Spotlight: An Impossible Return Caroline Laurent and Jeffrey Zuckerman (Translator)
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It’s 1967 in the Chagos Archipelago—a group of atolls in the Indian Ocean—and life is peaceful and simple for hardworking Marie. Her fierce independence and love for her home are quickly apparent to Gabriel, the handsome and sophisticated Mauritian secretary to the archipelago’s administrator; it’s love at first sight. As these two lovers from neighboring islands welcome a new son, Joséphin, a bright future seems possible. But Gabriel is hiding a terrible secret. The Mauritian government is negotiating independence from Britain, and this deal with the devil will mean evacuating the Chagos, without warning or mercy—a betrayal that will put their love to the test. A novel of exile, heartbreak and hope, AN IMPOSSIBLE RETURN serves as a beautiful tribute to the Chagossian people.
Excerpt
I’d rather not have ever been born. Not have had to endure that. Fifty years of fighting, appeals, solicitations, meetings with lawyers, trials, waiting. “Have some pity for the Chagos!” all the papers say these days. What pity? You can keep it all; I don’t want any. Justice, dignity, liberty for these people—what we’re asking of our adversaries, the inventors of those values, is to uphold those principles themselves.
I accuse the British government of profiting at our expense and sacrificing us at the altar of the Cold War.
I accuse Prime Minister Harold Wilson of striking us from the map of our own land.
I accuse the Mauritian leaders of that time of betraying independence.
I accuse the colonial elites of leaving us in ignorance—no schools, no books, no revolt.
I accuse the American army of turning our island into a fortress of steel.
I accuse the silence that’s cloaked our tragedy for too long.
It’s time to drop all pretense.
In the name of my people, living, dead, exiled, uprooted, amputated, old, and young, I call for the end of British colonialism in Africa.
My mouth shall be the mouth of those calamities that have no mouth . . .
March 1970
Once the rice was cold, sugar had to be added, the paste had to be mixed, and then it would rest a few minutes. With Suzanne and Joséphin nearby, Marie took a bit of the mixture in her palm and formed it into a ball. When the sphere was nice and round, she pressed her thumb into it and slipped in the bit of coconut-fried banana, then sealed it and rolled it some more. Suzanne had already gotten to help make rice cakes, but it was Joséphin’s first time.
Suzanne protested, “Mamita, he’ll be trouble. He doesn’t get it!”
Marie stared at her. Her brother was still little; he had to learn, that was all. She swatted the flies from the pot of fish and covered it. For Josette and Christian’s going-away gathering, she’d cooked the fruits of her fishing. As if she could have done otherwise. For a year now no ships had stopped at Diego Garcia with further provisions. No wine. No fresh vegetables, just kidney beans and a few herbs. No meat. She didn’t dare to slaughter the chickens in her courtyard: the eggs were so nutritious, and their shells helped plants to grow. Food was scarce. Marie tore a rice cake in two, gave half to Suzanne. The girl made a face.
“What? It’s bad?” Marie tasted it. Not enough sugar.
Why didn’t the Sir Jules come anymore? Or the Mauritius, or any other ship? There was no news of Father Larronde, either. She’d never seen the likes of it. Nobody had. They’d stretched their reserves for several months, but now there was precious little left. At this rate there wouldn’t be any more rice soon. Or flour.
And Josette was leaving in two days.
***
Around five in the afternoon, Marie gathered some trochetia flowers and put them in a bucket full of water. A bouquet for her sister, a farewell gift. She placed the pot of fish in a huge basket, set the rice cakes on top, made sure that all the mats were there.
“Salam, salam!” The Tasdebois family came in, accompanied by Angèle. Marie kissed them. Gabriel had said that he’d meet them on the beach a bit later, because he had a report to finish for the administrator. For months now, Mollinart had stolen her man away; night after night was spent working, and Gabriel always came back to the shack looking even more glum, complaining about how tired he was, always so tired. He fell asleep quickly, only to experience nightmares that left him worn out when he woke up. They barely had sex anymore. Only Joséphin still seemed to bring him joy. At two and half years old, he was clumsy and still chubby. When she saw Gabriel throw his head back laughing, holding the little one close, she shuddered. Her secret was still secret.
“Any news?” she asked Josette, acting happy.
Her sister kissed her cheeks and set a small bowl of black beans on the table. She hadn’t found anything better. “Makine! I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Suzanne could hardly wait. She rushed over to her cousin and showed her a nice, twisted shell through which she’d run a bit of kitchen twine. Makine immediately put the makeshift necklace around her neck, delighted.
