The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe

by Timothy Williams

  “You did know him, didn’t you?”

  “Knowing someone doesn’t make me his mistress.” She breathed on the cigarette. “Where do you get your information?”

  “Monsieur Dugain didn’t kill himself just because he’d been embezzling. I want to know why he died during a visit from the police judiciaire.” Anne Marie sneezed.

  “Take some vitamin C if you’ve got a cold coming on.” There were small wrinkles at the corner of her mouth. Late forties, early fifties; her skin was not soft. Too much sun, perhaps, or too many cigarettes and too much work.

  “I was hoping you could help me.” Anne Marie sneezed again. “Yours, his or anybody’s private life is of little interest to me personally.”

  “You surprise me.” Madame Théodore leaned against the desk with her arms folded in front of her. A few flakes of ash had fallen onto the blue serge of her slacks.

  “I’m not very curious.”

  “First time I’ve heard of an investigating judge not being curious.”

  “You talk to many judges?”

  A mocking curve at the corner of her lips. “What on earth makes you think Dugain and I were lovers?”

  “I have a certain idea of justice.”

  “Of course.”

  (Once, Anne Marie had seen a young Arab—fourteen or fifteen years old—in the middle of Boulevard Foch. The boy had unfurled a French flag that he had smeared with excrement. Then, relying on the protection of his young age, he had set fire to the cloth of the flag, which, imbibed with petrol, was soon burning like a torch.

  On a nearby balcony, a Frenchman had taken a rifle and had shot the boy through the head. Anne Marie could recall the sound of the man’s laughter. She could remember the headless child lying on the surface of the road.)

  “I grew up in Algeria—my family left Oran in 1958, when I was still an adolescent. What I saw there made me decide on a career in law.”

  “Noble feelings.” The blush had disappeared and a cloud of smoke masked the eyes. “That’s why you ask me who I go to bed with? I fail to see the connection.”

  “I wish to save you any embarrassment.” A smile. “You must know there’s a rumor about Dugain’s death.”

  “I gave up paying attention to rumors a long, long time ago.”

  “A rumor the police judiciaire were responsible.”

  Madame Théodore shrugged. “The papers say Rodolphe committed suicide.”

  “You knew Rodolphe?”

  “Not in the way that you think.”

  Again Anne Marie sneezed.

  “Who didn’t know Rodolphe Dugain, madame le juge?”

  Despite the air conditioning, Anne Marie now felt hot. She ran a hand across her forehead. There was a tickling in her nose.

  “Some coffee?” Madame Théodore’s features were still taut but the corner of her mouth softened, turned upwards in a smile. “You need a towel for those wet feet of yours.” She moved away from the desk and went to the door. She put up the closed sign. “I might just have some vitamin tablets. And …”

  “Yes.”

  “Never buy cheap shoes, not even in South America. It’s a false economy.”

  18

  Divorce

  “I have children. Two very lovely little boys. And I left them.” She held the coffee mug between her hands. “No doubt I should’ve felt guilty. Everybody wanted me to feel guilty yet I didn’t feel anything. Not at the time.” She took a sip. “I had no choice.”

  “After how many years, Madame Théodore?”

  “The comedy had being going on far too long.”

  “You still see them?”

  “I swear that at the time I didn’t feel any guilt.” Madame Théodore paused, glanced at her hands, at the steaming coffee. “What’s done is done. There’s no new deal—not for a mother.”

  Anne Marie repeated the question, “You see your boys?”

  “The little one’s suffered and Jérôme is still not ready to forgive me.”

  “One morning you walked out?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Madame Théodore laughed to herself. “If walking out can take three years. For three years I had this thing buzzing round my head and in the end, I knew it was either divorce or madness. I had to protect myself.” She shrugged. “Don’t try to understand—because you can’t.”

  “He had other women?”

  “I don’t need sympathy. I made my decision and I must live with it. Divorce or madness—or perhaps both.” A smoker’s laugh.

  “Why did you leave your husband, Madame Théodore?”

  “You need to know? That part of your job?”

  “Since you’re talking about it …”

  “All part of your not being curious?” She looked defiantly at Anne Marie.

  “You’re not the only person who wants to do the right thing—and spends the rest of her time being plagued with remorse that only pretends to go away but’s always there, every night, lurking beneath the pillow.”

  The sound of footfalls outside along the covered walkway, beyond the beige window shades. Passersby.

  “Some things you cannot admit even to yourself.” Madame Théodore opened the lid of the packet that lay on the desk, and took another cigarette. She used a matchbook advertising CONTINENTAL COURIERS INC. The flame of the match danced at the end of the new cigarette.

  “Another woman?”

  “My ex-husband didn’t need women. If he did, perhaps I wouldn’t’ve felt the need to escape.”

  “Why did you?”

  “Escape from perfection.” She lit the cigarette. “He even washed the dishes, you know.”

  “That’s when you got involved with Dugain?”

  “Axel was perfect and he didn’t want fighting in front of his children. Not ours—his children. Ever the intellectual, he was determined to understand me. When what I most needed was his anger. Perhaps what I needed was violence. Anger’s a form of love, but instead Axel tried to understand. So cool, so detached, so wonderfully reasonable and he tried to analyze.”

  “You left your husband for Dugain?”

  “I thought I made myself clear.”

  “There was an affair?”

  “I’d love to know who told you I was his mistress.”

  Anne Marie shrugged.

  “This is a small island—and nothing goes unnoticed. A couple of times Rodolphe Dugain and I went to a restaurant together. He was married and so I could never be his mistress. There was never anything like that between us. Even if, like all the men here, he wanted to think he was irresistible to white women.”

  “Your husband’s white?”

  She nodded. “White—despite his skin. White, French and perfect. A marvelous, wonderful husband. That’s why I liked Dugain. He had his faults and perhaps I should have hated him. In many ways I did hate him.” She paused, breathed heavily on the cigarette. “But in his own way, Dugain was all right.” Again she made her rasping laughter. “You can understand that, can’t you? There was nothing about him that could’ve interested me.”

  “Position and wealth? Power?”

  “I wasn’t running away from one nightmare to get involved with another—from one father figure to another. At least Dugain was human. Egotistical, dishonest, an eye for the main chance—but human. With him, I never felt I had to be perfect.”

  “Your husband’s older than you?”

  She held Anne Marie’s glance. “He was born old.”

  “How did you meet Dugain?”

  “It doesn’t matter—suffice it to say that in his way he was nice to me. In his way.”

  “In what way?”

  “You’re no longer sneezing. I told you the vitamins were effective.”

  “In what way did Dugain help you?” Anne Marie put the mug of coffee—weak and instant—down on the cluttered desk.

  “He had friends—and I needed a place to be by myself and to do a lot of thinking. The kind of thinking I’d never had the time to do in thirteen years of marriag
e.”

  “A long time, thirteen years.”

  “You’re telling me?” The laugh in her throat caused the silk scarf to bob. “I married late—at thirty. I thought I wanted children.”

  “And Dugain?”

  “Through a friend of his, Rodolphe Dugain got me a little apartment in Gosier as well as this job. It was the job—the responsibility, the right to be in charge—that really saved me from going mad. Or perhaps just the fact of getting out of the house. I was never meant to be a hausfrau.” She added, “I grew up among boys—three older brothers.”

  “You saw Dugain often?”

  “From time to time he would come and see me.”

  “You played Monopoly?”

  She glanced briefly at Anne Marie and the knowing, worn face softened. “I’ve no illusions about men, West Indian or European, here or anywhere else.”

  “Spoiled and selfish?”

  “They give little and they always want something in return.”

  “That’s what they say about us.”

  “My ex-husband—his love of me, his love of the children is selfishness—a very subtle, very cruel form of selfishness, despite the exterior of perfection.”

  “What did Dugain want from you?”

