Claire of the Sea Light

The night after Gaëlle’s husband dies, she “thought that everyone should die” (94). She sells their home and moves, leaving the fabric store to be run by the employees. For months, she lays in bed mourning. She only leaves the bed when her baby begins to walk. She returns to work eventually, though business is dwindling. She knows that bribes and corruption will prevent the murder from every being solved. She “accepts the offer of two Special Forces policeman” (94) who kill Bernard and Tiye and burn Bernard’s parents’ restaurant; it does not bring her relief. She tries to put all of this from her mind, “until the day her daughter died” (95), when she begins to wonder whether she is cursed. She cannot help but imagine what Rose, her daughter, would have been like as she grew. Of all the various men who she spends her time with, only Max Senior understands her troubles.

On “the night of the vigil for the lost fisherman” (96), Gaëlle is expecting Max Senior and his son, but they cancel. She studies the lighthouse which her grandfather had helped to build. He had taught her the intricacies of the building’s design, though it now stood uselessly on the hill, guidance provided to distant ships by the village lights along the shore. She thinks about restoring the lighthouse as “a gift” (98) to the town but then begins to dismiss the idea. A year before, on the anniversary of her daughter’s death, she had seen Max Senior in Pauline’s, a “popular bar with an upstairs brothel on the outskirts of town” (99). That night, they kissed, then began to see one another regularly. He is “an inconsistent lover” (99). Gaëlle puts on her slippers and drives to Pauline’s, which is nearly empty. There, she spots a “muscular, olive-skinned man with a full beard” (100); it is Yves Moulin, the driver involved in her daughter’s car accident. After the crash, he had given up a promising soccer career and had worked for his family’s popular hotel. Gaëlle knows that he is haunted by the crash, that he places flowers on her daughter’s grave every year. Until now, she thinks, he “had done a good job of making himself scarce” (101). He approaches her, greets her, and—when she does not answer—finishes his drink and leaves.

Gaëlle drinks increasingly strong cocktails and then drives to the beach. She thinks about how, under different circumstances, she might have gone home with Yves Moulin. On the beach she passes little girls who are singing a song and dreams of taking them home. Though she sometimes wants to, she knows she will never leave Ville Rose, where her ancestors are buried. As she crosses the beach, she recognizes Claire, the girl she had “nursed as a baby on that very night that she was born” (103). Gaëlle asks Claire to take her to Nozias, and the girl obeys. As they walk, Gaëlle tells Claire a story about her dead mother. She remembers seeing Claire’s mother at her husband’s funeral, though neglects to tell this story. Right there, Gaëlle decides to adopt Claire and tells Nozias. Claire walks out of the shack, seemingly heading for Gaëlle’s house, and Nozias goes after her. Gaëlle joins him, and they search for Claire to no avail. Gaëlle wants to search more, but Nozias is convinced that she is “just hiding” (106). They return to the shack, and Gaëlle considers—reluctantly—whether she should spend the night with Nozias, giving him “a hint of temptation by sitting on his cot” (106). He leaves.

Louise George interviews Flore Voltaire, asking Flore about her life. The night Max Junior comes to Flore’s bed, there is a hailstorm. He approaches, seeming different and “lost” (107), and sits on the edge of her bed. Max is naked, and she is “too frightened to speak” (108). When he finally leaves, “some minutes or hours or days later” (108), Flore steps out into the rain, becomes soaked, and then returns to bed and imagines the rain flooding the house. She feels “a stabbing pain in places where he had pummeled his body against hers” (108). Flore had been unable to stop Max. The next morning, she sees Max inspecting the storm damage with his father. She leaves and takes a taxi to Cité Pendue; when her mother arrives home, she tells the crying Flore that, “if you’re home for good […] I don’t know how we’ll get by” (109). Flore returns to the Ardin house that night and cooks their supper.

Louise pauses the recording, assuring Flore that she is “doing well” (110). Flore had contacted Louise herself, asking to tell her story as soon as she learned Max Junior was returning. The moment in question had “transformed [her] inside and out” (110). Flore finds the recording process difficult, especially with her son in the room, quietly playing games on a cellphone. The story continues, Flore revealing that she “became pregnant with [Max Junior’s] baby” (111). Later that morning, Flore knows, she will see Max Junior for the first time in 10 years; the interview is “good preparation” (111).

