The Prospector (24 page)

I'm so shaken by this discovery that I can't convince myself to wait until morning. Armed with my storm lamp, I walk barefoot out to the cliff. There is a heavy wind blowing, sweeping along clouds and sea spray. In the shelter of the roots of the old tamarind tree I hadn't heard the storm. But out here I can barely stand up, it's whistling in my ears and making the flame of my lamp flicker.

Now I'm at the foot of the black cliff and I'm searching for a route to climb up. The cliff wall is so sheer that I need to hold the lamp between my teeth to scale up. I reach a ledge about halfway to the top in this manner and start looking for the mark along the crumbling cliff wall. In the light of the lamp the basalt rock face takes on an eerie, diabolic aspect. Each pock mark, each crack, makes me cringe. I work my way along the length of the ledge like this until I reach a crevice that separates this part of the cliff from the rocky bluff hanging over the sea. I'm numb from the cold, lashing winds, from the roaring of the sea directly below me, from the water streaming over my face. Just as I'm preparing to go back down, exhausted, I notice a large boulder just above me and I know the sign must be there, I'm certain of it. It's the only boulder visible from all points in the valley. To reach it I have to make a detour, follow a path over a shifting rockslide. When I finally find myself before the boulder, holding the storm lantern between my teeth, I see the mooring ring. It's engraved so clearly that I could have seen it without the lantern. Under my fingers its edges are as sharp as if they'd been carved yesterday. The black rock is cold, slippery. The triangle is drawn with the summit pointing upwards, contrary to the mooring ring on the east. On this rock, it seems like a mysterious eye staring out from the other end of time, contemplating the opposite side of the valley unfalteringly, day after day, night after night. A shudder runs through my body. I've found my way into a secret that is more powerful, more durable than I am. Where will it lead me?

After that I live in a sort of waking dream in which Laure's voice and that of Mam out on the veranda in Boucan mingle with the Corsair's message and with the fleeting vision of Ouma slipping through the brush high up in the valley. Loneliness has closed in upon me. With the exception of young Fritz Castel, I don't see anyone. Even he doesn't come as regularly as he used to. Yesterday (or the day before, I'm not sure any more) he set the pot of rice down on a stone in front of the camp, then left, climbing the hill in the west without answering my calls. As if I frightened him.

At dawn I go down to the estuary of the river, as I do every morning. I take my toiletry bag with a razor, a bar of soap and a brush, as well as the laundry that needs washing. I put the mirror on a stone and begin by shaving my beard, then I cut my hair that now reaches down to my shoulders. In the mirror I look at my thin face, darkened from the sun, my eyes shiny with fever. My nose – which is thin and aquiline, as is that of all males who bear the name L'Étang – accentuates the lost, almost ghostly expression on my face. I sincerely believe that by dint of following in his footsteps I've begun to resemble the Mysterious Corsair who once lived in this valley.

I truly enjoy being here at the Roseaux River estuary, in the place where the dunes begin, where you can hear the sea so close, its slow respiration as the wind comes gusting in amid the euphorbia and the reeds, setting the palms to creaking. Here, at daybreak, the light is so soft, so calm, and the water is as smooth as a mirror. After I've finished shaving, bathing and washing my clothes, just as I'm preparing to go back to my camp, I see Ouma. She's standing in front of the river, holding her harpoon and staring at me openly with a somewhat mocking look in her eyes. I've often hoped to meet her here on the beach at low tide, on her way back from fishing, and yet, surprised, I just stand there, stock still, my wet laundry dripping on my feet.

By the side of the water in the nascent light of day, she's even lovelier, her cotton skirt and shirt are soaked with seawater, her face the colour of copper, the colour of lava, glittering with salt. She's just standing there, one leg extended and her torso leaning over her cocked left hip, holding the reed harpoon with the ebony tip in her right hand, her left hand resting on her right shoulder, draped in her wet clothing, like an antique statue. I stare at her without daring to speak and, in spite of myself, I think of the beautiful and mysterious Nada, as she used to be pictured in the illustrations of the old journals in the dusk light of our attic at Boucan. I take a step forward and I feel as if I've broken a spell. Ouma turns, she strides away along the riverbed.

