Now Calédu and M. Long stand in front of our gate. I hear them talk.
“Knock them over the head,” says M. Long. “You want our deal to fall through?”
“They’ll give in,” Calédu answers. “Hunger will make them see reason.”
The sun opens its hellmouth upon us. The sea brews its heavy, foaming waves.
I see Jean Luze come in. He has opened the collar of his shirt and walks past sponging his face. Sweat makes his brown hair stick to his forehead. Never has he been more handsome. “How are you?” he asks, and sits across from me in an armchair in the living room.
“It’s so hot!” he sighs. “It’s hilarious because, back in my country, I pictured this island differently. What came across in the books I read was some kind of paradise where no one could suffer or die.”
“You are disappointed.”
“It was always my dream to go off to a distant place. Besides, nothing was holding me back home. I came all the way here seeking riches and paradise. I eke out a living in the heart of hell. And yet, who can say this sky, this sea, is not beautiful, so full of the serene charm of this corner of the world. Something must have come and transformed this town into a hellish paradise.”
“Do you believe in curses?”
“No, I don’t believe in them. But it’s unsettling sometimes to feel the weight of an invisible evil hand. What was your life like before?”
“Me, well, you know…”
“Quit hiding behind one mask or another. Say what you think, Claire, learn to fight back. You are clearheaded, intelligent. You can’t call what’s happening here a punishment from God. You’ve already given this some thought and you’ve understood the problem. Admit it.”
“There’s nothing to understand. Times have changed, that’s all.”
“What was it like here before?”
“Different.”
I lower my head, dour as a buzzard.
“You’re a cagey one.”
The truth is painful to admit when it is humiliating. I would admit it to others, but not to him. It’s enough that he has witnessed our disgrace, our degradation. He leans over me, the dimple on his chin spreading as he smiles. The hair at his temples is turning gray. It’s adorable. I slowly lift my hand toward his hair. He is no longer looking at me. He’s indifferent. Without a word he walks to Félicia’s room, where she is waiting for him.
Annette’s Syrian boss gives her a ride home, yet again. She’s holding his hand and laughing too loudly. It’s false laughter, crazy laughter. She’s been losing weight before our very eyes. She and I are both living in a trance for fear that he will keep to his resolution. We live with the same scorn, the same worries, the same pain. Sometimes, I forget who I am and believe that I am the one Jean Luze is avoiding, the one he once held in his arms. I bridle at the thought that Annette will not fight to keep him. How could she have given up so easily? What is she afraid of? A man such as this should have inspired in her a taste for battle. I refine my ruse. I keep Félicia company in order to leave him free. I will waste my day in their insipid private life. I warmly receive that old crow Gisèle Audier, certain that her chatter will force Jean Luze to flee the room. She rolls along on her stubby legs and leans her absurdly withered snub nose over Félicia.
“My dear! Unbelievable, this fainting fit of yours!”
Félicia smiles. Soon, she will be able to lie on the chaise longue and return to working on the layette of her future son.
“And where is the lovely Annette…”
“She’s in her room,” Félicia answers.
Her voice wavers imperceptibly, but she controls herself. Gisèle Audier moves on to the subject of the tree felling that started yesterday.
“They have sold an extraordinary quantity of precious wood. I have heard that Monsieur Long will pay them a good price.”
“Jean thinks it’s bad for the coffee business.”
“And Jules is furious. But the truth is that he could never stand the Americans. He claims they are responsible for everything. I guess it all goes back to his hatred for the Occupation. The Occupation killed your father, and it made a paranoid maniac of my husband, who now sees the hand of the State Department everywhere, even in our worst political events. It’s really becoming an obsession.”
She laughs.
For a moment her words resurrect the ghosts of my father and his partisans. I can see Laurent, Justin Rollier and all the dead enter the Cercle l’Étoile, founded by the late M. Camuse, where, in a very different time, one after the other, the three sisters had made their debut in long silk gowns. The Cercle was ransacked by beggars on Calédu’s watch, and by now they’ve taken over the place. On that day, Mme Camuse nearly dropped dead of indignation…
Jean Luze plays a record in the living room. The notes penetrate me as he listens to them. My senses begin to vibrate so much that I rush to lock myself in my room. The sound explodes like a scream and then lingers in a caress. The entire house is suffused with it. What a hymn to life, this work born from suffering!…
In order to keep up appearances, I continue to attend mass regularly and receive communion every month. Father Paul hears my confession.
In order not to destroy the myth of the unblemished old maid, I admit to venial sins only. I keep the so-called mortal sins to myself. That’s between me and God. I will accept punishment bravely, no matter how terrible. I will appear before Him, pointing a finger at Him. I will be the one to accuse. I don’t care, everything may be perfect up there, but on earth, what a mess! I will tell Him what’s going on down here. I will open His eyes. In the meantime, as I have for the past twenty-five years, I will be one of the twelve Daughters of Mary at the procession for the Feast of the Virgin. Dressed like her, in a white dress and blue belt, I will escort our Immaculate Lady and carry her banner. With Father Paul’s help, Eugénie Duclan will launch her crusade to the Lord. This is the beginning of a series of processions, supplemented with songs and prayers, meant to move the heavens to pity and call on us its holy blessing. Father Paul has written a hymn: “May God make the rain descend upon us, may He wash this town of its sins. Mercy! Mercy!…”
Mme Camuse would never dare adorn her devotional display without my help. It’s a question of habit. She greets me with exclamations of joy:
“I knew you would never let me down. You’re so loyal. This time I would like a display representing a place in paradise where we’d have a saint wreathed in flowers. But who will be the saint?”
She simpers like a coquettish old cat and in a convincing voice declares:
“It will be you.”
“Me!”
“Yes, you’d make a great saint.”
“A much younger girl would be better,” I suggested, frightened to see her so attached to this idea.
“A younger girl, sure. But which one?”
“The prefect’s daughter.”
“The prefect’s daughter!” she exclaimed. “Oh no! What are you saying? That awful little negress! Look, and this is just between us, I can lower myself to make certain concessions, but not that far. People who come from nothing. Upstarts made rich by trickery! They are without manners, they looked the other way when the Cercle was pillaged, our Cercle founded by my poor husband, that once opened its doors only to the cream of society! They have turned it into their barracks and as we speak their filthy muddy feet soil our carpets and their armed rear ends are wedged in our armchairs!… Oh! I never thought you’d suggest such a thing, Claire.”
She’s literally suffocating.
“And yet you receive the commandant in your home,” I said to her.
She cast a worried glance at the door and lowered her voice:
“I never invited him,” she confided, “he came on his own. They are shockingly shameless.”
She is wearing a long-sleeved gray dress that falls to her boots. She takes a few small steps, clutches the cameo dangling on her chest at the end of a long chain, raises her head toward the French ancestor who stares back at her sternly and, changing the subject, says: