Nothing had changed at the Hotel Fontainebleau. Not the table and the chairs, not the flowerpots standing like sentinels to protect the hotel from the advancing beach. The Byrhh ashtrays were the same.
The open terrace was as she remembered it. Even the serving girl had not changed or aged. She did not recognize Anne Marie, but Anne Marie recognized the woman’s kind face. It was like rediscovering an old friend and for a few moments, Anne Marie sat watching her, remembering the way she walked, the sound of her shoes on the tiles, her gentle voice, the lilting accent of the Saintes.
A young woman, only a few years out of adolescence, with a gold ring on her finger. With Jean Michel, she had flown down to the Saintes and had stayed at the Fontainebleau in a bright, clean room that looked out over the vast bay, the precipitous sugar-loaf mountain and the green covered hills that reminded her of her Mediterranean. Marvelous breakfasts with fresh fruit brought from the mainland—bananas, grapefruit, and green oranges. During the long, sun-washed hours of the day she went snorkeling. Fish she had never seen before—striped, indolent fish that moved slowly through the clear water and the white coral.
Jean Michel soon got bored. He complained about the lack of food. There was little else other than fish, caught by the local fisherman in their bright boats, red and a vivid blue. And there was nothing to do. He did not enjoy lying on the beach. “Anyway,” he said, “I’m already brown enough.”
Anne Marie was appreciative of the cool winds that blew. And she felt healthy. Not since leaving Algeria in 1958 had she felt so well, so fit. Nor had she been so attractive as during the honeymoon.
They spent most evenings in Terre de Haut.
A television was placed on the sill of the town hall, and when evening fell, the set was turned on and the villagers—the children sitting cross-legged and the adults on the cement benches—watched the programs with innocent pleasure. Frantically they applauded the French team in Jeux Sans Frontières just as they applauded the arrival of Yul Brynner and his mercenaries in the dubbed Western.
Anne Marie was reminded of Algeria. People walking backward and forward along the main street, the girls hand in hand, the men quietly smoking. The children were often barefoot, and the women wore fashionable high heels.
Anne Marie fell in love with the Saintes, with the flowers, with the lemon trees, the café bâtard and the wild cinnamon. They formed, these forgotten islands, a terrestrial paradise, a corner of another, long-forgotten France, old-fashioned and peaceful, existing on the far side of the globe. A part of the old Empire that knew nothing about insurrection, anti-colonialism and the murder of innocents.
Anne Marie drank her coffee, and the recollection of past happiness caused her eyes to water.
Fabrice stood up. His narrow swimming trunks had slipped down to reveal much of his backside.
“Come and finish your ice.”
The little boy ran to the steps that led to the beach. “Here comes Papa.”
Despite her anger and fatigue, Anne Marie could feel the same excitement that she had known when they had first met.
“I was expecting you, Anne Marie.”
“So Fabrice tells me.”
Jean Michel smiled and he kissed her cheek. His face was cold from the sea. He sat down and they looked at each other. He seemed pleased with himself.
“You wanted to escape?”
“I don’t think there’s much future for me in Guadeloupe.”
“There are gendarmes in the Saintes, too,” Anne Marie said.
“And juges d’instruction.”
“Did you really have to bring Fabrice with you?”
“He’s my son as well, you know.”
Fabrice turned to his mother then to his father. He scrutinized the two faces carefully.
“Soon you’ll be leaving your son, Jean Michel.”
“Perhaps you will start looking after him properly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Instead of leaving him with my mother—so that you can play at Perry Mason and earn your fat colonial salary.”
“Who’s going to pay for the food and rent if I don’t work?”
“Anne Marie, you know you don’t care about the boy.”
She raised a finger in accusation. “You love the child—but you leave him when you feel like wandering off with your pretty young cousin. And with your childish, voodoo curses, you terrify me until I can’t sleep.” She closed one eye and squinted. “Your curses and your voodoo coffins.”
Fabrice asked, “What curses?”
“Go and play.”
“What curses, Maman?”
“Go and play when I tell you to.” Anne Marie slapped his leg. “Learn to obey your mother.” The blow was harder than she had intended and the red wheals appeared immediately on his young skin. “Go to the beach. Your father and I must talk.”
“You shouldn’t hit him.”
Fabrice’s eyes quickly filled with tears. He made no sound. He dropped the spoon back into the bowl of ice cream, slipped from the chair, and walked across the terrace. As he moved past her, she brushed his soft hair in an act of contrition.
At another table, a man coughed.
“You shouldn’t hit him,” Jean Michel repeated.
“Perhaps you should set him an example. I have all the responsibility.” She spoke through clenched teeth. “Don’t make me angry, Jean Michel—not more angry than I already am.”
“The coffin was nothing to do with me.”
“Then who put it there?”
He looked down at the tile floor of the open terrace.
“Who did it? For God’s sake, tell me.”
“My brother.”
“Freddy?”
He nodded without looking at her.
“Why?”
“I need a cigarette.” Jean Michel turned in his seat—he was wearing a damp T-shirt that stuck to his torso—and called the serving girl. “A packet of Gitanes, mademoiselle. Without filters.”
“What on earth would make Freddy want to do a thing like that? Didn’t he realize the effect? For heaven’s sake, he’s the child’s uncle. Does he hate Fabrice? Tell me, Jean Michel. Why?”
“Of course he loves Fabrice.”
“Why terrify me?”