Flore explains why she returned to the Ardin house: she needed the money, and Max Senior’s social connections would make legal reprisal impossible. She found out she was pregnant when she began vomiting; sometimes, the vomiting was so bad that she vomited in the food she was preparing for the Ardins. First, she tells Max Senior, who gives her $2,000 “to disappear, to go away” (113). She takes the money and starts her beauty parlor. Louise delights in the happy ending and closes the interview by asking Flore why she wanted to share her story on the radio. With all of their money, Flore says, the Ardins still have the power to “take my son away from me […] as if they could say I am not worthy of him” (115). She will not let them; Flore and her son are leaving, going somewhere they will not be found. The interview ends. Flore looks at the picture her son has been drawing: a man with no face.

Later, Max Senior is sitting with Jessamine when his phone buzzes. People inform him about Flore’s appearance on Louise’s show. He hears it from a neighbor’s house: Jessamine says nothing as they listen. Max Senior realizes that she “already knew everything” (117). They go inside and drink lemonade; Jessamine explains that she missed the previous night’s party because her ride broke down. Max Senior decides to face the town’s ire, reaffirming to himself that he was merely protecting his son. Let Flore raise her son, he decides, as “his son would always come first” (118) and young men sleeping with servants is “not an uncommon rite of passage” (118).

Max Junior arrives home in the borrowed car. Max Senior considers his son; he had one day hoped that Max Junior would inherit the school but “now he might never get the chance” (119). Max Junior does not exit the car. Max Senior wants to run to him and reassure his son and wonders why Jessamine has not done so. Max Junior drives away. Max Senior tells Jessamine that all they can do is wait. They sit and wait, long after the show ends. Eventually, Max Senior announces that he will find Flore and her son, that he will go on the radio himself and “denounce Louise” (120). As he rambles, Albert enters through the gate. As he stands nervously, Jessamine begins to smoke and drops the cigarette ash in the African violets, much to Max Senior’s annoyance. Her presence disrupts the regular routine of the two old friends.

After a stilted conversation, Jessamin asks about the violets. Eventually, they discuss Max Junior and agree to “let him be” (123). Max Senior becomes angry, shouting “screw her” (123) with reference to Louise. As it gets darker, the three wait on the porch. The silence prompts Max Senior to ask Jessamine whether she is in love with his son. As soon as he asks, he realizes that it sounds “more like a plea than a question” (124). She replies that Max Junior is her “very terrible and imperfect and dear friend” (124). Max Junior is “not capable” (124) of being in love with Jessamine, she says, as the only person he ever loved is dead.

Max Junior lays on the beach, thinking about how “everyone could and should despise him […] Flore most of all” (125). He remembers the night he went to her, how he had wanted to prove something to his father. At that point, he had “never been with any man but Bernard” (125). He walks toward the sea, as he had done with Bernard countless times, and thinks about his mother. He does all this “as a way of avoiding thinking about his son” (126). He cannot help but think about how the boy will grow up. He thinks about how easy it would be to surrender to the water and, in the sea, “simply fall asleep” (127).

Nozias is awoken by a sound in the water. Alone, he goes to the shore, thinking that it might be Claire. Then, he realizes that he has left Gaëlle in the shack and rushes back to see her. Gaëlle lies on his bed. He closes the door, and she asks whether he found Claire. No, he shakes his head. The previous day, he remembers, he had dictated a letter to his daughter. Caleb had written down his words, as he had told her that he was giving her up to give her “a better life” (129); he will never forget her, he promises. Gaëlle reads the letter and kisses the back of Nozias’s neck. Gaëlle corrects Nozias’s question, asking “what will we do when Claire returns” (129). Nozias struggles to predict the future. As Gaëlle begins to talk about his dead wife, Nozias gets up and leaves the shack “to avoid thinking about how much even the idea of giving away their daughter would have devastated his wife” (130). He remembers visiting his wife in the funeral parlor where she worked. He would see her preparing the bodies for burial. One day, he went to see her and she announced that “now we are three” (132). Nozias had been “too delighted not to laugh” (133) at the thought of being told of a pregnancy in a funeral parlor. Then, when she died, he saw her body laid out on the cot in the shack. 

