The Invention of Morel Read online

  Now my pain is almost gone. I am more serene. I think, although I know it seems absurd, that perhaps they did not see me in the museum. The whole day has gone by and no one has come to get me. It is frightening to accept so much good fortune!

  Here is some evidence that can help my readers establish the date of the intruders' second appearance here: the following day two moons and two suns were visible, possibly only a local phenomenon,- but probably they are a kind of mirage, caused by the moon or the sun, the sea and the air, and are surely visible from Rabaul and throughout this whole area. I noticed that the second sun—perhaps a reflection of the other—is much more intense. It seems that the temperature has risen infernally during the past two days, as if the new sun brought with it an unbearably hot summer. The nights are very white: there is a kind of polar glare in the air. But I imagine that the two moons and two suns hold no special interest now, for they must have been noted everywhere, either in the sky itself or in detailed and scholarly reports. I am not mentioning them because of any poetic attachment, or because of their rarity, but rather to give my readers, who receive newspapers and celebrate birthdays, a way to date these pages.

  As far as I know, these are the first nights when two moons have been observed. But two suns were seen once before. Cicero speaks of them in De Natura Deorum: "Turn sole quod ut e patre audivi Tuditano et Aquilio consulibus evenerat."

  I believe that is the correct version of the quotation.[3] At the Miranda Institute, M. Lobre made us memorize the first five pages of the Second Book and the last three pages of the Third Book. That is all I know about The Nature of the Gods.

  The intruders did not come to get me. I can see them come and go on the hillside. Perhaps some imperfection in my soul (and the infinite numbers of mosquitoes) caused me to long for last night, when I had lost all hope of finding Faustine, and I did not feel this bitter anguish. Now I miss that moment when I thought I was settled once again in the museum, the undisputed master of my solitude.

  I remember what it was I was thinking about the night before last, in that insistently lighted room: About the nature of the intruders, about my relationship with them.

  I tried several explanations.

  I may have the famous disease that is associated with this

  island; it may have caused me to imagine the people, the music, Faustine; perhaps my body has developed horrible lesions, the signs of approaching death, which the other effects keep me from noticing.

  The polluted air of the lowlands and my improper diet may have made me invisible. The intruders did not see me. (Else they have a superhuman discipline. I discarded secretly, with the certainty that I am right, my suspicion that this is a plot organized by the police to capture me.) Objection: I am not invisible to the birds, the lizards, the rats, the mosquitoes.

  It occurred to me (precariously) that these could be beings from another planet, whose nature is different from ours, with eyes that are not used for seeing, with ears that do not hear. I remembered that they spoke correct French. I enlarged the foregoing monstrosity: this language may be a parallel attribute of our worlds, but the words may have different meanings!

  I arrived at the fourth theory because of my mad impulse to relate my dreams. This is what I dreamed last night:

  I was in an insane asylum. After a long consultation with a doctor (the trial?), my family had me taken there. Morel was the director of the asylum. Sometimes I knew I was on the island; sometimes I thought I was in the insane asylum,- sometimes I was the director of the insane asylum.

  I do not believe that a dream should necessarily be taken for reality, or reality for madness.

  Fifth hypothesis: the intruders are a group of dead friends, and I am a traveler, like Dante or Swedenborg, or some other dead man of another sort, at a different phase of his metamorphosis; this island may be the purgatory or the heaven of those dead people (the possibility of several heavens has already been suggested; if only one existed, and if everyone went there and found a happy marriage and literary meetings on Wednesdays, many of us would have stopped dying).

  Now I understand why novelists write about ghosts that weep and wail. The dead remain in the midst of the living. It is hard for them, after all, to change their habits—to give up smoking, or the prestige of being great lovers. I was horrified by the thought that I was invisible,- horrified that Faustine, who was so close to me, actually might be on another planet (the sound of her name made me sad),- but I am dead, I am out of reach, I thought; and I shall see Faustine, I shall see her go away, but my gestures, my pleas, my efforts will have no effect on her. And I knew that those horrible solutions were nothing but frustrated hopes.

  Thinking about these ideas left me in a state of euphoria. I had proof that my relationship with the intruders was a relationship between beings on different planes. There could have been some catastrophe on the island that was imperceptible for its dead (I and the animals), after which the intruders arrived.

  So I was dead! The thought delighted me. (I felt proud, I felt as if I were a character in a novel!)

  I thought about my life. My unexciting childhood, the afternoons I spent on Paradise Street in Caracas; the days before my arrest—it seemed as if someone else had lived them; my long escape from justice; the months I have been living on this island. On two occasions I very nearly died. Once, when I was in my room at the fetid rose-colored boarding- house at 11 West Street, during the days before the police came to get me (if I had died then, the trial would have been before the definitive Judge; my escape and my travels would have been the journey to heaven, hell, or purgatory). The other time was during the boat trip. The sun was melting my cranium and, although I rowed all the way to the island, I must have lost consciousness long before I arrived. All the memories of those days are imprecise; the only things I can recall are an infernal light, a constant swaying and the sound of water, a pain far greater than all our capacity for suffering.

