left. I imagined them eating together. I could hear Annette’s laughter. I imagined Jean Luze’s eyes on her. On my knees, as the priest raised the wafer, I tried in vain to chase such thoughts away. It did not escape me that for some time now I’d been faking piety. I had lost my faith when I saw the children’s bodies piled high before my eyes after the last hurricane. Many of the oldest and meanest had been spared.
They look so angelic in church! What were they thinking as they grimaced through their prayers? Were they trying to cheat God Himself, our overly tolerant God who calls all lost sheep to His bosom?
It was probably about seven in the evening.
I was on the landing and about to go downstairs when I looked up and caught Annette and Jean Luze exchanging glances. Annette took his hand first and pushed him into her bedroom. I pretended to go downstairs only to double back and put my ear to the door and my eye to the keyhole: they were still dressed and Jean Luze, his hands on her shoulders, stone-faced, unrecognizable, appeared to be fighting temptation. He threw her on the bed. Her skirt was tucked up, and he looked at her with a kind of hateful and appreciative curiosity. She moaned and brutally pulled him against her, eyes closed, nails biting into his back.
I suddenly stood up, overcome by some sort of prudishness, but I stayed a moment behind the door, heart racing, cheeks flushed. Then, agitated and dizzy from waves of feelings crashing together in me, I ran and threw myself flat on my stomach in bed. I left this position only when I heard Felicia calling me. I washed my face in a frenzy and went to her. She wanted some soup and she asked where her husband was.
“He is in the living room,” I answered calmly.
“And what is he doing?”
“He’s reading.”
“Ask him to come give me a kiss. He’s always afraid to wake me.”
To gain time, I suggested that she freshen up a little.
When I left her room a few minutes later, I found Jean Luze in the living room where he was indeed reading. No doubt he was trying to seem calm, quite prudently. He stood up and chose a record, the same one as always. But in his distracted state he made a mistake and the second movement of Beethoven’s Concerto no. 5 rose in a flutter, discreet, melodious, before rushing headlong into an incredibly violent chord.
He gave me an infinitely sweet look.
“You like this concerto too, don’t you? You come in each time I play it. The first movement is just as beautiful but I made a mistake… Ah! I couldn’t live without music… I think I’ve brought a record player with me my whole life. I was hardly twenty when I gave up everything else and bought one for the first time. My parents had just died and I was trying to scrape together a living…”
Just then, Annette appeared. I searched her face, looking for traces of victory that I could enjoy. She lit up a cigarette with quivering hands and threw Jean Luze a sidelong glance devoid of the misty-eyed gratitude I thought I would find there. He stared at her like an enemy. Their attitude surprised and disappointed me. I was willing to live this love through Annette only if she could measure up to it. It was essential that she outdo herself. Had she profaned this act that was so important in my eyes? What did she say, how did she react? What happened between them? Could it be that their embrace came to nothing? That would be too devastating.
M. Long is a fat, puffy, congested man. It’s my birthday today, and we are literally being cooked alive, and M. Long looks like a boiled lobster. Jean Luze seats his boss and offers him some whiskey.
The cake is on the table, crowned with eighteen candles. Annette’s idea, naturally. They kiss me and offer me their gifts and all sing “Happy Birthday to You.” I got a sewing kit from Jean Luze, a box of handkerchiefs from Annette and from Felicia a gold medallion.
“I decorate you,” she said, pinning the medal to my blouse.
“Come now, give us a smile.”
Jean Luze held my chin and looked into my eyes. I’m afraid he’ll hear the disordered beating of my heart. He is tall and I barely reach his shoulder. I would like him to lean and take me in his arms to carry me very far away. Such is the incurable romantic that slumbers in all old maids!
We offer some cake to Augustine, the maid. The house is festive.
“Put on a record, Jean,” Annette proposes. “The screaming just ruins everything.”
The screams waft from the jail. Horrible, unsexed droning.
“Caledu is having a bit of fun,” M. Long exclaims with a jowl-shaking chortle. (His accent adds a childish note to his cruel remark.)
“A peculiar way to have fun, don’t you think?” Jean Luze asks him with a strange, almost hostile, smile.
“Oh, you know, I say to each his own. And anyway, you would have to be insane to try to change anything around here.”
He holds out his glass to Jean Luze, who fills it with another shot of whiskey.
Annette flutters around them. She pours on the charm even for this hideous American. She’s turning into a nymphomaniac.
“As I told you recently, Monsieur Luze,” M. Long continues, “the coffee harvest has been so bad that for the last three years we have had to fall back on timber. I’m waiting for an answer from the company. If we don’t export wood, we’ll have no choice but to close up shop. The timber stock in the mountains and even in the towns is just extraordinary! This island is amazing: the sea, the mountains, the trees! Yes it’s a pity, a real pity they are so poor and unlucky.”
“What will happen to the peasants and their small plots if they agree to deforestation? The rain will wash away the soil,” notes Jean Luze.
“Oh well, that, my dear friend, is their business. They can either agree to sell their wood or we can leave. We are not asking for a gift, not at all…”
I can’t fully follow the conversation. The screams make it hard to pay attention. I prick up my ears. I feel obliged to listen for the faintest whimper. I am almost certain that it is a child crying. I am developing a trained ear. A final outburst ends on a hoarse note, so painful that I stand up with my hands over my ears.
“The cries upset you that much?” M. Long asks me.
“Not at all.”
Jean Luze hands me a glass.
“Drink,” he says.
The glass shakes in my hand.
M. Long speaks of his country, so rich, so beautiful, so well organized, it seems. What has he come looking for in this hole, if not wealth? What if not to fleece the sheep that we are?
After M. Long’s departure, Felicia goes to her room. Jean Luze lingers in the living room listening to Beethoven. Standing in the dark, Annette is watching him. I stay up with them for as long as possible. I’m on to them: they have a rendezvous tonight. I close the doors and wait. The house seems asleep. I hear the careful patter of their steps, the creaking of the door to Annette’s room as it opens. I imagine them naked, kissing, taking each other again and again. I get in bed, naked as well, ablaze with desire. I am with them, between them. No, I am alone with Jean Luze. Amazing how love cancels out all other feelings. I would hear screaming from the jail and pay it no heed. I am Annette. I’m sixteen years younger. I hear nothing, and then a terrible cry and the sound of a body falling. It would be inconvenient to witness any kind of drama. I stay still, waiting for things settle. Annette’s door is ajar and Felicia is lying on the floor. Jean Luze, appropriately dressed, is leaning over his wife, while Annette, in a dressing gown, pale as a corpse, looks at me. I know nothing. I understand nothing. Isn’t fainting normal for pregnant women?
“Go get Dr. Audier,” I say to Jean Luze.
He quickly carries her into their room and runs off.
