The Prospector by J.M.G Le Clézio Page B

Laure and I go down as far as the cane fields, over by Yemen and Tamarin, and everywhere the immature cane lies flattened in the fields as if it has been cut down with a gigantic scythe.
    Even the sea has changed. From up on the Etoile I watch the large mud stains spreading out over the lagoon. There’s no longer a village at the mouth of Black River. I think of Denis, was he able to escape?
    Laure and I sit perched atop a Creole pyramid in the middle of the devastated fields almost all day long. There’s a strange odour in the air, a stale smell wafting in on the wind. And yet the sky is cloudless and the sun is burning our hands and faces like it does at the height of summer. Around Boucan the mountains are dark green, sharp, they seem closer than before. We gaze at it all, the sea out beyond the reefs, the bright sky, the battered earth, just like that, not thinking about anything, our eyes stinging with weariness. There’s no one in the fields, no one walking down the paths.
    Silence fills our house as well. No one has come out since the storm. We eat just a little rice with some hot tea. Mam stays prone on a makeshift bed in my father’s office and we sleep in the hallway, because those are the only places the cyclone spared. One morning I accompany my father out to Bassin aux Aigrettes. We walk in silence over the devastated land. We already know what we will find and it makes our throats tighten. At one point an old black gunny woman is sitting by the side of the path in front of what is left of her home. As we go by her plaint grows slightly louder and my father stops to give her a coin. As soon as we reach the pool we immediately see what remains of the generator. The lovely machine is lying on its side, half-submerged in muddy water. The shed has disappeared and all that is left of the turbine are unrecognizable pieces of bent metal. My father stops, says in a loud, clear voice, ‘That’s it.’ He’s tall and pale, the sunlight is shining on his black hair and beard. He draws nearer to the generator, paying no attention to the mud that comes up to his thighs. He makes an almost childish gesture to attempt to set the machine upright. Then he turns around and walks down the path. When he passes me, he puts his hand on my neck and says, ‘Come on, let’s head back.’ That moment is truly tragic, at the time I feel as if everything is finished, for ever, and my eyes and throat fill with tears. Following rapidly in my father’s footsteps, I watch his tall, thin, stooped figure.
    Those are the days when everything moves towards its end, but we aren’t yet certain of that. Laure and I sense a more precise threat. It begins with the first news from the outside, rumours spread around by the plantation labourers, the gunnies from Yemen, from Walhalla. The news reaches us reiterated, amplified, relating the island devastated by the cyclone. The city of Port Louis, my father says, has been wiped off the map, as if it had been bombarded. Most of the wooden houses were destroyed and entire streets have disappeared, Rue Madame, Rue Emmikillen, Rue Poivre. From Signal Mountain to Champ de Mars there is nothing but ruins. Public buildings, churches have collapsed, and people were burned alive in explosions. My father tells us that at four o’clock in the afternoon the barometer was at its lowest point and the wind was blowing at over a hundred miles an hour with gusts of up to a hundred and twenty miles, they say. The sea became alarmingly swollen, covering the shores, and boats were thrown as far as a hundred metres inland. At Rempart River the sea caused the already high waters to overflow the riverbanks and the inhabitants were drowned. The names of destroyed villages makes a long list: Beau Bassin, Rose Hill, Quatre Bornes, Vacoas, Phoenix, Palma, Médine, Beaux Songes. In Bassin, on the other side of Trois Mamelles, the roof of a sugar mill fell in, burying one hundred