The End of the Ocean

Chapter 18 DAVID

Lou chewed and swallowed. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

She chewed quickly and swallowed even more quickly. Couldn’t get enough. We were sitting in the mess hall. For the first time she was strong enough to accompany me here. She woke up bright and early because she was hungry and we had made it here before the rush. The tables and benches around us were still empty and the temperature was tolerable.

“Is there any more?” she asked when the dish was empty.

She’d had most of my bread, too.

“I’ll go ask,” I said.

Even though I knew this was all we would get.

At that moment Francis came over. He must have heard our conversation, because now he handed her another piece of bread and sat down with us.

“Thank you,” I said, because Lou was too busy eating.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said when she was finally finished.

“Where?”

“To the Red Cross.”

She stretched out her feet in front of her, looked at them and not at me. “I don’t need to.”

“Yes. You need to. We haven’t been there in four days.”

“There’s just a long line, nothing else.”

“She can stay with me,” Francis said.

“Yes, I can,” Lou said. “I can stay with Francis.”

“No,” I said. “You have to come with me. Imagine if they’ve arrived.”

“They haven’t,” Lou said. “You heard what the lady said. They’ll let us know if Mommy comes.”

“We’re going now,” I said.

“No,” she said and lifted her head.

She stared at me, eyes shining.

She was really well again. I had nothing to offer in response to that no.

So I went. Alone. Angry and pleased at the same time.

I couldn’t remember the last time I was alone, just walking like this, without holding Lou’s hand. I opened and closed my fingers.

I was able to breathe again. She was fine. I had managed it. Taken care of her, brought her through the crisis. Without Anna.

Without Anna. My heart started pounding even harder.

Today, today they’ve learned something, today they’ve made contact. Found them. Today Jeanette will have good news.

But when I entered the barracks, it wasn’t Jeanette who was sitting behind the desk. It was a man I’d never seen before.

He didn’t even look up.

“There’s nothing new here,” he said to the screen.

“But you don’t know who I’m looking for.”

“There’s been no contact with anyone since yesterday and no new arrivals have registered. You’ll have to wait for a few days.”

“But many days have passed since the last time I was here. Where is the woman who’s usually here, Jeanette? She knows my case.”

“She left,” he said. “Replaced.”

“Why is that?”

He didn’t reply, taking a cookie from a can under the desk instead.

“Sorry,” he said as he crunched away. “Need something to keep me going. Half rations for us as well.”

I walked outside again. By the entrance there was an overflowing garbage can. It stunk in the heat. I turned around. A wire supporting the tent in front of me had come loose, the canvas was hanging askew. And a little further down along the row someone had painted slogans on a barracks wall. Portuguese? Spanish? I didn’t understand the language, but the letters spoke to me anyway, the way they were painted, jagged, brash, hot-tempered.

The lack of toilet paper. The first-aid clinic that was closed. Jeanette’s disappearance. I had seen it, but hadn’t really given it much thought before now. I continued walking aimlessly between the barracks. I had to get back to Lou, but couldn’t manage it, saw only how many things were not as they should be. People were dirtier, thinner, there was garbage everywhere.

As I wandered around, my heart pounded harder and harder.

Lou was well, I had managed that. But we were still half a family. I was still bloody well alone. And now the camp was falling apart.

It makes no difference what I do, I thought suddenly.

Nothing makes any difference.

I can fight for my life. I can fight for her. But it makes no difference when there’s no longer anywhere to live.

All of a sudden I heard loud, angry voices.

I changed direction, drawn towards them.

Around the corner of Hall 2.

There, in the blistering heat, stood the man from the line, Thick-Neck, crowding another man, almost on top of him. It was Martin. Both were shouting, screaming, red in the face like cartoon characters. But there was nothing to laugh about here.

At that moment Caleb and Christian came walking by. They stopped for a moment when they spotted Thick-Neck, before they flew at him.

Then everything happened very quickly. A wave passed through the camp; everyone who’d been sitting so quietly, moving so slowly, for so long afflicted by heat-induced lethargy, now all at once became a fury of movement, flying at each other’s throats.

I stayed out of it, watched Caleb and Christian pounding their fists into Thick-Neck. Men poured in from all sides to join the brawl, taking opposing sides. As if on cue.

As if they’d been waiting for this.

And I, too, had been waiting for it. I had been so sluggish for so long, so sluggish and cautious. Always with Lou there holding my hand.

But now there was nobody to take care of. And nothing made any difference.

I took a step forward.

I could feel my heart pound. Hard. Hard.

Took another step.

Now you must choose. Are you in or alone?

But I was spared having to choose, because somebody came running up from behind. They pulled me along with them. Pulled me in and I didn’t resist.

I ran towards Caleb, Martin and Christian. Became a part of what they were.

Adrenaline filled me. I exploded again and again. Something in me that had been suppressed rose to the surface. Something that had been there all along.

Arms, legs, everything happened so fast. Loud voices. My own, theirs, so loud.

Running footsteps, more and more people kept joining in, everyone with a clear aim, all their energy focused on this.

It was so easy to raise an arm. To punch.

Move your feet.

Punch again.

There were more of us. But they were quicker, larger, crazier. Something about them reminded me of the worst boys at school, a wildness. With guys like them you never knew what you would get.

And I was clumsy. Slower with every punch I threw.

I missed.

I was hit.

