Another Sun (17 page)

“Late 1940—it was at the end of the harvest. He died in the fields. He was over near L’Étang Diable. Some people say he drank the water; others say he was deliberately poisoned. Nobody here wanted to believe he died because he was a worn-out old man who’d driven himself to death. They must believe in their devils and their evil spirits. Although he was a hard man in many ways, people loved my father. Because he was just. Black, white, Indian or mulatto—it made no difference to him. Hard—but scrupulously fair.” Jacques Calais smiled at the recollection. “He pushed people, he made them work—but he also paid them a decent wage. Not like the other owners who’d never really accepted slavery was over.”

Anne Marie looked at her hand.

“Father made us get up at five o’clock, and during the harvest, when there was no school, he’d put us out to work with the cutters. He didn’t believe that because we were white we shouldn’t know the meaning of hard work. The Békés—the others’ll tell you the West Indians are all lazy, that they don’t want to work. You ever been in the fields? Have you ever cut cane?”

Anne Marie shook her head.

“It’s hell. With luck, you can work for about an hour, but then the sun comes up and there’s absolutely no shade. The sun overhead and sweat pouring down your face and into your eyes, and you can’t even see. And the handle of your machete grows slippery and it wants to jump from your hand.” He unclasped his hands—large, powerful hands—and looked at the palms. “Still have the old scars.”

The nails were clean, Anne Marie noticed, but the sides of the fingers had the ingrained traces of engine grease.

“The blades of the sugarcane cut your skin like glass. I hated it—the sun and the high cane all around. No breeze and the sweat and the insects that got in your eyes. Swish, swish.” He made a slicing motion with his right arm as though it held a long knife. “For hours on end. No, I wasn’t going back to that.”

“But you worked with your brother?”

“For six months. Without any pleasure. Raymond gave me a horse, and he expected me to ride around the fields, giving orders. The men saw me as a slave master. And Raymond complained. All my fault if the cane wasn’t getting cut fast enough. I don’t think Raymond wanted me there. He wanted me out of the way.”

“Why?”

“So that he could do what he pleased. And that suited me. Although I was very young, I could see the writing on the wall. Sugar was doomed. America was producing, Australia was producing—and they could afford to mechanize. That’s why I went to America. The future lay in mechanization.”

“When did you leave?”

“Early ’41—before America came into the war.”

“You were in Guadeloupe for Hégésippe Bray’s trial?”

He looked at her carefully. “Yes.”

“And what can you tell me about that?”

He shrugged. “Bray killed his wife. He cut her up and then he burnt her.”

“That didn’t strike you as strange?”

“Madame le juge,” Jacques Calais sighed, “I was born here. I grew up here. Guadeloupe’s my country—and the West Indian’s my fellow countryman. But I realize we’re worlds apart. Voodoo and black magic—they’re things you or I will never understand. Why did Hégésippe Bray kill his wife?” He shook his head. “We were all sorry. My father liked Bray—and if it hadn’t been for Papa, Hégésippe Bray would have been guillotined. Instead, he was sent to French Guyana. Unfortunately, he never came back.”

“Until last year.”

Jacques Calais nodded.

“You think he murdered your brother?”

A shrug. “Hégésippe Bray was not the only person who hated Raymond.”

“Who else hated him?”

“That’s your job to find out.”

“And you can help me.”

“I know very little about my brother’s life—we tended to move in different circles.”

“Did you like your brother?”

He smiled sadly. “You think I murdered Raymond?”

“You got on well with him?”

“Our interests were different. Raymond gave less and less attention to the estate. He got involved in politics—foolishly, in my opinion. We rarely met.” He folded his hands. “But he was my brother and I loved him.”

“How long were you in America?”

