The Prospector (19 page)

Walking across the beach I'm surrounded by black children laughing, calling to me, surprised to see a stranger. I take the path that borders Savy's compound and make my way across the whole width of the island. On the other side there is no beach or anywhere to land. Only rocky inlets. The island is so narrow that on stormy days the sea spray must blow right across it.

When I return to the embankment hardly an hour has gone by. There is no place to sleep here and I'm not keen to stay any longer. When the fisherman sees me come back, he unties the line and raises the angled yard up the mast. The pirogue glides out to sea. The waves of high tide are covering the embankment, flowing between the legs of the shouting children. They're waving their arms about, diving into the transparent water.

In his notes my father says that he ruled out the possibility that the Corsair's treasure was on Frégate, because of the small size of the island, the lack of water, of wood, of resources. From what I was able to see, he was right. There are no lasting landmarks here, nothing that can be used for plotting a map. The pirates that roamed the Indian Ocean in 1730 wouldn't have come here. They wouldn't have found what they wanted, the sort of natural mystery that would fit in with their scheme, that would defy time.

And yet, as the pirogue sails away from Frégate, skimming along westward, leaning over in the wind, I feel a little wistful. The clear water of the lagoon, the naked children running on the beach and that old abandoned wooden house among the vanilla plants all remind me of the days in Boucan. It's a world devoid of mystery and that's why I feel this longing.

What will I find in Rodrigues? And what if it's like this, what if there's nothing over there either, nothing but sand and trees? Now the sea is sparkling in the slanting rays of the setting sun. At the stern the fisherman is still standing up, leaning on the tiller. His dark face expresses nothing, neither impatience nor disinterest. He's simply watching the shapes of the two mornes – guardians of Port of Victoria – growing larger, already engulfed in darkness.

Port Victoria once again. From the deck of the
Zeta
I'm watching the comings and goings of the pirogues unloading the oil. The air is hot and languid, not a breath of wind. The light reverberating off the glassy sea fascinates me, plunges me into a dream state. I listen to the distant sounds of the port. At times a bird flies through the sky and its call makes me start. I've begun writing a letter to Laure, but will I ever send it? I'd rather she came, right now, to read it over my shoulder. Sitting cross-legged on the deck, shirt open, hair tousled, beard long and whitened with salt like an outlaw: that's what I'm writing to her now. I'm also telling her about Bradmer, about the helmsman who never sleeps, about Casimir.

The hours slip by without leaving a trace. I've stretched out on the deck in the shade of the mizzen mast. I put away the writing case and the piece of paper upon which I was able to write only a few lines. Later the heat of the sun on my eyelids awakens me. The sky is still just as blue and there is the same bird squawking as it circles. I take out the piece of paper and automatically write down the lines that came to mind while I was sleeping:

‘Jamque dies auraeque vocant rursusque capessunt

Aequora, qua rigidos eructat Bosporos amnes…'

I take up the letter where I'd left off. But am I really writing to Laure? In the blistering silence of the harbour, surrounded with glitters and reflections, with the grey shoreline and the tall blue shadows of the mornes in front of the ship, other words pop into my mind: why did I leave everything behind, for what pipedream? Does the treasure I've been pursuing for so many years in my dreams really exist? Is it really in some vault, jewels and gems just waiting to reflect the light of day? Does it really hold the power to turn back time, to wipe away the misfortune and the ruin, the death of my father in the shabby house in Forest Side? But I am perhaps the only one who holds the key to the secret and I'm getting closer now. Out there at the end of my road is Rodrigues, where everything will at last fall into place. My father's former dream, the one that guided his research and haunted my entire childhood, at last I'll be able to fulfil it! I'm the only one who can do it. It's what my father wants, not me, for he'll never leave the earth of Forest Side. That's what I would like to write now, but not in order to send it to Laure. When I left, it was to stop the dream, so that life could begin. I'll go to the end of this journey, I know I have to find something.

That's what I wanted to tell Laure when we parted. But she saw it in my eyes, she turned away and left me free to leave.

