Scene 12

On the return run, Maille made a detour via the Côte Chimerik – a last dip in the Caribbean Sea would definitely whip up his appetite. He knew of a tiny, hidden-away sand beach near Bendalis, where he had occasionally stayed overnight in the past – alone, or rather in the company of a couple of bottles of heavy red wine and a light blanket of melancholia. It was his very own strip of beach and he had always given it meaningful names in secret. He ran into the water until he could no longer feel the ground beneath his feet, took a deep breath and plunged in. He felt more than usual how heavily his heart was beating in his breast and heard the metallic swish of the surging billows that swept over his head across the shore. How would it be if he were to suddenly find himself on a different island when he surfaced? Would he notice the change at once, or would the recognition follow only later? And what sort of emotion would it be? Or, what if it were, more crazily, the opposite – if he emerged on the same island but at an entirely different spot? In the latter case he would be a part of the ocean himself: as a diver whose thoughts would, in large measure, be the producer of this geographic dislocation. Indeed, perhaps the displacement within him would take place quite like a thought process that suddenly has a direct impact on the topographical organisation of the planet. He shot out of the water and waded out onto the sands. Santa Lemusa still looked like Santa Lemusa – and the water was warm and smelled of sun, just like always.

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