“I did the right thing.” He gestured toward the engravings of vintage cars on the walls. Then at the model attached to an onyx ashtray on the desk. The little car was made of pewter. “I learned the automotive business. All aspects of it. Not just selling—also repair and maintenance. Father’d taught me there’s nothing to be ashamed of in working with my hands. I came back after the war. In 1946. Hard times, but there was talk of making Guadeloupe into a département. Not much money around—apart from the civil servants, and they weren’t interested in American cars. I discovered that she—that this woman—was now married. I was tempted to throw it all in, leave Guadeloupe and go to South America. To Venezuela—or perhaps Cuba. Cuba was beginning to do well—the Americans were investing at this time.” His smile showed his teeth. “By comparison, Guadeloupe was a backwater—a forgotten, colonial backwater. I wanted to get away from my family.”

“And from the woman who couldn’t be bothered to wait for you?”

A shrug of acquiescence.

“But you stayed?”

“I stayed because there was a new move to import American machinery for the sugar. And because of de Gaulle—but of course, that was later, much later.…”

There was a light tap on the door and the secretary came in.
She had long hair dyed blonde and pulled back in a ponytail. The woman was wearing stockings. Pale breasts pushed against the restricting material of her bustier. A small face, bright lipstick, and unflattering, pendulous earrings.

“I need your signature, Monsieur Calais. Just had Puerto Rico on the line.” She spoke in a high-pitched voice, giving Anne Marie a sideways glance. She bent over the desk beside Jacques Calais and placed an open folder in front of him. “About the two bulldozers for Guadex Spa.”

“Ah.” Calais took a pair of glasses and looked at the document. The girl stood beside him. She was young and she wore a ring. Anne Marie saw that the woman’s hand gently brushed against the larger, tanned hand of Jacques Calais where it lay on the desk.

“San Juan wants you to ring back.”

“Later.” He signed, closed the folder, and handed it back to the secretary. He looked up at her. She was very close beside him. “Thank you, Colette.”

Colette eyed Anne Marie. “Your friend is outside, madame. Seems to have grown bored with the harvesting machine brochures.”

“Kindly tell my greffier I shan’t be much longer.” Anne Marie added, “Mademoiselle.”

The girl nodded imperceptibly, turned on her heel and the click of her shoes followed her out of the office. She closed the door.

“An excellent secretary.” Jacques Calais’ eyes looked over the top of the half-frame glasses. “Colette’s the best I’ve ever had.”

“You were talking about de Gaulle, Monsieur Calais.”

Jacques Calais returned the glasses to their case. “De Gaulle?”

“You stayed on in Guadeloupe.”

“That was later. It must’ve been in ’58.”

“When de Gaulle came to power?”

He nodded. “There was a new attitude toward us—toward all that remained of the French Empire. New schools, new hospitals, and at last, new roads.” He smiled. “Before de Gaulle, we were jealous of the English islands—Barbados and Trinidad. De Gaulle changed all that. The result, I suppose, of what had happened in Indochina and Algeria. Most Békés don’t like de Gaulle, you know. During the war, we were with Pétain and de Gaulle was a dirty word. But by 1958, there’d been too many wars, and de Gaulle didn’t want to see a repeat of Algeria in the Caribbean. Winning our hearts and minds. About this time that we started getting all these people posted from Paris. Good for business—good for everyone.”

“Except the sugar industry.”

“Sugar was going to die.”

“But your brother stayed on.”

“What choice did Raymond have? He saw the need to invest in new machines. Fortunately, I was there to help him. I got the
equipment from America, and through me, Raymond was able to make considerable savings. He’s never really had money—he’s always had to put it back into the land. And he’s got expensive hobbies.”

“The villa? The maid? The cars? His standard of living—where did he get the money from?”

“He’s been known to gamble,” Calais said simply. “The estate still pays its way—but to pay for the machinery, he had to sell land.” He clicked his tongue. “There were other problems for him, too. Problems that all the planters have to face. Mechanize and you put people out of work. At least there were never any threats against Raymond, to my knowledge.”

“Threats?”

