The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe

by Timothy Williams

  “Néron’s breath smells because he never brushes his teeth.”

  “Fabrice, you’re not answering my question.” Anne Marie frowned. Her little boy.

  (“Eight years and two months—eight years, two months and ten days.”

  The white beach was scattered with dry sponge. Fabrice’s naked back was hot beneath her hand. “You should put on a T-shirt.” She looked around for a beach mat, a towel and some clothes. There was nothing.

  “That’s right, Maman. Eight years and two months and ten days.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, doudou?”

  “If you had to walk to the moon. You remember, don’t you? That’s how long it would take.” He folded his arms with satisfaction.

  Anne Marie kissed his forehead, which tasted of salt; grains of sand glistened in the hairs of his eyebrows.

  “Papa helped me—we used the calculator in the hotel. But that’s without sleeping.”)

  “If you really must know, the girls in my class are so pathetic. They sit at the front and they flirt with the teachers.”

  Létitia nodded. “That’s why he doesn’t like Monsieur Siobud. Because of Rita.”

  “Rita, Fabrice?”

  He raised his voice. “Your daughter tells lies.”

  “I don’t tell lies, Fabrice. I heard you on the phone and I heard you talking to your friend and you said that you didn’t like Monsieur Siobud because he sends Rita to the blackboard just before the bell goes.”

  “I never said anything of the sort.”

  “Oh yes, you did. You were talking to Patrice Ganot and you said Siobud keeps your Rita behind after the end of the class and then he talks to her. I heard you, Fabrice—don’t lie to Maman. You said you were going to let the air out of the tires on Monsieur Siobud’s car because he’s a sex maniac and because he’s already invited Rita to the beach and she’s not even seventeen.”

  71

  Useless

  Hinitil, the cane row terrier Létitia had found on the beach and brought home, was a good guard dog and once he started barking, it took a long time for him to fall silent.

  Hinitil and all the neighboring dogs were asleep when Anne Marie heard knocking on the door. At first she thought it was Béatrice and turned the sound of Frédéric Mitterrand down and got out of the armchair.

  “That you, Béatrice?”

  A man’s voice.

  “Who is it?”

  “I need to talk to you, madame le juge.”

  Her heart beat faster.

  “We met yesterday, madame le juge.” It was an educated voice. “Could you please let me speak to you? I know it’s late but I have something which I need to tell you.”

  There was a spyhole in the unvarnished wood, but looking though it served no purpose because the outside light had blown a long time ago and Anne Marie had forgotten to have it repaired.

  “Tell me tomorrow.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I need to talk to you about the dead woman.”

  “Who are you?”

  “You don’t know my name, madame le juge. I work for the television.” Carefully she opened the door and the light from behind her lit up a man—a West Indian wearing a pair of white tennis shorts and a V-necked T-shirt. He wore a golfing eyeshade and as he moved his head and his eyes came into the light, Anne Marie recognized him.

  “You saw me yesterday, madame le juge.”

  “The technician?”

  “My name is Léonidas—Lionel Léonidas, the cameraman. We came to interview you in the hospital annex.”

  “Then you’d better come in.” She removed the chain from the door. “Come in if you’re not going to stick a microphone down my throat.”

  He was small and slim and as the man stepped past her she could smell suntan lotion.

  “Who is it, Maman?”

  “You go back to bed, Fabrice,” Anne Marie said, turning to her son, who stood in the kitchen doorway. He had his hand behind his back and was in his pajamas.

  Léonidas entered the room.

  “Are you all right, Maman?”

  “Go to bed, Fabrice.”

  “Do you mind if I sit down?” Léonidas asked and without waiting for a reply, he lowered himself not onto the armchair but onto one of the high-backed wooden chairs. He was an attractive man—she had scarcely noticed him at the hospital because the bright lights had prevented her from getting a good look.

  “Care to join me in a drink?” Anne Marie nodded to the almost empty glass on the chair arm. “Rhum vieux.”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head. He had soft hair, almost blond, and he could have passed for a European with a deep tan. He was wearing green boating shoes. “Unless of course you’d have a verbena tea.”

  “Nothing could be easier.”

  “Very kind, madame le juge.”

  Anne Marie went into the kitchen and poured water from a bottle into the electric kettle. Fabrice was standing in the doorway and he made her jump. He whispered the question, “Who’s the man, Maman?”

  “From the television,” she replied and noticed that there was a carving knife on the draining board. “Now go to bed.”

  When she returned to the sitting room, Léonidas was watching the television. “I can’t understand a word he says.”

  “Who?”

  “Professionally, it’s very well put together—slick and fast in the way that the English do their documentaries, but I just can’t understand a word Frédéric Mitterrand’s saying. My fault, I suppose.” He gave a wide grin. “Seven years of lycée, another four at university studying communication technologies. Only normal it should be beyond me.”

  “You studied in France?”

  “Madame, I’m sorry to come knocking on your door at this hour of the night.”

  “I was about to go to bed, actually.”

  “Not really the done thing, barging in on the privacy of a juge d’instruction.”

  “How did you know where I live?”

  “A few enquiries at the television station. But I don’t want to take up your precious time.”