  I had been thinking about all this for a long time, so now I was quite tired, and I continued less logically: I was not dead until the intruders arrived; when one is alone it is impossible to be dead. Now I must eliminate the witnesses before I can come back to life. That will not be difficult: I do not exist, and therefore they will not suspect their own destruction.

  And I had another idea, an incredible plan for a very private seduction, which, like a dream, would exist only for me.

  These vain and unjustifiable explanations came to me during moments of extreme anxiety. But men and love-making cannot endure prolonged intensity.

  I think I must be in hell. The two suns are unbearable. I am not feeling well, either, because of something I ate: some very fibrous bulbs that looked like turnips.

  The suns were overhead, one above the other, and suddenly (I believe I was watching the sea until that moment) a ship loomed up very close, between the reefs. It was as if I had been sleeping (even the flies move about in their sleep, under this double sun!) and had awakened, seconds or hours later, without noticing that I had been asleep or that I was awakening. The ship was a large white freighter. "The police," I thought with irritation. "They must be coming to search the island." The ship's whistle blew three times. The intruders assembled on the hillside. Some of the women waved handkerchiefs.

  The sea was calm. A launch was lowered, but it took the men almost an hour to get the motor started. A man dressed as an officer—perhaps he was the captain—got off on the island. The others returned to the ship.

  The man walked up the hill. I was very curious and, in spite of my pains and the indigestible bulbs I had eaten, I

  went up on the other side. I saw him salute respectfully. The intruders asked him about his trip, and expressed interest in knowing whether he had "obtained everything" in Rabaul. I was behind a statue of a dying phoenix, unafraid of being seen (it seemed useless to hide). Morel escorted the man to a bench, and they both sat down.

  Then I understood why the ship had come. It must have belonged to the
m, and now it was going to take them away.

  I have three choices, I thought. Either to abduct her, to go on board the ship, or to let them take her away from me.

  But if I abduct her they will surely send out a search party, and sooner or later they will find us. Is there no place on this whole island where I can hide her?

  It also occurred to me that I could take her out of her room at night when everyone was sleeping, and then the two of us would go away together in the small boat. But where would we go? Would the miracle of my trip to the island be repeated? How could I know where to go? Would risking my chances with Faustine make it worth while to hazard the tremendous dangers we would surely encounter in the middle of the ocean? Or perhaps those difficulties would be only too brief: possibly we would sink a few feet from shore.

  If I managed to board the ship, without doubt I would be found. Perhaps I could talk to them, ask them to call Faustine or Morel, and then explain everything. I might have time—if they reacted unfavorably to my story—to kill myself before we arrived at the first port where there was a prison.

  "I have to make a decision," I thought.

  A tall, robust man with a red face, an unkempt black beard, and effeminate mannerisms approached Morel and said, "It's quite late. We still have to get ready, you know."

  Morel replied, "Yes, yes. fust wait a moment, please."

  The captain stood up. Morel kept on talking with a sense of urgency, patting him on the back several times, and then turned toward the fat man, while the captain saluted, and asked, "Shall we go now?"

  The fat man turned to the dark-haired, intense youth who was with him, and repeated, "Shall we go?"

  The young man nodded assent.

  The three hurried toward the museum, paying no attention to the ladies, who were grouped nearby. The captain walked over to them, smiling courteously, and slowly escorted them in the direction of the museum.

  I did not know what to do. Although it was a ridiculous scene, it alarmed me. What were they getting ready for? But still I thought that if I saw them leaving with Faustine, I would not interfere with their horrible plan, but would remain as an inactive, only slightly nervous spectator.

  Fortunately, though, it was not yet time. I could see Morel's beard and his thin legs in the distance. Faustine, Dora, the woman who once spoke of ghosts, Alec, and the three men who had been there a short time before were walking down to the pool, in bathing suits. I ran from one clump of plants to another, trying to get a better look. The women hurried along, smiling; the men were engaging in calisthenics, as if they were trying to keep warm—this was inconceivable with two suns overhead. I could imagine how disillusioned they would be when they saw the pool. Since I have stopped changing the water it has become impenetrable (at least for a normal person): green, opaque, slimy, with large clusters of leaves that have grown monstrously, dead birds, and—of course—live snakes and frogs.

  Undressed, Faustine is infinitely beautiful. She had that rather foolish abandon people often have when they bathe in public, and she was the first one to dive into the water. I heard them laughing and splashing about gaily.

  Dora and the older woman came out first. The latter, waving her arm up and down, counted, "One, two, three!"

  They must have been racing. The men came out of the pool, appearing to be exhausted. Faustine stayed in the water a while longer.

  In the meantime some of the ship's crew had come over to the island. Now they were walking around. I hid behind some palm trees.

  I am going to relate exactly what I saw happen from yesterday afternoon to this morning, even though these events are incredible and defy reality. Now it seems that the real situation is not the one I described on the foregoing pages; the situation I am living is not what I think it is.

  When the swimmers went to get dressed, I resolved to be on my guard both day and night. However, I soon decided that this would not be necessary.

  I was walking away when the dark, intense young man appeared again. A minute later I took Morel by surprise,- he was looking through a window, apparently spying on someone. Morel went down the garden steps. I was not far away, and I could hear the conversation.

