Malicroix by Henri Bosco

Author:Henri Bosco [Bosco, Henri]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2020-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

BALANDRAN

THE DAYS that followed this strange Christmas Eve have remained imprinted in my memory. Not that they were as strange. Quite the opposite—they were among the least remarkable of my stay at La Redousse. And most likely it is thanks to this purity that they left such a clear impression. Although ordinary events easily replaced the extraordinary ones I had anticipated, I was not disappointed. It was, perhaps without my realizing it, the miracle I had desired and foreseen. I was expecting an ineffable sign when, just on the verge of ecstasy, I heard the nascent sounds of a word foreign to human speech. Yet neither sign nor word emerged from the nameless being, and all I saw, as through a veil, was their inchoate existence. Impression that became confused with my return to the sensory world, where other signs—Balandran, the dog, the fire, the candelabra—miraculously restored, suddenly appeared as wonderful forms of life, both commonplace and uncanny. I did not understand how, so simple and still, they could be before me in all their concrete reality while I continued to drift in a lucid delirium. But soon their ordinariness won out, and I passed from unearthly to earthly wonders with such ease I felt as if I were waking from a dream, even as, unbeknownst to me, the miracle occurred. The inhabitants—both animate and inanimate—of this insular, wild world gave themselves to me and loved me.

From that day forward, my life at La Redousse changed. Balandran, of course, was still Balandran—scrupulous, energetic, reserved. But if he hardly spoke more, he let me glimpse his soul, and his activity on the island was no longer hidden from me.

He rose before dawn, soundlessly. With his customary skill, he kindled the fire, heated the morning meal, set my table. Often I was still asleep. When I awoke, the house was ready. He had disappeared.

At seven he crossed the river. As always, he took it on an angle, slipping through the willows toward La Regrègue. He must have reached it half an hour later. He returned around eleven. Whatever the weather—wind, rain, snow—he braved the water on his little black boat and smoothly moored at the landing.

No sooner back, he began to cook. A rustic meal: pulses, cheese, some nuts. I ate at one o’clock. Alone. He took his meal in the storeroom, with Bréquillet.

After the meal, we chatted. Always evenhandedly, but with greater trust. He brought me news from the mainland: the flock, the pasture, the sheepfolds, sometimes the dogs. Never the men. There were no men; Balandran had banished them from his mind. Not even a fisherman or a hunter.

When I questioned him: “Does no one ever come around?” “No,” he answered. “It’s too big . . .” About the ferryman, Le Grelu, never a word. But he thought of him. Every now and then, he let it slip unawares. Sometimes, when the weather was bad, I would say, “Balandran, it would be better to wait. You can go tomorrow. The water is rising.

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