The Flood Read online

  Besson got up and stopped the tape-recorder. Silence suddenly descended on the room again, mingling with the chiaroscuro, so palpable now that it was no longer distinguishable from the areas of shadow. Then it slipped and shifted, moving sideways with an indescribable pendulum-like motion. It penetrated even to Besson’s inner self, filling the secret recesses of his mind, stifling thought. Silence began to reverberate through his head and chest, with a sound not unlike the roar of a large cataract. He could feel its breathing, too, a gentle up and down motion. There was no room for anything else, neither sound nor colour: nothing but illimitable silence, here, in the night, amid this surrounding darkness: a silence that clung to every object, a horrible vast chill calm, clammy, tangible, that left you lying flat and helpless on the floor of an empty room, all alone, moving towards death.

  For a long time Besson continued to stare at the motionless objects in front of him. He stood and scrutinized them with a gaze of fixed and burning intensity, which neither saw nor made any attempt to comprehend them. The words just spoken had entered his skull, and it was they that now swarmed in the silence. Like so much furniture, like a row of heavy, useless, ornamental vases, they had dragged on, vacant, floating, unattached; and now they were back in their own proper domain, that mute kingdom from which they would never re-emerge. From nothing they came, to nothing they returned. The world of insanity, the filthy sewer-flow of battering words, syllables chopped from distorted human lips, pointless and interminable chatter. And what, truly, was the object of it all, what was it after? To try and hook on somewhere, put out tentacles, infiltrate other people’s minds, though with all this they still never achieve personality. Accursed, accursed be the tongues of mankind! Had they never existed, had they not duped humanity century after century, how much happier would life on this earth have been!

  After this lengthy contemplation of the deep-shadowed objects before him, Besson went back to his bed. For a moment he gazed up at the ceiling, with the reflected glow from passing cars’ headlights moving across it; then he stretched out on top of the blankets and tried to sleep. But it was not so easy. In the first place, the shadows had begun to move. Then there was music somewhere, a tune which Besson, though he stiffened his resistance till it was rock-hard, still could not help humming under his breath. At first it was an easy, flexible theme that could be followed without any trouble. But soon the parts multiplied, the humming became a regular symphony orchestra, complete with trumpet, clavicord, oboe, flute, violin, cello, harp and cymbals.

  When he was tired of sorting out the score and following its variously divergent threads of melody, Besson opened his eyes, sat up on the bed, and waited.

  The room was still the same: a large cube with barely visible walls, a grey expanse of floor, closed and white-slatted shutters: a sealed-off, private place, and one that he knew by heart. Sounds from outside drifted up the face of the building and made their way in through the window: familiar, unimportant noises, easily identifiable during their leisurely passage—the whirr of car-tyres on wet macadam, the drone of engines, a motor-cycle put-putting down the street, slowly fading away in the distance. The tap of heels on the pavement, murmuring of voices. A tremendous thunder-clap. Rain-drops pattering on the shutters. All these sounds were pleasurable. One forgot everything—even the fact that one was alive.

  The darkness was rich-textured, its black surface shot with bluish glints, grey half-tones, gleams of whiteness. The room was sealed, hermetically sealed, and he, Besson, was inside it. Neither hot nor cold. Time passed smoothly, second by second, impalpable, untouched by chaos.

  It was like being in a small and cosy dream, a house of one’s own, bought and paid for, surrounded by a big silent garden. A piece of property at Lorgues, two acres of land, umbrella pines, the scent of lavender, with a sweet little stream flowing through it, a five-roomed farmhouse, a well, some cobbles. In fact it was even better than that, because one possessed nothing at all. No, it was enough to be oneself, alone in a closed room, without light, with the sound of rain-drops tapping against the slats of the shutters. Minutes and hours stretch out interminably, their slow passage is sheer delight: actions and thoughts form a sequence of harmonious moments, lucid, exquisitely clear, suspended in continuity. What a good thing, what a really good thing it is to have a room of one’s own!

