Excerpt from AN IMPOSSIBLE RETURN by Caroline Laurent, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman
Inspired by a shocking travesty of justice, the repercussions of which still reverberate more than fifty years later, bestselling Franco-Mauritian author Caroline Laurent has written an exquisitely beautiful and tragic novel based on the authentic story of the inhabitants of the Chagos Archipelago. In AN IMPOSSIBLE RETURN (Amazon Crossing; December 1, 2022), expertly translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman, Caroline Laurent paints a shimmering portrait of island life, a sensual paradise lost, and a gorgeous star-crossed love story against all odds.Excerpt from AN IMPOSSIBLE RETURN by Caroline Laurent, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman, (Amazon Crossing; December 1, 2022; pp. 3-8)
March 1967
Aim for the eye, and you’ll hit the head.
The lagoon was still, as smooth as glass. The trade winds had tossed the night’s dark waves; now their breath was calm. Marie looked one last time at her prey, raised her fishgig high, and killed it with a sharp blow aimed between the coral.
Aim for the eye, and you’ll hit the head. Forget everything else around it. Nail it!
Her mother’s words came through her gestures—islander memory, ancestral memory, passed down to girls over so many centuries. Her body knew. Soon she would be handing this down to Suzanne.
Marie felt some resistance at the end of her harpoon. The octopus released a cloud of ink. Too late: it had been caught. She dragged the creature out of the water while whooping in victory, then stuck a wire in its beak. With a soft sound, the rod cut through the flabby brain.
***
In the distance, the air was already tinged gold and white. She’d been tracking the creature for too long. It had to be six in the morning, and the work on the copra plantation would be starting now. Marie cursed herself. Once again Josette would have to explain her absence to old Félix. She could imagine her sister’s look. Oh there you are now, I’m all ears . . . With an apologetic smile, she’d confess: the call of the sea, so violent, so irrepressible, the prey curled up in the rocks’ crevices, made time disappear. She’d take her place on the plot of land, pull out her machete, and, after splitting the first coconut, whisper into Josette’s ear, I’ll cook you a nice fricassee. Her sister would give her shoulder a gentle slap—all good.
The octopus slung over her back, Marie began walking across the sand when a shadow on the horizon stopped her. She squinted, made out a gray speck at the north end of the channel. Sometimes, she knew, desires could be so strong that you could clearly make out the shape of things that didn’t exist. And what she wanted above all, in the Diego Garcia dawn, was to be the first to spot the cargo ship. For days the whole island had been on tenterhooks. The Sir Jules had left Port-Louis and was traversing the Indian Ocean. Old Félix had relayed the administrator’s message: the church needed to be decked out, the warehouses readied, as the ship wouldn’t be long now.
Every time the Sir Jules or the Mauritius stopped at the Chagos archipelago, Marie forgot about her daily grind. A kingdom spilled onto the island’s beaches. Commodities that couldn’t be found on Diego, like rice, flour, or sugar, overflowed on the pier; wine, cloth, soap, medicine, and beauty products went into the reserves, and men from afar—the cleric, the captain, less frequently a doctor—brought them distractions and news. So many dreams. Marie looked straight ahead. At the other end of the world, people lived in snow. Snow . . . the very word made her shiver. She had to imagine a huge white coat draped over the world’s body, or so she’d been told. But the only white coat she’d ever known was the beach of Diego Garcia, as immaculate as a tortoise egg shell.
In her line of sight, the gray speck came into focus. As pinpricks of light began to blink, red and then green, she realized she wasn’t mistaken. She waded back into the water, disturbing the cloud of black ink; the purplish water was turning the light a jacaranda-petal mauve. She had to alert Josette, alert the others. There wouldn’t be any more work today. The Sir Jules was coming! On the path, excitement made her start running, unbothered by the octopus bouncing along her back, her soaked skirt, and the pebbles cutting into the soles of her feet; dust rose up behind her.
***
“Boat ahoy!”
The men came out of the warehouse, intrigued. Rather than stop, she went to where the women were husking coconuts. Her sister was bent over double, busy turning the white strips of coconut meat to the sun.
“Josette!”
She straightened, stretched out her frame, set her hands on her hips. The machetes stopped; the women turned to look at Marie. Her heart was pounding after running so far. She slumped against the low wall, savoring the moment. This feeling of being the one who knew, the one who’d seen—and, indeed, the one bringing joy—was heady as a mouthful of rum.
