Terra Amata

I GREW UP

There was also that other day, a real day of conflagrations. A day with boiling sun, white haze, east wind, motionless mountains, motionless sea, motionless sky, sweat on the back and under the armpits, shirt sticking to you, and a black storm riding the horizon. The boy Chancelade had left the house immediately after lunch and walked through the streets of the town towards the sea. He’d put on a red sweater with white stripes, and round his neck he wore his beautiful new green towel. He’d stuffed it into his satchel before he came out so that his parents wouldn’t see he wasn’t going to school. Then he’d hidden his satchel in a disused drainpipe, keeping only his beautiful green towel, which he hung round his neck. He’d walked in the sun, he’d crossed several intersections with nobody about, gone through streets silent and deserted. He’d gone by a hot garden where an old man in blue trousers and a straw hat was raking the grass into heaps. He’d dragged his feet through the dust, he’d walked along the tops of walls. He’d crossed a level-crossing. He’d picked up a round stone with a hole in it and thrown it at a cat that was sitting between the wheels of a car. In this way he’d crossed the whole belt of villas, houses, kitchen gardens and waste land that you had to go through to get to the sea. Sometimes he’d walked fast, sometimes slowly, whistling, singing, talking to himself, or saying nothing. But every so often he whirled his beautiful green towel round his head like a sword. He’d passed several boys and girls on their way to school, walking in twos and threes in the opposite direction. He’d looked at them scornfully because he knew about five or six of them — Delpire for example, and Villand, Roussel, Gioffret, Dunan, Maryse, Falchetto, Chantal and Calmet — and they were on their way to school whereas he had decided not to go any more. They had turned round to watch him go by, and must have said something like:

‘Did you see him? He’s going swimming.’

‘We ought to tell, that’d teach him.’

‘Yes, they’d chuck him out for sure.’

Then they’d gone on to something else — Delpire’s father’s new car, probably.

When he got to the boulevard that led to the sea the boy had bought himself an ice-cream cone. He’d been wanting to do that for a long time: go swimming on a Friday during algebra, and buy a big ice-cream cone. The woman at the stall looked at him and said:

‘What flavour?’

‘What flavours are there?’ he asked.

‘Vanilla lemon coffee strawberry chocolate,’ said the woman.

‘Vanilla strawberry,’ Chancelade said.

‘Vanilla strawberry,’ she repeated.

Then he went on down the boulevard licking his ice. When the ice-cream was finished Chancelade threw away what was left of the cone and wiped his hands on his beautiful new green towel.

A little way further and he was at the beach. It was a level stretch of flat pebbles with a narrow strip of white sand at the water’s edge, dumped there by lorries for the tourists. The boulevard still continued parallel to the beach and the boy walked on for a while to find a good place. There were lots of people on the beach. Fat men, fat women and fat children lay on the stones, their pink skins gleaming with sun-tan lotion. Beside them were hampers of provisions, rubber life-belts, transistors or dogs. A kind of strong odour, sweat perhaps, or the alkaline smell of water and urine mixed, wafted up from the flat sunny beach. You could hear shouts too, sudden exclamations, the squeals of little girls, twangs of music. Chancelade sat down on the low wall separating the beach from the road and watched, holding on to both ends of the green towel round his neck.

He watched a hairy man picking his way carefully towards the water so as not to hurt his feet. He waded in till the water was halfway up his thighs then plunged forward and disappeared. In the other direction, to the left of a heap of sea-weed and rubbish, a three-year-old in a cap suddenly started to howl because he’d been stung by a wasp; Chancelade watched his mother come and carry him away. An Alsatian lay blinking and panting under a big striped sunshade. And nearby a girl with fair hair slowly rubbed cream into the back of another girl with dark hair.

Chancelade decided that the best thing to do so as not to be disturbed was to go as close as possible to the water. He slouched across the beach, going round several bodies lying on the pebbles, and went and sat down no more than a few inches from the water’s edge, where there was a little bit of sand between the stones. He sat there for a few minutes watching what went on around him. The sea lay stretched out like a slab of concrete, grey, heavy, thick, with only, from time to time, a sort of swell that seemed to stay in the same place. The occasional gusts of wind bore a sharp and disagreeable odour. The sky was blue. The sun shone fiercely almost in the centre of the atmosphere. When Chancelade felt himself beginning to perspire he threw the green towel down on the beach and undressed. Then he stretched himself out on the ground, the red and black check of his bathing-trunks contrasting oddly with his over-white skin.