Sometimes, Claire would “dream about the day she was born” (134). She imagines the midwife labelling her a “revenant” (134) and her mother’s body lying on the cot. She thinks about salt, as “when zombies ate salt, it brought them back to life” (135). Claire enjoys walking through the market, where she is likened to her mother; she appreciates the chaotic mix of life. Her father has warned her against entering certain houses of ill-repute, where someone might put a hand over her mouth and make “her bleed between her legs” (135). One girl, “a woman who later had a child by the schoolmasters” (135), had experienced this. Claire thinks about the lighthouse, which she has never visited, and all the stories people tell about it. That morning, her father had told her that “it would have been me” (137), referring to the lost fisherman, had Nozias entered the water at a different time. The comment had worried Claire; where would she go without him, especially “if the fabric vendor had said no again” (137). She wonders why her father had not given her to the woman many years ago. Claire decides that both of her parents must have loved the sea and laments that her father does not talk more. Sometimes, the way her father talks about her mother, it makes it seem as though her death was Claire’s fault. Yet, at other times, he seems “so happy” (138) about her presence.

When the little girls play their games and sing their songs, Claire only thinks of one song. She sings it to herself when they skip rope, and she sees “seven shadows on the ground” (139). It is a fisherman’s song, disliked by the other girls, about a hat that falls into the sea. Claire recognizes the sadness, as things which fall into the sea never come back. She worries that one day she may have to sing the song, replacing the hat with her father or her heart. Occasionally, she wishes the sea would disappear, even though she would miss so much about it. That night, she had convinced the other girls to sing the song about the hat. It was “the best seventh-birthday gift they could give her” (140).

Then, Gaëlle had taken her away. They sit on a rock together, and Gaëlle talks about Claire’s mother. Claire is desperate to hear more; she stares curiously into Gaëlle’s eyes. Nozias interrupts them. They go to the shack, where Gaëlle agrees to take Claire. On hearing this, Claire is overwhelmed with thoughts, worries, and possibilities. She tries “her best to fight back her tears” (143). When Gaëlle says “now or never” (144), Claire worries what this means. She struggles to look at her father as he begins to talk about a letter. Claire, deciding to be a good girl, dutifully collects her things. Inside the shack is dark when she opens the door; she feels that the “home was no longer hers” (145) and, noticing that the adults are no longer looking, she runs.

Claire runs through the alleys toward the path that will take her to the lighthouse. From this high up, she can see the beach and all of the bits of the town she knows perfectly. Though the lights seem “like beacons calling her home” (146), she is not thinking of going back. Suddenly, the lights begin to turn toward her position, and she hears people call her name. So many people are calling her name, she almost answers. Claire continues on until she finds a flat plot of land behind one of the dark mansions. She knows that people will worry about her being gone, her father most of all, but she also knows that he will not let anyone see his worry. She is determined to leave, to “go away on her own” (147) so that he will no longer need to worry about her. She will live on the Useless Mountain and watch over the whole bay, becoming more of a spirit than a girl. She will “go away without really leaving, without losing everything, without dying” (148). Claire looks down and sees that most of the lights are now out; most of the people have gone home. She sees Gaëlle, running with a lamp, running beside her father along the beach toward the water’s edge. She sees a man in a red shirt pulled from the sea, his body jerking about “like a dying fish” (149). She knows it is not Caleb. She hears people shouting “Ardin,” the name of her schoolmaster. Claire starts running down the hill, desperate to get a better look. She sees Gaëlle bend down as if to kiss the man. Her father flails his arms, calling for help. People gather around, blocking Claire’s sight of the man so she runs faster and faster toward the beach. She is desperate to go back, to see those “whose own sorrows could have nearly drowned them” (150). Before becoming Gaëlle’s daughter, she thinks, she has to go home “one last time” (150).