The sun appeared to cause smoke to rise from every surface, and, when I took off my sandals, I had to scamper onto a patch of sand in the shade so as not to burn my feet. My wife, being less sensitive, tougher or more indifferent, followed me.
From her bag she produced a large tube of Nivea — a yellowish cream, especially made to protect you from sunburn — and began rubbing it on my back. The touch of her fingers made me feel numb and tired; I yawned and began to grow bored.
Then she said:
“Would you mind putting some Nivea on my back too?”
I did so, yawning.
There were two classes of humanity on the beach: the bronzed, oily, sweaty variety, and the more refined, reserved sort, who sat in the bluish shade and seemed, oddly, to rule over everyone else.
The sea did not so much murmur as boom, drowning out human voices.
While I was applying Nivea to Merche’s back, a fierce, blueblack horsefly appeared, with all guns blazing, determined to bite me. I had the devil’s own job shooing it off, because it was as fast and incisive as a cutting remark.
Some yards away a small, fit-looking man was speaking French to two young women lying on the sand; every now and then, he would whistle ‘Strangers in the Night’ or sing it in English.
The night, of course, any night, bore no resemblance to that overwhelming midday heat that weighed on the shoulders and seemed to rise, burning, from your feet up. Or perhaps it did, perhaps the sun was also a kind of night, which enervated and blinded us, and made us all into strangers “exchanging glances” and “wandering in the night”, as the Frenchman kept insisting.
I raised my arms and felt as if I were deflating with weariness.
I went for a short run, and the pebbles cut into my feet. And then, as I walked back, I felt an unpleasant tension in my groin.
Then we went for a swim. Merche plunged straight in, while I thought about it for a while. The water struck cold at first, and once you were in, it never became what you might call warm, as the name Costa Templada suggested it would. We swam for a while; we smiled at each other. We looked and were looked at, blatantly and with impunity, by other heads bobbing about in the water.
Merche said:
“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”
I didn’t answer.
I came out of the water before she did and went for another run, less painful this time, along the wet sand.
Merche stayed in the water as if she had no intention of ever coming out, and I sat down in line with the other humans looking at the sea.
The sea was both relevant and irrelevant, and yet it was the most important thing there. I wouldn’t have bothered contemplating the human line or the kiosk with its back to the sea, selling “soft drinks, beverages and sandwiches”, nor, farther off, the hills, sticky with heat haze.
No, I had to look at the sea, and not because Merche was still in there, swimming, but because we were all of us drunkards, hypnotized by the sea, because it moved and spoke and was vast.
I sat for a long time, staring at the waves, which were never the same, a fact that filled me with mistrust and unease. People talk about the sea being monotonous, as they do about anything they don’t observe closely enough.
The waves were never the same, although they may have repeated themselves in similar cycles. The meaning of the wave never went beyond being a rather comforting mystical murmur. But the sea seemed to express itself in ways superior to the wave, in whole unintelligible paragraphs and speeches, as rich in modes and forms as it was in depths and fishes. On the other hand, I understood nothing of what it said.
I realized that, had I managed to understand, I might have applauded; everyone sitting there staring at the sea might have applauded too; those of us, whether standing or lying down and staring at the sea, were waiting only for a grandiose phrase or an acceptable cliché to spring to our feet and applaud.
By the time Merche emerged from the water, I was feeling almost feverish.
When she had dried herself, we set off back to the apartment.
I asked Merche:
“Do you not think that all this is somehow an idea from God?”
“I don’t know. Isn’t everything?” she said.
“Yes, of course, but this… It’s as if God were trying to tell us something, tell us his idea. Do you understand? There’s the sea pounding away, and all that sun and the beach, all totally sterile. And all those naked people. It must be symbolic, don’t you think?”
“Symbolic? How should I know!”
“There’s something very odd about it all. I can’t believe that it’s just there for no other reason than for us to come here and fool around. It seems too much fuss for so little. All we really need is a pool or a pulley and some weights. I just don’t get it.”
“There’s nothing to get.”
“Of course there is. It’s trying to put across an idea, a big idea. It’s trying to tell us something in an extraordinary language of which I don’t understand a word. Not a single word. But never mind, I was ready to leave anyway.”
We dropped in at the supermarket, and Merche bought a lovely fresh lettuce, some olives, a beautiful tomato and a tin of tuna.
At night, we sat on the balcony, looking at the sea. We occasionally glanced at the mountains, the road and the other houses on the estate, almost all of them occupied by French and Belgian visitors. But our chairs were always turned towards the sea.
On some nights, we saw small fishing boats, their powerful lanterns besieged by darkness, cautious and devoted, floating on the back of the water, pilfering fish from the sleeping giant. One night, we saw a largish ship go by, slow and blazing with lights.
“A yacht!” cried Merche.
While it was passing, I was reminded of a funeral of rubbish sailing along the coast, a floating brothel ablaze with yellow lights. It moved presumptuously and solemnly with small, foolish or perhaps drunken steps.
We talked to each other about the sea then and later, when the summer was over, and with other people too. “What’s the sea like today?”, “We’ve been to the sea”, “We swam in the sea”, “The sea was calm”, “Which sea was it?”, “The Mediterranean”, “The water was lovely”, “The water was cold at first”, “The waves were huge”.
And so we continued, then and now, without really understanding or saying anything.
Perhaps it would be easier to talk about the beach. Just that: the beach.
I always felt ashamed and reluctant when I went swimming, although I concealed my feelings from Merche. Because I could sense something beyond the sea. I could sense a secret that was as clear as the water itself, a secret it would never reveal, however long I lived, and which perhaps my mind couldn’t even penetrate.
And on a couple of occasions during our stay, without anyone noticing, I would sit with my back to the sea to calm my anxiety, but I didn’t do so again, just in case Merche should say to me:
“What are you doing there with your back to the sea? Don’t you want to watch me swimming?”
Because she would think that she was on the beach. Whereas, in fact, the beach was in the sea.
NELSON STREET. CUL-DE-SAC
HE WENT IN, slightly dragging his feet. He was wearing glasses. His tight, hard lips stretched to form a smile. His eyes pushed his eyebrows upwards as if scorning his glasses or trying to jump over them. He looked behind him and to the right and left, making sure, it seemed, that no one was there. He paused, then went over to a corner table by the window. He sat down and looked out at the street. He turned, raised his head, then picked up the menu and read it with some indifference. He put it down on the table and fiddled clumsily with the knot of his tie; then, with the palm of his hand on his chest, he nervously smoothed both tie and waistcoat. He looked over at the door to the kitchen, meanwhile feeling in his jacket pockets. From the right pocket he pulled out a newspaper. He placed it on the table. He looked out at the street. He looked at the folded newspaper. He looked at the door to the kitchen. He looked up. He sat there, head raised, broad, flaccid, hairy hands resting on the table. His lips were moving slightly when the swing door into the kitchen creaked softly open. He turned slowly, abstemiously towards the door. The rheumaticky, varicose waitress, with broken purple veins on her cheeks, rowed over to the table on her fat legs, her weary face making a feeble attempt at friendliness.