“You wanted revenge.”
A ship—a cruiser, perhaps bringing American tourists—sounded its horn in the harbor.
“You wanted revenge because Raymond Calais took your land—land his father had sold you forty years ago.”
“Old man Calais was just.”
“You wanted to get your revenge on his son.”
“Monsieur Calais was good to me. I was his foreman for more than twenty years.”
“His son is dead.” She folded her arms. “You’re accused of killing him. Of shooting him point-blank through the chest.”
Hégésippe Bray shook his head.
“You told everybody you wanted revenge.” She leaned forward. “Did you kill Raymond Calais?”
He did not speak.
“Did you shoot him?”
He waited before shaking his head slowly.
“Then who did, Monsieur Bray?”
The blue eyes stared at her.
“Who killed Raymond Calais?”
He spoke slowly. “I didn’t kill the son of my employer.”
“Who killed him? Who shot Raymond Calais in the chest with a gun?”
“You are a clever woman. You have studied. You speak French. You can read. You’ve been to school.” A wrinkled finger pointed toward the pile of well-thumbed Dalloz texts. “You’ve studied many things. And you have soft hands.”
“Answer my questions.”
“Very clever.”
“Did you willfully murder Raymond Calais on the Sainte Marthe estate on September 7, 1980?”
“Clever.” The leather of his face broke into a watery smile. “But you don’t understand nothing.”
“It was your gun.”
“I know whites,” Hégésippe Bray said. “People like you. With your skin. I have known many whites—criminals, hard men who did bad things. Men who murdered their mothers. With some, I even became a friend—if you can be the friend of a white man.” He spoke very slowly. “Hard men. They understood what they could touch. Things they could touch and see. Things they could kill.” He stopped. “What they could not see they never understood.”
Tired by the exertion of speaking, the old man fell silent.
“Did you murder Calais?”
With a crooked thumb, he tapped his chest. “What a black man sees a white man can never understand. We are not the same. We are different—like cats and dogs. We were never meant to live together.” He pointed at her chest, “You’re white and you have your books and your soft white skin. But a black man”—he made a gesture toward Trousseau, whose hands were now motionless on the Japy typewriter—“A black man sees things no white man will never see.” A grimace that extended the old, cracked lips. “White man, white woman.”
“What do black men see?”
“He had to die.”
“You murdered him?”
“I did not kill Raymond Calais.”
“Sunday morning and there was nobody in the fields. You saw him and you pulled the trigger. After thirty-eight years. You killed Raymond Calais, you shot him in the chest. It was your revenge.”
“You don’t understand nothing, white woman.”
“I understand only too well.”
“He had to suffer.”
“So you shot him dead.”
“To suffer as he had made me suffer.”
The blue eyes were now cold and small, and they stared at something beyond Anne Marie.
“Like a cockroach that flaps and kicks. You hold it in the candle flame and it knows it has to die. It kicks and its flaps its dirty wings.” He looked at her sharply. “You don’t understand.”
“Understand?”
“Raymond Calais was going to die. He’d lived enough and now it was his turn to suffer. Not shot with a bullet through his heart.” Hégésippe Bray showed her a toothless smile. “Die like a cockroach. In torment, endless torment.”
6
Pâtisserie
A bicycle had been padlocked to the parking meter.
“What would you like to drink, madame?”
There was no door or front window. The cake shop gave directly onto the sidewalk. Anne Marie turned her glance away from the street to face the girl.
At this time of the morning, the Pâtisserie Prudence—the letters in red and white paint above the entrance—was hot despite the large revolving fan that stood on the refrigerator. Paper napkins fluttered on the bamboo tables when they were caught in the artificial breeze.
“Any fresh juice, mademoiselle?” Anne Marie enquired.
The girl shook her head. A crescent of starched cotton was pinned into her hair. The hair had been straightened but a couple of unruly strands rose from behind the white cotton. She wore pink lipstick. She held an order pad in one hand, a pencil in the other. She did not look at Anne Marie or Trousseau but stared out into the street as if fascinated by the padlocked bicycle.