  With slow movements, François Besson lit another cigarette. The flame of the match, white at first, then yellow, pierced through the darkness in the room. The loose strands of tobacco at the tip of the cigarette writhed and glowed, the paper caught fire. It occurred to Besson that what he would really like was a room lined with mirrors, so as not to miss any detail of what he was about. The match suddenly went out, without his needing to blow it, and all that remained in the darkness was a red glowing hole, close to his face, which got a little deeper each time he inhaled.

  After a while Besson got up and began to prowl round the room. He wandered from one piece of furniture to another, peered through the slits in the shutters. As it was cold, he slipped his coat on over his pyjama jacket. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed again. Here he remained for a moment, quite still, contemplating the square mass of the table.

  It must have been about half past twelve or one in the morning, because the church clock nearby had only chimed once. Somewhere off in the middle of the town a fire-engine was tearing along, siren screaming. From time to time a rumble of thunder could be heard. But inside the room there was no danger: neither rain nor lightning-flashes could penetrate there, and all remained still. There was no breath of wind. Everything was tranquil and assured; each object had its appointed place, the disposition of surfaces remained constant. You could shut your eyes, and when you opened them again a moment later nothing would have changed.

  The whole thing was just right. François Besson sat there inside his calm and minuscule pattern, as though encircled by a frame. It was a very fine pattern, traced with a pen on white paper, where everything was fixed for some sort of eternity; a genuine caricature, too, in which every object—each ashtray, each piece of furniture—had found its precise silhouette recorded. The dado on the wall, with its small scrawled design, ochre against a white ground, had been faithfully reproduced; so had the handle of the door, a green plastic knob, and the key-hole, its wards so cut that it would only take the right key. Then there were the bedclothes, a pair of slippers, two chairs with purple cushions; the double window with its greenish shutters; the map of Europe pinned to the wall, with all those strange names printed against capes and peninsulas: Mandal, Cuxhaven, Penmarc’h, Jamaja, Mechra el Hader, Tomaszów, Ape, Sasovo, Yecla. And at the centre of the pattern, squatting on the edge of his bed, was this caricature of a man, with scrawny limbs and high cheekbones and cropped hair, who sat quite still, staring into space. It gave one an urge to develop the pattern further: to colour it, for instance, or write something in one of those white balloons emerging from people’s mouths, such as ‘I wonder what I’m doing here’, or ‘It’s good to be indoors at home when the rain’s coming down like that outside’.

  Besson got up and walked to the right-hand window, pressed his forehead against the cold glass, and looked around. The street was almost deserted. Rain was beating down on its surface, and that of the pavement on either side; a great pool of unwavering light spread round the foot of each street-lamp. All the shops had turned off their illuminated signs except one, where a line of neon still glowed at the bottom of the display-window. Cars sped past with a hiss of tyres. From time to time some stooping, shadowy figure, wrapped in a macintosh, could be seen hurrying along under the lee of the walls. The way the shutter-slats were aligned, Besson was unable to see the sky; but the odds were that it was near-black with perhaps a touch of pink, and the rain coming down from the middle of it, and from heaven knows where before that.

