The Past Ahead. Gilbert Gatore
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go by in the sky or an ant on the ground—without paying it very much attention. He sees him without watching him, immersed as he is in what he saw when he was knocked out by the shock of his fall.
38. In the dream, Niko was walking around the island with his father. A brilliant sun was their companion, and the forest sounds echoed their good mood. They were walking amidst splendid eucalyptus trees, banana trees bowing under the weight of their heavy fruit clusters, acacias, and bushes of fern, hibiscus, and bamboo; and there were still other plants whose names he didn’t know. There seemed to be no animals at all other than a few birds swirling around, so high that their cries were inaudible. Neither was there any wind rustling through the foliage, so the silence was complete. However, nothing bothered them, and at first, they didn’t notice that the forest around them was being transformed as they wandered through it. Slowly the trees were growing longer and lining up to form columns, centering on the spot where they were standing. At the same time, the wild grass had been brought down by the soil, and the birds flying in the distance were coming closer. They were crows. In the dream, the trees—ever taller and leafier—ended up eclipsing the sun’s brightness, and soon only a dark and viscous red was breaking through the foliage. In the grip of this terror, frozen with fear, Niko and his father watched what was going on. The trees, now altered into human shapes, were forming an army of motionless, silent giants. No longer able to control his panic, Niko cried out. He wanted to tell his father that they had to run, but instead of a voice, flames came from his mouth. The flame first set fire to his father, who, before he succumbed as he choked on the smoke, asked, “Why, my son?” Very quickly the fire reached the giant figures that had once again turned into trees, and everything burned up except Niko. When the fire died out, Niko saw nothing but a charred expanse and a grimy sky as far as the eye could see. Even the lake had dried up. At that very moment a warm rain began to fall. Raising his eyes to the sky, Niko felt it shower on his face before he saw the monkey spit on him and shake him. He still didn’t know whether the darkness he saw was the continuation of the opaque fog the fire had left behind or whether he was now awake.
39. It’s impossible to know how long Niko lay there in the dark, at first unconscious, then mesmerized by the view of a monkey appearing and disappearing into the shadows, and finally engrossed in the recollections of his dream. Generally speaking, with Niko it’s impossible to have a reliable temporal reference point because he himself doesn’t think it’s terribly important, among other reasons.
40. The fall and the dream remind Niko of something. A confused memory. The monkey comes back. Again. He spits on his face, shakes him, and leaves. Suddenly Niko understands it’s water. The monkey keeps going to the spring to fetch it and then sprays him to wake him up. With that thought in mind Niko comes back to earth. He no longer sees the animal as an abstract presence but as a real being that from now on he will associate with specific memories. “Monkey,” he mumbles. “Water . . . cave . . . rope . . . torch,” he continues, and remembers very clearly where he was, why he’d come here, and how he’d fallen.
41. He doesn’t have the strength to be scared of the animal. What energy he has left is consumed by the pain pummeling away at the top of his skull and the other one ripping at his stomach. This anguish awakens a memory in him that slips away as soon as it’s stirred up. He must avoid certain thoughts.
42. He hears cries. The swarm comes closer and, suddenly, there are some twenty monkeys, big and small, surrounding Niko, turning him into a plaything. He doesn’t have time to be frightened when a multitude of curious, noisy fingers are exploring his nostrils, ruffling up his hair, pulling at the skin of his belly, tickling his feet, twisting his penis, and stuffing soil in his ears. Niko has to get up if he doesn’t want to risk winding up as a shapeless human paste. The idea has hardly taken shape inside his head when the unruly hands grab him and throw him in the air once and then even higher a second time. Forgetting the uproar, the pain, and the exhaustion for a moment, he understands he’s being flung the full length of the rope. At the third try he grabs hold of it and, after some long, painful, clumsy writhing, he manages to cling to a nearby edge of the passageway that leads to the first gallery. He almost falls several times but the whooping, which he interprets as encouragement, helps him hold on. Having finally made it to the passageway that should allow him to get back to the first hollow area and then to the outside, he turns around to thank the monkeys, but they’ve vanished. All he sees behind him is the rope swinging above a dark and silent hole.
43. The pain, hunger, and guilt that dig their pincers into him don’t leave him any time to wonder what just happened. Did he really run into monkeys down there? Was he cheered on, booed, ridiculed, or driven out? Does the cave continue beyond the expanse into which he’d fallen?
44. According to a fable whose details he can’t recall, there was a time when humans and monkeys of all kinds formed a single family. That was the day mankind began to think bad luck had come to earth. The tale draws the conclusion that whoever wishes for happiness must stop talking, dreaming, and thinking, in that order. Monkeys in general are said to be the guardians of this lost wisdom—gorillas in particular, since they have always kept to themselves, away from the snare of thinking and dreaming and of words above all, content instead to see, understand, and do.
45. For a while some people nicknamed him Niko the Monkey because they thought that, being mute, Niko could neither think nor dream.
46. To provide a basis for the comparison there was his smile, too.
47. Niko crawls to the outside. When he arrives at the edge of the small basin where he can quench his thirst, he sees that the luminous full moon is perfectly reflected in the mirror the water forms. He brings his lips to it, gently, so as not to disrupt the sublime vision. When at last he decides to listen to his senses rather than to his delight and drinks, his head, his stomach, and the nausea settle down.
48. It’s not so much the water per se, he makes himself think, but the bits of moon steeping in it that bring such comfort. He lies on the ground, legs and arms spread wide, chin planted firmly on the muddy edge of the basin, his eyes unseeing and his tongue extended at regular intervals to lap up the delicious water. He would be perfectly happy if time could stop and freeze him in this position, in this feeling. If he had no stomach, if the daylight wouldn’t come, and if he weren’t afraid to be attacked or to rot in this pose, he could undoubtedly live like this forever. To see the image of the moon floating before him, blur it from time to time as he dips his tongue, feel the coolness flow through his body, and wait for the image to find its purity again before disturbing it anew. To not be concerned with time. If happiness exists it must be something like this. The thought glistens in his head like the moon’s reflection in the basin in front of him.
49. Night has fallen, and the moon in the black water has become a small, gleaming lozenge whose radiance is heightened by the stars that look like motionless bubbles. Niko ends up seeing it as a manifold blur.
50. Happiness is what you are forced to abandon. That’s what he tells himself when he finally gets up.
51. How much time passed as he lay there, stretched out, with empty head and belly, distracted by the image of the water mirror? Long enough that he’d grown unaccustomed to standing upright and had to stay seated for a moment as he readjusted to keeping his head higher than the rest of his body. He tries to steady his feet. That’s when he hears a familiar ruckus. On a rocky mound the monkeys get restless when Niko appears behind a hillock not far from them. They come hurtling down the slope, and Niko staggers after them, just a few strides behind. A voice deep inside tells him to trust the monkeys. His heart seems sure that their destinies will be linked from now on. He’s certain they will guide him to the closest food.
52. “He who doesn’t know how to act observes, listens, and becomes kind,” confirms a saying he’s not thinking of.
53. On the ground, melons roll on their juicy curves, and bunches of bananas give off an enticing perfume high up. The monkeys pounce on the bananas, and, since it’s what he’d rather have but also to keep his distance and stay on the ground, Niko eats the melons. He grabs one fruit after another and splits them against a large stone beside him before scraping out the seeds and the flesh with his teeth. As he eats his fill, he’s in less of a hurry, choosing the heaviest and most aromatic fruit. In the end