The End of the Ocean

Chapter 32 DAVID

It was morning. I was sitting in the cockpit, in the shade of the awning we’d hung over the boom.

I was so tired. So tired all the time. I didn’t sleep well, listening all the time for the sound of raindrops. The sound of rain.

I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead, even though it was still early. I would have to get to work soon. But I was unable to move.

Lou made up our beds in the saloon and sang in a high voice, Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, dormez-vous, dormez-vous?

Anna used to sing this song at her bedside.

I was hungry, even though we had just eaten.

I had raided all the farms in the vicinity. Found some food, a little flour, some canned goods, a bag of rice. Enough to last for nine weeks, by my calculations. If we didn’t eat much.

But half a cup of boiled rice wasn’t enough.

And I was thirsty. I took a sip from my bottle, even though I knew that I shouldn’t. The water was from the tank in the garden. I had taken all the water that was in it. Boiled it. Filtered it. Tested it on myself before giving it to Lou. It tasted of soil and of something bitter that I couldn’t identify. The aftertaste lingered in the mouth. But I didn’t get sick.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think. Just work. One day at a time, new tasks every day. Slowly on our way to finishing the boat. To finishing the desalination machine.

And when it finally began to rain, then we would be ready.

I was certain that it would start raining.

When the rain came, we would use the final remnants of diesel I had discovered in the tank to make our way west through the canal.

To the coast.

When the rain came.

And then, finally, out onto the Atlantic Ocean.

The security of the ocean, where you could see everyone who approached, everything approaching, for miles around.

It would be only Lou and me there, on the boat.

We would sail for weeks, maybe it would take months, to the west. Maybe we would just remain at sea forever. Or maybe we would sail all the way to South America.

Lou talked about it. That under the ground in South America there was water. That if we grew tired of the ocean, we could go there.

We just had to wait.

Wait and work. While we rationed the water and our strength sensibly.

Around us everything was drying up. Even the mud in the canal had turned to dust.

Lou had stopped singing. The world was silent. Almost no insects buzzing; I couldn’t even hear the crickets. Had they also disappeared?

I took another sip. Had to stop now. No more water for one hour. We had enough to manage for twenty days. Only twenty days. And after that, what would we do? Would I watch Lou become dehydrated, get cramps, overpowering headaches? Or would I put her out of her misery? Hold a pillow over her face while she was asleep?

Suddenly there was something drumming lightly on the awning. I stood up.

Drops. Wasn’t it the sound of raindrops?

I remained standing. Listening.

It must have been drops.

I peeked out from beneath the awning. Up at the sky.

Blue. An intense blue. The color made me dizzy.

But there had to be a cloud, somewhere or other.

I went out on deck. From there I could see the entire sky. My eyes stung. The sun burned. It was as if it had grown. As if it grew every day, threatening to swallow the world.

I turned around. And discovered that somebody was standing on the bank of the canal.

Marguerite.

Maybe she’d been there for a long time. Looking at the boat, looking at me. Waiting.

There was a suitcase on wheels on the dry grass behind her. It had probably been expensive once upon a time. But now it was dusty and dirty.

A suitcase? Had she managed to hang on to it, in the midst of everything? Had she dragged it with her the whole way? The whole way here, but also all the way from her previous life?

“Can I come up?” she asked me.

Her voice was almost casual.

I didn’t reply.

Lou crawled out of the saloon and smiled.

“Hi, Marguerite.”

“Hi, Lou,” Marguerite said. “Is it OK if I come up?”

“Yes!”

“No,” I said. “I’ll come down.”

“Me too,” Lou said.

“You stay here,” I said.

“No.”

“Yes.”

Fortunately, she did as she was told.

As I climbed down, I noticed that I was shaking. Because Marguerite was alive, thank God, she was alive.

“Come,” I said.

I walked towards the forest without looking back. But I could hear her following me.

When we’d reached a spot where Lou couldn’t see us, we stood facing each other. Only one meter between us. I wished the distance had been greater.

Her face, her eyes; she stood there and still was.

Even thinner, emaciated now. And so dirty, traces of filth on her cheeks.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said softly.

I was unable to reply.

“I don’t know what to do, David.”

“…”

“I have nowhere to go.”

“…”

“Almost no food.”

“…”

“David… David… The camp no longer exists.”

And then she collapsed, right in front of me.

Her knees suddenly buckled, her entire body, that erect silhouette dropped to its knees abruptly in front of me. And begged.

“Water. Please.”

Her eyes were shiny. She was on the verge of tears. That thought, those words, on the verge of tears, of crying. No. On the verge of weeping. Women like her don’t cry, they weep.

It was like looking at a picture. A photograph. As if she were a photograph.

Don’t cry, Marguerite, I thought. Don’t waste any more fluids than you have to. We have nothing, we can’t share. I have Lou, I have only her and I can’t give water to anyone else.

“You must leave,” I just said. “You must leave.”

But she didn’t get to her feet.

“You must leave.”

I turned away.

“David, wait,” she said.

I stopped in spite of myself. Couldn’t help looking at her.

“What are you going to do?” she asked. “How—”

“Lou and I are getting out of here.”

“But how?”

Her eyes brimmed over now. I had to look away.

“With the boat,” I said. “We’re going to the ocean. When the rain comes. When the canal fills up.”

Then she laughed. She sat down, right there on the ground, so much smaller than me. It seemed as if she might disappear at any moment. But her laughter was strong and loud.

The tears vanished. Only her laughter was there. A laughter without warmth. Maybe that was how she laughed before, on vacation in Provence, wearing her silk dresses, at people like me.

And I knew why she was laughing.

A helpless young whippersnapper with a child in tow, a boat on land. I was lacking everything, even a plan.

Just as suddenly as she’d begun laughing she stopped.

She stood up. It was an effort, because she was so frail, but she tried to conceal it.

Then, without saying another word, she turned her back on me and walked back to the suitcase on the bank of the canal. But she didn’t pick it up. Just climbed down into the canal. Passed the boat and kept walking.

“Marguerite?” Lou called.

She didn’t answer.

“Where are you going?”

Then Marguerite turned to face me.

“To the ocean. I’m walking to the ocean.”

And then she kept going. Her back was so small and narrow between the concrete walls. But she held her head high.

She staggered slightly.

The dried sludge whirled up around her feet as she walked.

Soon she would be gone and the dust would settle.

But her suitcase remained where it was on the bank. Her suitcase, the only thing she had.

I grabbed it and ran after her.

She turned around, her face quizzical, a tiny glimmer of hope in her eyes.

“Here,” I said.

But the hope was extinguished immediately. “What shall I do with it?”

All the same, she took hold of the handle of the suitcase and started pulling it behind her.

The small wheels dug down into the dry ground, but she kept dragging it anyway. Pulled and pulled, filling the air behind her with dust.

It will nonetheless be the last I will see, I thought, the last I will see of her, her back in the canal, the dust, the suitcase. The last sound will be that of suitcase wheels against desiccated mud. This is what she looks like when she walks. And just this sound, nothing else. No words, screams, tears.

But I had forgotten about Lou. She was there, because she had come down from the boat without my noticing it and had seen the same thing that I’d seen.

Now she filled the air with her sounds, her words, her screams, her tears. Yet again she howled in my arms, yet again she protested against my decisions. And this time there was no stopping her.

“You can’t leave, Marguerite! She can’t leave, Daddy! She has to stay here with us!”

Everything inside me came to a halt and everything began. At long last, I listened to my child.

And then I ran. Towards the dust whirling upwards. Towards the suitcase. Towards Marguerite.