Chancelade let the sun’s warmth lap round and enfold him. He waited second after second to feel each separate square inch of his skin being burned. It was strange: it was like having a mobile eye that shifted hither and thither over the thin surface of skin, roving about, at the whim of chance or of the will, to make contact with the world. Eyes shut, deaf to the sounds that rose from the beach and the sea, the boy lived entirely in his skin as revealed by the sun. He no longer had any hands or legs or stomach or face, or red and black check bathing-trunks. He was an old wrinkled tree-trunk, a leafless twig, a spongy mass, or one covered with identical scales on all of which the hot air weighed down with equal pressure. A stranded jelly-fish, a puddle of dirty water, a bit of earth enclosed in the earth. The tingling caused by the sun came and went with slow shudders just like the movements of the clouds in the sky and the jetsam on the sea. It was curious, that: he was at once here, lying with his back pressed firmly against the ground and his chest and stomach facing up into the vault of the sky — exposed, rooted; and at the same time there, elsewhere, floating somewhere above the horizon, completely detached from the world. Without thinking, without moving, he could separate himself from his own effigy and almost look down on himself from some dream height. Right in the depths of the void, very far away but very clear, he could see this kind of clearing lit by the yellow circle of the sun, and in the centre of the clearing was his white body in red and black check bathing-trunks, lying motionless on its back with its arms flung out. And he could see this place that he inhabited rushing away at a dizzy speed, as if he was being whirled along on a rocket travelling millions of miles per second. And yet the more the flat stretch of beach withdrew from him the more visible its details became beneath the pitiless lens. And suddenly Chancelade understood. He understood that he was there, on that narrow beach, alone in the midst of so many men, women and children, a living corpse.

He was so surprised by this discovery that he felt a stab of anguish shoot through his mind. His forehead and back covered in sweat, a pain in his stomach, he sat up and looked eagerly before him. The sea was still there, smooth and oily, and behind him the beach still echoed with the same shouts and noises. A pale sky still covered the void, and the sun shone on in the same place. A little motor-boat chugged painfully across the bay, its gasps and splutters fitfully audible on the shore. Chancelade wiped his hands and face with a corner of the towel. Then he got up and went in the water.

He swam for a long time, every so often ducking his head under. The bay ended in a sort of steep headland, and Chancelade decided to swim out to it. He lowered his feet on to a flat rock, slippery with weed, that lay at the neck of the headland. He climbed out of the water cautiously because of the sea-urchins. The last time he’d gone bathing on the rocks, with Roussel, the other boy had got a sea-urchin’s spine in his right foot and had to be taken to the doctor for it to be cut out with a scalpel.

Chancelade jumped from rock to rock till he reached a path running along the headland, and followed it away from the beach. Above him were private houses and gardens with lots of trees and plants; but there were no people to be seen. The heat was overpowering here because of the sun continuously reflected from the sea. Big canna and aloe leaves hung down everywhere over the path and had to be pushed aside. There was that smell again too — the smell of cinnamon, beer, urine and iodine that lay heavy on the lungs and made you pant. From the cracks of crumbling walls big grey lizards stared at you fearlessly out of motionless eyes. Wasps buzzed about, and thin flies alighted on your legs to drink the sweat and sea-water.

For a moment Chancelade thought it would be best to go back and lie down on the beach. But he’d never been here before and wanted to find out what it was like.

Suddenly, before you knew how it happened, the path emerged from the stifling undergrowth into an open creek. There was a slight breeze blowing, and Chancelade thought he might cool off for a bit before going on.

The creek was absolutely deserted, and only half lit by the sun because of the tall trees that surrounded it. Between two grey rocks there lay a sort of beach of white pebbles. But this was no ordinary beach. It was strewn with mountains of rubbish. There were tons of old iron, bits of wood and petrol-cans, as if for months and months trucks had been coming to shoot a whole town’s refuse there. But there was no other approach except the little path Chancelade had taken, so all the débris must just have been gradually washed ashore in storms.

Chancelade looked at the strange confusion for a moment, then climbed down on to the beach. He went and sat down on a huge trunk, all white with salt, that sprawled across the pebbles. When he felt restored by the breeze he started to walk up and down the beach examining the bits of rubbish one by one. He threw stones at petrol-cans black with rust. He broke dead branches on the rocks, smashing down with all his strength as though he was hitting an animal, or a man. He threw empty bottles as far as he could, listening each time for the pleasant sound of splintering glass. He tried to pull up a long rusty bar buried deep in the pebbles. He stove in rotten packing-cases on which the printed words were half weathered away. He picked up big rocks and dropped them on sheets of metal. He smashed stones and sniffed the smell of sulphur left by the flying fragments. He flung into the sea cork floats, life-belts, flasks, bits of old tyres. He piled empty tins on top of one another then knocked them all down again with stones. Everything he could find to throw he threw in all directions: rotten old shoes, bolts, saucepans, tins, mouldy planks, branches eaten away by sea-water, stones, broken chairs, castings, plastic containers, bits of brooms, bones, petrol-cans filled with gravel. He worked at it diligently, without respite, jumping over rocks, crunching over pebbles, striding across pools of oil and mounds of broken bottles. He was the adventurer fighting whole armies single-handed, one man alone against ten, a hundred, ten thousand. He rained down bombs. He sank ships with cannon-fire. He laid about him with his sabre. He had eyes everywhere and nothing could take him by surprise. From time to time he would utter some guttural order in an unknown language, harsh and barbaric:

‘Brox wanyahou wandorh!’