  “You’ll drink the verbena now that you’re here.”

  “You see, I’m a homosexual. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. Perhaps if I did, that might change things. Believe me, when you’re different from other people, life can be pretty grim.” A wide smile. “No, I haven’t come here to give you a dissertation on homosexuals.”

  “Why have you come here?” Anne Marie sat down in her chair, without taking her glance from his regular features.

  “A piece of information that might be of use to you.”

  “That you’re gay?”

  “I’ve heard about you, madame le juge; people say you’re decent, so you can understand why I’ve come to see you privately.”

  “Not really.”

  “You’ve lived in this island and you’ve adapted to the customs of the place. You know how small-minded the people of Guadeloupe can be. You’re probably from Paris—you grew up without knowing the neighbor on the other side of the hallway and you know things aren’t like that in Guadeloupe. Not here. Privacy, having a place to yourself, having your own personal space that no one will intrude upon—that’s not part of our culture. You’ve seen the vulgar graffiti on the walls and you know the meaning of the word maco.”

  Anne Marie frowned and glanced in the direction of the bedroom.

  “To be curious, that’s what maco means. The worst insult you can use—and yet everybody here is maco. People need to know what you’re doing.” He really was very attractive. Léonidas smiled his broad grin and she saw he was not looking at her.

  Anne Marie sat up in the armchair and turned. Fabrice had entered the room, carrying a tray with a pot of boiling water.

  “The verbena tea, Maman.”

  She thanked her son, who set the tray down on the coffee table and then left the room, accompanied by the glance of Léonidas.

/>   “A nice boy,” he said.

  “You take sugar?”

  “At the lycée I imagine.”

  “Fabrice?” She nodded. “Not a very good pupil, I’m afraid. Really far too interested in the girls.”

  The smile slowly disappeared from the regular features. “You understand my need for discretion, madame le juge.”

  “Discretion’s a word that people like here, Monsieur Léonidas, but it’s a virtue that few seem to practice.”

  “Precisely what I was saying.”

  She poured the tea into a cup and handed it to the man. “What exactly was it you came to see me about?”

  “I’ve just come back from Tarare beach. I go there every week. I have a friend now.” He paused.

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Every Sunday I go to Tarare, sometimes by myself, sometimes with a friend.”

  “Last Sunday you were not alone?”

  “No, I was not alone.”

  “That’s why you’ve come to see me? Here, at my house in Dupré, at nine in the evening?”

  “There’s a man you’ve been seeing at the palais de justice. His name is Desterres and I don’t think he likes us very much.”

  “Us?”

  “He hates gays.”

  “I thought it was just investigating judges he didn’t like.”

  “Like most homophobes, Desterres’s afraid of finding out he has more in common with us than he’d like to admit. Desterres wouldn’t be the first—Adolf Hitler was a repressed homosexual.”

  “You’re not a repressed homosexual?”

  “I’ve come to terms with my sexual preferences,” the man answered simply. “Please don’t judge me, madame. Just because I do with other men precisely those things most men do with women doesn’t mean I’m any less a human being. You know about the evils of racism and of exclusion.” He made a delicate movement of his hand before raising the porcelain cup from the tray.

  “I don’t want to hurry you, Monsieur Léonidas, but tomorrow is a busy day.”

  “Desterres’s happy enough to take our money when we go to his restaurant—Mère Nature—but as a rule, we don’t go because the welcome isn’t friendly. He feels we lower the tone of his beach.” Again the disarming grin. “I suppose in a way we do.”

  “Go on, Monsieur Léonidas.”

  “Which presents the problem of bodily functions.”

  Anne Marie frowned.

  “Rather than visit Desterres’s restrooms, having our dignity and a toilet roll, we tend to go into the bushes to answer the call of Mother Nature.”

  “You mean defecate?”

  “I mean shit.” A bland smile. “Last Sunday, it was about three in the afternoon and I’d been swimming and the chill of the sea water must have triggered a form of colic—something I’d eaten for lunch.”

  “How very interesting, Monsieur Léonidas.”

  “I left my friend on the beach.”

  “Your friend who is …?”

  “That doesn’t concern you.” He licked the edge of the Limoges cup. “I went into the bushes. There’s a kind of isthmus behind the beach and on the far side there’s another, stone beach. You can’t bathe there because of the rocks and there’s not much shade. There, in the low bushes, I went to answer nature’s call and I overheard these people.”

  “What people?”

  “Desterres—he speaks with that Anglicized accent of his but I didn’t recognize the other voice.”

  “You could see them?”

  “I was squatting down, madame le juge.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “A woman’s voice.”

  “What were they talking about?”

  “They couldn’t hear me shitting and I couldn’t hear what they were saying.”

  “That’s why you’ve come to see me?”

  “It was the murdered girl Desterres was talking to.” Léonidas nodded slowly. “I recognized her photograph in the newspaper a few days later.”

  A long pause; the television droned softly in the corner. The hum of the air conditioning from the children’s bedroom.

  “You’re certain it was in the afternoon?”

  “After lunch—I’d drunk some wine that went straight through me—”

  “Murdered girl? Desterres says the woman left in the morning, before midday.”