Then she shrugged. “Only cane juice.”
Anne Marie said, “Two glasses, please, with ice and a slice of lime. And a couple of cakes.”
The girl nodded and moved away, scarcely lifting her feet. The rubber sandals flapped against the floor. Her dark legs were badly blemished. Anne Marie turned to Trousseau. “There is never any fresh juice.”
“It’s all imported. Madame le juge, if you want fresh juice—real fresh fruit juice—you must come out and visit me in the country. Guava, passion fruit, bananas, pineapple, star apple, custard fruit.” He gave a short laugh of pride. “I grow them all.”
A few minutes later the girl placed the drinks on the table.
“Visit me. Bring your husband and come to Trois-Rivières.”
The girl left a piece of paper, torn from her pad, beneath the plate and returned to her stool behind the counter, where she continued to stare at the mid-morning sunshine and the bicycle.
“I thought you lived in Pointe-à-Pitre, Monsieur Trousseau.”
“On the weekends, I go down to Trois-Rivières. I like to work in the garden.” His face suddenly darkened, and he spoke with unwarranted vehemence, as if in answer to a personal attack. “I’m an Indian, madame le juge. I am not like the blacks. I’m not ashamed to work with my hands, to get them dirty turning the soil. For me, slavery is nothing to be ashamed of. The blacks don’t want to get their hands dirty. They don’t want to work in the fields because they think it’s beneath their dignity. That’s why they all come flocking to Pointe-à-Pitre.” He added, “Just because I have a black man’s name and because my skin is dark, madame le juge, don’t think I’m afraid of hard work.”
She gave him a broad, friendly smile. “Would you care for some doukoun cake?”
“You whites think we’re all the same. The only thing that counts for you is the color of our skin.” He stroked his moustache. His eyes seemed unnaturally large. “I’ve worked in France, madame le juge, and I own a flat in the Seventeenth Arrondissement. Not in the suburbs of Paris where all the Arabs and the foreigners hang out. In the Seventeenth Arrondissement. One of my daughters goes to boarding school in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. You think I have to stay in Guadeloupe?”
Anne Marie said nothing.
Trousseau picked up his glass and drank. “If France is forced into giving independence to Guadeloupe, believe me, I’m going to be on the first plane out. If ever the MANG.…”
The girl at the counter turned her head.
“If ever the independence people, the Mouvement d’Action des Nationalistes Guadeloupéens, get their way, please don’t worry about me. I don’t give a damn.” He laughed through his nose; his voice was angry. “Like Haiti, with Papa Doc and Tontons Macoutes running around with machine guns—that’s what this island’ll be like.” He pointed at Anne Marie. “You think my family will want to stay on here when the French move out?”
Anne Marie wiped her fingers on the paper serviette.
“You know my wife is a highly respected tax inspector? And you know she is white?” The accusatory eyes looked at Anne Marie, waiting
for an answer. “Highly respected.”
Anne Marie rubbed at the back of her hand, then said, “That ointment of yours just makes the pain worse.”
A derisive laugh. “A curse, madame.”
“You really believe in all that witchcraft? Just like Hégésippe Bray?”
“Why not?”
“I must see a doctor tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow we’re going to the Saintes. If you want to see a doctor, you must get an appointment.” The dark eyes twinkled. “This isn’t Africa, you know. A civilized country and you’ll need an appointment.”
“Perhaps I can go on Friday.”
“I can fix you a meeting with a gadézaffé in Trois-Rivières.”
A man entered the pâtisserie—against the morning light, he formed a tall silhouette with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He approached their table. He held out his hand to Trousseau. “Le juge Laveaud?”
“I am the greffier.”
The man was embarrassed. He turned to Anne Marie. “You must be.…”
Anne Marie nodded. “The investigating judge.”
“I was expecting a man.”
A tight smile. “I trust you’re not too disappointed.”