  Very slowly, standing there by that icy window with the condensation forming on it, eyes eagerly scrutinizing the peaceful stretch of road where perhaps dange
r yet lurked, ears alert for the sound of innumerable fine rain-drops falling in unison, while the town beyond pullulated with a thousand sounds and lights, Besson felt a strange sense of intoxication surge up within him. He was alive, then, in his body, contained in his own skin, face to face with the world he had designed. Sensations ran together in his various organs, established a cautious foothold there, jostled one another for place, struck up music. A series of deep pulsing vibrations arose from the heart of darkness, out of flatness and obscurity, and then through him, through his conscious body, they became movement, throbbing, powerful movement, measuring time. They mounted straight towards the sky, dominated unknown space, plumbed the abysses of mystery and emptiness. The void, the enormous void, a living, breathing entity, was always there, eternally present behind each individual object. It dug out chambers beneath the earth’s crust, it forced its way through the stiff metal uprights of the street-lamps, light was carried on it in tiny eddying vibrations. The void was present in glass and bronze and concrete. It had its own colour and shape. And what, finally, enabled you to see the substance of the void was nothing other than this sense of intoxication, which went on growing without anything to support it. Like a bouquet, like some joyous explosion of giant flowers, gleams of light all fusing together in a single mystical efflorescence, life traced its pattern on the face of the night. No ordinary ray of light could ever, ever make you forget the shadows. There had to be this irresistible feeling of intoxication, this joyful sense of being really there, for one to comprehend the full reality of the void: to shiver at its chill contact, to perceive the transparence of it, to hear the terrible, heavy roaring sound of silence, bare, skeletal silence with its multiple voices, its tunes that surge and swell and carry you up till you could put out your hand and touch infinity; to intone with it that agonizing song of the years going by you, the actions you perform, the song of all that is, that’s triumphantly alive, that embodies life with an undying ephemeral glory in such immensity that when you have been dead and rotten for centuries it will still not have reached the first moment of its advent.

  Then, when everything had been touched, breathed, seen and heard with minutely detailed attention, Besson went across to the door and switched on the electric light. In a flash the room was filled with yellow radiance, which illuminated every remote corner, made objects stand out from the floor as though by levitation. Besson went back to his table, and sat down. But this time he did not touch anything. He simply rested both elbows on the wooden surfaces, and kept quite still.

  Outside, the rain was still falling. There came a steady drumming from the swollen gutters, and another, softer sound, as each separate drop filled up another tiny patch on the exposed white stucco façade, very gently, without seeming to do so. The wind was blowing in sharp gusts, so that loose shutters banged to and fro, and twigs were torn from the trees and came pattering against the windows.

  As he sat there Besson felt a numb torpor steal over him, the terrified urge to burrow right down to the bottom of a heap of leaves, and hibernate. He sensed something of what trees experience: sadness and melancholy clutched at his heart, his life seemed to ebb perceptibly. Beyond the ramparts of his room the sky still loomed heavily. Each time he drew breath, a pall of vapour penetrated his lungs, a strange sense of weathering descended on him. Was it for this that one was alive, was it for this that one tried to think, at all costs, that one fought to encompass the world by the power of reason? To be an organism scarcely distinguishable from a tree, to have, in the last resort, all these roots, these yellowed and slowly falling leaves? To become stooped and bent, to feel your bones creak, and wear out your ancient wrinkled skin in its long battle with time? To be shovelled away into the ground, held close in its vice-like grip, and achieve oneness with the turning seasons?

  At this point someone knocked twice on the door of the room. Besson heard, but made no reply. A few seconds later the summons was repeated: four knocks this time. Besson turned his head towards the door and said: ‘Come in.’

  A woman entered the room. She was about sixty, and wore a brown dressing-gown with red slippers. Her face was heavy with fatigue, and her grey hair hung loose down her back. Cautiously she took a step or two towards the table.

  ‘Can’t you sleep?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Besson said.

  The woman sat down on the edge of the bed. She had very large eyes, with brownish rings under them. She smiled, tentatively.

  ‘You ought to go to bed,’ she said. ‘It’s nearly three in the morning.’

  Besson made a show of searching for some paper on his table.

  ‘I’m not sleepy,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll make yourself ill—’

  ‘No, really, I’m not tired.’

  The woman looked at the table.

  ‘Are you working?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tiring yourself out for nothing,’ the woman said. ‘You’d be better off asleep.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Besson said. ‘But I’m in the middle of sorting out these papers.’

  She said nothing for a moment. Besson looked at her hands, and noticed that they were covered with thick bulging veins. Then he glanced up at her face.

  ‘What about you?’ he said. ‘You’re not asleep either.’

  ‘I heard you playing the tape-recorder just now,’ the woman said. ‘You’ll wake your father, you know. You ought to—’

  She did not finish the sentence.

