TE22 Potpourri

Michèle Rakotoson

Lalana

it all, you’ll see the blue of the horizon fusing with the water. Hold on, Rivo, hold on.” How long does he murmur those words to Rivo, how many minutes dragging into eternity? After a seemingly endless time, he sees Rivo’s face decontract, his body slacken, and the convulsions dwindle. He stops and lays his friend’s head in his lap, still repeating the same soft words. Rivo is finally relaxed and says in a very low voice:

object from destitution too great.

Rivo’s voice is rasping, stuttering. A tear rolls gently from his eyes, slides slowly down his cheek, leaving a wet trail. He’s nearly getting worked up again, but Naivo keeps murmuring to soothe him:

“Don’t worry, Rivo, don’t worry, we’re going to the sea.”

Yes, they will go to the sea, to find dignity and peace again, to watch the waves and let themselves get swept away by the beyond, at once sought after and despised. The sea has always been forbidden to them. How can anyone dream of the sea when earning a hundred francs a month? They dreamed of rolling tides, of spray and foam, of riding the swells, of being children again, dreamed of another life, without problems, without cares, a life where the sea would be beside them, the countryside all around them, and vacations a normal thing. They stay like that for a long time, Rivo delirious and Naivo soothing him. And as he speaks, he gets the sense that the area behind him is clearing, the shadows receding. Rivo wins a moment of respite. A light breeze rises. In the distance, a dog is barking, a full-moon howl. But there is no moon, it’s the middle of the day. And terror again within Rivo, who mutters: “Yes, Rivo, we’re going to the sea.”

“They’re gone? They’re not there anymore?”

His eyes are open, but he cannot see.

“They’re gone, Rivo, they’re all gone, they didn’t follow you.”

Rivorepeats, “They’regone?They’regone?” as if hehadn’t heard the reply, imprisoned within his terror. Naivo tries to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief before finding a postcard in one of his pockets, forgotten there since he doesn’t knowwhen. He uses it to fan Rivo and beat away the fears afflicting him. After a little while, he hears him speak clearly: “He’d told me a thousand francs if you’ll do it with me without a condom, a thousand francs, one million Malagasy…” The words have finally been said, the pain that Rivo has kept silent for so long, how it was impossible for him to say no to the repugnant, the despicable, the denial of self, aman become

“I washed myself with bleach, I drank water cut with bleach, I

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