‘Just make an effort, Hugo. It might bring the two of you closer.’
She turned and left the kitchen. The room was silent. Hugo opened the cupboard door and stacked the plate on top of the others. He had sometimes wondered whether his brother did it on purpose; whether he deliberately telephoned just after dinner so that Hugo would be forced to do the dishes by himself, a reminder that he could wind his little brother up, even from a different continent. He instantly regretted the thought; he was pitted against his brother too often by other people to want to do it himself. The window was covered with thick condensation. He reached out, wiped the glass and stared at the darkness shrouding the coast: there were no clouds now, and stars blazed in the night. A smile lit up his face and he quickly finished the washing up, gave the sink a final wipe, left the kitchen and headed up to his room, taking the stairs two at a time. He turned on his desk lamp – an illuminated globe of Mars, showing every crater on the surface. Above the desk hung posters of constellations and maps of the solar system. Taking a craft knife, Hugo knelt on the floor next to a package. He had let it sit, untouched, since his birthday, having decided only to open it when there was finally a cloudless night sky. He peeled off the Sellotape and ripped away the wrapping paper to discover a thick layer of bubble wrap protecting the result of two years of pleading with his parents.
Carefully, he picked it up: the astronomical telescope weighed less than he’d imagined. His hands moved over the instrument. He examined the mounting plate, the eyepiece, the optical tube; quickly skimmed through the user’s manual. Here, on his knees on the floor, his exploration of the heavens had already begun as he focused on every detail of this apparatus that could perceive what mankind could never constrain: the universe and the myriad worlds contained within it. Glancing at his watch, Hugo quickly got to his feet and pushed the empty box next to a pile of books he had not yet had time to read. Having recently discovered the theory of parallel universes, he had ordered books on the subject by Brian Greene and Michio Kaku. He pulled on his anorak, grabbed the telescope and left the bedroom.
Out in the corridor, he slowed as he passed a closed door: no sound came from within. Julia was probably sound asleep. She had been coughing all through the previous night and had not settled until dawn; Hugo had jolted awake each time her hoarse wheezing started up, each time his parents went to take turns sitting by her bedside. Ever since she was born, his little sister had had to endure nights when it seemed she might never catch her breath. He decided against knocking on her door and headed downstairs.
In the living room, the television was on:
‘… In other news, a minor earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale has been recorded off the coast of Finistère. Tremors from the quake were felt as far away as Brest and Quimper, but those living on the coast were told there is no risk of a tidal wave …’
His father was sitting on the sofa watching the end of the news, with one hand on the armrest and the other draped across the leather back. Michel Bourdieu was staring at the screen in exactly the same way that he stared at his students, with the commanding air that never left him, even at night, when he was not lecturing pupils about history. The calfskin cushions bowed under the weight of his hulking frame; the floor beneath the sofa creaked. His father’s mere presence seemed to weigh on everything.
‘Where’s Maman?’
Without looking at his son, Michel Bourdieu picked up the remote control and changed channels. A cross hung on the wall above the sofa; Christ seemed to be leaning down to study the balding pate of the master of the house.
‘She’s up in her room. She was very upset by your brother’s call. There’s been an explosion in Mali, in Ménaka – a car bomb. Thankfully, Mathias wasn’t hurt, but two of the soldiers in his regiment were killed.’
Michel Bourdieu finally turned towards the doorway and studied his younger son, who lacked both the stature and the self-assurance of his brother, and whose very presence was enough to spark a feeling of contempt that he could not control. Some children are defined by all the things they are not.
‘Are you going out?’
‘I’m going to try out the telescope. I’ll be back in an hour.’
‘It’s pitch-black outside.’
‘That’s kind of the point?’
Michel Bourdieu grumpily turned away. From around his neck came the flash of a gold crucifix. Gritting his teeth, he switched channels again.
‘Try not to fall into the sea. You can’t swim, remember?’
A strident political debate filled the living room. Hugo stared at his father’s implacable profile as though this man were a stranger, as though he needed to convince himself that they were indeed related. A child is never really sure that they are from their parents’ blood.
A sea breeze ruffled the grass of the lawns along the coast. Closing the garden gate behind him, Hugo walked down the deserted path using his flashlight to guide him. Although he knew the island now, he had not yet learned to trust the bluish glow of cloudless nights; until this point, the only glow that had illuminated his nightly walks had come from the streetlights in Paris. He set off. The lapping of the waves accompanying his footsteps was a constant reminder of the shore below. Halfway down the path, he turned right and took a track that led up into the sand dunes. Behind him, the sea finally fell silent. It was here, amid the tall grasses, that he had first discovered true silence; a silence that he had never experienced in Paris, where every instant was troubled by some echo of the city. It was only when he’d come here, to live on the Isle of Batz off the coast of Roscoff, and had walked up into the dunes, that he had discovered this stillness. It was like a forgotten language that had existed before all others; before Tamil and Sanskrit, before the first language ever to be heard on earth.