‘Pradjo!’

‘Afadanstar dboï!’

‘Hiarrh-to hiarrh-to!’

He brought the war to an end by smashing in with an iron bar a broken metal barrel that gave off a trickle of oil This was the moment when in the ordinary course of events he ought to have set light to all the dead wood and climbed on a rock to watch it burn. But Chancelade hadn’t any matches and felt too tired to try to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together. So he sat down on the stones and looked at the sea and did nothing.

When he started off again he picked up a bit of wood to keep as a souvenir. It was a little flat piece of worm-eaten pine, on which was written: ORSOVA.

He began walking along the path again. Just before he reached a level stretch that ended in a wall he saw the corpse of a seagull flattened against a sharp rock.

The wall was very high, about ten or twelve feet, but there was a gap to one side of it and Chancelade sneaked through on all fours.

On the other side the landscape was quite different. It was a sort of enormous garden stretching down to the sea, with lots of flowers and leaves and brambles and trees. Chancelade walked through the undergrowth towards the tip of the headland. The sea wasn’t so grey here and you could see queer green patches near the shore. He thought it would be a nice place to bathe: it was cool and there were no people. He climbed down across the rocks to find a good spot. He decided on a flat rock like a paving-stone that sloped down into the water. But when he got down there he saw that there was another rock just like it a little further off, with someone on it. It was a little girl in a red swimsuit sitting with her feet in the water. Chancelade made his way along to where she sat. When she saw him coming she turned her head right round and he saw that she was wearing dark glasses. He climbed down on to the stone, looked at her for a moment, and said:

‘Do you live here?’

The girl looked surprised.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Do you?’

‘No, I don’t either,’ said Chancelade.

He sat down beside her and put his feet in the water too.

‘Did you get in through the hole in the wall?’ said the girl.

‘Yes,’ said Chancelade.

He looked at the girl again and saw she had quite long hair with a parting on the left.

‘My name’s Chancelade,’ said Chancelade. ‘I’m twelve and a half.’

The girl splashed her feet about in the water to make bubbles.

‘My name’s Sonia,’ she said. Then she added with satisfaction, ‘And I’m thirteen.’

‘People aren’t allowed here,’ said Chancelade.

‘I came with my father,’ said Sonia. ‘He’s down there fishing a bit further along.’

‘I came on my own. I swam,’ said Chancelade, pointing at the sea.

‘I couldn’t,’ said Sonia.

‘Yes, it takes some doing. I’m tired.’

Chancelade leaned back and lay on the stones.

‘But I’m sure people aren’t really allowed in here,’ he said. ‘I saw a. notice just now in the garden that said “No Entry”.’

‘Who does it belong to?’

‘I don’t know. But if they send a keeper or a dog I’ll swim away.’

‘So shall I.’

‘Yes, but you have to be a good swimmer because of the currents. If you’re not a good swimmer you get swept away and drowned.’

‘Yes. Down, down, down and that’s that!’

Chancelade and the girl both laughed.

‘Can you do the crawl?’ he asked.

‘No, it’s too difficult, I—’

‘I’ll teach you, later on,’ said Chancelade.

He pointed to the girl’s dark glasses.

‘Can I try your glasses on?’

The girl took them off and passed them to him.

‘They’re very good,’ said Chancelade. ‘Not too tight.’

‘Yes, and they were expensive — they’re filtered lenses.’

‘Yes, they’re very good.’

He looked through the smoked lenses at the sea and the sky and the girl, then held out his hand and looked at that.

‘They make everything look green.’

‘I’ve got some pink ones too but my father says they’re bad for my eyes.’

‘And do they make everything look rose-coloured?’

‘Yes. Funny, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it must be,’ said Chancelade.

He took the glasses off and put them down on the rock, but the girl didn’t put them on again.

‘What’s your other name — Sonia what?’ Chancelade asked.

‘Sonia Iwaskiewicz.’

‘Sonia what?’

‘Iwaskiewicz.’

‘How do you spell it?’

‘I-w-a-s-k-i-e-w-i-c-z. It’s a Polish name. My father’s a Pole.’

‘Really?’ said Chancelade. ‘Is he Russian?’

‘No, Polish,’ said the girl.

‘Because I’ve got a friend who’s Russian. His name’s Dmitri Filatiev.’

‘My father doen’s like the Russians,’ said the girl. ‘He says they ruined his country.’

‘Dmitri’s a good chap though,’ said Chancelade.

