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I t was a day like any other at the lighthouse. A grey-black tinge outlined the underbelly of the loosely billowing clouds. Thousands of them filled the sky like pebbles in a mosaic, swelling the firmament. An opaque sun radiated pale pink light behind this display. The double-barrelled shotgun had vanished, removed by unseen hands. The Sitauca seemed less active the following nights. We did not see them. Yes, our intuition told us they were out there, whispering among themselves. But they scampered away when we lit the beams. Gruner did not fire a single bullet. Was there some kind of connection between their relative quiet and the vanished shotgun? I could have mulled it over for a thousand years without coming to any conclusions. I could not be sure of anything. I walked to the fountain, smoking all the while. Gruner was there, absorbed in another ridiculously useless task. As usual, his toil was a ploy to avoid thinking. It appeared as though he had slept in his clothes. I offered him a cigarette, out of goodwill. But I was in a foul mood. As he began to speak, I felt an urge to shout recriminations at him. “An idea occurred to me,” he said, speaking in the low voice of a conspirator devising an impossible scheme. “There is still dynamite left in the ship. Kill a thousand more and we would liquidate the problem.” It was as though we were two men drowning and he had told me to drink every drop of water in the ocean. The possibility of understanding the adversary was infinitely more attractive than engaging in an uncertain and criminal fight. Why should I take part in his private war? No, I was no longer willing to slaughter the Sitauca. “Open your eyes, Gruner! They are defending their land, the only land they have. Who can blame them for it?” “You deceive yourself, friend!” he replied with a raised fist. “You are only alive because I let you into the lighthouse. They will kill us if we do not kill them. Come back to the shipwreck with me.” After his speech, Gruner began to act as if I did not exist. He pretended to be alone there at the fountain, unable to hear what I said. I carried on with my walk. It was raining and the drops sullied the snow. The ice on the trees was melting. One could hear tinkling cracks as the stalactites broke off. The path was clogged with mud. I had to leap over the worst bits. At first, the rain did not affect me at all. When my woollen cap got soaked, I simply took it off. But soon it was raining hard enough to put out my cigarette. The weather official’s cottage was closer than the lighthouse and I decided to take shelter there. My old dwelling took me in like a beggar’s palace. It was a gloomy day. I found half of a candle left behind and lit it. The flame trembled and threw dancing shadows across the ceiling. I was smoking and thinking of nothing in particular when Aneris appeared. It was evident that he had beaten her. I sat the creature down on the floor next to me. “Why did he hit you?” I asked without expecting an answer. I would gladly have killed him in those moments. It was becoming increasingly clear that my passion for her equalled my disdain for such a man. Aneris was drenched. This accentuated her beauty, despite the bruises. She removed her clothing. My descent into bestiality did nothing to alter the pleasure she gave me. We made love so often and with such intensity that yellow sparks appeared before my eyes. At one point, I could no longer distinguish where my body ended and where the cottage, the island or her body began. Afterwards, I stretched out on the floor with her cold breath against my neck. I roughly threw my cigarette aside and got dressed. My mind was taken up with trivial matters as I buckled my belt. I left the cottage. The cold air outside sent a shiver through my bones. The drama unfolded barely one hundred yards from the lighthouse. I had decided, if only for a change of pace, to follow the north coast instead of taking the forest path. It was a tortuous route. The ocean was to my right; on the left was an impenetrable line of trees. Their exposed roots emerged from clumps of earth and debris brought in by the undertow. Often I had to leap from stone to stone so as not to topple into the waves. I was singing an anthem from my student days. And in the middle of the third stanza, I saw smoke on the horizon. It was a fine black line, which twisted in the wind before rising. A ship! Some mischance must have set it off course, bringing it close to the island. Yes, it was a ship! I stumbled haphazardly back to the lighthouse. “Gruner! A ship!” And, almost without hesitating, “Come help me light the beams!” Gruner was chopping wood. He surveyed the horizon with indifference. “They shall not be able to see it,” he pronounced. “It is too far