  "I did not want to say anything about this when the others were here. I have something to suggest to you and a few of the others."

  "Oh, yes?"

  "Not here," said Morel, staring suspiciously at the trees. "Tonight. When everyone has gone, please stay a few minutes longer."

  "Even if it is very late?"

  "So much the better. The later the better. But above all, be discreet. I don't want the women to find out. Hysterics annoy me. See you later!"

  He hurried away. Before he went into the house, he looked back over his shoulder. The boy was going upstairs. A signal from Morel made him stop. He walked back and forth, with his hands in his pockets, whistling naively.

  I tried to think about what I had just seen, but I did not want to. It unnerved me.

  About fifteen minutes later another bearded man, stout and with grayish hair (I have not yet mentioned him in my diary), appeared on the stairs and stood there looking toward the horizon. He walked down to the museum, seeming to be confused.

  Morel came back. They spoke together for a moment. I managed to hear Morel say: "... if I told you that all your words and actions are being recorded?"

  "It wouldn't bother me in the slightest."

  I wondered if possibly they had found my diary. I was determined to be on the alert, to avoid the temptations of fatigue and distraction, not to let myself be taken by surprise.

  The stout man was alone again, and seemed to be bewildered. Morel came back with Alec (the young man with green eyes). The three of them walked away together.

  Then I saw some of the men and their servants come out carrying wicker chairs, which they put in the shadow of a large, diseased breadfruit tree (I have seen trees of the same type, only smaller, on an old plantation in Los Teques). The ladies sat down in the chairs,- the men sprawled on the grass at their feet. It made me think of afternoons in my own country.

  Faustine walked by on her way to the rocks. My love for this woman has become annoying (and ridiculous: we have never even spoken to each other!). She was wearing a tennis dress and that violet-colored scarf on her head. How I shall remember this scarf after Faustine has gone away!

  I wanted to offer to carry her basket or her blanket. I followed her at a distance; I saw her leave her basket by a rock, put down her blanket, stand motionless contemplating the sea or the sunset, imposing her calm on both.

  This was my last chance with Faustine—my last chance to kneel down, to tell her of my love, my life. But I did nothing. It did not seem right, somehow. True, women naturally welcome any sort of tribute. But in this case it would be better to let the situation develop naturally. We are suspicious of a stranger who tells us his life story, who tells us spontaneously that he has been captured, sentenced to life imprisonment, and that we are his reason for living. We are afraid that he is merely tricking us into buying a fountain pen or a bottle with a miniature sailing vessel inside.

  An alternative was to speak to her as I was watching the sea, like a serious, stupid lunatic; to comment on the two suns, on our mutual liking for sunsets; to pause so that she could ask me some questions,- to tell her, at least, that I am a writer who has always wanted to live on a lonely island; to confess that I was annoyed when her friends came,- to explain that I have been forced to remain on the part of the island which is nearly always flooded (this would lead us into a pleasant discussion of the lowlands and their disasters); and to declare my love and my fears that she is going to leave, that the afternoons will come and go without bringing me the accustomed joy of seeing her.

  She stood up. I felt very nervous (as if Faustine had heard what I was thinking and had been offended). She went to get a book from her basket on another rock about fifteen feet away, and sat down again. She opened the book, put her hand on a page, and then looked up, staring at t
he sunset, as if she were only half awake.

  When the weaker of the two suns had set, Faustine stood up again. I followed her. I ran after her and threw myself at her feet and I said, I almost shouted, "Faustine, I love you!"

  I thought that if I acted on impulse, she could not doubt my sincerity. I do not know what effect my words had on her,

  for I was driven away by some footsteps and a dark shadow. I hid behind a palm tree. My breathing, which was very irregular, almost deafened me.

  I heard Morel telling Faustine that he had to talk to her. She replied, "All right—let's go to the museum." (I heard this clearly.)

  There was an argument. Morel objected, "No, I want to make the most of this opportunity—away from the museum so our friends will not be able to see us."

  I also heard him say: "I am warning you—you are a different kind of woman—you must control your nerves."

  I can state categorically that Faustine stubbornly refused to go away with him.

  Morel said in a commanding tone, "When everyone else has gone tonight, you are to stay a little longer."

  They were walking between the palm trees and the museum. Morel was talkative, and he made many gestures. At one point he took Faustine's arm. Then they walked on in silence. When I saw them enter the museum I decided to find myself some food so I would be feeling well during the night and be able to keep watch.

  "Tea for Two" and "Valencia" persisted until after dawn. In spite of my plans, I ate very little. The people who were dancing up on the hillside, the viscous leaves, the roots that tasted of the earth, the hard, fibrous bulbs—all these were enough to convince me that I should enter the museum and look for some bread and other real food.

  I went in through the coalbin around midnight. There were servants in the pantry and the storeroom. I decided it would be better to hide, to wait until the people went to their rooms. Perhaps I would be able to hear what Morel was going to propose to Faustine, the bushy-haired youth, the fat man, and green-eyed Alec. Then I would steal some food and find a way to get away from there.