The Prospector (35 page)

On this night the old, dilapidated Forest Side house is truly a ship sailing across the sea, rocking and creaking as it goes in the soft pattering of the rain, on its way to the new island.

Being back on the
Zeta
is like being alive again, being free again, after all those years in exile. I'm back in my old place, at the stern, next to Captain Bradmer, who's sitting in his armchair which is screwed to the deck. We've been running downwind, heading north-east along the 20th parallel for two days. When the sun is high, Bradmer rises from his armchair and, just as in the old days, turns towards me, ‘Would you like to try your hand at it, sir?'

As if we'd been sailing together all this time.

Standing barefoot on the deck, hands clutching the wheel, I am happy. There's no one on deck except for two Comorians, wearing their white headdresses. I love hearing the wind in the stays again, seeing the prow lift up against the waves. It's as if the
Zeta
were sailing all the way out to the horizon, out to where the sky is born.

I believe it was only yesterday that I was heading for Rodrigues the first time and, standing on the deck, I felt the ship moving like an animal, the heavy waves passing under the stem, the taste of salt on my lips, the silence, the sea. Yes, I don't believe I've ever left this place at the wheel of the
Zeta
, sailing on a journey whose end is constantly receding, all the rest was only a dream. The dream of the Mysterious Corsair's gold in the ravine in English Bay, the dream of Ouma's love, her body the colour of lava, the water in the lagoons, the seabirds. The dream of the war, the freezing nights in Flanders, the rain of the Ancre, of the Somme, the clouds of gas and the flashes of bombs.

When the sun goes back down behind us and we can see the shadow of the sails on the sea, Captain Bradmer takes the wheel again. Standing up, his red face creased from the reflections on the waves, he hasn't changed. Without my asking, he tells me of the helmsman's death.

‘It was in 1916 or maybe the beginning of '17… We'd almost reached Agalega, he fell ill. Fever, diarrhoea, he was delirious. The doctor came, he ordered that he be put into quarantine, because it was typhus… They were afraid of contagion. He was already unable to eat or drink. He died the next day, the doctor didn't even come back… And so I grew angry, sir. Since they didn't want to have anything to do with us, I had all the merchandise thrown into the sea off Agalega and we sailed south, heading for Saint Brandon… That was where he'd said he wanted to die… So we put a weight on his feet and threw him into the sea, in front of the reefs where the sea is a hundred fathoms deep, where it is so very blue… When he sank, we said some prayers and I said, “Helmsman, my friend, now you are home forevermore. May peace be with you.” And the others said, “Amen”…We stayed anchored off the atoll for two days, the weather was so fine, not a cloud, and the sea so calm… We stayed and watched the birds and the tortoises swimming close to the boat… We caught a few tortoises, for smoking, and then we left.'

His voice is hesitant, drowned out by the wind. The old man is gazing straight ahead, beyond the wind-filled sails. In the light of the dying day his face is suddenly that of a weary man, apathetic about the future. Now I understand the illusion I've been under: history has run its course, here as it has elsewhere, and the world is not the same any more. There have been wars, crimes, violations, and because of it life has come undone.

‘Now it's funny I haven't found another helmsman. That man, he knew everything about the sea, out as far as Oman… It's like the boat doesn't really know where it's going any more… Funny, isn't it? He was the master, had the boat in the palm of his hand…'

Then, looking out on the sea that is so beautiful, the wake tracing a route on the impenetrable water, I feel anxious again. I'm afraid of arriving in Rodrigues, afraid of what I will find there. Where is Ouma? The two letters I sent her, the first from London, before leaving for Flanders, the second from the military hospital in Sussex, remain unanswered. Did they even arrive? Can you write to a Manaf?

Nights, I don't go down in the hold to sleep. In the shelter of the bales secured to the deck, I sleep rolled up in my blanket, head resting on my duffel bag, listening to the rhythm of the sea and the wind in the sails. Then I wake up, go and urinate over the rail, then walk back and sit down to contemplate the star-filled sky. Time is so slow out at sea! Every hour that passes cleanses me of the things I need to forget, brings me closer to the eternal figure of the helmsman. Isn't he the one I must find at the end of my travels?

