The Other Side of the Sea by Louis-Philippe Dalembert

Author:Louis-Philippe Dalembert
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780813936482
Publisher: University of Virginia Press

II

There are twenty or thirty of them, but it seems as if there were thousands. They form a circle of hate around the body curled up on the ground, on the asphalt buckling under the midday heat. The sun is at its zenith. Their shadows, merged under their feet in a shifting, deformed ball, resemble the evil spirits that have taken possession of their heads. Their expressions reveal something that no longer belongs to the human race. Their eyes send out strange sparks. They scream. Gesticulate. Each one is brandishing a different weapon: a piece of wood, an old knife, a chipped bottleneck, unearthed who knows where and still covered with mud. An enormous stone generating spasmodic discharges in the frail arms that hold it above a head with prominent veins. In a few seconds, it’ll smash against the head. It’s biding its time.

The body is curled up in a fetal position. The arms are crossed over the chest, the hands gripping the shoulders as if seeking protection from the cold. The knees are almost touching the chin. He doesn’t have any expression in his eyes anymore. Doesn’t he see the crowd demanding his sacrifice? Is he still thinking? Perhaps he’s reviewing his life, not that different than that of his executioners. Then he says to himself that death is the best gift they could offer him. Perhaps he’s already on the other side. Floating in the other world. Celebrating his reunion with the spirit of his childhood. The shades of his ancestors. He’s no longer there, in any case. Not in the middle of their screaming, of their madness that is demanding a scapegoat to exorcize their misery and their hunger, to saw off their giant rats’ teeth that gnaw away at hope, to ward off the anguish of living. Hoping that, at the end of the sacrifice, a new sun will rise.

Powerless, Jonas witnesses the ceremony. He’d like to intervene. But what would he say? He’d only be offering them a new lamb. He knows that. Shaken by imperceptible convulsive movements, the body is only allowed to stiffen for brief intervals. In tatters, his T-shirt reveals a chest spattered with blood. A swollen eyeball is hanging out of its socket. The result of the blows received while his executioners were dragging him along the ground, his lips form a puffy whole with the rest of his face. Slaps like there’s no tomorrow. A woman threw the contents of a chamber pot in his face. Laughing, a child let fly with a kick to his nose. His nostrils pissed blood. Others pummeled his ribs with billy clubs. As a result, they became numb. In the end, people were beating him, and he didn’t feel anything anymore. Who is he? No one could say. A werewolf that gorges itself on the blood of newborn babies. No, he’s one of those bourgeois that squeezes people like a lemon. An adulterous woman. Shaken by twitches arriving at regular intervals, the body attempts to lift its head.

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