I've been waiting for this journey for so long! It seems as if I've never stopped thinking about it. It was in the sound of the wind when the sea washed up the estuary in Tamarin, it was in the waves running over the green expanse of cane, in the plashing sound of the wind in the needles of the she-oaks. I remember the solid blue sky over the Tourelle and its dizzying drop down towards the horizon at twilight. In the evening the sea would turn purple, dappled with reflections. Now darkness is filling the harbour of Port Victoria and I feel as if I'm very near the place where the sky meets the sea. Wasn't that the sign the
Argo
followed in its quest for eternity?

Since night is falling, the watchkeeper has come up from the hold where he's been sleeping naked all afternoon in the muggy heat. He's simply wrapped a loincloth about his waist and his body is shiny with sweat. He squats down in the front, facing a scupper, and urinates into the sea for a long time. Then he comes over to sit by me, leans his back up against the mast and starts smoking. In the half-light his sunburned face is eerily lit by the whites of his eyes. We sit side by side for a long time without speaking.

Captain Bradmer did the right thing in not trying to fight against the south wind. As soon as the cargo was unloaded at dawn the
Zeta
sailed through the pass and picked up the west wind that will enable us to return. Lighter, sails filled, the
Zeta
is faring along at a good speed, listing slightly like a true clipper. The dark sea is rough with long waves coming from the east, maybe from a distant storm on the shores of Malabar. They come crashing up against the stem and stream over the deck. The captain has battened down the fore-hatches, and the men who are not taking part in deck manoeuvres have gone below. I was able to obtain permission to stay on deck at the stern, maybe simply because I paid for my passage. Captain Bradmer doesn't seem worried about the waves that are washing over the deck all the way up to his armchair. The helmsman, legs spread, is holding the wheel and the sound of his words is lost in the wind and the crash of the sea.

For half of the day the ship rushes on in that way, listing under the wind, streaming with spume. My ears are filled with the sounds of the elements, they fill my body and vibrate deep down within me. I can no longer think of anything else. I glance at the captain clutching the arms of his chair, face reddened from the wind and sun, and it seems as if there's something foreign in his expression, something violent and stubborn, something disturbing like madness. Hasn't the
Zeta
reached the limits of her resistance? The heavy waves slamming the portside are making her heel dangerously, and in spite of the roar of the sea I can hear the entire framework of the vessel creaking. The men have taken shelter at the stern to avoid the high waves shipping onboard. They too are staring straight ahead, towards the bow, with a fixed gaze. We are all waiting for something, without knowing what, as if the act of turning our eyes away for a second could be fatal.

We remain standing there like that for a long time, for hours, clinging to the ropes, to the rail, watching the stem plunge into the dark sea, listening to the crashing of the waves and the wind. The sea is tugging so hard at the rudder that the helmsman has a hard time holding the wheel. The veins in his arms are swollen and there is a tense, almost painful expression on his face. Above the sails clouds of sea spray are roiling, steaming, glinting with rainbows. Several times I think about getting up to ask the captain why we are pursuing in full sail like this. But the hard expression on his face and also the fear of losing my balance dissuade me from doing so.

Suddenly, for no reason, Bradmer gives the order to douse the jibs and the stay sails and reef. To make the manoeuvre possible the helmsman turns the wheel to portside and the ship rights itself. The sails fall slack, snap like banners. Everything has gone back to normal. When the
Zeta
returns to its heading, it's sailing slowly and no longer heeling. The powerful roar of the taut sails is replaced by the shrill whistling of the rigging.

And yet Bradmer hasn't moved. His face is still red, closed, his gaze hasn't faltered. Now the helmsman has gone to lie down in the hold to rest, eyes opened unblinkingly on the blackened ceiling. Casimir, the Rodriguan sailor, is at the helm and I can hear his sing-song voice speaking to the captain. On the drenched deck the crewmen have taken up their game of dice, their conversations again, as if nothing has happened. But has anything really happened? Just the madness of this blue sky, of this dizzying sea, of the wind that fills your ears, the solitude, the brute force.

The
Zeta
moves along easily, barely slowed by the waves. In the burning noonday sun the deck is already dry, covered with salt sparkles. The horizon is immobile, sharp, and the sea furious. Deep down inside me thoughts, memories are coming back to life and I realize I'm talking to myself. But who's paying any attention? Aren't we all the same, crazed with the sea, Bradmer, the black helmsman, Casimir and all the others? Who listens to us talk?

