Another Sun

by Timothy Williams

  “Madame, I’m no more qualified than you.”

  “Gurion’s your problem, not mine. You’re responsible to the Cour de Sûreté de l’Etat.”

  They were sitting only a few meters from the hotel beach. His eyes caught the sunlight reflected off the surface of the sea. “You believe it was a political kidnapping?”

  “Of course,” Anne Marie replied.

  “And Calais?”

  “The Calais murder’s not the same thing.”

  She turned to look at Trousseau.

  Trousseau had not wanted to come to the hotel—unlike Anne Marie, he had known that it was little more than a couple of hundred meters from the forlorn beach and its lunar landscape—but she had managed to persuade him, and he was now sitting at the same table. He did not seem to be following their conversation.

  The typewriter case was on the seat beside him, and Trousseau sat upright, his hands crossed on the blue tablecloth. He glanced at Anne Marie, but the dark, intelligent eyes said nothing. He ran his finger along the narrow line of his moustache.

  Azaïs said, “Very good breakfast.”

  “Next time, I’d like to be invited well in advance.” Anne Marie drank the bitter coffee.

  “You mustn’t blame me, madame le juge,” Azaïs said. “I didn’t kidnap Gurion.”

  “You had me brought here.”

  “Really, madame, now that you’re here, you might as well enjoy the food.”

  “I worry about my son.” She paused before adding, “A threat has been made against his life—a Voodoo threat. A coffin left on the doorstep.”

  Azaïs put his head back and laughed. In that moment, Anne Marie felt that she could happily have sunk her nails into his Uncle Tom neck. “Voodoo, madame le juge—but that’s for these people. You really give credence to the vestiges of animist cults from Africa?”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to my son.”

  “You don’t believe.…”

  “You still haven’t told me what the old man has been arrested for.”

  Azaïs did not reply. He pushed his glass of fruit juice aside and started slicing a watermelon. “We’re not getting on very well, are we?”

  Anne Marie gave him a cold smile. “Why are you having the old man arrested?”

  “Who?”

  “The old man with the Peugeot truck and the little boy.”

  “High time the local police and the gendarmerie did something about those thieves.”

  Trousseau was looking at the tourists who took their food from the buffet tables. Tourists in beachwear, white legs and blue veins.

  “You saw the holes in the sand—you saw what a state the beach is in. There’s just no more sand. These people come down at night, and they steal all the sand. And in this benighted country, nobody cares. All the gendarmes care about is their overseas bonus—and not getting their throats cut with a machete.” He shrugged. “The people here are destroying their island, pillaging it—and if they go on taking the sand with impunity, there’ll be no more beaches.”

  Trousseau turned. “The beaches are no worse than after a hurricane.” He looked at neither Anne Marie nor Azaïs.

  “They take the sand for cement. They steal it in the night—and then make a fat profit.” Azaïs took a second slice of watermelon. “The man’s going to jail—and he thought he was doing his duty. He was down on the beach at half past three with his son. Too dark to see much—but they heard a noise. Most people, I imagine, would’ve run off—an evil spirit, a zombie.” He glanced at Trousseau, then gave Anne Marie a lopsided smile. “This old fellow had a flashlight, and he went to have a look. He found the trunk just as Gurion was breaking his way out. Instead of running away, he helped Gurion.”

  “He deserves better treatment for saving a man’s life.”

  “He ought to have moved his truck before sending the boy to alert the gendarmerie.” Again a patronizing smile. “We’ll let him off with a caution. Not that it’ll do much good. Until the mayors and the police decide to get together, people will go on destroying the beaches. More coffee?”

  She shook her head and stood up. “Excuse me, I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Anne Marie pushed her way through the crowd at the buffet tables and went to the hotel desk. The telephone operator had returned. Anne Marie gave her the number and was sent to the wall telephone.

  Anne Marie picked up the receiver and heard the distant ringing. She let the telephone ring seventeen times.