7
Suez-Panama
“My name’s Marcel Suez-Panama.” He held out his hand, “I wonder if I could speak with you for a moment.”
“It’s nearly eleven.” Anne Marie looked at her watch—a cheap Kelton with droplets of humidity clinging to the inside of the glass. “I must collect my son from school.”
“Just a few seconds of your time, madame le juge.”
Not trying to hide her lack of enthusiasm, Anne Marie invited him to take a chair.
Marcel Suez-Panama was wearing beige trousers with a sharp crease. He pulled at the light fabric before sitting down, then crossed his legs, an ankle on his knee. Expensive shoes of thin leather, Bordeaux red, and ankle socks of fine cotton. Dark eyes and long lashes. His skin was café crême. Good looking, Anne Marie decided approvingly. Where he shaved, the skin formed a darker, uneven surface.
Trousseau said, “I think we’ve met.”
“Possibly.”
“You are from Morne-à-l’Eau?”
Suez-Panama nodded.
“You teach at the collège?”
“My cousin Fulbert. I work at the university.”
“You studied at Toulouse? A degree in mathematics?”
“Biology.”
Trousseau said, “I know your cousin well.”
“Guadeloupe’s a small island.” Suez-Panama turned back to Anne Marie. “It’s about my uncle—my mother’s half-brother. I was hoping I could speak with you for a few minutes. About Hégésippe Bray.”
Anne Marie frowned. “What about him?”
“You know who I am?”
“You have just told me.”
“It was Mother who brought Hégésippe Bray back to Guadeloupe.”
Anne Marie nodded.
Trousseau straightened his tie before standing up. “Work to do.” He shook hands with Suez-Panama. “Nice to have met you. My regards to Fulbert when you see him.” He went over to the girl. In silence she took his money, and Trousseau stepped out into the street.
Suez-Panama looked at Anne Marie. “He’s innocent.”
“Trousseau?”
“You must let Hégésippe go.”
“He murdered his common law wife forty years ago. I don’t see why he couldn’t have murdered Raymond Calais.”
“Hégésippe never harmed anyone.”
In the street, a postman on a yellow mobylette went past and the screech of the exhaust was echoed off the church wall. The sound reverberated through the bar, drowning the gentle hum of the fan.
Anne Marie asked softly, “Can I offer you a drink, Monsieur Suez-Panama?”
“Please.”
“Please what?”
“Let Hégésippe Bray go.”
She raised her shoulders. “I must do my job.”
“My uncle’s an old man.”
“Old or not, he is the prime suspect for the murder of Raymond Calais.”
“Let him live out what remains of his life in peace.”
“Perhaps you’re not aware of what I can do and what I can’t do.” She tapped the top of the table with a chipped fingernail. “I’m simply the juge d’instruction. It’s not me who wishes to accuse your uncle of murder—that was the decision of the procureur de la République, acting upon evidence given to him by the gendarmerie of Sainte-Anne. It’s not for me to impute innocence or guilt to anyone.” She rubbed at the back of her hand, which now smelled of eucalyptus.
“My uncle’s suffered enough in his life.”
“To impute guilt or innocence is the role of a jury. By comparison, my job’s simple. Hégésippe Bray’s not been arrested—at least, not yet. No formal charges have been brought against him. I’ve been called upon by the parquet—which is to say the Ministry of Justice in the person of the procureur—to look into the facts relating to the untimely death of Raymond Calais. Your uncle’s helping us because there would appear to be evidence pointing to his involvement.”
“Evidence, madame le juge?”
“Repeated threats against the person of Raymond Calais. A murder weapon which was wiped clean of all traces of finger prints—and then hidden. Paraffin tests carried out on your uncle—tests which proved the use of firearms.”
“Paraffin tests more than a day after Calais’ death.”
“I have the job of looking at the evidence collected by the gendarmerie. I must decide whether this evidence will stand the scrutiny of a court of law. I must be the guarantee that Hégésippe Bray is treated impartially—and not merely by police officers who may be more interested in prosecuting your uncle, regardless of the facts. Do I make myself clear?”