  ‘I’m going to bed in a minute,’ Besson said. ‘I had no idea it was so late.’

  ‘Very nearly three o’clock.’

  ‘I didn’t hear the clock strike.’

  ‘What about your watch?’

  Besson glanced down at the table. ‘Twenty-five to three,’ he said. There was another silence.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ the woman said.

  ‘No.’

  The woman turned her head a little to one side.

  ‘What a stink of stale tobacco-smoke,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think you ought to cut down your smoking a bit?’

  Besson shrugged. ‘Yes, maybe,’ he said.

  ‘All those cigarettes can’t be doing you any good.’ She pulled her dressing-gown tighter round her. ‘Well, I’m off to bed then,’ she said.

  Besson began to fiddle with the coffee-spoon.

  ‘Have you been drinking a lot of coffee?’ the woman asked.

  ‘No, just one cup.’

  ‘Because that isn’t going to help you to sleep, you know.’

  ‘Maybe, but it keeps me warm.’

  She got up and came towards the table.

  ‘Don’t be too long getting to bed,’ she said.

  ‘No, of course not, I’ll be off in a moment,’ Besson said.

  ‘Up every night like this till three o’clock, you’ll end by making yourself ill.’

  ‘There’s no danger of that, I assure you.’

  The woman looked towards the windows. ‘My, just look at that rain,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Besson agreed. ‘It’s certainly coming down.’

  ‘The end-of-winter rains,’ she said, and began to retreat towards the door.

  ‘I’m going back to bed, then,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ Besson said.

  ‘Don’t sit up like that too long, François.’

  ‘No, I’m going to bed too.’

  She hesitated a moment, then said: ‘And—and don’t go on thinking about … all that business, François.’

  Silence.

  ‘Do you hear me? Don’t go on thinking about—’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I heard you.’

  She made a great effort. ‘It can’t—I mean, it does no good, do you see?’

  He made no reply.

  ‘You mustn’t think about all that business. Go to sleep. Don’t think about anything.’

  ‘All right,’ Besson said.

  ‘If there’s anything you need, just let me know.’

  ‘I don’t need anything
, thank you.’

  She began to go out; and then she turned her puffy face back towards Besson, and the sight pierced him to the heart. Eyes, hands, mouth, grey hair—all carried the same message, of compassion and love. Besson lowered his head and looked away.

  ‘Goodnight, François,’ the woman’s voice said.

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Besson.

  ‘Sleep well,’ she said. ‘See you tomorrow—’ Then she gave a little laugh. ‘What am I saying, tomorrow’s today, isn’t it? I mean, three in the morning—’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Sleep well.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  The door closed behind her.

  For a moment Besson remained quite still, as though his mother might have taken it into her head to watch his actions through the key-hole. Then he got up and, an imaginary gun in his hands, began to act out a vendetta within the four walls of his room.

  Chapter Two

  In the street—The eyes—François Besson visits the first café and reads the paper—The broken glass—François Besson visits the second café and plays the pin-ball machine—Meeting with his brother

  THE second day, as soon as the sun was up, François Besson dressed and went out. He walked quickly through the streets, observing the scene around him. The sky was grey, with a faint flush of pink towards the east. On waste lots, and around the buildings, patches of undried mud glistened in the morning light. Crowds of men were on their way to work. They stood queueing for buses on street corners, or hurried along on foot, with bicycles, in cars. Unaccompanied women walked very fast, wearing black or red macintoshes, or, very occasionally, tartan. The mist from the thickest clouds still floated down almost to ground level: drops finer than dust-particles hung suspended between earth and sky, rising and falling, till they finally dissolved on some flat surface, noiselessly, leaving not so much as a small damp halo behind. They melted before they reached the ground, and mingled with the substance of the air. A blanket of mist hung over the town, filled the trees, clung to the skin of those abroad in the streets. Nothing was distinct or clear-cut any longer: outlines blurred and ran into one another, or even vanished altogether, as though wiped out with an eraser.