‘Look, Rudy, there are going to be more trees, it won’t mean anything any more . . .’
‘No, it’s right, Joseph. How many children do you have?’
‘Four.’
‘And grandchildren?’
‘Five.’
‘When he saved you, Father Pons saved those nine people. Twelve for me. It’ll be even more in the next generation. And it’ll keep on growing. In a few centuries he will have saved millions of human beings.’
‘Like Noah.’
‘Do you remember the Bible, you heathen? You surprise me . . .’
Rudy and I are still just as different in every way as we used to be. And we love each other just as much. We can argue vehemently and then give each other a big hug goodnight. Every time I come and see him here, on his farm in what was once Palestine, or when he comes to me in Belgium, we get on to the subject of Israel. Although I support this young nation, I don’t approve of all its actions, unlike Rudy who adheres to and justifies the regime’s every move, even the most warlike.
‘Come off it, Rudy, being in favour of Israel doesn’t mean supporting every decision Israel makes. You have to make peace with the Palestinians. They have as much right to live here as you do. It’s their territory too. They lived here before Israel was established. The very fact that we have a history of persecution should make us want to say to them the words that we ourselves waited centuries to hear.’
‘Yes, but our safety . . .’
‘Peace, Rudy, peace, that’s what Father Pons taught us to hope for.’
‘Don’t be naïve, Joseph. The best way to achieve peace is often war.’
‘I don’t agree. The more hate you build up between the two sides, the harder it will be to find peace.’
Earlier, as we headed back to the olive plantation, we drove past a Palestinian house which had just been destroyed by the tracks of a tank. Things lay scattered in the dust that drifted up into the sky. Two groups of children were fighting violently amongst the rubble.
I asked him to stop the jeep.
‘What’s this about?’
‘Reprisals from our side,’ he told me. ‘There was a Palestinian suicide bomb yesterday. Three victims. We had to react.’
Without saying anything, I climbed out of the car and walked over to the rubble.
Two rival gangs, Jewish boys and Palestinian boys, were hurling stones at each other. As they kept missing, one of them grabbed a piece of wood, launched himself at the closest adversary and struck him. The retaliation was swift. In a matter of seconds the boys in both gangs were beating each other viciously with broken planks.
I ran over to them, yelling.
Were they frightened? Did they make the most of the diversion to stop fighting? They scattered in opposite directions.
Rudy came over to me slowly, completely relaxed.
I leaned forward and saw some things left by the children. I picked up a kippah and a kiffeyeh. I put one into my right pocket, the other into my left.
‘What are you doing?’ Rudy asked.
‘I’m starting a collection.’
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt is an internationally bestselling French author and playwright. Noah’s Child is the fourth novel in his popular series Cycle de l’Invisible about childhood and religion. He lives in Brussels.
Also by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Concerto to the Memory of an Angel
The Woman with the Bouquet
The Most Beautiful Book in the World
Oscar and the Lady in Pink
Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran
Milarepa
First published in France as L’Enfant de Noé by Éditions
Albin Michel, S. A., 2004
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Atlantic Books,
an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
This e-book edition published in 2016
Copyright © Éditions Albin Michel, S. A., 2004
Translation © Adriana Hunter, 2012
The moral right of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
The moral right of Adriana Hunter to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
This book is supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as part of the Burgess programme run by the Cultural Department of the French embassy in London. (www.frenchbooknews.com)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Paperback ISBN: 978 1 84887 419 0
E-book ISBN: 978 0 85789 723 7
Atlantic Books
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Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Noah's Child
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