Today – the wind having changed directions – we are sailing close-hauled, the masts leaning at sixty degrees, while the stem rams at the rough sea, sending up clouds of spray. The new helmsman is black with an imperturbable face. Beside him, despite the lean of the deck, Captain Bradmer is sitting in his old armchair screwed down to the deck, gazing at the sea, smoking. All of my attempts at starting a conversation have come up against two words which he grumbles without looking at me: ‘Yes, sir?' ‘No, sir.' The wind is gusting against us and most of the men have sought refuge in the hold, save the Rodriguan merchants, who don't want to leave their merchandise, which is out on the deck. The crew has hurriedly spread a waxed tarpaulin over the bales and closed the front hatches. I've slipped my duffel bag under the tarp and, in spite of the sunshine, wrapped myself in my blanket.

The
Zeta
is struggling hard to work her way up the waves and I can feel the creaking of the hull, the groaning of the masts deep in my body. Powerful, spuming waves come rushing up to knock against the
Zeta
, which is heeling over on its flank. At three o'clock the wind is so strong I think it's a cyclone, but there aren't many clouds, only pale cirrus streaking the sky with immense trails. It's not a hurricane sky.

The
Zeta
is having difficulty staying on course. Bradmer is at the wheel, bracing himself on his short legs, grimacing against the sea spray. Despite reduced sail area, the weight of the wind is making the ship moan. How long can it go on like this?

Then, suddenly, the gusts grow gentler, the masts of the
Zeta
right again. It is near five o'clock in the evening and in the glowing warm light above the vehement horizon the looming shapes of the Rodriques mountains appear.

Immediately everyone is on deck. The Rodriguans sing and shout, even the taciturn Comorians are talking. I'm at the stern with the others, contemplating the blue line, as illusory as a mirage, and it is making my heart pound.

This is exactly the way I dreamed of returning for so many years, while I was in the hell of war, in the trenches amid the mud and garbage. I'm living my dream now as – in a shower of sparkling sea foam – the
Zeta
lifts up like a gondola over the sphere of dark waters, towards the transparent mountains of the island.

That evening, in the company of frigates and sterns, we sail past Gombrani, the point of Plateau, and the sea becomes glassy. The beacons are already shining off in the distance. Night has fallen on the northern slopes of the mountains. I'm not afraid any longer. Now I'm in a hurry to disembark. The ship is gliding along at full sail and I'm watching the sea wall drawing nearer. I'm leaning over the rail with the Rodriguans, holding my bag, ready to jump ashore. Just as everyone is disembarking and the children are already coming aboard, I turn to catch a glimpse of Captain Bradmer. But he's given his orders and I see only his face dimly lit by the beacons, his profile marked with fatigue and solitude. Without turning around, the captain goes down into the hold to smoke and sleep, and maybe think about the helmsman, who never left the ship. I walk towards the lights of Port Mathurin with that disturbing vision in my mind, and I don't know yet that it will be the last one I will have of Bradmer and his ship.

At dawn I reach my former domain, the Commander's Watchtower, the spot where, long ago, I glimpsed English Bay for the first time. Here, nothing seems to have changed. The large valley is still dark and lonely, facing out to sea. As I am climbing down the slope, between the blades of screw pines, causing the earth to slide out from under my feet, I try to recognize all of the things I used to live around, that were once familiar: the dark patch of the ravine on the right bank with the tall tamarind tree, the blocks of basalt where the signs are engraved, the narrow stream of the Roseaux River snaking through the bushes until it reaches the swamp, and, off in the distance, the peaks of the mountains that served as landmarks. There are trees I'm not familiar with, umbrella trees, coconut trees, hyophorbes.

When I get to the middle of the valley I look in vain for the old tamarind tree under which I'd once pitched camp and that had sheltered Ouma and me on mild nights. In the place where my tree grew I see a mound of earth upon which thorn bushes are growing. I realize the tree is there, lying under the earth, in the place where it was felled by a hurricane, and from its roots and trunk this mound – like a tomb – has sprung. In spite of the sun that is burning my back and neck, I sit there on that mound amid the underbrush, trying to find traces of my old life. There, in the place where my tree once stood, I decide to build my shack.

