English translation by Daniel Loedel
A Walk on the Beach
A flock of seagulls passed overhead. Another passed behind it. Then another and another and another. Or perhaps it was always the same one, churning air, land and sea in endless white excursions.
The man had been walking half an hour.
“I’ll go down to the beach and come right back,” he had said on leaving the hotel. It was the last day of his vacation and he wanted to take advantage until the last minute.
But instead of going down to the beach, he had started walking on the path that ran parallel to the shore and, without realizing it, had reached the lighthouse.
It was a yellow evening, with a languid sun and cold wind blowing off the ocean. The last handful of swimmers were leaving; at the bus stop they crowded together in silence. Cars rolled onto the road as food stands closed and the beach peddlers went home.
To the side of the main road, a few steps from the man, a young boy who had fallen behind was shaking the sand from his sneakers. A distant voice, his father’s, called for him, distorted by the wind; a moment later, wobbling, with one sneaker still half-off, the boy disappeared at a sprint.
The sun was setting.
It was time to turn back. But instead of turning back, the man left the main road, immersed himself in the dunes, went down the long access path cutting through the hill, emerged on the beach and headed for the water.
At his back, shrinking with each step, was the reassuring lighthouse tower; ahead of him, growing ever fuller and wider, the steady pulse of the waves.
The beach was deserted. A thick foam bursting with orange and violet reflections lined the shore. Each wave rose higher along the sand, leaving its milky trail over the seashells and dry seaweed.
The man removed his shoes and took a few steps barefoot on the hard sand. He hesitated. Glancing behind him, he saw that the path he’d come down was hidden by the bushes. He looked for the lighthouse; it too had been swallowed by the hill. But if he walked a little farther from it, he would see it again. Wasn’t that curious? The clifftops on the other hand, slate-blue in the distance and looming like storm clouds, were perfectly visible.
He’d always wanted to reach them. He knew that, past the first cliffs, there was a little hidden beach sheltered on either side by two long rock spits. He had seen it one day years ago from the road above and had wondered ever since whether it might be reachable from the shore. This time I’ll go without fail and find out, he would tell himself every summer. And every summer he would leave without finding out.
He looked at the sea. There was a loud crash on the surf and a great white wave came to die tamely at his feet. A fine spray bathed his face. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with wind and foam and salt.
He was done hesitating; he took off his clothes and dove into the water.
A giant wave welcomed him. For a few seconds he felt glorious: a boy once again, hanging in the air, spun around, knocked relentlessly back and forth by the sea.
At last he got out—dazed, happy, shivering.
Another loud crash and another wave, this one larger, treacherous, carried his clothes off. My new pants, he managed to think, watching them slow to a stop on the sand. They were soaked, utterly useless now.
He gathered his clothes, moved away from the shoreline, wrung them out as best he could, and laid them out on the dry sand. He would have to dry off a bit too before putting them back on, and he started walking again hoping to dry off more quickly.
If I don’t hurry, the tide will leave me without a beach, he thought.
It was getting dark. He could no longer see seagulls in the sky or hear their squawks. Nor could he hear the noise off the road. There were no human traces left on the sand; only feathers and the faint, delicate footprints of birds. He felt the first chill of night in his bones.
He found himself reflecting on the lighthouse paradox. It was visible for miles all around, but it couldn’t be seen from the foot of its own hill. A certain distance was needed to see it, and still more to see its signature beams of light: one long flash, two short ones; one long, two short. It was the same with people. It was easier to get to know others than to get to know oneself. With others, you saw only their actions, which were not hard to interpret. But in the case of one’s own self? After years of absolute intimacy, without any possible secrets, what you saw was an impenetrable maze of contradictions, clashing feelings, conflicting impulses, irrational doubts and fears, absurd fantasies, unexplained anxieties. Trying to make sense of it was like trying to figure out the time by looking at the inner workings of a clock rather than its hands. Just a little while ago, for example, he’d said he would go down to the beach and be right back. But instead of coming right back, he had continued on to the lighthouse, he had gone in the water and now was walking stark naked on a deserted beach, getting farther and farther from his hotel with every step. Why? Had he lied? Or had he tricked himself? And if he had tricked himself, how many other things had he done in his life, tricked, not knowing why? What was he looking for? Did he know what he wanted? Did he know himself? No, no, of course not. He couldn’t know himself now. But maybe one day, when enough time had passed. Maybe…
A sharp pain tore him from his reverie. He had just cut his foot on a piece of shell or broken glass. Gingerly he inspected it; he was bleeding. He tried to see how big the wound was, but in the darkness it was hard to tell, and soon he gave up. Big or small, bleeding profusely or hardly at all, it made no difference. What could he do, alone and isolated as he was?
He looked around. Inexplicably the lighthouse still wasn’t visible, and the cliffs had replaced the hill. The cliffs? But the cliffs were kilometers from the lighthouse! He didn’t even remember passing the three small resorts that stood between the lighthouse and the cliffs! Where was he? How long had he been walking?
