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stories.
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    So, says the counselor, we’re on an equatorial island. Ratakataboom deposits David on the beach. You are now on the Source’s Island, he tells David. David asks where the Source is. The shark says she lives in a huge iron cage. David says, Thank you very much. David thanks the shark. Thank you, Sir, says David. Don’t mention it, says the shark. But what’s to become of you? We’ll see, says David. And how about you,
what’s to become of you? Nothing, same as you, says the shark. Apart from that, he’s heading off to Guatemala. He asks, What else is there to do? David agrees. A little warm seawater in the winter is good for chronic bronchitis, says the shark. He looks intensely at David: seeing him so fresh, so well fed, he falls into an obvious depression and begins talking very loud, at abnormal speed, in any old language, made up of grunts and hiccups, unbelievable exclamations, clacking of teeth, and so on. Then David tells him to calm down. Okay, says the shark. And the shark calms down.
    The children ask the girl to talk a little in “any old language.” She says she doesn’t know how, that it’s very difficult.
    Then the shark and David part company. They wish each other a good stay and a good trip, good health, a good year, and they part company. Honestly, what else could they do?
    After the shark leaves, David falls asleep and then he wakes up, and then he falls asleep again, and this goes on for a long time, back and forth. And then one evening something happens to David. The sky is the color of storms and sea gold, as dark as if it were night – all of a sudden, without leaving any time for understanding.

    And suddenly, instead of telling her story, the young counselor lies down in the sand and says she’s sleepy. Then the children scream, beat on her, call her a dirty meanie, and she laughs. So are you going to tell us the rest, yes or no, or we’ll kill you. And she laughs some more. She falls asleep still laughing, and they go to swim in the sea. Except for him, the child with gray eyes; he remains near this sleeping body that is hers.

O NE MORNING the sky is like blue lacquer, the sun still behind the cliffs. On the boardwalk the child has passed by. I watch him. I watch him until he disappears. And then I close my eyes so that I might again see the vastness of his gray gaze.
    The young counselor stands on the boardwalk, watching the child return. There he is. He looks at the postcard she told him to buy; he knew that the general store carried the best postcards. She had told him so. He had done just as she’d told him to do.
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    The girl writes on the postcard.
    On the postcard, on the writing side, there is now the girl’s name, the date, July 30, 1980, and the date and time ten years from now when he is to come, July 30, 1990, at midnight.
    On the picture side there is the place on the beach from last night, at the intersection of the pathway to the tennis courts,
the walkway, and Rue de Londres – so beautiful, she says, the most beautiful of all, her favorite, beautiful as a tunnel of sunlight before the sea.
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    In the sea, as in sleep, I can’t tell the child apart from other children. I see him when she joins him. I watch them. The tide is low. The sun is enormous, going from one horizon to the next, yellow as gold.
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    At that moment, it happens; she joins him and I see it. She takes him on her shoulders and they walk into the sea as if to die together. But no. The child lets himself be taken by her into the ocean water. He’s still a little afraid, with a fear that makes him laugh, a lot.
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    They emerge from the sea. She’s the one who rubs down his body. And then she leaves him. And then she goes back into the sea. He watches her. She goes a long way; at low tide you have to walk far out to reach the deep water. The child never takes his eyes off her. He is still prey to fear when she