Autissier Suddenly

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-78227-875-7
Verlag: Pushkin Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

'A tense and exhilarating read' Le Figaro'You'll devour this novel' Express'This novel brings you to the rawest edges of what our humanity becomes when we're far from civilisation' Lire __________ A gripping story of survival set against the stark backdrop of the Antarctic Ocean, a couple shipwrecked on an island must trust each other with their lives A young couple sets out on a journey by yacht around Cape Horn, but the adventure of a lifetime soon becomes a fight for survival. When they are stranded on a freezing, desolate island in the South Atlantic Ocean, they find themselves having to rely on each other as never before. Will their relationship survive until help arrives-and will they? A stunning, harrowing tale of endurance from an expert in sailing, Suddenly tells the story of the people we become when faced with the awesome power of the natural world.

Isabelle Autissier is the first woman to have sailed around the world solo in competition. She was a navigator until 1999, and is currently the President of the French chapter of the World Wildlife Fund. She has published several stories and novels, and was awarded the Légion d'honneur, Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres for her literary work. Suddenly is the first of her novels to have been translated into English.Gretchen Schmid is the translator of several books from French into English, among them Kannjawou: A Novel of Haiti by Lyonel Trouillot, which was shortlisted for the Albertine Prize. She holds a degree in French literature from Columbia University and a certificate in translation from New York University

Autoren/Hrsg.

Autissier, Isabelle

Weitere Mitwirkende

Schmid, Gretchen

Leseproben

They set out early. The day promises to be sublime, as days sometimes are in these wild latitudes; the sky is a deep blue, almost liquid, with the clearness particular to the southern Fifties. There isn’t so much as a wrinkle on the surface of the water, and the Jason, their boat, seems to float weightlessly on a carpet of dark sea. Without any wind, the albatrosses pedal calmly around the hull.

They pull the dinghy high up on the shore and walk around the old whaling station. The rusty sheet metal, gilded by the sun, is a mix of ochers, browns, and reds, giving off a jaunty air. Abandoned by man, the station has been taken over by animals, the same ones that for so long had been hunted, felled, disemboweled, and cooked in the enormous boilers that are now falling into ruin. As they wander from one pile of bricks to the next, they find collapsed sheds containing jumbles of pipes that no longer lead anywhere, in the middle of which groups of cautious penguins, families of fur seals, and elephant seals are lounging. They stay to watch the animals for some time, and it is late in the morning when they begin to go up the valley.

“Three solid hours,” Hervé, one of the few people to have ever been here, had told them. On the island, as soon as you get away from the coastal plain, there is no more green. The world becomes mineral: rocks, cliffs, peaks crowned by glaciers. They walk at a good clip, bursting into laughter when they see the color of a stone or the purity of a stream as though they’re kids skipping school to go on an adventure. When they arrive at the first steep slope, before they lose sight of the sea, they take another break. It’s so simple, so beautiful, almost inexpressible—the bay encircled by blackish drop-offs, the water glinting silver in the light breeze that’s beginning to blow, the old station an orange splotch, and their good old boat, which seems to be sleeping, its wings folded under itself like the albatrosses from that morning. Off the coast, motionless white-blue behemoths gleam in the light. There is nothing more peaceful than an iceberg in calm weather. The sky is streaked with enormous stripes—high, shadowless clouds, fringed with gold by the sun.

They stay for a long time, fascinated, savoring the sight. Probably a little too long. Louise notices that it is beginning to get gray in the west and her mountaineering antennae prick up, on alert.

“Don’t you think we should go back? The clouds are coming this way.”

Her tone is falsely cheerful, but a hint of unease comes through.

“Of course not! Come on, you’re always worrying about something. We won’t be so hot if there’s some cloud cover.”

Ludovic tries to keep impatience out of his voice, but frankly, he’s irritated by her anxiety. If he had always listened to her, they wouldn’t even be here, alone on this island at the edge of the world as though they were its king and queen. They would have never bought their boat or gone on this incredible journey. Sure, the sky is growing dark in the distance, but at worst they will just get wet. This is the price of adventure, it’s the whole point—to escape the torpor of the Parisian offices that was threatening to envelop them in comfortable softness, leaving them on the sidelines of their own lives. Their sixties would arrive and they would have nothing but regrets for never having lived, never having struggled, never having discovered anything. He forces himself to speak in a conciliatory tone.

