Passing ships are equipped with masts or propellers; they’ve come from afar, have crossed the ocean. The names painted on the ships’ hulls speak of an unimaginable elsewhere; they’re either made of wood or enveloped in grey and red sheathing, except for the trawlers that, in motley colours, look like so many candies bobbing out on the waves. Osip climbs to the lantern every day to study the comings and goings of the commercial, military, and pleasure flotillas. Every morning, he relieves his father; the old man returns to his wife and Osip stays up top. He watches the sea swell and flood the path linking the lighthouse to the shore; he lets the tide rush in and waits for its retreat, listening to the collision of surf and stone. Huge breakers crash against the lighthouse and explode in white spray. Osip, severed from his brothers’ world, sits on the gallery, his skin dry from the wind and salt. He counts the ships in the distance, the bow appearing first, then the whole vessel. He logs the date of their approach and then that of their return to the ocean in a notebook. Sometimes, ships’ captains make out his silhouette against the flaking paint and sound their big horn; in a single bound Osip leaps to his feet, runs to his foghorn’s mouthpiece, and responds to the salute with a rumble that shakes the horizon.
From the lookout, he sees Matvey and Golby, aged ten and twelve, who’ve made the stretch of beach to the cliffs their own. They score its sand with thousands of neat footprints erased each night, retraced in the morning. The sea destroys everything the boys invent. Osip admires his brothers’ resolve, their fight against the intertidal waters. Sometimes they build structures from branches and pebbles and wait to see if they’ll resist the waves, sometimes they venture far out onto the rocks, their feet slipping on seaweed, then wait for the tide to come in and watch its advance on the cabin. They don’t know how to swim — no one does — but through their inventions and games they ally themselves with the sea all the same. Just as Osip has done with his foghorn.
Sevastian-Benedikt lives in the forest. He spends so much time running through it that he turns into a sturdy giant with green knees and elbows. From the lighthouse, Osip catches the occasional glimpse of him advancing through the foliage. On such days, the eldest returns to feed the clan, carrying on his back carcasses, bags of rice as heavy as dead bodies, the berries he’s gathered en route, and the delicacies he’s traded for in Seiche. He receives a king’s welcome. Thanks to his efforts, the family will eat. He’s their provider and the favourite.