“I didn’t know you believed in voodoo.”
The girl brought a packet of cigarettes and a book of matches.
“Why did Freddy do that? Why the threat?”
“Perhaps he doesn’t like you.”
“Of course he does. Freddy’s always been nice to me. Always so willing to help. You know I like Odile—I went to the funeral with her. I like Freddy. He helped us with the flat.”
“It’s what you represent that he hates.”
“That entitles him to scare me to death?”
Jean Michel tried to smile. “Freddy only confessed yesterday—and I nearly struck him.”
“You should have killed him.”
“He’s my brother.”
“I’m your wife.”
Jean Michel shrugged.
“He wants you to let the matter drop.”
“The matter?” She lowered her voice. “You mean the killing of Raymond Calais? What on earth for? What does he care about Raymond Calais?”
Jean Michel opened the packet of Gitanes and took a cigarette. “Do you want some more coffee?”
“Why does your brother want me to drop the enquiries?”
“As long as there is a doubt about Calais’ death, people’s attention will be attracted toward the movement for independence—and toward the idea of an independent Guadeloupe.”
“That’s foolish.”
“Calais’s death, foolish or not, was publicity for the MANG.”
“You belong?”
No answer.
“You belong, don’t you? You look for a job with Le Domien, but all along you’re with the MANG.”
He shook his head slowly. “There never was any job with the Le Domien in Basse-Terre.”
She smiled coldly. “I know.”
“You know?”
“On Monday, I was in Basse-Terre. I could have gone along to the offices of the Le Domien. I could have made enquiries. You were supposed to be having your famous interview. But I didn’t go—because I knew you wouldn’t be there. So I bought a pair of shoes and a handbag instead.”
“How did you know?”
“I’m a woman—I know when you’re lying. You’re like a little boy, Jean Michel, and I didn’t need to know why you were lying. You’ve always lied to me. Just as you lied to me in Paris all those years ago about the girl with the headscarf. Just as you lied to me about the princess from the Cameroon.”
He lit a cigarette and smoked in silence.
Jean Michel used to have an old Panhard coupé. In the afternoons, the roof was always down, despite the chill spring weather of Paris, and the back seat was packed tight with grinning friends from the islands. Invariably sitting beside Jean Michel was a girl, with a skin of alabaster and a scarf round her head like the actress Pascale Petit.
Anne Marie drank her coffee.
Later the girl brought a fresh pot and another plate of croissants.
“Guadeloupe’s a police state. That’s what you can’t understand, Anne Marie. Nazi Germany or Brezhnev’s Russia or Iran—the same thing, only more subtle, more sophisticated. Controlled by a colonial power that owns the radio and television and the only newspaper.” He added, “It was Freddy’s idea.”
“You’re beginning to bore me.”
“The only debate left open to us is violence. Violence and frustrated graffiti on the walls.” He stubbed out the cigarette. “What alternative do we have?”
“You’ve never grown up, Jean Michel.”
“Can’t you see what France has done to Guadeloupe? Or perhaps you don’t care?”
“France is a democracy. There’s no need for bombs and bullets.”
“You call this a democracy?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Giscard and his local flunkies make quite sure we remain well-behaved. They give us cars and supermarkets. They give us a civil service. But do they give us our dignity?”
Anne Marie said nothing.
“We’re not slaves anymore, and we ask for more than just the flimsy tinsel of the big French consumer society. We want dignity—and our right to self-determination.”
“With bombs?”
“What else when we’re not allowed to speak freely?”
Anne Marie turned away and looked through the trees. Fabrice was back on the beach and somehow he had persuaded the girl in the bikini—she did look a bit like Pascale Petit—to play with him. He was laughing, pleased to have an adult taking notice of him.
“If I had wanted to watch TV,” Jean Michel had remarked when Anne Marie suggested they sat down among the children in front of the public television, “I could have stayed in Paris.” He spent a lot of time phoning his mother from the hotel.
Toward the end of the second week, they decided to cut their stay short. They took the boat back to Trois-Rivières.
For the last five days of their honeymoon, they had stayed with Jean Michel’s mother in the rue Alsace-Lorraine.
It had rained almost every day.
“You impose French laws,” Jean Michel was saying.
“Me?”
“You, the French, you impose laws that have nothing to do with us, you ruin our economy with your bloated salaries.” He laughed. “And like everyone else, you’re manipulated by the Békés.” He lit another cigarette, and his wife saw that his hand trembled. “Guadeloupe needs France—and Giscard needs the Békés. And now with the elections coming up next year, Giscard’s got to be sure that the overseas départements—including Guadeloupe—vote for him. So France keeps the money pumping in, and everybody’s happy.”
“You had better hope he’s defeated next May.”
“Bread and circuses for the simple-minded West Indians—that’ll keep them quiet.” Jean Michel clicked his tongue. “You don’t care about Guadeloupe, do you?”
“Jean Michel, I don’t care about you—it’s as simple as that. But I care about my son—and I care about his future.”
“A future with France?” He laughed again and smoke escaped from his nostrils. “You forget that he’s black like his father.”
“The color of my child’s skin is not an issue.”
“Unemployment—that’s all he can hope for—like all the young people of Guadeloupe. Unemployment while the Békés and the whites like you grow rich.”
“You’re lecturing me on the evils of colonialism, Jean Michel?” Anne Marie sighed noisily. “Unlike you, I was thrown out of my native land.”