“Boat ahoy,” she repeated, whispering.
Josette was slack-jawed. Really? The Sir Jules? Marie nodded, holding up the octopus. The doubtful look on her sister’s face gave way to a pure smile. Josette came up, hoisted herself delightedly onto the low wall. “Alalila!” The women surrounded her, clapping their hands. Josette simpered—the ship would make her the queen of the island, the radiant chosen one.
“Ready?” Marie asked with a nudge. She threw the octopus over her shoulder again, and Josette followed. The strong, salty smell, not unlike that of rotting fish guts, mingled with the sweet aromas of the coconuts heaped like cut-off breasts drained of their milk.
***
“Put that there! No, over there!” Amid the welter of rowboats, the gunnysacks, containers, and barrels made the activity on the pier feel like a military convoy. Mollinart was giving orders. “Flour to the warehouse.” The men shouldered the bags, their skin raw, their foreheads furrowed by the effort. Marie saw Henri and Jean-Joris, both of them bare-chested, sweating. She waved to them; her gaze lingered on one, then the other. Henri was staggering back and forth between the pier and the warehouse, crates balanced uneasily on his head, while Jean-Joris moved slowly, his arms laden with tins. They looked like each other, differences notwithstanding. She knew them both inside and out. Sympathetic, lighthearted. Forgetful.
A new rowboat berthed, bearing bags of sugar. A stocky man with a thick head of hair helped unload it. “Christian!” Josette rushed over. With a smile as pure as a child’s, he kissed her cheek. Marie shut her eyes. Bad thoughts were nagging at her, buzzing thoughts she should push away. Her sister’s happiness was all too rare on Diego Garcia. Usually men loved and didn’t linger—they simply passed through, peaceful retreating soldiers.
“Well? Him, there?” Josette’s voice cut through just about all emotion.
“No,” Christian responded. “But he’s coming, just you wait . . .” He gave her another kiss, heaved the gunnysack onto his shoulders, and waved to Mollinart that he wouldn’t stop for long.
Josette shaded her eyes, looking out at the boats. Henri, Jean-Jo, and the other Chagossians, the Îlois, were coming and going, following the administrator’s directions in a hubbub of splashing, shouting, and hard work. The noise rose like a wave toward the bright sky before falling back into the sea, which was nearly white with the sun’s first rays. A sound suddenly caught Marie’s attention. A small boat pulled up with men aboard. Josette trembled. “You think that’s him?” It was still hard to see, but she’d have been willing to bet . . . The rowboat bumped up against the pier, setting off a buzz: the priest! It was him, after all! Josette started jumping up and down, impatient, overexcited—a little twenty-five-year-old girl. “Christian!” she shrieked again. “Hurry! Get over here!” He ran over, and the two of them made a beeline for the small boat.
Marie stayed behind, the octopus in her hand, its tentacles brushing the sand. With the growing heat, the smell was becoming more unbearable. She went to splash some seawater on her skin, and from the beach she watched the spectacle. All the pleasure of that morning—her alone facing the Sir Jules in the distance—was gone. She’d had a secret to keep. With only a few steps, she could have joined the others, clapped as the boats came, waited for the priest with her sister and Christian, but nothing would change: she’d feel isolated from a group she’d pulled away from, just like her mother, who’d complained in the past about being lonely, even though she never welcomed anyone. She swirled the octopus in the water to stave off her unfounded annoyance. Next to Mollinart, up ahead, Josette, Christian, Henri, Jean-Joris, Félix, and the others were jostling around the rowboat. She kept her eyes on them, taking in the pier and the profile of the cleric who was slowly emerging.
It wasn’t the cleric.
The man who’d just appeared was twenty years at the very most, with a slim frame and an odd appearance. His skin, the color of milk tea, seemed to go with his beige jacket, but also—she squinted—his white shoes. She barely had time to look him over before he was swallowed up by the crowd, even as it spat out Father Larronde.
—
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.
AN IMPOSSIBLE RETURN
Winner of the Prix Maison de la Presse
An epic love story set against a backdrop of injustice, devastating secrets, and the painful price of independence.
It’s 1967 in the Chagos Archipelago―a group of atolls in the Indian Ocean―and life is peaceful and easy 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.
Inspired by a shocking travesty of justice, the repercussions of which still reverberate more than fifty years later, bestselling Franco-Mauritian author Caroline Laurent paints a shimmering portrait of island life, a sensual paradise lost, and a gorgeous star-crossed love against all odds.
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