Suez-Panama nodded uncomfortably.
“If I have reason to believe the accusations against him are founded, I will draw up a dossier that will be handed over to the parquet. And Hégésippe Bray in time will pass before the Cour d’Assises. Should the evidence on the other hand appear to be of a dubious nature, I will inform the procureur that there can be no justification—or wisdom—in Bray’s being sent for trial. He will be set free, and I shall continue my enquiries into the death of Raymond Calais.”
“He is innocent.”
“Perhaps you’d care to share those details upon which you base your conviction.” Anne Marie glanced at the Kelton watch. “Share them with a good lawyer.”
“My uncle’s poor. How can he afford a lawyer?”
“If necessary, the Tribunal will appoint a lawyer to defend him.”
Suez-Panama took a bunch of keys from his pocket and banged them jarringly against the palm of his hand.
“Have a drink, Monsieur Suez-Panama.”
Suddenly he relaxed. “I am sorry, I’m being rude.” He smiled and turning in his chair, he called the serving girl. “A Vichy, mademoiselle. And another cane juice for the lady.”
8
Convent
Suez-Panama looked around the pâtisserie, at the low-slung bamboo chairs, the wall lighting and the large mirror advertising Fanta. “We used to come here after school, some friends and I.” A shy smile. “The girls from the convent school at the back of the church used to frequent the place. Out of bounds for them—and sometimes a sour old nun would come looking for her wayward flock. Not too happy to see her little lambs taking cigarettes from kids like us.” He took a packet of Craven from his shirt pocket.
“Perhaps the nun was jealous.”
The maid came over to the table, dragging her plastic sandals, and placed the bottle of Vichy on the glass top. Anne Marie made use of the opportunity to study Suez-Panama’s face.
He caught her glance as he poured his drink. He smiled, a trace of moisture on his lips.
“Any success with the little lambs?”
“They weren’t really interested in us, madame le juge. Not old enough for them … a
nd we were too black for their tastes. They didn’t want us—but they were glad enough to share our cigarettes.” He frowned, “Thirteen, fourteen years old—but even at that age, women already know what they want.”
“You’re married, Monsieur Suez-Panama?”
“What is wrong with your hand?”
“My greffier tells me this itching is the result of a curse.”
He laughed. “We like to tell the world that this little island in the middle of the ocean is a corner of France. We’re told we’re Frenchmen, and we genuinely get to believe it, but when it comes to superstition and strange religious beliefs, we’re still a lot closer to Africa than to Europe.”
A car went past in the street.
Anne Marie rubbed between her fingers where the skin was swollen. “Probably something I’ve eaten.”
“Rubbing only makes it worse.” Suez-Panama reached out and separated her two hands. “Stop it,” he said softly. His hand was cool. “You must see a doctor, madame le juge.”
Her hand lay in his.
Anne Marie noticed that he had long fingers.
Suez-Panama looked up at her from under his eyelashes. “You will help him, won’t you?”
With a sharp movement, Anne Marie extricated her hand. She frowned as she wrapped her handkerchief about her fist. “My son will be waiting for me.”
Anne Marie started to rise but he placed a hand on her forearm.
“An old man who spent most of his life in a penal colony.” There were wrinkles at the corner of his mouth, “You did that to him.”
“Me?”
“France. You crippled him emotionally and physically. And then you threw him away. France,” he said again, and laughed coldly. “Hégésippe Bray didn’t matter.” He paused. “A weaker man wouldn’t have survived. But my uncle did survive and now he’s back. Old and quite harmless. He can hurt nobody.”
“Your uncle’s gun hurt Calais—hurt him a lot.”
Suez-Panama threw his cigarette to the ground and squashed it beneath his heel. “Hégésippe Bray didn’t kill Raymond Calais.”
“On his own admission he hated Calais.”
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