But now that there is no longer a living soul to be seen in this city, along the avenues, in the roads and squares, in the neighborhoods and public parks, now that faces no longer appear at the windows, now that those canaries not yet dead of hunger and thirst sing in the deathly silence of the house or on the verandah overlooking the empty courtyards, now that the waters of the fountains and springs still sparkle in the sunlight but no hand is dipped, now that the vacant eyes of the statues look around in search of eyes that might be returning their gaze, now that the open gates of cemeteries show that there is no difference between one absence and another, now, finally, that the city is on the brink of that anguished moment when an island will come from the sea and destroy it, now let the wonderful story of the lonely navigator and his miraculous salvation unfold.
For more than twenty years the navigator had been sailing the seven seas. He had inherited or bought his ship, or it had been given to him by some other navigator who had also sailed in it for twenty years, and before him, if the memory does not finally become confused after such a long time, yet another solitary navigator had apparently ploughed the oceans. The history of ships and those who sail them is full of unexpected adventures, with terrible storms and sudden lulls as terrifying as the worst hurricanes, and, to add a touch of romance, it is often said, and songs have been composed on the theme, that a sailor will find a woman waiting for him in every port, a somewhat optimistic picture, which the realities of life and the betrayals of women nearly always contradict. When the lonely navigator disembarks, it is usually to get a fresh supply of water, to buy tobacco or some spare part for the engine, or to stock up on oil and fuel, medicine, sewing needles for the sails, a plastic raincoat to keep out the rain and drizzle, hooks, fishing tackle, the daily newspaper to confirm what he already knows and is not worth knowing, but never, never, never, did the lonely navigator set foot on land in the hope of finding a woman to accompany him on the voyage. If there really is a woman waiting for him in port, it would be foolish to turn her down, but it is usually the woman who makes the first move and decides for how long, the lonely navigator has never said to her, Wait for me, I'll come back one day, that's not a request he would permit himself to make, Wait for me, nor could he guarantee that he will be back on this or any other day, and, on returning, how often he finds the harbor deserted, or should there be a woman waiting there, she is waiting for some other sailor, although it often happens that if he does not turn up, any sailor who appears will do just as well. One has to admit that neither the woman nor the sailors are at fault, solitude is to blame, solitude can sometimes become unbearable, it can even drive the sailor into port and bring the woman to the harbor.
These considerations, however, are spiritual and metaphysical, we could not resist making them at some point, whether before or after relating these extraordinary events, which they do not always help elucidate. To put it simply, let us say that far away from this peninsula, now turned into a floating island, the lonely navigator was sailing with his sail and engine, his radio and binoculars, and with the infinite patience of someone who one day decided to divide his life into one part sky and one part sea. The wind suddenly stopped blowing and he lowered the sail, the breeze suddenly dropped, and the great billows carrying the ship gradually start losing their force, the surge dwindles, within an hour the sea will be smooth and calm, we find it incredible that this chasm of water, thousands of meters deep, should be able to maintain its balance, falling neither to one side nor to the other, the observation will seem foolish only to those who believe everything in the world can be explained by the simple fact that it is as it is, something one obviously accepts but which is not enough. The engine is running, chug-chug chug-chug, nothing but water as far as the eye can see, it corresponds sparkle for sparkle to the classical image of the mirror, and the navigator, despite many years' mastery of a strict routine of sleep and vigil, suddenly closes his eyes, drugged by the heat of the sun, and falls fast asleep, he woke up shaken by what seemed to be a mighty blast, thinking, perhaps, that he had slept for several minutes or hours but it was only seconds, in that fleeting moment of sleep he dreamt that he had collided with the corpse of an animal, with a whale. Startled, his heart beating furiously, he tried to discover where the sound was coming from, but did not immediately notice that the engine had stopped. The sudden silence had woken him, but in order to awaken more naturally, his body had invented a sea monster, a collision, thunder. Broken-down engines, on land and sea, are much more common, we know of one that is beyond repair, it has a broken heart and has been dumped under a lean-to and exposed to the elements, up north where it is gathering rust. But this navigator, unlike those motorists, is experienced and knowledgeable, he stocked up on spare parts the last time he touched land and woman, he intends to dismantle the engine as far as possible and to examine the mech anism. Such a waste of effort. The damage is right down in the piston rod, the horsepower of this engine is mortally wounded.
Despair, as we all know, is human, there is no evidence in natural history that animals despair. Yet man, inseparable from despair, has become accustomed to living with it, endures it to its extremes, and it will take more than an engine's breaking down in mid-ocean for the sailor to start tearing out his hair, to implore the heavens or rail at them with curses and abuse, one gesture being as useless as another, the solution is to wait, whoever carried off the wind will bring it back. But the wind that departed did not return. The hours passed, serene night came, another day dawned, and the sea remains motionless, a fine thread of wool suspended here would drop like a plumb line, there isn't the tiniest ripple on the surface of the water, it is a stone ship on a stone slab. The navigator is not greatly concerned, this is not the first lull he has experienced, but now the radio has stopped working for some inexplicable reason, all one can hear is a buzzing sound, the carrier wave, if such a thing still exists, which is carrying nothing but silence, as if beyond this circle of stagnant water the world has become silent in order to witness, unseen, the navigator's mounting agitation, his madness, perhaps his death at sea. There is no lack of provisions or drinking water, but the hours are passing, each one increasingly prolonged, silence tightens its grip on the ship like the coils of a slippery cobra, from time to time the navigator taps the gunwale with a grappling iron, he wants to hear a sound unlike that of his own thick blood coursing through his veins, or the beating of his heart, which he sometimes forgets, and then he awakens after having thought he was already awake, for he was dreaming that he was dead. The sail is raised against the sun, but the still air retains the heat, the lonely navigator is sunburnt, his lips are cracked. The day passed, and the following day is no different. The navigator finds refuge in sleep, he has descended into the tiny cabin, now furnace-like, there is only one bunk there, narrow, proof that this navigator is truly alone, and he is stark naked, the sweat pouring off him at first, then, his skin dry, covered with goose pimples, he struggles with his dreams, a row of very tall trees swaying beneath a wind that pushes the leaves back and forth, then dies away before returning to attack them once more, on and on. The navigator gets up to drink some water and the water is finished. He goes back to sleep, the trees no longer stir, but a seagull has come to settle on the mast.