‘It’s all the same to me, it’s just my father. When he talks about Poland he’s sad, and he says it was because of the Russians he had to go away.’

‘It was because of the war,’ said Chancelade.

‘Yes, it was because of the war,’ said Sonia Iwaskiewicz.

‘I can remember the war,’ said Chancelade. ‘I saw the Germans when they came back from Africa. They went by our house and my mother showed them to me. Sometimes they used to fire at the windows because they were frightened.’

‘I was in Switzerland with my father and mother, but I don’t remember anything about it.’

‘I’d have liked to fight,’ said Chancelade. ‘I often hit the target at the fair.’

‘My father keeps a revolver in the drawer of his desk,’ said Sonia. ‘He showed it to me one day and said I mustn’t tell anybody or he’d be sent to prison.’

‘It must be nice to have a revolver,’ said Chancelade.

‘Yes, but you’re not supposed to.’

‘If I had a revolver I wouldn’t be afraid of anybody any more.’

He took his legs out of the water and sat with his feet on the rock.

‘A friend of mine tried to be clever once at the fair. He wanted to shoot the way they do in Westerns. He put the pistol in his pocket and it went off and the bullet went into his leg, just here.’ He showed the place on his thigh.

‘It must have hurt.’

‘Yes, it bled a lot and they took him to hospital.’

‘I went to hospital to have my appendix out when I was ten. You can still see the scar.’

The little girl showed the scar on her belly. Chancelade leaned forward and touched it.

‘It’s hard,’ he said.

‘Yes, but it doesn’t hurt any more,’ said Sonia. ‘I had a friend called Cerise, and she died because they didn’t operate in time.’

‘Did you say she was called Cerise?’ said Chancelade.

The little girl started to laugh.

‘Yes, Cerise.’ She toyed with the frame of her dark glasses. ‘At first everyone made fun of her because of her name. Then they got used to it. She died last year, because they didn’t operate in time.’

‘I know a chap called Clovis,’ said Chancelade. ‘That’s a funny name too, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but not so funny as Cerise.’

‘No.’

They went on talking like this for more than half an hour, sometimes with their feet in the water, sometimes with them resting on the rock. The sun had by this time descended almost to the top of the trees, and the sea had grown dark. Then Chancelade and the girl went into the water. They swam along by the rocks for a little way and Chancelade taught her to do the crawl, throwing her elbows well back. Then they clambered out on to the stone again. The water was cold and they were shivering. Then the girl took Chancelade’s hand and they walked together through the shrubs and low trees. After that the girl said let’s play hide-and-seek, and Chancelade put his hands over his eyes and counted aloud: ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty!’ He saw at once that she’d gone along a sort of track that led to a clump of pines. He crept towards the trees quietly, making a détour so as to creep up from behind. And there sure enough he saw the girl pressed against a pine-trunk; she hadn’t seen him. Chancelade tiptoed a little nearer, and when he was only a couple of yards away sprang forward and got hold of her round the waist. She gave a cry, and they both fell down. It was strange to feel her skin and hair and the damp red swimsuit. They played a lot of other games too — tag, catch, blindman’s buff, cops and robbers, cars, duelling. Chancelade wanted to play Chinese wrestling, and won easily. Then they lay down to rest, and played at tickling one another. It wasn’t long until the boy started to stroke the girl’s skin, first her arms, then round the neck and shoulders, then under the damp material of the red swimsuit. She didn’t say anything, but clung tight to Chancelade’s body and put her arms round him. Right before his eyes Chancelade saw her face with its two green eyes and wet lashes and locks of dark hair. He felt warm disturbing breath coming from her open mouth. And she on her side looked at the two dark blue eyes that blended into one, and the freckles, and the two white incisors gleaming between his lips. She put her head forward and kissed him as she’d seen people kiss on the films, her eyes shut. And she thought she’d write all this down in her diary this evening, locked in her room, and that silly idiot of a Monique, with her lipstick and her brassière stuffed with cotton-wool, wouldn’t be able to make fun of her any more. She guided the boy’s hand on to her chest, under the damp swimsuit; but it lay there cold and still as a lizard. When she tried to kiss him for the fifth time he drew his head back a little. He started to sit up, and as he did so he saw on the girl’s white belly, just above the swimsuit, a big black insect with curly legs and waving feelers. He jumped back, staring at it. The girl looked silently down at it for a moment, then let out a yell and leapt up, shaking herself frantically. She jumped up and down in a panic, panting loudly, then ran off through the bushes, even forgetting her beautiful dark glasses with filtered lenses. Chancelade watched her go. He wanted to call after her but no sound would come. So he got up and carefully took off the twigs that had stuck to his arms and legs, then picked up the glasses and went. He felt a bit dizzy and very thirsty. The sun was just disappearing behind the trees and the wind was chill. When he got to the beach he saw that everyone had gone home, and that somebody had stolen his beautiful new green towel.