He carried on walking. From a hollow on his left rose the ruins of an ancient chapel, a sinister structure that seemed to come straight from a child’s nightmare. Hugo continued up the dunes until he reached a flat headland. The vast star-speckled sky soared above the island and the calm sea. Even with the naked eye, he could easily make out the diaphanous tracery of the gauzy threads that linked the constellations weaving a glittering chain above the bay; looking at this pattern, it was impossible not to wonder whether, when the first spider wove its silken snare, it had modelled it on this celestial web.
Hugo set his tripod on the grass, raised it to a comfortable height, adjusted the mount. The wind began to bluster, and he pulled his hood down around his face. Pointing the lens at Mars, he tightened the focus-locking screw. Everything was ready. He stepped closer, leaned over the eyepiece. He did not have time to adjust the focus before he was distracted by the sound of approaching footsteps. Turning around, he shone his flashlight into the face of the intruder, who screwed up his eyes against the blinding glare. Hugo quickly switched off the torch and brought it to his chest.
‘Sorry, Isaac.’
The boy had come from the opposite direction. He carried no torch, needing nothing more than the light from the cloudless sky to find his way; the island’s paths required no illumination for those born here. He spotted the tripod set up on the grass.
‘Is that a telescope?’
‘Not exactly. It’s an astronomical telescope, or a refracting telescope … People often confuse the two.’
‘Can I have a look?’
His pale face loomed closer in the darkness, like an apparition that might haunt a dream. The fine features, the curly fringe falling over his forehead; a delicacy that was anything but fragile. He bent over the eyepiece while Hugo stood by in silence. Unsure what to do with his hands, which he noticed were trembling slightly, he put them behind his back.
‘I’ve trained the telescope on Mars. Actually, you can see Mars with the naked eye – it’s that orange dot flickering just below Aries. The reddish colour comes from iron oxide – rust, basically. All the rocks are covered with it. The colour changes as sandstorms sweep across the surface of the planet. You can spend a whole year looking at Mars and it will never look the same way twice … You can’t get a particularly detailed view with a telescope – you won’t be able to see the craters or the polar ice caps – but you can get a much closer look. When you realize that, right now, Mars is sixty million kilometres away, it’s almost … it’s almost heart-breaking.’
The breeze had fallen silent now. It could not be heard whispering through the gorse bushes, racing across the dunes, running through the grass; it seemed to have been suspended, attuned to the voice of this boy, summoned by this familiar vibration, the connection between the things of this world.
Hugo felt his cheeks flush, embarrassed that he had used those words, allowed his tongue to outrun his thoughts. The first time he had found himself in Isaac’s presence, he had been unable to say anything other than his name. That day, his father had been held up by a meeting, so Hugo had taken the bus to Saint-Pol-de-Léon, excited to be able to go home on his own. He had got off the bus at the old port of Roscoff, then walked over to the second harbour where the ferry was already waiting. No sooner had he boarded the ferry than he stopped, frozen: sitting alone on the furthest bench, staring through the porthole, was Isaac. Hugo had seen the boy a number of times since the beginning of the school year; usually on the island, walking along the white beach, or on the road where they both lived, but he also saw him every day at school, in the playground during breaktime or coming out of the canteen. And it was this face, without a hint of arrogance or malice, that Hugo missed when he left school at the end of each day.
When he’d spotted Hugo, Isaac had gestured for him to come and sit next to him, and Hugo had moved forward, unsure whether it was the boat lurching beneath him or his feet that were unsteady. He had settled himself on the wooden bench and whispered his first name, though he was unsure whether Isaac had heard him. From that moment, he was utterly unaware of the boat reversing, slowly pulling away from the quay; unaware of the crossing that usually left him feeling seasick: for the first time, his attention was entirely focused on something back here on earth.
Stepping away from the telescope, Isaac flashed him a smile.
‘You know, you ought to be teaching science at our school … I should probably go now, Papa will be worried.’
Hugo watched as the figure melted into the darkness. Then, slowly, he turned back to his telescope; but he could see only the face of the boy who had just left.
‘Should you need any further information about Option A (river boat licence), please don’t hesitate to contact our school in Roscoff, or you can call me on 07 47 …’
Alan stopped typing: he could hear the front door closing softly. He turned to look towards the lit corridor and listened intently. A minute passed. His son appeared, parka buttoned to the neck, carrying his shoes in one hand, hugging the wall and clearly hoping against hope not to hear his name.
‘Isaac.’
The teenager froze, let out a sigh, and his shoulders sagged. Reluctantly, he retraced his steps and stood in the doorway. Sitting behind his computer, lit by the glow of the monitor, his father’s haggard face spoke of a lack of sleep that went far beyond simple insomnia. Over the past few days, he had not shaved, and his jawline was covered with stubble that had the same salt-and-pepper colour as his uncombed hair. His eyebrows were still dark brown, the only feature that had been spared by the grief of mourning.
‘There’s some pasta left in the fridge.’
‘I had dinner at Madenn’s.’