‘Wait!' I've shouted without thinking, running after her.

Ouma stops, she looks at me. I can see mistrust, wariness in her eyes. I want to say something to hold her back, but I haven't spoken to a living soul in such a long time, the words don't come. I want to tell her about the marks I've searched for on the beach, in the evening before the tide comes in. But she's the one who speaks to me.

She asks me in her chanting, mocking voice, ‘Have you found gold at last?'

I shake my head and she laughs. She sits on her heels at the top of a dune, a slight distance away. To sit down, she pulls her skirt between her legs with a gesture I've never seen any other woman make. She leans on the harpoon.

‘And you, have you caught anything?'

She shakes her head in turn.

‘Are you going back to your place in the mountains?'

She looks at the sky.

‘It's still early. I'm going to try again, over by the point.'

‘Can I come with you?'

She stands without answering. Then she turns towards me. ‘Come along.'

She sets off without waiting for me. She walks quickly over the sand with that animal-like gait, the long harpoon on her shoulder.

I throw the bundle of wet laundry in the sand, not worrying that the wind might blow it away. I run after Ouma, catch up with her near the sea. She's walking along the waves that are washing in, eyes fixed on the open sea. The wind is blowing her wet clothing against her slender body. In the still, grey morning sky, my bird-companions pass by, yelping and making that rattling sound of theirs.

‘Do you like the seabirds?'

She stops, one arm lifted towards them. Her face is shining in the light. She says, ‘They're beautiful.'

At the end of the beach the young girl bounds agilely, effortlessly, barefoot over the sharp rocks. She goes out to the point facing the deep water, colour of blue steel. When I come up next to her, she motions me to stop. Her long silhouette is leaning over the sea, harpoon raised, she's searching the depths down near the coral reefs. She remains in that position for a long time, perfectly still, then suddenly leaps forward and disappears into the water. I search the surface, looking for escaping bubbles, a ripple, a shadow. When I no longer know where to look, the young girl surfaces a few arm's lengths from me, gasping. She swims slowly over to me, throws a speared fish on to the rocks. She gets out of the water with the harpoon, her face is pale with cold.

She says, ‘There's another one over there.'

I take the harpoon and, in turn, dive into the sea, fully clothed.

Under the water I see the murky bottom, the sparkling flakes of seaweed. The waves breaking on the coral reef make a shrill, grating sound. I swim underwater towards the coral, clasping the harpoon close to my body. I swim twice around the reefs without seeing anything. When I go back to the surface Ouma is leaning over me, shouting, ‘There, over there!'

She dives in. Under the water I see her dark shadow slipping along near the bottom. In a cloud of sand the grouper comes out of its hiding place and moves slowly past me. Almost of its own accord the harpoon leaps out of my hand and pins the fish. The blood makes a cloud in the water around me. I go up to the surface immediately. Ouma is swimming next to me, she climbs up on the rocks before I do. She's the one who takes the harpoon and kills the fish, beating it against the black rock. Short of breath, I remain sitting on the rocks, shivering with cold. Ouma pulls me by the arm.

‘Come on, you need to get moving!'

Holding the two fish by the gills, she's already bounding from rock to rock in the direction of the beach. She looks in the dunes for a creeper vine on which to string the fish. Now we're walking together towards the bed of the Roseaux River. In the place where the river makes a deep, sky-coloured pool she lays the fish on the bank and dives into the fresh water, splashing her head and body like a bathing animal. On the edge of the river I look like a large wet bird and it makes her laugh. I jump into the water too, sending up great sprays, and we spend a good long time splashing each other and laughing. When we get out of the water I'm surprised not to feel cold any longer. The sun is already high in the sky and the dunes near the estuary are burning hot. Our wet clothes are sticking to our skin. Kneeling in the sand, Ouma wrings out her skirt and shirt, from top to bottom, taking one sleeve off at a time. Her copper-coloured skin shines in the sunlight and trickles of water run down from her heavy, soaked hair along her cheeks, down her neck. The wind is blowing in gusts, riffling over the river water. We're not talking any more. Out here, standing by this river in the harsh sunlight, listening to the mournful sound of the wind in the reeds and the rumble of the sea, we're all alone on Earth, perhaps the very last inhabitants, having come from nowhere, brought together by a chance shipwreck. Never would I have thought that this could happen to me, that I could feel anything like this. There is a new strength awakening in me, spreading through my body, a desire, a burning feeling. We remain sitting in the sand for a long time, waiting for our clothes to dry. Ouma isn't moving either, sitting on her heels as she knows how to, in the manner of the Manafs, her long arms wrapped about her legs, face turned towards the sea. The sun is shining on her tangled hair, I can see her flawless profile, her straight forehead, the bridge of her nose, her lips. Her clothing is stirring in the wind. I feel as if nothing else is of any importance now.