  “Not Monopoly.” Madame Théodore breathed on the cigarette; the tip glowed. “No bed, no sex. He wasn’t getting it. He knew he never would and so he never asked.” She inhaled. “Perhaps that’s why we became friends. He needed to be admired by intelligent women, and without quite knowing why, I got to like him, I got to know his faults …”

  “A womanizer?”

  “He liked to think so.” Madame Théodore shrugged. Smoke danced in her eyes, causing them to water. “Rodolphe did something my husband never learned to do. Rodolphe listened to me.” She brushed at her watering eye, caught in the cigarette smoke. “Unlike my husband, Rodolphe Dugain was not perfect. Far from it and, believe me, I found that very, very reassuring.”

  19

  Hospital

  “Bouton makes my flesh creep.”

  The sensation of heaviness in her belly had grown. She should never have eaten the octopus and now Madame Théodore’s coffee had only made things worse. Anne Marie felt angry and unhappy. She also felt helpless. Her feet were wet and she had started sneezing again. So much for the vitamins.

  The tang of ascorbic acid lingered at the edges of her tongue.

  Lafitte did not reply. He parked the car at the back of the hospital, near the concrete tonsure of the helicopter pad. It was late afternoon; to the west, the last streaks of color were being drained from the overcast sky. The rain had stopped but puddles in the tarmac threw back the reflection of the hospital lights.

  “Bouton must be a zombie.”

  “He does a good job, madame le juge. You know that. Given the woefully small sum he’s paid for each autopsy, you should be pleased he’s a zombie. Only two qualified pathologists in the département and the other doctor refuses to do anything for the parquet.”

  “A zombie.”

  “A motivated zombie.”

  Anne Marie glanced at Lafitte and silently wished Trousseau were with her. Trousseau never pretended to be reasonable.

  The damp tarmac was carpeted with flame tree blossom.

  They stepped through the sliding doors of the main entrance, to be met by the cold, antiseptic smell of the building. One or two patients shuffled aimlessly about the foyer. They all wore identical tartan slippers.

  Anne Marie followed Lafitte down the two flights of stairs into the basement. Her shoes were silent on the rubber floor. She had difficulty keeping up with her companion.

  “It’ll soon be over, madame le juge,” Lafitte said and grinned over his shoulder.

  They came to the hospital morgue.

  The grey door was not closed. Lafitte waited for her. Anne Marie brushed past him, not bothering to knock.

  “Ah, madame le juge.” Dr. Bouton stood up as she entered the room. Light twinkled in the steel frames of his round glasses. He held out his hand, which Anne Marie shook with neither enthusiasm nor warmth.

  It was a small, windowless laboratory. Most of the floor space was taken up by two tables made of dull, glinting steel, each with a perforated surface. At the end of each table was a sink. Above each table hung a stainless basin attached to a weighing scale.

  Anne Marie could feel her belly lurching.

  Overhead, the banks of neon gave off a shadowless light. Dr. Bouton had not yet switched on the long-armed directional lamp that was set directly above the steel tables.

  “You have news for me?”

  Bouton smelled of ammonia and coffee. He smiled a thin smile. “How’s the little girl?”

  “Little girl, Docteur Bouton?”

  “Your daughter.”

  Anne Marie had difficulty in repressing a sneeze. “Létitia’s doing very well. The procureur informed me he’d like me to be present for the autopsy.”

  “Létitia—such a pretty name. And what a lovely child.”

  “I’m ready when you are, Docteur Bouton.”

  “There’s no rush.” He picked up his paper cup from where he had placed it on the table.

  “The sooner …”

  “Please sit down, madame le juge.” He gestured to two hard chairs placed against the walls of glazed tiling. “Like some coffee? Or perhaps something a bit stronger? You look as if you’ve got a cold coming on.”

  “I’ve been drinking coffee all afternoon.” Anne Marie glanced at her watch. “It is nearly half past five …”

  “Some vitamin C, perhaps? Or if you care for it”—he winked—“I have some firewater in my drawer. For medicinal purposes, you understand.”

  Anne Marie asked brusquely, “What have you been able to find out about the girl so far?”