  Rubbing her hand, she returned to the table. “Nobody’s at home,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to Pointe-à-Pitre.”

  “I’ll drive you in.” Trousseau picked up the case.

  “There is one other thing, Monsieur Azaïs,” Anne Marie said.

  He smiled blandly. “Yes?”

  “The police didn’t know Gurion was missing—and there was no reason for the local gendarmes to contact you.” She ran her hand through her hair. “What brought you here so early in the morning?”

  Azaïs did not reply.

  “Bright, awake, well-shaved, well-dressed and cheerful?”

  He shrugged.

  “You knew, didn’t you?”

  “Knew?”

  “You were expecting Gurion to turn up. And that was why I was woken up. Isn’t that the reason?”

  Azaïs said nothing. He poured himself a cup of coffee. He added sugar and then said, “There are a lot of things we know at Renseignements.”

  “Really, Monsieur Azaïs?”

  His voice had lost its bonhomie. “Things that may be able to help you.”

  “Really?”

  “You’re still in charge of the Calais dossier, after all. Nominally, at least.”

  Anne Marie controlled her voice. “What kind of things that could help me?”

  “The fact that Marcel Suez-Panama is Hégésippe Bray’s son.”

  55

  School

  The courtyard was empty and the asphalt baking beneath the harsh sunlight. The only shade was under a kapok tree. From the open classrooms came the reassuring sound of children at work.

  The school offices were on the ground floor in an edifice facing the main building.

  “Is my son here?”

  The girl turned in surprise to face Anne Marie. She had been painting her nails. In one hand she held the thin brush. Behind her, the open doorway gave onto a small courtyard. “I can’t help you.”

  At the far end of the courtyard, there was a low wall. Beyond it, the port where a navy mine-sweeper was moored alongside the main jetty.

  “I must know where my son is. I’ve phoned home—but nobody is answering.”

  “Madame, I haven’t got the class registers yet.”

  “Get them.”

  The girl raised her shoulders, screwed the brush back into the bottle of varnish.

  “And please hurry up.”

  She stood up. She was dressed in a white blouse and trousers. She was pretty, of mixed blood. “I’ll get the surveillant.” She stepped out into the sunshine of the playground.

  Anne Marie scratched her hand and tried to control the beat of her heart. She regretted having drunk the coffee at the hotel. Acidity now rose in her throat. She approached the desk.

  There was an open register. She looked down the names that had been written with a ballpoint pen. There was no Laveaud.

  In one of the classrooms, the children were singing, Nous n’irons plus au bois.

  “Can I help you, madame?”

  Anne Marie had never seen the surveillant général before and had assumed he was an older man. His eyes went from Anne Marie to the register. He was younger than Anne Marie and was wearing wire-framed sunglasses that he now pushed up onto his forehead.

  “My son—Fabrice Laveaud in CE2.”

  “Yes?” Hurriedly he shook her hand.

  “I need to know if he’s in school today.”

  The surveillant pulled a chair for Anne Marie to sit down. His smile was friendly. He had an
olive complexion. “I’m afraid it won’t be before nine o’clock that I’ll get all the registers in.”

  The surveillant moved round to the far side of the desk. Behind him, through the open doors, the ship was flying a flag that was not French. Men in dungarees moved along the deck. “But of course, I can phone.” He picked up the receiver of a large telephone. “What class did you say, Madame Laveaud?”

  “Cours élémentaire deux.”

  He nodded and dialed a number.

  Anne Marie heard the click.

  “Monsieur Galli? The surveillant général’s office here. It’s about the pupil Laveaud.” He nodded and lifted his eyes to look at Anne Marie.

  She heard the voice on the far end of the line.

  “I see.”

  The surveillant put the telephone down.

  “Well?”

  “I am sorry, madame,” the surveillant général said softly. “Your son’s not come into school today.”

  56

  Mother in law

  She could almost ignore the bright sunlight, the sweat that ran from her temples, that coursed down her back. She could almost ignore the painful itching and the bitter taste of coffee and acid in her mouth.

  Anne Marie stepped into the road and would probably have been run over if the young soldier driving a coach—Transport d’enfants stenciled on the sides—had not braked sharply. He looked at Anne Marie in amazement from behind the high windscreen and shook his head, tapping his temple with a finger.

  Anne Marie did not even look at him. She hurried across Place de la Victoire. The shade from the sandbox trees was of no help.

  Beads of sweat trickled down her face. A couple of women cleaners, dwarfed beneath their straw hats, watched her. They wore rubber boots and leaned on their brooms. One said something, and the other threw back her head to laugh. She covered her mouth with a plump hand.

  “Fabrice,” Anne Marie murmured under her breath, and the traffic seemed to draw apart as she crossed over the road and walked along the rue Alsace-Lorraine. She reached number 31, rang the bell, pushed open the heavy iron door. It moved reluctantly, scraping the bolt across the floor. Anne Marie went up the stairs. Sweating but a cold chill in her back. She called out, “Mamie.”

  The sound of her shoes echoed hollowly against the empty walls.

  There were still breakfast things on the table. A coffee pot and the remains of toasted bread. Flies danced along the edge of the open jam jar.

  “Mamie!”

  Her mother-in-law held a woman’s magazine and was wearing reading glasses.

  “I can’t find Fabrice.”

  Mamie had put her bare feet up on the edge of a stool. There was a look of surprise on her face.

  “I can’t find Fabrice. He should be at school. I’ve just been there, and I’ve seen the surveillant. Fabrice’s not at school. I had to get up early this morning. I phoned home. There’s nobody there—not even Béatrice. I don’t know where Fabrice is.” She took hold of Mamie’s hand. “He should be at school. I’d’ve taken him myself, but I had to go to Gosier. He should be at school—I don’t understand. Mamie, I don’t understand.”

  “Fabrice’s with his papa.”

  Anne Marie stood with her mouth open.

  “Don’t you ever listen to what your husband says? Fabrice’s gone with his papa. He told you—last Wednesday he couldn’t take the boy to the beach with you. So today he decided to let Fabrice take the day off from school. They’ve gone to the beach.”

  “He didn’t tell me anything. He didn’t tell me.…” Anne Marie stopped.

  It did not matter.

  “My Fabrice,” she said. She put her arms around Mamie’s neck and cried with relief.

  57

  St.-Laurent-du-Maroni

  “Family name?”

  “Suez-Panama.”

  “First name?”

  “Marcel Hégésippe.”

  “Place of birth?”

  “Le Havre, Seine-Inférieure—now Seine-Maritime.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “June 16, 1940.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Your father’s name?”

  “Suez-Panama, Amédée Marcel, born July 14, 1916, at Chazeau, Les Abymes.”

  “Profession?”

  “Whose profession? Mine—or my father’s?”

  “Your father.”

  “Papa didn’t work.”

  Trousseau sat behind the office Japy, rapidly typing the replies.

  “Papa was a cripple.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Suez-Panama, Mionette, née Pendépisse.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “January 6, 1909, Sainte Marthe estate, Sainte-Anne.”

  “Your father was Hégésippe Bray.”

  “What?”

  “Your real father was Hégésippe Bray.”

  “May I have a glass of water?”

  Anne Marie went to the small sink. She let the water run over her hands before filling the glass and handing it to Suez-Panama. He drank thirstily.

  “Was Hégésippe Bray your father?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Kindly answer the question. Was Bray your father?”

  Suez-Panama did not reply.

  She opened the folder—the green folder that Azaïs had given to Trousseau. She read aloud, “Madame Suez-Panama approached the services of État Civil at the préfecture of the Département de la Seine–Maritime, formerly Seine-Inférieure, in the month of September, 1946. She requested that a new birth certificate should be made out in the name of Suez-Panama, Marcel, born June 16, 1940.”