Ouma decides it's time to leave. She suddenly stands up, without steadying herself with her hands, gathers up the fish. Squatting on the riverbank, she prepares them in a way I've never seen before. With the tip of her harpoon she splits open the bellies of the fish and guts them, then washes their insides with sand and rinses them in the river. She throws the innards out towards the army of waiting crabs.

She's done all of this quickly, silently. Then she erases the traces left on the riverbank with water. When I ask her why she does that, she answers, ‘We Manafs are maroons.'

A little farther on, I collect my laundry, almost dry, covered with white sand. I walk behind her until we reach the camp. When she gets there, she lays the fish that I speared on a flat rock and says, ‘It's yours.'

When I protest, trying to give it back to her, she says, ‘You're hungry, I'll cook for you.'

She hurriedly gathers some dry twigs. With a few green reeds she builds a sort of rack that she sets up over the twigs. I hand her my tinderbox, but she shakes her head. She prepares a heap of dry lichen and, squatting, back to the wind, strikes two flints against one another, very rapidly, not stopping until sparks rain from the hot stones. The pile of lichen begins to smoke at its centre. Ouma takes it very carefully in her hands and slowly blows on it. When the flame bursts forth she puts the lichen under the dry branches and soon a fire is crackling. Ouma straightens up. Her face is lit with infantile joy. On the reed rack the fish is roasting and I can already smell the delicious fragrance. Ouma's right, I'm famished.

When the fish is cooked, Ouma lays the rack on the ground. Each in turn, burning our fingers, we take mouthfuls of flesh. I truly believe I've never eaten anything better than that unsalted fish grilled on that rack of green reeds.

When we've finished eating, Ouma stands up. She carefully puts out the fire, covering it with black sand. Then she takes the other fish that she'd rolled in the dirt to protect it from the sun. Without saying a word, without looking at me, she walks away. The wind describes the shape of her body under the garments faded from saltwater and sun. The light is shining on her face, but her eyes are two dark shadows. I understand that she must not speak. I understand that I must remain here, that's part of her game, the game she's playing with me.

Lithe and nimble as an animal, she makes her way through the bushes, leaping from rock to rock high into the valley. Standing by the old tamarind tree, I can still see her for another minute, scaling up the mountainside like a wild goat. She doesn't turn around, doesn't stop. She walks up into mountains, in the direction of Mont Lubin, disappears in the shadows covering the western slopes. I can hear my heart beating, my thoughts are sluggish. Loneliness creeps back into English Bay, ever more frightening. Sitting near my camp, facing the setting sun, I watch the shadows inching closer.

And so these last few days I've been led even further into my dream. Each day a little more of what I'm searching for is unveiled and it is so powerful it fills me with joy. From dawn to dusk I tramp through the valley looking for landmarks, for clues. The dazzling light that precedes the winter rains, the cries of the seabirds, the gusts of wind from the north-west, fill me with a sort of giddiness.

At times, between the blocks of basalt, halfway up the slope, on the banks of the Roseaux River, I catch a glimpse of a furtive shadow, so fleeting that I'm never sure I have really seen it. Ouma, come down from her mountain, is observing me, hiding behind a boulder or in the stands of screw pines. Sometimes she comes accompanied by a young boy of extraordinary beauty, whom she says is her half-brother and who is mute. He stays at her side, not daring to come near, looking at once cautious and curious. His name is Sri, according to what Ouma says, it's a nickname her mother gave him because he's like a messenger from God.