Suddenly, p.1
Suddenly, page 1
Praise for Suddenly
“Isabelle Autissier sails through literature the way she sails the ocean: with vigor, precision, and determination. . . . The result: a tense and exhilarating read.”
—Le Figaro
“An adventure novel somewhere between those of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson.”
—Le Parisien
“There’s no question about it: Isabelle Autissier is an excellent writer. . . . When it comes to describing nature, there’s no one like her. . . . You’ll devour this novel.”
—Express
“With a realism that will take your breath away, this novel brings you to the rawest edges of what our humanity becomes when we’re far from civilization. . . . Alone at the helm, without ever losing sight of north, Isabelle Autissier proves that in addition to being a peerless sailor, she is also a great novelist.”
—Lire Magazine Littéraire
“Unfolds like a thriller . . . Icy, captivating, punctuated by questions about nature’s deepest instincts—Isabelle Autissier steers this novel to perfection. Get on board.”
—L’Obs (France)
PENGUIN BOOKS
SUDDENLY
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.
Gretchen Schmid has translated several works from French into English, among them Haitian novelist and poet Lyonel Trouillot’s Kannjawou. She is also an editor at HarperCollins.
PENGUIN BOOKS
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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Copyright © 2015 by Éditions Stock
Translation copyright © 2023 by Gretchen Schmid
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Originally published in French as Soudain, seuls by Éditions Stock, Paris.
library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Names: Autissier, Isabelle, 1956– author. | Schmid, Gretchen, translator.
Title: Suddenly / Isabelle Autissier ; translated by Gretchen Schmid.
Other titles: Soudain, seuls. English
Description: [New York] : Penguin Books, [2023] | “Originally published in
French as Soudain, seuls by Éditions Stock, Paris.”—Title page verso.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023006926 (print) | LCCN 2023006927 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143137429 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593511459 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.
Classification: LCC PQ2661.U799 S6813 2023 (print) | LCC PQ2661.U799
(ebook) | DDC 843/.914—dc23/eng/20230213
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023006926
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023006927
Cover design: Paul Buckley
Cover photograph: Camille Seaman
Handlettering: Elizabeth Yaffe
Designed by Sabrina Bowers, adapted for ebook by Estelle Malmed
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Cover
Praise for Suddenly
About the Authors
Title page
Copyright
Part I: There
Part II: Here
_144626031_
Part I
There
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
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 powerlessness and the sense of remorse that is painfully starting to set in.
“Okay, we won’t make it. Let’s just go find shelter in the station and let this pass. The wind picked up fast—it’ll die down soon.”
With difficulty they pull the dinghy high up onto the beach, tie it to an ancient gray pole, and start off among the remnants of planks and sheet metal.
Over the past sixty years, the wind has taken its toll on the old whaling station. Some of the buildings have been blown up from the inside, as though by an explosion. Flying rocks have broken the windows and violent winds have taken care of everything else. Other structures are leaning perilously, waiting for the final blow to finish them off. Next to the wooden ramp on which whales were dragged to be dismembered is a shed that catches Louise’s and Ludovic’s attention. But inside it smells so horrible that they gag. Four elephant seals all lying on top of each other belch noisily at the intrusion.
Annoyed, Louise and Ludovic venture farther into the ruins toward a two-story shack that seems to be in better shape. A waddle of imperturbable penguins crosses their path, and Ludovic is tempted to chase them to make them regret their indifference. The inside of the building is gloomy, dark, and damp. The old floor tiles, metal tables, and decrepit cooking pots reveal that the room they are in must once have functioned as a shared kitchen. The room next door does in fact look like a dining hall. Louise collapses onto a bench, trembling. She’s in pain, but most of all she’s afraid. She understands a mountain’s temperament, knows how to deal with its fits of rage: at worst, you wrap yourself in a bivvy sack, burrow into the snow, and wait. But here she feels lost.
Ludovic mounts the concrete stairs. At the top he finds two vast dormitories, cubicles separated by half partitions that each contain a battered mattress, a small table, and a wide-open wardrobe. Faded photos, a single lace-up boot, and tattered clothing hanging from a nail give the rooms the appearance of having been hastily abandoned by men who were all too happy to escape this hell. In the back, a door hanging half off its hinges leads to a little room with wooden shiplap walls that’s furnished much more nicely: probably the bedroom of a supervisor.
“Come on, it’s better up here. We can wait in the warmth.”
“Warmth” is a generous way of putting it. They sit on the bed, which creaks underneath them. The rain slaps against the loose windowpanes, seeping in; already a pond has formed in a rotting corner of the floor. Greenish light illuminates the streaks of moisture on the whitewashed walls. The only chair is broken, and for some reason Ludovic finds himself wondering why. Only a desk with drawers, much like the kind that teachers used at the turn of the century, appears intact.
“Well, here’s our mountain refuge! Let’s take a look at your shoulder. And we have to dry ourselves off.”
He’s making an effort to speak soothingly, to give the impression that this is nothing but an adventure, but his hands are trembling lightly. He helps her undress so that they can dry her sopping-wet clothes. Naked, her thin and muscular body appears fragile. She had always refused to sunbathe when they were in warmer climates. As a result, only her arms, face, and the bottoms of her legs are tanned, making the rest of her complexion appear even paler. Her black bangs are dripping onto her eyes, which are green with flecks of brown. Those eyes were the first thing about her that he had found irresistible, five years earlier. He’s overcome by a wave of affection.
He wrings out her clothes and rubs her body with her sweater as fast as he can to warm her up. Her left shoulder has a sizable gash—from the propeller, presumably—and a large blotch that is already turning blue. Shivering, she lets him handle her as though she were a doll. He does the same thing for himself, but soon feels the chill of the soaking-wet clothes that are sticking to his skin. In the summer, even in good weather, it barely gets above sixty degrees here. Right now it must be somewhere around fifty degrees.
“Do we have a lighter?” he asks her.
“In the bag.”
Of course she—the alpinist—would never go anywhere without her precious lighter. He also finds two emergency blankets and quickly wraps her up in one.
Rummaging through the kitchen, he unearths some kind of large aluminum roasting pan and pulls some boards down from shelves that are falling to pieces. Taking it all back upstairs, he cuts some small slivers from the boards with his knife and uses them to light a small fire. The room fills quickly with smoke, despite the open door, but it’s better than no fire at all.
He forces himself to go outside to investigate the situation. The wind has intensified, its gusts causing the sea to appear as if it’s smoking. A solid forty knots. Not the apocalypse, but still, it will be impossible to get back to the boat. He can see it between the sheets of rain, staying valiantly upright among the waves. The cloudy gray sky has descended so low that the tops of the cliffs are no longer visible, and it is growing dark.
