Authors: Alessandro Baricco
Then
the old man
lowers
his eyes,
immerses
a hand
in the water,
and
slowly
draws
the sign
of the cross.
Slowly.
He says a prayer for the sea.
And it is an enormous thing, you must try to imagine it, a weak old man, a trifling gesture, and suddenly the immense sea is shaken, the entire sea, as far as the farthest horizon, trembles,
shakes, dissolves, as into its veins slips the honey of a blessing that enthralls every wave, and all the ships in the world, the squalls, the deepest abysses, the darkest waters, the men and the
animals, those who are dying, those who are afraid, those who are watching, bewitched, terrified, moved, happy, transported, when suddenly, for an instant, the immense sea bows its head, and it is
an enigma no longer, it is an enemy no longer, it is no longer silence but a brother, and a docile womb, and a spectacle for men saved. An old man’s hand. A sign, in the water. You look at
the sea and it doesn’t frighten you anymore. The end.
Silence.
What a story, thought Dood. Dira turned to look at the sea. What a story. The beautiful little girl sniffed. Can it be true? thought Ditz.
The man stayed seated, on the sand, and said nothing.
Dol looked him in the eye.
“Is it a true story?”
“It was.”
“And it isn’t anymore?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You cannot say a prayer for the sea anymore.”
“But that old man could.”
“That old man was old and had something inside that doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Magic?”
“Something of the sort. A beautiful magic.”
“And where did it go?”
“It vanished.”
They couldn’t believe that it had really disappeared into nothingness.
“Do you swear it?”
“I swear it.”
It had really disappeared.
The man got up. In the distance you could see the Almayer Inn, almost transparent in that light laved by the north wind. The sun seemed to have stopped in the clearer half of the sky. And Dira
said, “You came here to say a prayer for the sea, didn’t you?”
The man looked at her, took a few steps, came up close to her, bent over, and smiled.
“No.”
“So what were you doing in that room?”
“Although you cannot say a prayer for the sea anymore, perhaps you can still
say
the sea.”
Say the sea. Say the sea.
Say the sea.
So that not all that was in the gesture of that old man is lost, so that perhaps a drop of that magic may wander through time, and something might
find it, and save it before it disappears forever. Say the sea. Because it’s what we have left. Because faced by the sea, we without crosses, without old men, without magic, we must still
have a weapon, something, so as not to die in silence, that’s all.
“
Say
the sea.”
“Yes.”
“And you were in there all that time, saying the sea.”
“Yes.”
“But to whom?”
“It doesn’t matter to whom. The important thing is trying to say it. Someone will listen.”
They had thought he was a bit odd. But not in that way. In a simpler way.
“And you need all those sheets of paper to say it?”
Dood had had to lug that big bag full of paper all the way down the stairs. It had stuck in his craw, that business.
“Well, no. If someone were really able, all he would need is a few words . . . Perhaps he would begin with lots of pages, but then, little by little, he would find the right words, those
that say in one go what all the others do, and from a thousand pages he would get down to a hundred, and then to ten, and then he would leave them there, to wait, until the excess words slipped off
the pages, and then all you would have to do would be to collect the remaining words, and compress them into fewer words, ten, five, so few that by dint of looking at them from close up, and
listening to them, in the end you would be left with one, only one. And if you say it, you say the sea.”
“Only one?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“Who knows?”
“Any word?”
“A word.”
“But even a word like
potato
?”
“Yes. Or
help
!, or
etcetera,
you cannot know until you find it.”
As he talked he was looking around in the sand, the man from the seventh room. He was looking for a stone.
“Excuse me . . .” said Dood.
“What?”
“Can’t you use
sea
?”
“No you can’t use
sea
.”
He had got up. He had found the stone.
“Then it’s impossible. It’s an impossibility.”
“Who knows what’s impossible?”
He went up to the sea and threw the stone far away into the water. It was a round stone.
“Splash,” said Dol, who was a connoisseur.
But the stone began to skip, on the surface of the water, once, twice, three times, it just kept going, skipping wonderfully, farther and farther, it was skipping out to sea, as if they had
liberated it. It seemed as if it never wanted to stop again. And it never stopped again.
T
HE MAN LEFT
the inn the following morning. There was a strange sky, one of those that scud along fast, in a hurry to get home. The north wind was
blowing, strongly but soundlessly. The man liked walking. He took his suitcase and his bag full of paper and set off along the road that flanked the coast. He walked quickly, without ever looking
back. And so he did not see the Almayer Inn detach itself from the ground and break up airily into a thousand pieces, which looked like sails and floated up in the air, going up and down,
flying,
and they took everything with them, far away, that sea and that land, and the words and the stories, everything, who knows where, no one knows, perhaps one day someone will be so
tired that he will find out.