ‘For darling Pussy.’ And the man who’d become a bulldog: ‘Paddy’. There’d be big graves for men who’d become horses or elephants, and women who’d become giraffes and lionesses. There’d be tiny little sarcophagi for beetle-men and white-mice-women. And everywhere pots of flowers, bones, feathers, medals, and slabs of black marble with names on: ‘Wanda who was a sinner’, ‘Mitsou’, ‘Chum’, ‘Tom Tit’, ‘Pierrot’, ‘Mirabelle’, ‘Bathsheba of the flashing eyes’. There would be no more cemeteries for people, only for broken-down horses, dead cats, squashed potato-bugs, and dogs, and parrots, and lizards.

Just before the third tour of the square ended Chancelade had time to make up a poem for the green and blue lizard lying on its back in the dark wooden coffin with brass handles. This was it:

For my Lizard.

Your eyes are so big lizard

Your nose is so flat, lizard

Your teeth are bad, lizard

Your tail is broken, lizard

The cat killed you, lizard

You were trying to steal, lizard

So you got what was coming to you, lizard

Now farewell, lizard

We’re going to bury you, lizard

In the black coffin, lizard

You asked for it, lizard

You’d been told often enough, lizard

That you must never, lizard

Never never lounge, lizard.

It was also from about this moment that Chancelade began to understand that he would never be alone.

In the room with closed shutters Chancelade has lain down on the bed and gone to sleep. He lay on his right side with his head near the edge of the pillow. He drew his right leg up so that the knee was touching his stomach and stretched his left leg out to the bottom of the bed. Though the room was stifling hot he pulled the sheet up to his chin and tucked it in round his neck so as not to leave any gap. He flung his right arm out across the mattress and bent the left one up so that the wrist was against his nose. Then he shut his eyes and waited in the darkness for the vision that comes every evening to announce that he’s going to sleep.

This is how it always happens. First the endless fall past the walls of a house, with the windows flashing by one after another. It’s always the same building — a huge block with a white frontage and lots of little square windows without shutters or blinds, through which you can see nothing but darkness. There are hundreds of them. Thousands. Millions. They fly past, and all the time you’re falling, falling, falling.

After that there’s this strange room without any furniture, without floor or ceiling, just two windows, one behind you and one in the wall facing you. And this is where you have to be careful. What you have to try to do is be simultaneously with your back to the inside wall and at the same time right up against the opposite one. It’s not easy, but it can be done if you know how. What you have to do is draw the walls towards one another with all the force of your will, gradually, without ever relaxing, as if you were pulling on a huge piece of elastic. And at the same time, inch by inch, you have to swell out your body to meet the wall. You have to invade all the space in the room, seize every cube of air, blow yourself up by breathing in, drinking, devouring the atmosphere. All means are justified so long as you succeed. You can imbue yourself with the colour brown, or the warmth of wood and plaster, or eat the specks of dust in the air, or touch the draughts. But the most difficult is this: when you’ve pulled the bit of the wall with the window in it right up to you so that it’s touching your legs and stomach, you must also have remained as small as an ant lost in the enormous empty room, so that you see the same grey wall with its bright window distant and far away as if through a dozen mirrors. You see, it’s as if you were in a room small as a coffin yet at the same time vast and chill as a cathedral. Then, when you’ve succeeded in doing this after seconds, minutes, or hours of concentration, there suddenly rises up the sheet of fog that extinguishes the body. First your arms go unconscious, then your chest and stomach, then your back and the nape of your neck and your head. The fog keeps mounting — heavy, thick, uncoiling in great cold whorls. Your head topples and evaporates. There’s nothing left on the bed but the rumpled trace of someone who has become invisible. You’re asleep.

A long dark plain / Grass standing stiff as knives / Sound of water / Sound of footsteps walking through the grass / The heart beats fast, fast / ‘No need to be frightened’ says the voice / ‘No need to be frightened no need to be frightened’ / ‘It’s the wolves prowling’ / ‘Or the sound of the wind’ / ‘Perhaps it’s the rain falling’ / ‘It’s stopped raining’ / ‘Then perhaps it’s the sound of your footsteps’ / ‘I’m not walking I’m not walking’ / ‘You see’ / The clouds are driving across the sky / It’s night and day at the same time / ‘Watch out there’ / You can see the light / ‘There’s a fire in the forest’ / ‘What forest what forest’ / ‘I want to get away from here’ / ‘I want to get away from here’ / ‘I want to go let me go’ / ‘Why won’t my legs move’ / ‘I want to get out of here’ / ‘I want to get away’ / The night is black / The smoke is black / The grass is black / The fire is black / The forest is black / The wolves are bla / ‘Quick what’s the time’ / The night is black / The smoke is black / The grass is black / The fire is black /The forest is black /The wolves are b / ‘Look out I’m falling’ / The night is / ‘Stop, stop it, stop it’ / ‘Don’t you see it’s raining now’ / ‘The rain will put the fire out’ / ‘The wind’s dropped it’s going to rain’ / ‘Listen’ / ‘See the lightning over there’ / ‘My mother said she’d be along right away’ / The night is black / black / black / ‘She’s on her way’ / ‘Yes she’s coming I can see her’ / The night is / ‘Yes yes the night is black the smoke is black the grass is black the fire is black’ / You’re forgetting something / ‘The moon is black’ / And / ‘The spiders are black’ / Yes and / ‘The ink is black’ / The ink is blue-black and / ‘The glasses are black’ / The glasses are black and / ‘The water is black’ / And you were going to say / ‘I can’t’ / Yes / ‘No’ / Yes / ‘No’ / Yes / ‘No’ / Yes / ‘No’ / The / ‘The potatoes’ / That’s not it / ‘The olives’ / No / ‘The cars’ / No the / ‘The’ / Hurry up you’ve got to say it / ‘I can’t it’s too dangerous’ / Quick / ‘I’m frightened’ / Quick quick / ‘The’ / The / ‘The wolves are black’/