  “Madame le juge, it was the afternoon.”

  “Which would suggest Desterres is a liar.”

  “Desterres’s life is a lie. He is afraid to face up to the truth of his own sexuality.”

  “You actually saw the girl?”

  “Crouching’s not an observation position, but, yes, I saw her, madame le juge. No more than a peek—but it was her and I heard them shouting. The wind carried their voices in the wrong direction but I assure you they were quarreling. They’d left the beach to get away from the tall black fellow with the camera.”

  “You know him?”

  Léonidas shook his head. “If I’m here now, it’s because I realize what I witnessed may be important. I want to help. She may have been a bitch—but she didn’t deserve to be murdered.”

  “A bitch?”

  “They were quarreling and that’s when she laughed at him—or at least, that’s what I thought from where I was.”

  “You didn’t hear what they said?”

  The technician shook his head. “He shouted at her and she just laughed.” He added, “Desterres lost his temper.”

  “He struck her?”

  Léonidas shook his head again. “No.”

  “What did you do?”

  He drank the herbal tea in a ladylike sip. “I wiped my ass.”

  72

  Silhouette

  Monday, May 21, 1990

  The France Antilles was on Trousseau’s desk. There was a sheet of paper in the typewriter, the illustrated Bible lay beside the newspaper, the window of the office was open and the curtains danced in the morning breeze.

  Anne Marie felt serene. She had taken yesterday off to be with her children and it was a wise decision.

  She placed the Texier bag in her drawer, picked up the France Antilles and sat down. The front page showed a grubby picture of the siege at the Collège Carnot. The headlines announced the death of the assassin of the Pointe des Châteaux.

  “You’re late, madame le juge.”

  She smiled at her greffier. Trousseau returned the smile and slipped something into his pocket before shaking her hand.

  “I overslept but fortunately the neighbor was able to run the children into school for me.” She looked at her watch; it was not yet half past eight. “I stopped at the Prisunic on the way in.”

  “You’re going on with the enquiry?”

  “I haven’t yet been informed the parquet considers the case closed.” She frowned. She could smell the pungent odor of fish. “Even if it were, I’d still come into work.”

  “Take a few days off.”

  “I’ve got bags under my eyes?” She leaned back in the chair, stretched and yawned simultaneously, without putting her hand over her mouth. “Do you have any news for me, Monsieur Trousseau?”

  “You’re really continuing the enquiry?”

  “That’s what was asked of me.” Anne Marie ran a finger along her upper lip. “I was given the case and I won’t close it until it’s solved.”

  “Like the Dugain dossier?”

  “Monsieur Lafitte was supposed to be here at seven thirty. I told him I’d be wanting to see Marie Pierre’s boyfriend. No reason why Lafitte shouldn’t be here on time.” Anne Marie clicked her tongue in irritation, just like her children. “Unless he’s privy to the procureur.”

  “There’s this, madame.” Trousseau held up a typewritten sheet of paper. “A report from Pasteur concerning the bikini.”

  Her face brightened. “And what does it say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Two pages of typescript to say nothing?”

  “Government scien
tists are paid by the syllable.” He held the typescript at arm’s length to get it into focus. “A size M bikini, of a type easily available in several supermarkets for a price ranging from eighty to two hundred francs. Trademark Silhouette, made in Turkey, cotton and synthetic mixture. Matching top and bottom. Analysis of the fiber suggests that top and bottom were bought together, although the top has been washed with a powerful detergent.”

  She took the report from his hands and ran her finger down the text. “Matching top and bottom, probably bought together,” she read aloud.

  “Which is what I said, if my memory serves me right,” Trousseau said. He sat down behind the typewriter and took a half-eaten sandwich from his pocket.

  “What you said, admittedly, Monsieur Trousseau, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense.”

  “If you feel what I say’s senseless, I should perhaps be quiet.” Trousseau bit into the sandwich.

  “What you say is always full of sense,” Anne Marie acknowledged. “The bikini doesn’t make sense. A West Indian woman’s not likely to buy a bikini—I told you that on Saturday. A French girl coming on holiday wouldn’t’ve waited until she came out to the Caribbean before buying a bikini.”

  “Then why sell bikinis in the supermarket?”

  “I stopped at Prisunic on the way in just as they were opening. There are very few bikinis and when I asked the girl at the counter, she said they didn’t sell very well at all.”

  “Who buys them?”

  “Mainly Europeans.”

  “You see, Madame, it could’ve been a woman from the mainland who bought it. And,” Trousseau said through a mouthful of half-masticated mackerel, “it’s quite possible the bikini was bought in France. There’s no big difference in stock between here and France—just we don’t have their seasons.”

  Anne Marie opened the drawer and pulled out the copy of the Polaroid. Agnès Loisel on the beach, between Desterres and the Indian. “You’re overlooking one thing, Monsieur Trousseau.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “According the Institut Pasteur, it’s a matching top and bottom.” She tapped the photograph. “Look at the girl. What do you notice, Monsieur Trousseau?”

  “Nice pair of breasts.”

  “You like big breasts?”