Deep within, memories are coming back, the secret of the treasure at the end of this road. But the sea wipes time away. These waves, what age are they coming from? Aren't they the same waves that existed two hundred years ago, when Avery fled the shores of India with his fabulous bounty, when Misson's white flag floated over this sea with gold letters reading:

Pro Deo et Libertate

The wind never grows old, the sea is ageless. The sun, the sky, are eternal.

I gaze out into the distance, at each crest of foam. I think I know now what I've come in search of. I think I can see inside myself like someone who's been visited by a dream.

After these days, these weeks of having nothing other to look at than the blue of the sea and the sky and the clouds slipping their shadows over the waves, the man on the lookout at the bow sights – barely distinguishes, rather than sights – the grey line of an island and a name is whispered around the deck: ‘Saint Brandon… Saint Brandon!' And it's as if we'd never heard anything so important in our lives. Everyone leans over the rail, trying to see. Behind the wheel the helmsman squints his eyes, his face is tense, anxious. ‘We'll be there before nightfall,' says Bradmer. His voice is filled with childish impatience.

‘Is it really Saint Brandon?'

My question surprises him. He responds gruffly, ‘What else do you think it could be? There's no other land less than four hundred miles from here, except Tromelin, which is behind us, and Nazareth, to the north-west, a pile of rocks lying at surface level.' He immediately adds, ‘Yes, it's Saint Brandon all right.' The helmsman is the one who's peering most intently at the islands and I recall what he'd said, the sky-coloured water where the most beautiful fish in the world swim, the tortoises, the seabirds that people them. The islands where women never go and the legend of the girl the tempest swept away.

But the helmsman isn't talking. He's steering the ship towards the still dark line that can be seen in the south-east. He wants to get there before nightfall, go through the pass. We are all gazing impatiently in the same direction.

The sun is touching the horizon when we enter the waters of the archipelago. Suddenly the sea bottom is clearly visible. The wind dies down. The sunlight is soft-hued, diffused. The islands draw aside before the bow of the ship, they are as numerous as a pod of whales. In fact it is just one large circular island – a ring – from which a few barren coral islets emerge. Is this the paradise the Comorian spoke of? But gradually, as we enter the atoll, we can feel the strangeness of this place. The peacefulness, the languor that I've never felt anywhere else, that stems from the transparency of the water, from the purity of the sky, from the silence.

The helmsman steers the
Zeta
straight towards the line of the first reefs. The bottom is very close, dotted with coral and seaweed, turquoise-coloured, in spite of the deepening night. We slip between the black reefs where, from time to time, the open sea casts misty sprays. The rare islands are still far away, like so many sleeping marine animals, but suddenly I notice that we are in the middle of the archipelago. Without realizing it, we've reached the centre of the atoll.

Captain Bradmer is leaning over the rail as well. He's observing the bottom, which is so close we can make out each shell, each branch of coral. The sunlight that is fading out beyond the islands cannot dim the limpid sea. We've all fallen silent, so as not to break the charm. I hear Bradmer mumbling to himself. He says, ‘Land of the Sea.'

Off in the distance we can hear the faint rumbling of the sea on the reefs. It must never stop, like in the old days around Tamarin, the sound of eternal toiling.

Night settles over the atoll. It is the gentlest night I've ever known. After the burning hot sun and the wind, night here is a reward, laden with stars piercing the purple sky. The sailors have taken off their clothes and are diving from the ship one after another, swimming silently in the light water.

I do likewise, I swim for a long time in the water, which is so soft I can barely feel it, like a soft flutter around me. The water in the lagoon cleanses me, purifies me of all longing, all anxiety. For a long time I glide along on the surface, smooth as a mirror, until the muffled voices of the sailors reach my ears, mingled with the cries of birds. Very near to me I see the dark shape of the island the helmsman calls La Perle, and a little farther off, surrounded by birds like a whale, Frégate Island. Tomorrow I'll visit their beaches and the water will be even lovelier still. The lights shining through the hatches of the
Zeta
guide me as I swim. When I climb up the knotted rope hanging from the bowsprit, the breeze makes me shiver.