The pain erased all the thoughts in my head. It was quick. A pain like that I could take, I had time to think. This is tolerable, because it’s so quick, it passes right away.

But then it didn’t stop. It spread outward, heat prickling everywhere, throughout my entire body. It didn’t disappear, but increased in intensity, obliterating all other pains.

Hard to breathe. It was difficult to breathe. My chest contracted.

And around me people were fighting on all sides. The brawl was just a sound, a single sound. A sound that swallowed up everything else.

I sat on the ground. Shaking. I had drawn my knees up against my chest and was holding my hands open in front of me. They were covered with red stains from the blood dripping from my head.

Christian was lying doubled up on the ground. Caleb was sitting with Martin, talking softly, in a daze.

It was so hot, the pain and the heat all at once. Sweat on my back, on my forehead. Salt on my face. Pain. It hurt like hell. My body ached all over.

Then someone crouched down beside me. I’d almost forgotten about her. But she was still here, with her protruding collarbones and slender fingers.

“Come,” she said.

She was staying in a hall that was smaller than ours. A sign outside stated that it was only for women. She pulled me inside a cubicle like mine and Lou’s.

“Sit down.”

Marguerite pointed at a bed.

I did as she said. She left me there, without saying a word.

I sat there, feeling her bed beneath my thighs. She slept here. Her body lay here every single night. In what position? On her back, securely, in the middle of the bed? Curled up like a newborn baby? Or on her stomach, turned away from everything?

I bet that she slept on her stomach.

She wasn’t gone long, and in her hand she had a first-aid kit. She put it down next to me on the bed and opened it.

“Here you go.”

“What?”

“Here you’ll find what you need.”

“Can’t you—?”

“You got yourself into this mess. Now you can straighten it out as well.”

I blinked, and a rivulet of blood trickled down from my forehead.

“But it’s hard to see.”

“That’s your problem.”

“Can’t you—?”

“Do you want Lou to see you like this?”

“No.”

“Then get to it.”

Lou. She was with Francis. He had kept her away from the fight. He must have.

But now she must be worrying about where I was. Maybe she regretted refusing to go with me to the Red Cross, and was sitting with Francis in despair. Blaming herself, for the entire fight maybe, thinking it was her fault, even though nothing in the world was her fault.

Hurriedly, I opened an antiseptic towelette.

I had to be quick.

I dried my cheekbone where I could feel that it was bleeding.

She was surely safe with Francis, they got along so well, surely she hadn’t heard anything, hadn’t heard the screaming, hadn’t noticed how much time had passed. And she was too young to blame herself.

I took another towelette and quickly rinsed the knuckles on my right hand. They were already starting to turn purple.

“Do you have a mirror?”

“No,” Marguerite said.

She remained seated directly across from me. She watched to make sure I removed all the blood, nodding now and then in confirmation, but made no sign of moving.

“Would you mind?” I handed her the ragged towelette.

“You’ve gotten rid of most of it now,” she said, without accepting it.

“Thanks.”

I took a strip of Band-Aids and a pair of scissors out of a box and clipped off a piece. Five centimeters, approximately. That would have to do.

Peeled off the backing, stuck it to my cheek.

Marguerite gave me a curt nod. I had apparently put it in the right place.

I pulled up my T-shirt, ran my hand down my ribs on my left side. Pressed my fingers against my rib cage. First gently. Then a little harder.

I tried to keep from moaning.

I stood up, and my right leg almost buckled under me. I had taken a blow there, a blow so hard that it felt like the muscles had snapped.

I took a couple of cautious steps.

It hurt like the devil.

I stretched my arms out in front of me, over my head.

I bent over.

Bloody hell, I was sore!

But everything still worked. Nothing was broken. I’d been luckier than I deserved.

I turned towards the first-aid kit, picked up after myself and closed it.

“Where do you want me to put the kit?”

“I’ll take it.”

I put it down on the floor beside her bed.

“Thank you,” I said again.

I was about to leave. But then she stood up, too.

“David?”

“Yes?”

We stood there facing one another.

“I was looking for you,” she said.

“Oh?”

“I wondered how you were doing, you and Lou.”

“Lou has been ill. We’ve barely been out of the hall.”

“Ill?”

I could see that she was frightened. That she cared.

“She’s fine now,” I hastened to say.

“I’m happy to hear that.”

“Me too, that is, I mean, of course I am…”

David, shut up. Now you’re just making a mess of things.

She didn’t reply, but held my gaze. And suddenly a little smile appeared.

“You look terrible.”

And then I noticed that I was trembling, how shaken up I was. Sore. Beaten to a pulp. Everything in my body felt loose and soft, as if I weren’t put together properly and had lost all coordination.

To think I’d ended up in a fight. Just like that.

And with a child to take care of and everything.

Idiot. Weakling. Feeble. As much willpower as a goldfish.

I swallowed. Swallowed again. Was not going to cry. Not now and not later.

I was a loser, now and forever. It was a miracle that I even stood on two feet, as weak as I was.

Marguerite could see how I was shaking.

Her smile disappeared and she took one step forward, lay one hand on my arm, her right hand on my left upper arm.

Her hand was cool, but it burned against my skin.

I moaned again.

Everything hurt, all my movements, even the faint summer breeze, even the air itself.

And her hand, when it was on my arm like that, it was almost unbearable.

“Don’t take it away,” I said.

And she left it where it was.