Sunday, March 31, 2013, 9:31 A.M.
Papa, when will we go back?”
Papa is sitting on the beach. He answers without looking at me.
“Soon, Sopha. Soon.”
I hope so.
I don’t like the lagoon very much. There’s hardly any water. It’s like a small swimming pool but full of horrid stuff. Dirty stuff. Stuff that’s sharp and cuts you. I have to put on my plastic sandals to go into the water, and the sandals make my feet go red.
Papa and Maman say it’s better than the pool. They say if I look carefully, if I’m patient, I’ll see lots of different colored fish. So yes, I’ve seen the fish, I’m not stupid. Little ones. Black and white. But they swim right next to the coral. Maman says the coral is beautiful, but it’s really just some rock in the water, rock that hurts my feet and that the fish use as a hiding place. Whenever I use my armbands to float, I feel as if the coral’s going to scrape the skin off my knees.
The lagoon is just a swimming pool that’s dangerous, where all you can do is walk.
And even just walking, you have to be careful. Because there’s seaweed at the bottom of the water too. When you get near it, you might think it’s just a fish rubbing against your ankles, but it’s not. It’s like a sticky sort of lettuce that licks at you so it can stick its suckers on you. There are even some huge hairy slugs at the bottom of the lagoon. Disgusting! Maman says they’re harmless, they’re just sea cucumbers, and we call them that because Chinese people eat them. Imagine eating slugs! I’d be surprised if that was true, especially here, when all the shops have been bought by the Chinese, even the restaurants. Maman sometimes says the weirdest things. Like when Papa and Maman say I’m never happy, but they never come swimming.
“Papa, can we go back now?”
“Soon. Don’t go too far, Sopha.”
Papa is lying on the beach under the tree that has big roots like snakes. He never listens to what I say. I bet he wouldn’t even notice if I took off my armbands. He always tells me to pay attention, but he never pays any attention to me.
Look, I’m making a face at him, just to see, just to check he’s not looking at me. He always does that, Papa—he looks up at me, asks me if I’m all right, if I’m not too hot or too cold, don’t go far away—and then, straight afterwards, he goes off with all his sad thoughts, looking to the side, as if there was someone else in the water. Not me, but an invisible child. Once, he even got my name wrong.
He called me Alex.
Like he was talking to a ghost that only he could see.
He’s weird sometimes, Papa.
Especially since Maman left.
Anyway, one thing’s for sure: I prefer the swimming pool. The water is warmer. Bluer too. It’s not as big, that’s true. I look out to sea, as far as I can. If I was brave enough, I’d keep going on, out to where the sea is deeper and the coral doesn’t scrape your legs. Just to see if Papa noticed. Further out, the water is all broken up like it’s hitting a window. The noise is a bit scary. It’s the coral reef, Maman told me. The reef is a wall under the water that protects us. She said there are sharks on the other side.
“Papa, can we go back to the pool?”
I’m used to this by now. I have to say it at least three times, louder and louder, before he hears me.
9:33 A.M.
Martial does not hear. He stares out at the lagoon. Empty.
He has to do something, react; most importantly, he must not contradict himself. He has to respond coherently to the police’s questions. He must work out a strategy and stick to it. And stay on his guard. He has no choice now. Things are speeding up. How much time does he have? A few hours, if that? He must remain focused.
And yet his thoughts escape him. His vision blurs. The lagoon is the same, except there are fewer houses around it. No pedalos to rent, no ice creams for sale. Just the casuarina trees watching over the beach. The sun is setting too. A few beach toys abandoned here and there. A red bucket.
A yellow spade.
A little figure in the water. A boy of six.
Alone.
“Papaaaa! I’m bored! Can we go back to the pool now?”
Martial resurfaces.
“Yes, Sopha. The pool? But we’ve just got h . . .”
He decides to let it go.
“All right, sweetheart, let’s go back to the hotel.”
The girl comes out of the water, takes off her armbands and plastic sandals.
“When is Maman coming back?”
“Soon, Sopha. Soon.”