I don't know anyone in Rodrigues any more. Most of the people who left with me, answering Lord Kitchener's call, didn't come back. During the war years there had been a famine. Due to the blockade, the boats no longer brought any supplies, no rice or oil or canned goods. Diseases decimated the population, especially typhus, which killed the people in the mountains, for want of medicine. There are rats everywhere now. They run through the streets of Port Mathurin in broad daylight. What has become of Ouma, what has become of her brother, up in those arid, destitute mountains? What has become of the Manafs?

Fritz Castel is the only one who stayed behind, in the isolated farm near the telegraph office. Now he's a young man of seventeen or eighteen with an intelligent face, a deep voice in which I have a hard time recognizing the child who helped me set the markers. The other men, Raboud, Prosper, Adrien Mercure, are gone, like Casimir, everyone who answered the call. ‘Plumb dead,' Fritz Castel repeats when I say their names.

With Fritz Castel's help I've built a hut of branches and palms in front of the grave of the old tamarind tree. How long will I stay? I now know the days are numbered. Money isn't lacking (the army bonus is still almost intact), but time is the thing I'll run short of. It's the days and the nights that have been taken out of me, weakened me. I know that immediately, as soon as I'm back in the Bay, in this silence, surrounded by the power of the tall basalt walls, hearing the unbroken sound of the sea. Is there really anything I might still hope for from this place, after everything that has destroyed the world? Why have I come back?

Every day I sit still, as do those blocks of basalt strewn about the floor of the valley like the remains of a lost city. I don't want to move. I need this silence, this stupor. Mornings, at dawn, I go down to the beach among the reeds. I sit in the place where Ouma used to cover me with sand to let me dry in the wind. I listen to the rumbling of the sea on the semicircle of the coral reef, I wait for the moment when it comes up through the bottleneck of the pass, blowing its clouds of spume into the air. Then I listen to it go out again, slipping over the smooth bottom, uncovering the secrets of the pools. Every evening, every morning, the flight of the seabirds traversing the bay, marking the boundaries of day. I think of how lovely the nights that crept so simply, so fearlessly into the valley used to be. The nights when I waited for Ouma, the nights when I didn't wait for anyone, the nights when I watched for the stars, each appearing in its place in the cosmos, tracing their eternal figures. Now the coming of night disturbs me, makes me anxious. I feel the bite of cold, I listen to the sounds of the stones. Most nights I am curled up in the back of the hut, eyes wide, shivering, unable to sleep. Sometimes the anxiety is so intense I have to go back to the city to sleep in the narrow room of the Chinese hotel after having barricaded the door with the table and chair.

What's happened to me? Days in English Bay are long. Young Fritz Castel comes to sit on the tumulus of the tree in front of my hut. We smoke and talk, or rather I talk – about the war, hand-to-hand combat in the trenches, the flashing of the bombs. He listens to me, saying, ‘Yes, sir,' ‘No, sir,' quietly. Trying not to disappoint him, I send him out to dig holes for markers. But the old maps I drew don't make sense to me any more. The lines grow blurry before my eyes, the angles grow wider, the landmarks melt into one another.

When Fritz Castel has gone, I sit down under the tall tamarind tree at the entrance to the ravine and smoke, gazing down at the valley where the light changes so quickly. Sometimes I go into the ravine to feel, as in the old days, the burn of the sunlight on my face and chest. The ravine is exactly as I left it: the rocks obstructing the first cache, the pick marks, the large notch in the shape of a gutter on the basalt above. What have I come in search of out here? Now I feel surrounded by emptiness, abandonment. It's like a body left drained by a fever, in which everything that was once burning, throbbing, is now only shivering, weakness. Yet I love this light in the ravine, this solitude. I also love the sky, so blue, the shape of the mountains above the valley. Maybe I came back because of that.

Evenings, in the dimming twilight, sitting in the sand dunes, I dream of Ouma, of her metallic body. With the tip of a piece of flint I've drawn her body on a block of basalt in the place where the reeds begin. But when I want to write the date, I realize I don't know what day or what month it is. For a minute I think of running to the telegraph office to ask – as I once did – what's the date today? But it immediately strikes me that it wouldn't mean anything to me, that the date is no longer of any importance.