Venus shimmered on the horizon.
Had he, without realizing it, reached the little beach he’d so wanted to check out since that day he saw it from above? Impossible to say. What he remembered seeing was a dream spot bathed in sunlight. But now, submerged in shadow, the beach looked inhospitable and dangerous.
And the rocks? If this was the place, he must have crossed the rock spit that went into the sea at the foot of the first cliffs. But when had he done that? It must have been when it was still light out, during low tide, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to make it across. How would he get back now, in the dark and at high tide?
He let a wave lick his wound; a burning sensation at first, then cold. He started shivering. What time might it be?
“Dinner is served at nine,” Mrs. Elsa always reminded him when she saw him leave. She did not like the guests arriving late, and he did not like Mrs. Elsa’s military discipline.
How would he explain this to her? If only he’d let her know that he’d be returning late or wouldn’t be having dinner at the hotel…
He looked around again. On one side he could make out the white line of the surf; on the other the vertical mass of the cliffs; and in between, not so much seeing them as inferring them, seagulls asleep in long pools of seawater.
The return trip would not be easy. At any moment the beach would end and the rocks would begin, and what would he do then?
Rocks or no rocks, he had to turn around. He started back, trying to find the strips of hard sand between each puddle, but he could no longer make out his steps. His feet hurt from the cold. His wound burned. He would have liked to have been dry, dressed and in the hotel lobby amid the bustling tourists and lights. He regretted dallying in the quiet of the beaches, far from the streetlights and horns of the main road. He regretted having abused the evening peace, the indulgence of the sea.
He felt alone, but he knew he was surrounded by living things. On those cliffs nested thousands of pigeons. If it had been daytime, they would have seen him and risen all at once in terrified flight, filling the sky with a clamor of wings. But now they slept, lulled by the wind and the waves, in the warm safety of their nests.
He thought of his hotel, of his ruined pants and the tide, which by now must have reached the dry sand and swept away all his clothes; he thought of the path back, impossible to find in the tangled brush of the hill. He felt the sleepiness of things and his own exhaustion. It was cold.
In a nearby puddle, there sounded a shrill cry. A flock of seagulls rose in flight and, after tracing a wide dark circle, came to rest on the sea.
It was fully night.
He sped up his pace. Limping, stumbling, stepping blindly in the shadowed sand, cutting himself on the sharp edges of invisible enemies, buffeted by the fierce wind off the water and the explosions of fine spray.
He walked back along the flooded shore, afraid that at any moment his path would be closed off by the rocks, while still clinging to the hope of spotting the lighthouse and its blessed light. He couldn’t possibly have gone so far. Just one flash would be enough; the lighthouse couldn’t have possibly disappeared forever behind the hill.
He would have liked to let himself drop for a moment, let his knees finally buckle and his open hands sink meekly in the sand’s embrace. But that wasn’t feasible anymore. Without knowing either how or when, the water had risen and reached his waist. Had he fallen into a great dip in the sand, or was it the sea that was rising, growing?
It was louder now. The noise seemed to surround him now. The waves roared right and left, crashed against the cliff wall. Where was the shore? Where was the hill? Where was the hotel?
What recklessness on his part! The last scheduled bus must have left long ago. And of course at the hotel they must be having dinner. How could it have grown so late? He imagined the bright lights, the clatter of forks and knives, the quick steps of Mrs. Elsa, the friendly murmur of the guests, the enormous window overlooking the sea.
Mrs. Elsa would notice his empty seat. She would ask questions.
“He said he was just going down to the beach and would be right back,” someone would volunteer uncertainly. “He can’t be long now.”
He tried to struggle forward and felt the ocean slam into his chest and lift him, lift him, until his feet no longer touched the bottom and he was floating, pounded again and again by the waves like a small child, while the current drew him inward.
He would never get back in time. Mrs. Elsa would never forgive him; he would never be able to look her in the eye again.
Finally, faintly, a long yellow light shone far away. It wavered, turned red, looked like it would return, as if to give two rapid flashes, but then it vanished entirely.
The lighthouse. From this far out to the sea, he could see it clearly. It was so, so far away, and no longer shone as before, with its periodic flashes. It was almost as if it was trying to tell him: yes, I am your lighthouse, and I am still in the same place I’ve always been, but I don’t shine for you.
It made no difference. Now he knew exactly where he was and that he would never be able to swim the distance he had covered on foot. Now there was no going back.
He tried to remember the morning of that day, which had now become so very long.
Mrs. Elsa had greeted him happily, singing; she had opened the dining room up before it was time, just for him. She had smiled at him and asked if he’d enjoyed his vacation and even sat down at his table for a few minutes. A walk on the beach shouldn’t end like this, he thought to himself. And through the spray, he thought he could still make out seagulls passing overhead: a white flock of seagulls, a brown flock of seagulls, a blue flock of seagulls
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