J. M. Le Clézio - Terra Amata

The ceiling kept receding before Chancelade’s eyes. The higher the earth rose, exposing the plateau of concrete and light with the living body outstretched, the more distant, hard and inaccessible became the polished marble dome. Chancelade fixed his gaze on a certain point in the sky, among half a dozen bright stars. He tried to drill a hole through the heavy mass, to try to see something, to understand, to mingle. In vain. The eye blunted itself on the dull armour, without even leaving a scratch. Then Chancelade began to speak, first under his breath, then louder. He uttered the words at random, between clenched teeth, in the direction of the giant drop of ink overhead. He said:

‘I’m going to speak now. I’m going to speak. I’ve waited long enough. You don’t want to listen to me, but I don’t care. Perhaps you don’t understand. Perhaps I’m not talking loud enough. Perhaps I ought to talk with bombs, to make you understand. Or with a machine-gun. If I had a stone I’d have thrown it in your face as hard as I could, do you hear, but I — There aren’t any stones here. I haven’t got anything. That’s why I’m talking to you like this from this roof. I’ve always thought that’s what one ought to do one day: go up on the roof of a very high house, and talk, without lowering one’s eyes. Afterwards I may jump off. Or I may not. I don’t know yet. But I’ve always thought I ought to speak like this, one night, lying on a roof thirty floors up. That’s why I’m here. If I don’t jump off I know what I shall do. I’ll buy a big pot of white paint and write shit everywhere, on the walls, on the road, on the, in the middle of the airport. In letters as high as a house. I’ve waited long enough. I’ve — All I’ve done. All I’ve looked at, listened to, learned. Yes, I want to know once for all now. It’s difficult to talk like this, looking up into this sort of sky, with the stars not moving and the wind whistling in the ventilation shafts. It’s rather ridiculous. Fortunately there’s no one here. Only the television aerials and the chimneys. Not even a bird. If there’d been any kind of animal here, a cat, a rat, a cockroach, anything, I’d have talked to it. Because it’s so ridiculous. But there’s nothing but those things, those ventilation shafts and aerials. In a minute, before I go, I’ll tear them down. Some people will be watching a cowboy film, or a woman singing, and all of a sudden they won’t see anything any more, and all because of me! If I had some dynamite I’d stick it everywhere, in all the chimneys, and light the fuses. Perhaps you’d hear something then … Yes, for a long time you haven’t said anything. For a long time no one’s seen anything around here. The sun dancing in the sky, for example, or a crossing of the Red Sea, or a burning bush. Show us something. Make an effort. No one will know. Make a triangle appear in the sky. Please. Or strike me down with a thunderbolt. Kill me with it. What have you got to lose? It’s so easy. Just a flash of lightning here on my forehead, and that would be it. What are you waiting for? Eh? It’s so easy.’

Chancelade gazed at the surface of the black sky. But there was nothing new, not even an aeroplane or a falling star, and the cold wind still howled inside the ventilation shafts. But Chancelade didn’t shut his eyes. He went on:

‘Who are you? Who are you, eh, what’s your name? Have you even got a name? I have, all men have, so has this house, I saw it as I came in, Residence of the Sun, Vistaréo, something like that, and all these stars have names. So why haven’t you got one? I’ve got an idea, I’m going to call you something, anything, and then you can’t disappear into the void of things that haven’t got a name. I’ll give you a very ordinary name, slightly ridiculous, the name of a baker or a jeweller. Loubet. Jacques Loubet. What do you say about that, eh? Jacques Loubet, profession: infinite and eternal … There, that means something. Before, I didn’t know how to address those what-do-you-call-thems, you know, prayers. I used to think it was daft just talking into thin air, just pretending to talk to someone. God — that doesn’t mean anything. Nobody here’s called that. Jacques Loubet, now, that’s a very good-sounding name. It could belong to a general, or the chairman and managing director of a big firm that makes soap, or vegetable oil. Vote for Jacques Loubet. Monsieur Jacques Loubet, chairman and managing director of the Loubet Salad Oil Company, limited capital twelve million francs. You could put photographs in the papers showing a woman pouring oil into a salad and grinning from ear to ear. Why did you hide yourself all this time? Now I know where you are. In the advertisements for toothpaste, menthol cigarettes, grape juice, typewriters. That’s it. You dictate orders to your secretaries, smoking a cigar, and everyone listens with his head respectfully bent. You buy. You sell, speculate, buy theatres that are named after you and hotels with your initials, J.L. No one knew you were still living on in the world like that. People thought you’d abandoned them. But it wasn’t so, was it, it wasn’t so. You were called Loubet, or Coca-Cola, or Hilton. And you lived amongst men though they didn’t suspect it. Everywhere anyone went they saw your name up on posters, ashtrays, along the sides of the roads, on moth-eaten old houses, or on the backs of air-tickets. And that meant you were there, looking at what the world was doing. Hi! Jacques Loubet! Can you hear me? I’m talking to you, lying on the roof on the top of this house, which certainly must belong to you. Was all that leading to this? I mean, was it really worth it, all those — all those exoduses and crimes and wars and temples and tablets of the Law and angers and exterminations? Was it worth it? Look at where I am now, if you like, if you can. Just look once on this roof. You’ll see a sort of insect grimacing and talking to itself. Look everywhere in this town, look at all these men and women doing nothing special, nothing extraordinary. Was it worth it? Personally I think the play is over and the curtain’s about to fall. It wasn’t much of a play, was it, and the last act was very weak. We’ve seen a bit of everything on the stage, the first moments of chaos, the childishness, the sacrifices, the great pretentious declamations; the adult tricks, the wars, deceit, lies, vanity; then doting old age, the last twitches of muscles trying to cling to life, and despair and anguish because truth is approaching like a runaway horse. And now here at last is the moment when everything has to end. It’s time, everyone wasn’t beginning to get a bit tired. But just the same it’s not easy; no, it hurts. The throat has to be slit, the trap-door opened. It’s going to be painful, Jacques Loubet, very painful. But it’s all over, isn’t it? There’s nothing more to do now. So I’

