The Red Turtle Page #7

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The father turns around. That's when he sees it. He stops for a moment,

hypnotized by the wave's beauty despite the danger. It is very close now.

The woman joins her husband, pulling him along by the arm.

They run from the ever-growing wave.

The son has taken the shortest route.

He rushes through the bamboos.

The mother and father run, too. We can only see their legs and the reflection

of their running in the shallow water covering the sand.

They seem to be gaining ground. But just as they exit the frame, the wave

comes hurtling after them. It's catching up, it's only a matter of seconds now.

The son has nearly reached the last few feet of the bamboo forest when he

trips over a bamboo which is half-buried under the vegetation. He goes

sprawling on the ground, then picks himself up hurriedly.

He races to the beach, emerging from the curtain of bamboos.

That's when he too sees it.

The wave is there. Coming to the top of the beach, like a galloping monster.

The son turns on his heels.

He runs among the bamboos, the wave close behind.

One after the other, like a stack of cards, the foliage of the bamboos bends

under the force of the blow.

The wave gets everywhere.

It's here and there, destroying everything in its path.

The boy tries to hang onto a bamboo which is suddenly ripped out of the

ground by the wave. The bamboo is carried away by the flood, and the boy

along with it.

Now it's the turn of the pond and its surroundings to be invaded by the wave.

The water level rises. The camera is almost submerged.

But suddenly it stops. Almost abruptly.

It's a vast field of muddy water with torn-out bamboo sticks floating on the

surface.

Then, with unexpected violence, it goes in the other direction. The wave

ebbs.

It crosses the landscape from the pond and continues toward the sea.

And then it's over. It has gone.

There are dead animals here and there.

An enormous lifeless centipede floats just below the surface.

A crab on its belly.

Not a single bamboo is still standing.

They were all torn out of the ground and sliced up, rhizomes in the air.

A pile of bamboos has formed in the middle of nowhere. A crazy construction,

a catastrophic stack, a giant's game of jackstraws.

The boy is there, buried under the bamboo sticks.

But alive.

He slips between the cracks, climbing out.

He emerges almost at the top of the mountain of bamboos.

And looks at the island's apocalyptic landscape which stretches out at his

feet. Absolutely everything is ruined.

The boy goes down cautiously.

He crosses what must have been part of the bamboo forest and which is now

a scene of desolation. He looks around for the slightest sign of a human

presence.

He runs, stops, looks around, then carries on going to the beach.

He jumps over the hillock at the top of the beach and hurtles down the sandy

slope.

He stops at the water's edge which has gone back to its old position, but is

now so full of dead wood, bamboo, and plant debris of all sorts that the place

is barely recognizable.

He looks around in horror.

He turns his head left and right. He scans the beach in search of his parents,

but can't see anything resembling a body.

Like him, they must have been carried inland by the wave.

The young man carries on looking further inland.

He dodges the puddles, calling out, racing through the devastated landscape.

No sign anywhere.

He climbs a first hillock and shouts out to his mother and father. But he

doesn't get any reply.

He climbs higher. He runs up the hill and calls out again when he gets to the

highest point on the island.

He looks around, but can't see anything.

But there's no question of giving up.

He goes down the hill and crosses other landscapes.

There! Is that indistinct mass in the middle of large puddles a body?

He hurries over. But no, it's just a rock sticking out.

The boy continues his journey. Where should he go now?

Again, he heads for the beach as if he couldn't stop returning to the place he

last saw them.

It starts to rain. A fine rain that drenches you.

He goes down the sandy slope, then decides this time to cover the whole

beach along the shore.

Over there, in a corner of the dune with the uprooted bamboos?

There's something there. A vague colored dot which could be an item of

clothing.

He turns and heads over there.

Yes! It's his mother. She's lying huddled up.

He bends over her, scared.

But she's alive. Only her leg and her face are wounded.

She sits up vaguely. She's in shock, incredulous and confused. She glances

behind her at the island, her island, which is just a field of ruins.

Her son takes her by the shoulders and turns her to face him.

Her son tries to pick her up, but she pushes him away: she can take care of

herself but the son has to find his father as fast as possible.

The child goes away.

The woman struggles to stand up. She looks like her strength has run out.

Just then, the boy reappears. He takes her in his arms and hugs her.

And he sets off.

He has gone.

He crosses the stretch of water to the coral reef as best as he can, pushing

aside all the debris.

He climbs onto it and looks at the ocean.

III. 4. The tsunami. The family reunited.

Then, he dives.

Three turtles accompany him, preceding him.

They all swim together on the surface.

It's still raining and there's a lot of debris.

The first turtle dives under the water. Then the other two, then the young

man. They continue their journey just below the waterline.

Night falls on this strange procession which disappears almost at the horizon.

Later.

The boy has stopped in the middle of the ocean. The search is made more

difficult by the darkness.

But he sees something. It's the last line of bamboo debris. Seemingly the

final point of the ebbing waves. If his father is anywhere, he's there. He

swims over to it.

He is in among the debris, alone in the middle of the ocean, at night, and

even he who knows the sea and its pleasures and dangers so well feels a

little lost and abandoned. What if he never finds his father?

He looks left and right, but can't see anything.

Finally, he dives again. He comes across the turtles, hangs onto one of them

and comes out on the other side of the line. Even further out to sea.

The sun rises, just above the horizon.

The light is pearly, the sea is glassy. It looks like a scene from another world:

limbo.

The child has fallen asleep, his head leaning on a turtle's shell which is just

above the water.

He wakes up and looks at the sun and the horizon.

Over there is a tiny dot.

We move in closer. The father is there, his arm clutching a bamboo. Only his

face is sticking out of the water. His eyes are closed and he seems to be

asleep.

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