“Hey, it’s now or never that we go see that amazing dry lake. Hervé told me that you wouldn’t see anything like it anywhere else—a maze of ice on the ground. You remember the incredible photos he showed us. And besides, I’m not lugging around the ice axes and crampons for nothing. It’ll be awesome, you’ll see, for you especially.”

He has touched a nerve. She is the mountaineer. He had chosen the destination with her in mind: a southern but mountainous island with a jumble of peaks, each purer than the last, right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, at a latitude of more than fifty degrees south.

It is already two p.m. and the sky is downright dark by the time they reach the last peak. Hervé hadn’t lied; the dry lake is astounding, a perfect oval crater more than a kilometer long. It is entirely empty, its sides lined with concentric curves left by the receding water, like the half-moons of giant fingernails. There is no water left at all. A strange siphoning phenomenon had caused the lake to empty underneath a rocky barrier. In the old basin nothing remains but gigantic pieces of ice, some of them several dozens of meters high—a testament to the time when they were all one structure, with a glacier below them. How long had they been there, crammed side by side like a forgotten army? Under the now-gray sky, the monoliths, speckled with old dust, give off an air of poignant melancholy. Louise pleads once again for them to turn around.

“We know where we are, we’ll be able to come back. It’s not worth getting soaked …”

But Ludovic is already hurtling down the slope, whooping with pleasure.

They wander for a bit through the chunks of ice. Close up, the ice seems sinister. The whites and blues, ordinarily dazzling, are stained with dirt. Some of it is slowly melting, tarnishing the surface and giving it the look of a piece of parchment devoured by insects. Nevertheless, Ludovic and Louise are captivated by the ice’s gloomy beauty. Sliding their hands over the worn-out cavities and caressing the cold exteriors, they muse that the ice melting before their very eyes existed well before them, well before Homo sapiens started to turn the entire planet upside down. They start whispering, as though they’re in a cathedral, as though their voices threaten to upset the fragile balance.

The rain beginning to fall interrupts their contemplation.

“Look, this ice isn’t in great condition. Hervé may have had fun climbing on it, but honestly, I don’t see the point. It would be much better for us to hurry back. The wind is picking up and that might be tough for the dinghy’s little motor.”

Louise is no longer just grumbling; she has switched to issuing commands. Ludovic knows this tone of voice is not to be questioned. He also knows that she often has good intuition and judgment. All right, they’ll turn around.

They climb back up the crater and run down the slope toward the valley. Their jackets are already flapping in the breeze, and their feet are sliding on the damp rocks. The weather has changed rapidly. When they reach the last pass, they notice wordlessly that the bay looks nothing like the peaceful sight they had seen on the way there. An evil spirit has caused its surface to go murky with raging waves. Louise is running and Ludovic is stumbling behind her, grumbling. They arrive at the beach out of breath. The waves are crashing chaotically. In the swell that forms, they can see their boat rocking forcefully at the end of its chain.

“Well, we’ll get soaked, and then we’ll deserve some nice hot chocolate!” says Ludovic confidently. “Go in front and row right into the wave while I push. As soon as we’ve passed the breaker zone, I’ll start the motor.”

They drag the dinghy, looking for a lull in the waves. The freezing water churns around their knees.

“Now! Go! Row, for God’s sake, row!”

Ludovic is slipping in the wet sand while Louise struggles with her oar in front of him. A wave breaks, filling the little boat with water, and then another wave catches the boat askew, lifting it up and tipping it upside down as though it were nothing but a piece of straw. They find themselves thrown against each other in a whitish, seething swirl.

“Shit!”

The dinghy is already being swept away by the waves. With one hand, Ludovic catches its rope. Louise massages her shoulder.

“The outboard motor hit me in the back. It hurts.”

They are standing next to each other, dripping wet and stupefied by the sudden violence.

“Let’s drag the dinghy over to that corner of the beach, where the waves aren’t breaking as much.”

Resolutely, they haul the tiny boat to a place that seems more promising. But when they get there, it becomes clear that it’s not much better. They attempt the maneuver twice more; both times they are thrown back into a whirlpool of foam.

“Stop! We’ll never make it and I’m in too much pain.”

Louise lets herself collapse on the ground. She holds her arm, grimacing, the tears falling from her eyes invisible thanks to the rain whipping her face. Ludovic kicks the ground angrily, sending a spray of sand into the air. He is overcome with frustration and rage. This fucking place! This fucking island, fucking wind, fucking sea! If they’d been half an hour earlier—an hour, max—they would be drying themselves off in front of the stove and laughing about the whole thing right now. He is furious about his...