away.” “Help me send an SOS!” I hastened up the staircase. He followed unhurriedly. “It is too far,” he repeated, “too far. They will not be able to see it.” He was right. At that distance, the lighthouse’s beams resembled the flickering of an insect trying to signal the moon with its fluttering. But my intense longing gave rise to optical illusions. For a fleeting instant, the vessel seemed to turn in our direction. That metallic speck seemed to become increasingly tangible. Of course I was mistaken. It slipped over the horizon’s edge. For a while longer, one could still discern the trail of smoke, growing ever thinner. Then there was nothing. Until the very last minute, I sent one frantic SOS after another. There were humans inside that ship, an entire multitude. Families, friends and lovers were no doubt waiting for them. Their final destinations must have seemed ever so distant. But what could they know of isolation? Of me? Of Gruner or Aneris? To them, this world, my prison, was nothing more than a distant outline, an insignificant and deserted blotch. “They do not see it,” Gruner said flatly, with neither glee nor bitterness in his voice. He simply gazed impassively in the direction of the ship, still gripping the axe and blinking like an owl. “Look at you! You have not moved a muscle! Just what kind of man are you, Gruner? You won’t help me with either the Sitauca or humans. Willingly or not, you have sabotaged every sensible plan of survival or escape. If castaways had unions, you would be the perfect scab!” Gruner evaded me and made as if to leave the lighthouse. But I followed him down the stairs, hurling insults at his back. He pretended not to hear me and merely muttered abominations in some German dialect. I caught him by the sleeve. He pulled away; I snatched again at both his elbow and his shouldered rifle. We shot a stream of mutual accusations at each other. The sighting of the ship had burst the dam that had kept us from outright hostility. It was a long while before I realised that Gruner had grown silent. Gruner’s mouth hung open, mute. His head turned from side to side. The entire coast was swarming with tiny Sitauca. They were half submerged in the ocean or hidden between the rocks and water, like crabs. Their webbed hands and feet were almost transparent. A horsey snort burst forth from Gruner’s nose. He stared up at the sky, the diaphanous light and finally the shadowy silhouettes sheltering themselves on the briny shore. He resembled a man lost in the desert who can no longer distinguish reality from a mirage. He took a step north. The little ones hid behind the stones. The majority were barely a yard high. The sight of those creatures was inevitably soothing. Even the tide seemed to crash with care, for fear of injuring them. They rode the water like a cushion while observing us with curiosity. All of a sudden, Gruner’s rifle was off his shoulder. He hastily fumbled with the lock. “You won’t do it, will you?” Gruner swallowed a mouthful of spit. He saw there was no threat. They were children, mere children, who did not seek the cover of darkness to kill. And they had chosen that precise moment, just when the days were beginning to grow longer. Finally, Gruner decided to amble back to the lighthouse, distrustfully leaving me in his wake. One bullet aimed at the sky would have scattered them. But he did not shoot. Why not? If they were just irrational monsters, if we only owed them nothing but suffering and revenge, why did he not simply kill them? I do not think he himself understood the extent of his sacrifice. Or perhaps he did. The little Sitauca, timid as sparrows and prudent as mice, pressed toward the heart of the island. In other words, the lighthouse. They did not dare to venture past the coastline those first days. The creatures made us feel like animals in a menagerie. Hundreds of eyes like large green apples scrutinised our every movement and spied on us for hours on end. We were unsure what would be the best attitude to adopt. Especially Gruner. A harmless enemy utterly confounded the man. This puzzlement brought to light his contradictory nature. Gruner’s scruples set the limits of his stubbornness. Gruner turned into a manner of human spider. He continued to scuttle out of the lighthouse at first light. The little creatures, fascinated, would begin to appear several hours later. He turned a blind eye, but swiftly confined himself to his quarters. Gruner often shut Aneris in with him, binding her ankle to a bed leg. However, he sometimes ignored her presence completely. His behaviour was more erratic than ever. Gruner had a quite pungent body odour. It was another one of his peculiarities. The sleeping quarters became deeply impregnated with his marked scent. No European nose has ever met with the likes of such a primal stench.