There was a note for Anne Marie on the dining room table. She picked it up and read it.
“Monsieur Trusso has fixed your appointment. Dr. Lebon, 16.40.”
Béatrice was now asleep. She lay on her back on the settee with a cotton sheet over her shoulders. Her head was to one side of the cushion. A crucifix at her neck hung lopsidedly on its chain and nestled against the swell of her breast. She stirred in her sleep. Anne Marie kissed her lightly on the forehead, turned off the light and went upstairs.
Fabrice was on the upper bunk. He had kicked aside the sheet, and his thin body was naked except for a pair of cotton briefs. His pajamas lay crumpled and discarded on the moquette floor, in the midst of debris—plastic soldiers, ray guns, cars tipped on their sides.
He was staring at the ceiling.
“Awake?”
“Where have you been?”
“You should be sleeping, Fabrice.”
“It’s hot.”
“Turn on the fan.”
“It’s noisy and keeps me awake.” He added, reproach in his voice, “Where’ve you been?”
“I don’t like it when you come home late.”
“I’m sorry.” She kissed him. His skin was hot.
“You smell of doctors.”
“I had to get a very drunk man to the dispensary in Sainte-Anne.”
“Why?”
“He’d drunk more rhum agricole than was good for him.”
Fabrice still refused to look at her. “Why do you stay out late?”
“I have a job to do.”
“In France you always came home. I’m lonely when you’re not here.”
“There is Béatrice. You like her, don’t you?”
A tear had formed in the corner of his eye. It swelled, then raced down the side of his cheek. “I want to go back to France.”
“No beach in Paris—no warm sea that you can go to whenever you want.”
“I want to go home, Maman. I don’t like Guadeloupe.”
“You’re exaggerating, Fabrice. You’ve got your cousins to play with—Jean Yves and Christophe. And the girls.”
“I am not exaggerating.”
“We went to the beach yesterday. Didn’t you enjoy that?”
“Papa didn’t come.”
“Papa’s looking for a job.”
“It’s not like before.” He turned to look at her. “What does exaggerate mean, Maman?”
“And you like Mamie. Your grandmother plays with you.”
“Too bossy. She won’t let me put my toys on the floor. Instead she wants me to sit at the table and draw.”
“If you leave everything on the floor, you get in her way.”
“I don’t like my cousins, and I don’t like Mamie. They are all too bossy.”
“You’re exaggerating again.”
“I don’t like women.”
“I’m a woman.”
“But you’re my mother,” Fabrice said and he threw his arms about her neck. Within a few seconds, the thin, precious body was racked with sobs.