  “Once upon a time, Mother Mortis had four daughters—Algor, Livor, Pallor and Rigor.” Bouton opened the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet and took out an opaque bottle. It was half-full.

  “Neither Monsieur Lafitte nor I are thirsty,” Anne Marie said.

  He held up a finger. “To calm your nerves.”

  “Tell me what you’ve found out about the nurse.”

  “Monsieur Lafitte, a little something to keep the demons away?”

  Lafitte eagerly took the paper cup Dr. Bouton gave him.

  “Evelyne Vaton?” He pronounced the name as if testing it for poetic resonance.

  “Precisely.”

  “Algor mortis, livor mortis, pallor mortis and rigor mortis,” he repeated. He turned and pulled a wooden stool toward him. He was wearing loose corduroy trousers. Because of the chill air, he also wore a cardigan with a heraldic badge at the breast pocket. His lab coat and cap hung from a hook on the back of the door. Dr. Bouton had a thin face. His skin was waxy and was pulled tight across the bones of his skull.

  “You now have established time of death?”

  “You will recall that I was not called to the scene of the crime.” He sounded slightly peeved. “I have Malavoy’s report to go on and as usual, Docteur Malavoy’s done a professional job.” He looked up, but not at Anne Marie. “At the scene of the crime, the medical examiner found no foreign bodies other than sand and insects on the corpse. Everything washed away by the rain and several days’ exposure to the elements. A very professional job in all senses.”

  “Professional?” Following the doctor’s glance, Anne Marie turned. She had not seen the other man who was sitting quietly in the corner of the room, on a low wooden stool, like a child who had been reprimanded. A West Indian in his early sixties, with a bald head. He was wearing a suit and staring at the ground. Anne Marie had met Dr. Malavoy on several occasions; on each, he had struck her as excessively shy.

  Dr. Bouton was saying, “Anal or vaginal reading of body temperature is subtracted from the normal body heat of thirty-seven degrees centigrade. You then divide that by one point five and you get a rough idea of the number of hours the person’s been dead. Obviously dedu
cing the time of death through algor mortis is rough and ready—and there are variables. Here in the tropics, a body will cool more slowly than in Europe or North America. On the other hand, the body was exposed on an open beach, with a cool easterly breeze. Also there are differences due to body size. Docteur Malavoy put the time of death at somewhere between eleven o’clock on Sunday night and one in the morning. This would be reasonable. I got back from France last night and didn’t get to see the girl until this morning.” He gestured with his thumb toward the grey metal door in the far wall, and beyond it to the morgue. “My colleague was not available.”

  “Why not?”

  Dr. Bouton shrugged. “Very strange when you recall time is of the essence in an autopsy. This will be mentioned in my report, you understand. More than three and a half days have elapsed since the presumed time of death. Absolutely imperative a body should be examined with speed. When a body dies, some cells live on. It’s their chemical activity that causes a stiffening of the muscles. By now …” He clicked his tongue in irritation. “By now there can be no sign of rigor mortis.”

  Anne Marie nodded.

  “I’d go along with Docteur Malavoy.”

  Malavoy had got up from his stool and approached the others in silence. He said nothing and did not offer to shake hands. He was wearing a black bowtie.

  “Between eleven Sunday night and one in the morning of Monday?”

  Dr. Bouton smiled magnanimously. “Give or take twelve hours.”

  “And livor mortis?”

  “Always in a hurry, madame le juge.” There was irritation in his urbane voice. He stood up and went to the wall-phone. “Bring me number two, Léopold. I’ll be starting the autopsy in five minutes.” As he placed the receiver back in its cradle, he said over his shoulder, “Postmortem lividity appears to coincide with the photos I have.”

  “Which means?”

  “The body, once it was abandoned, was not moved.”

  “When was the body abandoned?”

  “At death—or soon after.”

  “And the dogs the fisherman saw pulling at the corpse?”

  Again the blank look—the clever schoolboy amazed at his teacher’s obtuseness. “I wasn’t aware of tooth bites indicating the intervention of a dog.”