All The Light We Cannot See: A Novel - Plot & Excerpts
Fog on the sea, fog in the streets, fog in the mind. Madame Manec gets sick. When Marie-Laure holds her hand over Madame’s chest, heat seems to steam up out of her sternum as though she cooks from the inside. Her breathing devolves into trains of oceanic coughs. “I watch the sardines,” murmurs Madame, “and the termites, and the crows . . .” Etienne summons a doctor who prescribes rest, aspirin, and aromatic violet comfits. Marie-Laure sits with Madame through the worst of it, strange hours when the old woman’s hands go very cold and she talks about being in charge of the world. She is in charge of everything, but no one knows. It is a tremendous burden, she says, to be responsible for every little thing, every infant born, every leaf falling from every tree, every wave that breaks onto the beach, every ant on its journey. Deep in Madame’s voice, Marie-Laure hears water: atolls and archipelagoes and lagoons and fjords. Etienne proves to be a tender nurse. Washcloths, broth, now and then a page from Pasteur or Rousseau.
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