J. M. Le Clézio - Terra Amata

But all that was impossible to imagine. It was as if there was nothing anywhere but silence, a dreadful cruel silence through which lightly floated bubbles of sound and life. There was really nothing to be hoped for outside that place, that time, that destiny. One would never penetrate the defences of the unknown, never get away from this old earth. Everything there was was there. You had to play and move about and think without stopping, with all your delirious and contradictory powers. You had to go on with the adventure once begun, without wanting to, torn to pieces by doing so. You had to give each thing its name, and sign each move and event with all the hatred and all the love you were capable of.

You had to advance into the plain in the dusk, following the tracks. Walk for hours and hours through tall grasses and mosquito-ridden swamps. Then, when you came upon the herd of elephants, you knelt down and shouted at the top of your voice the harsh war-cry, the prayer, the song of expiation addressed to the animal about to die.

‘Elephant Lafiaku, spirit of the bush, purse of silver, spirit with the arm between thine eyes, strength that uprootest trees, puller-up of bushes, son of the destroyers of the forest, spirit of the coconut-smasher, elephant who kneelest down in thine enormous mass, thou with thine indestructible defences, thou whose mouth smilest a terrible smile!

‘Foot that makest a path through the undergrowth, elephant, transformer of thorn thickets into open glades, thou who dost force a way for thyself! Ogòkú with a back like a drum, he who maketh a noise like a blacksmith when he greets you with the sound of his hammer óówú!

‘Illustrious elephant, bough born in Èpé! Elephant who lookest behind thee with difficulty, like someone with a stiff neck! Elephant with a cushion on thine head but no cargo! Elephant who dost balance a weight on thine enormous head! Elephant, the hunter sees thee and says, “I will now hunt no more: I must go pray to Ikaru!”

‘Elephant, the hunter sees thee and throws his arrows into the swamp, saying, “If the wire-seller is not dead, I shall have other arrows when I come to his house.” Elephant, we see thee and point at thee with all ten fingers outstretched in sign of consternation, and shout, “Yábà ń yábà!”

‘Kúdù, tall as two hundred hills, thou art a boatman! Whilst the elephant is alive women flee and withdraw their wombs. When the elephant is dead, I shall see my last year’s mistress, and her of the year before that. Elephant, for whom we dig a pit, but who art too clever to walk over it! After thy death thou dost change colour like the Sarcophrynium.

‘When Lojomon the elephant dies the butchers come and cut him up to sell, and those who are hungry come and eat him on the spot.

‘If an elephant passes a certain way but once that way becomes a road, and if his mother passes that way also, that road becomes a plain. The elephant has a head but no neck.

‘Elephant Laaye, enormous animal! Elephant La-n-dede, thy name is “Death, stand aside, I pray thee!” He who says he will slay the elephant, and the hunter who says “I shall bring down an elephant”, receive the elephant’s reply: “If thou knowest the fate of goats, leave me in peace. But if thou knowest it not, come near and I will teach thee.”

‘His eye-sockets are like ládugbós: his throat is like the vase orú. But if no one harms thee, thou dost no harm to any. The elephant has but one arm and yet he can tear up a palm-tree: if he had two he would rend the sky like a rag. Mother who dost cover thine infant like the night!

‘The elephant walks in anger and his body is huge. A man with a year-old charm had best leave following him, for the elephant fears not charms. Animal of the long defences, good angel of him who kneels on thine head! Elephant, who transformest all into dust!

‘When a herd of elephants is gathered together they are like a thick wall. Animal of the long tail! It is thou who dost smash the gourds one against the other! It is thou who art seen in the river washing the cooking-pots and the isáàsùn!’

And so the years went by one after the other. You were still alive, still breathing. Now and then, when you were sharpening a pencil or peeling an orange, the knife slipped and gashed your hand. But the cells sewed themselves together again, immediately, indefatigably, because the body didn’t yet want to die.

Lying fully dressed on his back on the bed, Chancelade took a cigarette out of the blue packet on the bedside table and lit it with a match torn from the little green folder. He scraped the head of the match on the sulphur and applied the little orange flame to the end of the cigarette. He drew on it once or twice, watching the shreds of tobacco and the paper catch alight, then blew the match out and put it in the empty ashtray on the bedside table. It was made of blue metal with ALITALIA written on it. There was a little dip at each corner for resting a cigarette in. Chancelade smoked and looked at the ceiling. He’d breathe the smoke in through his mouth, keep it there for a few seconds, then form his lips into an O and let out a few blue rings. Then he’d swell his lungs and inhale the smoke that was left. Finally, sometimes through his mouth, sometimes through his nostrils, he would breathe out a thread of grey mist which at once mingled with the air of the room and vanished. This too was a fascinating game. You could have stayed like that for hours, doing nothing but breathe the grey smoke in and out and watch the ceiling. It was a perfect action, beautiful as a play. A tragic action. It had a beginning, when the spurting flame met the cigarette. A development, with unity of time, place and action. And when the cigarette was finished, the same hand that had lit it put it swiftly to death, crushing it against the side of the ashtray. And it was really rather as if you were dead yourself, extinguished, suffocated in your own ash, your inside quietly spilling out of your skin of torn paper.

Spending three days and nights shut up in a hotel room with Mina without sleeping or eating. You were capable of doing that for no particular reason, just for the pleasure of being free and able to keep writing, on pieces of hotel paper headed

ATLANTIC PALACE

600 rooms — Air-conditioned

Private beach

I’m alive I’m alive.

Chancelade had chosen it because it was a luxury hotel, with a lift, a garden, a beach, terraces, and an enormous reception hall with shops and a hairdresser’s. In was one of those magnificent hotels with stupid flashy names like ‘Oriental’, ‘Vistamare Palace’, ‘Château Fleuri’ or ‘Majestic Palace’. That’s to say it had soft music, bars with concealed lighting, red plush, uniformed bellhops, imitation crystal chandeliers, mirrors, mosaics, black leather armchairs, and American, Japanese, German and Brazilian tourists in weird get-ups and talking every language under the sun.

Chancelade had gone into the reception hall with Mina and said to the man at the desk:

‘I’d like a room.’

The man had consulted a chart, held out a yellow slip, and said quite simply:

‘Room 312. Would you mind filling in this, please?’

On the card Chancelade had written:

Surname: BURNS

Christian names: Charles

Occupation: Student.

Nationality: Guatemalan

Date and place of birth: August 6, 1939, Champerico (Guatemala)

It was a beautiful brand-new room with dark red walls, black armchairs, a metal table, a metal wardrobe, and a double bed with a dark blue spread. There were also white radiators, an air-conditioner, a blue carpet, and a big window with net curtains as well as two other pairs, one blue and one black. Outside the window was a balcony with a view of the sea and a few pots of geraniums. Lamps with white or red cloth shades were scattered about the room. And on the wall over the bed there was an imitation antique engraving of a horseman surrounded by a pack of hounds. On the table to the right of the bed was a white telephone without a dial and a pottery ashtray.