It was the moment, just the moment to do it. On this hard concrete surface, with its little bits of gravel that penetrated through your clothes into the skin of your back, and the bare sky with its frozen stars, and the cold, and the solitude, the invisible gulf hollowed out before your eyes, the glass that was at once near and far, and the sort of silence. It was the moment to yell as loud as you could anything that came out through your mouth.

‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani’ or

‘There’s nothing, nothing! There’s nothing, you’re alone, there never has been anything and there never will be!’

And the words went on coming out of his mouth, and his nose, and his eyes, spreading out into the darkness. It was as if no one was really talking any more, or as if a countless crowd all huddled together were mumbling indistinguishable phrases. Chancelade was still there, lying on his back on the top of the skyscraper staring at a scrap of the dark metal vault. But what he was saying was no longer audible. What he was saying came from everywhere at once, from hotel bedrooms with creaking springs, shining streets, bars, cinemas, garages. From stationary or moving cars, boats, planes, trains. From cupboards where junkies hide their drugs, from the handbags of prostitutes crammed with greasy notes, or the rusty roofs of shanty-towns. It was in the rasping breath of the horse being dragged towards the knacker’s hammer. It was said with the voice of the man on the hospital bed, shivering with fever and exhaustion; in the voice of Georges Doulens or Philippe Cordier. With the voice of that young woman in red with the tired face and eyes hidden behind dark glasses that reflected the passing headlights. Help! Help! cried the hoarse voice, the voice of fear. Fire, murder, help, help! I’m falling, help me! I’m slipping, help me! I’m burning, give me some water, telephone the police, quick, no, open the windows, throw me a rope, a lifebelt, hold out a stick! Isn’t there anyone there? Where have they gone, where has everyone gone? Why are there only mirrors all round me? Break them, smash them! What am I doing here on this lighthouse in the middle of the sea? A little while ago there was a town, and noises, women, and children, you could see their hands and shoulders. Why is everyone wearing a mask? Tear them off! Let me see your faces, take off your glasses, your false noses, your false teeth, your artificial kidneys, your wooden legs! I want to see someone like myself! I want to see someone who isn’t me! All I can see are roads disappearing in the distance, horrible streets, and houses like clouds. Everyone mocks and grimaces. Mirrors, echoes. I don’t want to see this book any more; close it. Hide the pages. Take away the quotation marks. My thought is written down in the world, my thought is a knife. Tear all these pages up and burn them. Burn all those exoduses and kings and geneses. Make a heap of all the trigonometry books and travel books and history books and Greek grammars. Give me a chance to breathe. Throw all those poems down the lavatory, stop doing those tragedies over and over again, I want to hear real words. Fools! You, there, swine, with all your illnesses! Hunchbacks, drunks, air-swallowers! I’m going to catch all of them, all the illnesses that eat you away and kill you! Basedow’s disease, Albers-Schönberg’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, anal pruritus, narcolepsy, abortive fever! California and Chagas and Filatow-Dukes’ and Katayama disease! Austin-Flint’s murmur. Cushing’s syndrome, craw-craw, and parenchymatous goitre. Koraskoff’s psychosis, Ludwig’s angina, Woillez’ and Morvan’s and Nayukayami’s diseases. Shingles and xerophthalmia. Bell’s paralysis, Pel-Ebstein’s pyrexia, Pautrier’s micro-abscess, Reiter’s syndrome, St. Vitus’ dance, the Rumpel-Leede symptom, Friedrich’s ataxia, and Sheehan-Simmonds’ disease. Von Jaksch’s disease. Skoda’s rattle, the Levi-Loraine syndrome, and the Da Costa, Gradenigo and Weber syndromes. Bockhardt’s impetigo. Oh yes, and I know what I’m going to have: the Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, and I’m going to walk along the streets kicking my legs about and shrieking out volleys of curses every ten seconds. And yes, I’ll repeat everything I hear. I’ll hear people say, ‘Hallo, nice day,’ and I’ll go on yelling for hours, ‘Hallo, nice day, hallo, nice day, hallo, nice d—’