  “That’s right.”

  Anne Marie looked up. “This was not a particularly strange request. As a result of the war, the Allied invasion and the heavy bombing in most of Normandy, many of the administrative archives were destroyed. Not only in Normandy, either.” She returned to the dossier.

  “In accordance with the Article 902 of the Code Civil, a new certificate was made out and a fiscal duty of four francs was paid by the demander.”

  She folded her arms. “Monsieur Suez-Panama, you were not born in Le Havre, but in Guadeloupe.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “The truth. Truth that can even now be corroborated by several people. Including your adoptive mother.”

  “Be careful what you say.”

  “Madame Suez-Panama was headmistress at the primary school in Pointe-Noire—a good job—a civil servant with a house and enough money to have a maid. She lived within the school free of rent. Doesn’t it seem strange she should give up all this in the middle of the year to go and live in France? In a France that was at war …? Her departure was all the more surprising as it was quite unexpected.”

  “She wanted to be with Papa. He’d been called back into the navy.”

  “With the navy, he would have been away at sea. No need to have his wife follow him halfway across the world.”

  He shrugged. “Maman always wanted to get away from Pointe-Noire—to get away from Guadeloupe.”

  “She returned at the end of the war.”

  “You don’t know how envious people can be here. They were envious of Maman because she had a good job, because she was a teacher. They cast spells. She would find sacrifices—blood sacrifices. Or crabs hung up outside her door.”

  “A coincidence Madame Suez-Panama left not more than two weeks before the discovery of the charred remains of Eloise Deschamps—and left when she—your mother—was well into her seventh month of pregnancy?”

  “You’re accusing my mother of murder?”

  “The timing’s very strange.”

  “A coincidence.”

  “A coincidence you have no real birth certificate? Isn’t it strange your father should have had only one child?”

  “My father was a sick man.”

  “Your father was Hégésippe Bray.”

 
“No.”

  “You’ve always suspected it—the way your mother spoke about her half brother. I don’t suppose she told you everything—she had her own guilt to hide—but children have a way of finding these things out.”

  “What you say is quite false.”

  “You suspected something, and in the end, you decided to look up the archives of La Coloniale in Basse-Terre.”

  “You know that, too?”

  “Never underestimate a woman, Monsieur Suez-Panama.”

  “I was never very close to Papa.”

  “He wasn’t your real father.”

  “Maman worshipped Hégésippe. He was everything to her. Husband and father.”

  “But she took his son away to France.”

  He shrugged.

  “Why did Madame Suez-Panama take you away?”

  He hesitated before replying. “Because she must have thought my real mother was a witch.”

  “La Coloniale states Eloise Deschamps disappeared before her death. And Hégésippe Bray thought she was pregnant. She must have given the baby—you—to Madame Suez-Panama.”

  After a long silence, the man raised his shoulders. “Perhaps.”

  58

  Point-Blank

  “So she took you to France. And Hégésippe Bray never knew his son.”

  Trousseau paused in his typing.

  “Hégésippe deserved better than that,” Suez-Panama said.

  There was satisfaction in Anne Marie’s voice. “You felt responsible for him?”

  “I wanted him back from French Guyana.”

  “When he returned, you felt he deserved better than a hut on the edge of the Sainte Marthe estate?”

  “Calais said he would give the land back.”

  “But he’d taken it. For all the years that Hégésippe Bray—your father—was in French Guyana.”

  Suez-Panama said nothing.

  “You wanted to punish Calais.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you met Calais down by the rain pond, it was your chance.”

  “No.”

  “Hégésippe Bray had lent you his gun. Perhaps you didn’t intend to kill Calais. But you did—at point-blank range.”

  His eyes had begun to water.

  “Calais had taken your father’s land—and by pulling the trigger, you could expiate all the guilt. Your guilt and the guilt you felt for your mother—for your adoptive mother.”