“Ayo, my little girlie. My stomach’s yelling, it’s so hungry!” Angèle declared. She, too, was trying to act delighted.
Christian grabbed the basket. On the beach, maybe the sorrow wouldn’t weigh so heavily on them. Mérou darted ahead, making sure every so often that the whole group was following.
“Sugar, flour, rice, vegetable seeds, fruit seeds, chickens, meat, tea, coffee, medicines, cloth, barrettes”—Marie gave her daughter a stern look: Barrettes? really?—“wine, rum, cotton, dishes, sheets, wood, tools.”
Josette and Christian nodded.
“Nothing else?”
It was already plenty, but this “plenty” barely covered the essentials. Everything depended on how much things cost, on how accommodating the captain would be. Marie rolled the lead of her pencil on the paper. A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a period. She remembered Gabriel’s rule and was doing her best to follow it. She gave the paper to her sister. “There. If you can’t remember everything, give them that.”
Down there. In Mauritius.
When they’d realized that Diego Garcia would be cut off from all food supplies, panic had run through the island.
“What’s happening, Gabriel?”
“They don’t want to buy our copra anymore.” He looked down disappointedly.
Marie wasn’t sure she understood completely. What did that have to do with the boats not coming?
“Your goods,” he said. “How do you pay for them?”
Pay. Of course they had to pay. She was so accustomed to living without money here that she had no idea that the rest of the world followed other laws. On Diego, she could trade a fish for two bunches of bananas. A hand-sewn dress for a bucketful of wine. A fish fillet for a table. But the boats’ owners expected something different. The money from copra allowed the Îlois to buy provisions.
“That’s what they call transactions,” Gabriel concluded.
In the meantime, the island was idle. Marie wanted to believe, all the same. A boat would come at last. They couldn’t be left in such a state; it was impossible. And indeed, two days earlier, at the north end of the pass, Christian had made out the shadow of a ship. At last! He’d taken his dugout canoe to see it up close: the Trochétia—that was its name—had dropped anchor. At last!
Mollinart threw cold water on their hopes. “The Trochétia is empty. It’s got nothing. I’m sorry. It’s coming back from the Seychelles, that’s all.”
The blow had been painful. Too painful.
“Now that I think of it, my dears . . . The boat is going to Mauritius, after all. If you want, maybe it’ll take you.” He said that with a smile, as if to encourage them.
That was an idea. They could go to Mauritius to buy what they needed to restock Diego. Christian and Josette had looked at each other in agreement.
“How many moons before we see each other again?” Marie asked while finishing her fish seraz.
Josette stretched out her legs on the mat. “The market, the travel, the other boat back . . . A month?”
Christian nodded. Maybe even two months.
“It’s good you’re not going alone,” Angèle said as she took another helping.
Indeed, twenty of them would go; Mollinart’s suggestion had won over several families.
Makine fiddled with her necklace, looked imploringly at her cousin. “You should come, Suzanne.”
Marie sighed. The trip tempted her as well, but when she’d suggested it to Gabriel, he’d yelled and shouted at her. Are you crazy? With Joséphin? He’s not even three years old. What if the sea is rough? What if he gets sick on the ship? What would you do? No, Marie, absolutely not.
“Look!”
In the looming night, a small red dot appeared, then a green dot, and the two blinked in turn. Boat lights always seemed unreal. Even the children went quiet. In two days, loneliness would replace races in the sand. Marie herself had never been separated from her sister. Josette had seen her come out of their mother’s belly, and not a day had gone by without their talking. Gabriel was right, all the same. What if there was a storm? What if the ocean got choppy? What if they became separated on Mauritius?
Marie suddenly felt unhappy. All the more so because, despite his promises, Gabriel wouldn’t be joining their gathering. Angèle’s jaws working over the rice cakes was the only sound that broke the silence.
About the Author & Translator
Caroline Laurent is the bestselling Franco-Mauritian author of An Impossible Return, winner of the Prix Maison de la Presse 2020, Prix Louis-Guilloux 2020, and Prix du Salon du Livre du Mans 2020. She also cowrote, with Evelyne Pisier, Et soudain, la liberté (And Suddenly, Freedom), which won the Grand Prix des Lycéennes de ELLE.
Jeffrey Zuckerman has translated many French works into English, including books by the artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and the Dardenne brothers; the queer writers Jean Genet and Hervé Guibert; and the Mauritian novelists Ananda Devi, Shenaz Patel, and Carl de Souza. A graduate of Yale University, he has been a finalist for the TA First Translation Prize and the French-American Foundation Translation Prize and has been awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant and the French Voices Grand Prize. In 2020 he was named a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
