In Rodolphe’s case, it was not the sun but an eternal eclipse that clamped that strained smile on his fat face. In common with all blind people, he seemed to face the sky expectantly, chin raised as if preparing for take-off, tethered to the ground only by the tip of his telescopic stick.
Every time he entered the room where The Raft of the Medusa hung, he felt as if he was arriving at a ball, with footsteps on the wooden floor and whispers swirling around him, the only music the rustling of fabric and bodies brushing past one another. With a flick of the wrist he folded up his white stick and strode confidently to the bench in the middle of the room. There was no need to invoke his disability to get a seat since no one was sitting there. Rodolphe plonked down his one hundred and twenty kilos of weight, peeled off his overcoat, jacket and cardigan like a giant onion, then laid his chubby little hands flat against his enormous thighs and waited, giving a grunt of pleasure.
As his body slowly warmed and loosened up, he clung to life like a ball of soft dough. One by one he felt his pores opening, millions of little hungry mouths greedily sucking up every little sound, smell and vibration around him. The crowds were his plankton and he wallowed among them as a basking seal.
A very small woman of a certain age perched on the bench alongside him. She smelt of biscuits and eau de Cologne.
‘Excuse me, Madame. Do you speak French?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, good. Would you mind telling me about the painting there, in front of us?’
‘The Raft of the Medusa?’
‘That’s the one!’
‘But … What do you want me to tell you?’
‘I’m visually impaired and …’
‘Oh! I’m sorry, I hadn’t noticed. You don’t often come across bli—, visually impaired people in galleries.’
‘I appreciate why you might be surprised, Madame, but I’m waiting for my sister to come and pick me up. I can still enjoy something of the art through other people’s eyes. As long as I’m not bothering you?’
‘No, not at all! So … it’s a picture of a raft … with people on it, far out at sea.’
‘Ah.’
‘Just a minute, I’ve got a guide … Géricault, Géricault … Ah, here we are. The Raft of the Medusa, 1819, acquired in 1824—’
‘No, I’m not interested in that. I want to know what you can see.’
‘What I can see?’
‘Yes. How many people are on this raft? Is it day or night? Colours, everything!’
‘Right, right. Hang on, I’m counting them … The thing is, some of them are dead and some alive.’
‘Count the bodies, just the bodies!’
‘I’d say about fifteen but I can’t be sure, they’re all piled up …’
‘Is it disgusting?’
‘No! Well, actually yes, a bit. It’s tragic, isn’t it?’
‘It’s tragic … and is it day or night?’
‘Neither. It could be dawn or dusk …’
‘Which do you think?’
‘Dusk.’
‘Ah, the gloaming! It’s a terrible time of day, isn’t it? You know it’s nearly over but you don’t know when it’s going to end, only that it will. It’s terrible not knowing, isn’t it? Excuse me.’
Rodolphe took from his pocket a huge handkerchief almost the size of a sail and blew his nose loudly. The little old lady shrank slightly further away.
‘I beg your pardon. So what are they doing, these people on the raft?’
‘Well, er … some of them are dead and half covered in water, and others are waving their shirts in the air for help.’
‘Who from?’
‘That, I don’t know. They’re doing it to keep their hopes up.’
‘To keep their hopes up? What are you talking about? You told me they were stranded way out at sea … You shouldn’t take advantage of my disability to lead me up the garden path!’
‘I’m not, I swear!’
‘OK, if they’re calling for help, it means there’s a boat somewhere. Use your eyes, damn it!’
‘Ah, yes, yes! I can see a boat actually, but it’s very small, just a dot on the horizon.’
‘So they’re going to be saved?’
‘Yes, they’ll be saved.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because that’s the boat that abandoned them. There were two ships in this story. One of them – the Medusa – sank. The survivors were piled onto a raft attached to the other ship, but during the night the rope holding them together snapped or – more likely – was cut. No one ever knew for certain. So it’s not dusk, it’s dawn. These poor sods have just realised they’ve been cut adrift. Oh no! They’re going to start eating each other, and some of them will get a taste for it. They’ll drink their own piss. Some is better than others, apparently. Did you know that?’
‘No.’
‘Oh yes, there’s good piss and bad piss. Hope has the flavour of piss and rotting flesh. Had you never noticed?’
‘No, I … I should be going …’
‘Wait. You mustn’t give up hope, even if it reeks of urine and decaying corpses. The proof is that there were three survivors.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Yes, three, including the shipwright Corréard. He’s the one you can see to the right of the sail, pointing to the horizon.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I met his great-grandson. And do you know how this brave shipwright died?’
‘No.’
‘Drowned in a puddle a few years later, bladdered after a barn dance in Normandy.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘To remind you there’s always someone looking out for you up there.’
He listened gleefully to the old lady’s footsteps hurrying towards the exit. As often as he could, Rodolphe arranged to be dropped at the Louvre where he would make a beeline for Géricault’s painting and tell his anecdote to the first French-speaking person to sit next to him. His story made the greatest impression on the elderly, like the woman who had just scurried off. By the time they reached old age, people always had a few regrets, and had seen others carried off for the most minor of sins; they felt preyed upon, and they were.
‘Survivors, ha! Silly bitch. Life leaves no survivors.’
People tended to forget this and act as if they were immortal, and Rodolphe took it upon himself to remind them. He did this not only for the pleasure of spoiling their day – though the sour smell of fear did bring him some satisfaction – but because he felt himself invested with a public service mission: ‘No use playing tough: you’re being watched and we’ll all pay our debts in the end.’
He really had met the descendant of the Medusa’s shipwright in a bar five years earlier. He was one of those drunks who over the course of an evening give away a family secret, or rather spill it into their glass. To Rodolphe,