How did this happen? How long has it taken? Why couldn’t they get away? How is it that they’re now swimming against the current of a slow-flowing river of mud? Can their feet touch the ground, even only from time to time? No.
Farnèse and Peretti, in the night, reach out their arms bogged down with mud, their legs hindered by their soaked pants. They kick their feet, let themselves float a little, then start again. If someone were to ask them where they’re going, they wouldn’t know how to respond; they’d keep quiet, frightened as they are by the necessity forcing them to thrash about in this way, as best they can, entirely spent, in order to reach a point they can’t even see and wouldn’t know how to locate any more than they’d know what to call it.
Sometimes, the darkness lights up: a flash, a hole in the clouds and the moon shining like the sun, outlining frightening shadows, like an eclipse at midday.
“There, to the right,” Peretti murmurs. “See it?”
“What?”
“On the roof. Isn’t that where the kid lives?”
“Tristan?”
“Yeah, the kid. Isn’t that his house over there?”
Peretti hesitates to extend his finger and point to the exact place, fearing he’ll drown if he relaxes his efforts.
Farnèse breathes in, breathes out, speeds up.
“Someone’s on the roof. Look!”
“I see,” Farnèse answers without turning around. “That’s her, that’s his wife.”
“You know her?”
“Not really, but I know that’s where they live. I know that’s her. Smart of her to climb up on the roof. Do you know about her and Dumestre?”
“Her and Dumestre?” Peretti asks while swallowing a mouthful of mud that he spits back out, half coughing.
“Don’t die,” says Farnèse.
Peretti panics, speeds up, takes another gulp. “Shit, help me!”
Farnèse grabs on to a branch. He feels around underneath him, manages to find his footing, reaches a hand out to Peretti. They stay like this for a few moments, docked at the top of a tree, regaining their breath.
“Maybe it’s over,” says Farnèse. “I don’t know. They were quiet about it.”
“How’d you know? Shit, how’d you know?”
“What’s it matter?”
“And you left them there? The two of them? Dumestre and the kid? In the forest? Even though you knew?”
“Yeah.”
“You did it on purpose?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Farnèse lets go of the branch. He goes back to swimming as quickly as possible toward the objective whose nature still eludes him.
“Why?” repeats Peretti, splashing along after him.
Farnèse doesn’t reply. The explanation would take up too much time, too much space. It would likely take over everything: his head, the air, the sky. He knows how to turn into an urn. He’s already done it. An urn of grief, filled with liquor, wine, eau de vie.
He can’t explain it, but a connection exists between Vladimir’s death and this story. “Vladimir’s death”—he never thinks about it in those words. Normally, he just thinks “Vladimir,” and the name takes up all the space, swollen with tenderness, anger, regret. Someone has to take revenge, he thinks, a thought at once hazy and clairvoyant, the sort of thought produced by alcohol. Someone has to pay. There is an urgent need for justice to be rendered. In the past, people killed each other, killed themselves, for less. In books—the books he used to read—it meant gloves thrown to the ground, meetings at dawn, bring your witnesses: tales of duels with pistols, with swords. Suicide was also a type of duel, between self and self. He should have thought about it, should have followed through. He hasn’t done it. He told himself he should live on as a witness to the child’s past presence, a child for whom he might be the only one to grieve. But that’s not true. He hasn’t done it and there’s no good reason for that, even the hope of redemption.
The kid’s wife. Shit. A woman like that. When they showed up in the village, he recognized her right away. That type of woman. There was a lot of talk about them at first. They didn’t have jobs. In any case, they never went out at normal times. Sometimes people saw them at the supermarket, the gas station. They lived in a shabby house, but they still had some means with which to do the shopping. What could it be? At least if they had a child, people would’ve known, from the school, on the record, under “Parents’ Occupations.” Farnèse was friends with the youngest teacher there, Nino’s mom. She would’ve told him. Just friends? he wonders. But it’s a rhetorical question. He knows the teacher’s in love with him, has been for quite a while, not just since her husband left her. Women like her fall for him. Women like that. The kid’s wife. Her too. She should have fallen for him. It would have been better for everyone. Because he never tries anything with women, he hardly looks at them or listens to them, doesn’t touch them. He would’ve become her confidant. But she chose Dumestre. He doesn’t understand. Would’ve loved not to know. But he saw them. Would’ve rather surprised them in a fit of bestiality. He spied them, without wanting to, in a tender moment—he shouldn’t have been there—in midconversation after making love. Naked bodies, her sitting, him lying down, both smiling. Speaking in low voices, with secrecy. Laughing. Stroking each other’s cheeks. Farnèse gazed at her body. It had been a long time since he had really seen a woman’s skin. This one is special, he thought, trying to understand what distinguished her from the others, the others he couldn’t see. This one doesn’t have any marks or traces. As if she has never worn clothing. She was sitting in the clearing like a cow, a goose. The placidity of her body fascinated him. He was sure Dumestre didn’t notice it. What a waste. Then Dumestre lifted his hand toward her breast—not white, not brown, a breast as innocent as a forehead—and kneaded it distractedly. She smiled, a hint of contempt on the corners of her lips. Death, thought Farnèse. They must be put to death. The kid must kill them. Kill the fat one, kill the pretty one, kill them both. Farnèse doesn’t know why this gave him relief, as if the reparation of this injustice had the power to compensate for all the others. Rigor. Bravery. Honor. And if there are casualties, if he kills him, if he kills her, I’ll stop drinking. I’ll start over.
Peretti starts shouting.
“Dammit, wait for me! I’m gonna drown.”
“No,” says Farnèse, whose voice is covered by the rain, the wind, the roaring water.
“Help, I’m drowning!”
Farnèse turns around, amused by the involuntary theatricality of these words. He watches as Peretti starts to drown. He hesitates. A slowness, weighed down by the full extent of his sadness suddenly being deployed, as if the urn that has been sealed for years were finally being poured out, holding his body back. He sees Peretti’s head disappear, then reappear, watches his arms beat at the waves around him as though observing the whirling flight of a moth. Then he makes a decision, abruptly and quickly, like a stone launched by a slingshot, propelled by his former agility. He grabs Peretti under the arms, hoists his companion up onto his back, half drowning himself, but without fearing it. He swims, his eyes looking for some kind of support, some refuge, glimpses part of a wall, some rocks emerging from the water. It’s the Gallo-Roman tower. If it’s held up until now, it’ll hold on one more night. He swims up to it, puts down his burden, makes sure he’s breathing, he’s stable, pats him on the back, explains that he has to go, there’s no more danger, the water won’t rise much more, he must wait there without moving, you better not move, but I’ve gotta go back, I have to go. Like a stone launched by a slingshot, he rushes into the current, which he catches up with and conquers. He’s forgotten the fatigue. He doesn’t need to try anymore.