“Like against the other planters. A dying breed. The factories have virtually all closed down, and any Béké with any sense has moved out of sugar. Those who stick to sugar are in trouble. You take Dominique Blanche—been up against it for the last ten years. A mulatto but all the workers say he’s white because they’re convinced he exploits them deliberately. He’s got a Mercedes Benz—and that’s about all. Most Békés send their children to France, but Blanche has to send his children to school here. He can scarcely afford a maid. He’s had at least ten strikes in as many years. Once they even tried to kidnap his daughter. Took her and held her for an afternoon until the gendarmes arrived. Two Indians were thrown in jail—Indians are always the ring-leaders. They had to be let out.”

“Why?”

“Because otherwise, madame le juge, there would’ve been an insurrection.” He laughed. “Back in 1952, four laborers were shot dead during the riots in Le Moule. Guadeloupe’s always been a powder keg. Barricades in the streets and cars set on fire? It’s just not worth it. The Indians were set free.”

“Where was this?”

“In Goyave. Things have calmed down a bit now with the possibility of work on the new bypass road. But soon that will be
finished and then there’ll be more problems. No alternative but to mechanize.”

“Who hated your brother?”

“Raymond wasn’t unpopular. Of course, it’s always hard to tell with the locals—they can give you a bright smile, and at the same time, behind your back, they’re cursing you and sticking pins in little effigies.” He laughed.

“And Michel, the Indian?”

“I wouldn’t worry about Michel if I were you. Half-mad—and completely harmless.” Jacques Calais frowned and was silent for a moment, as if trying to remember something. “My brother was a difficult man. Difficult but there were things you couldn’t help respecting about him. He was much closer to Maman than to Father. He could get angry and threaten to kill you—and I think he was capable of it, too—with that big face of his getting bigger and redder and angrier.” Jacques Calais’ own face seemed to soften with the recollection. “When we were kids we often fought. Two years older than me, and when you’re little, that can make a lot of difference. Yet Raymond could be tremendously loyal—and he was also very protective.” He hesitated, as if embarrassed. “In many ways, my brother was very innocent. Blustery, of course, but that was really just a way to hide things—just appearances. In his heart, he was an innocent. That, too, he inherited from Maman—a good heart. He was capable of tremendous loyalty.”

“But he had enemies?”

“In Guadeloupe, there’s always somebody who’s jealous of you.”

“Tell me why your boat was blown up, Monsieur Calais.”

“Goodness knows.”

“A lot of people know that the boat belongs to you.”

He did not respond.

“Is there anybody you suspect?”

“It’s only a boat. It is not a human life.” His eyes remained on hers; then he said softly, “You have children, madame le juge?”

“A boy.”

He breathed in and his nose was pinched. “A wife and children. And now I would be a grandfather. I’d have somebody to talk to, to share my life with. There’d have been a purpose to it all.” He tapped the desk. “Instead, I thought it would be possible to wait. I thought things’d change, and that while I was waiting, I could go off and learn a skill. To earn money. Now I’ve got money—more money than Papa ever knew, money that I can spend whenever I want. So when I was fifty-five, I indulged in a little birthday present for myself. A boat, a nice boat.” He added, “And nobody to share it with.”

There was a workshop manual open on the desk before him.

“Raymond had less money than me. But he had a family—a wife and children.” The eyes looked at Anne Marie and they glistened. “He didn’t have a boat.”

“Who blew your boat up?”

“I don’t care.” He glanced around the room before continuing, “What do I need with this office? With this job? With all the cars that are out there in the showrooms and in the garage? What good are they to me?” With the back of his hand, he rubbed his eye.

Anne Marie looked down at her hands.

“I should’ve married her, damn it. I was weak, and like a fool, I thought the best solution was to get away for a few years. I left her—and how was she to know that for every day since, every day of my life, I was going to think about her? I was going to love her just as much thirty-five years later as I did on the day we first met? She got married—and it was the right thing to do. All my fault—I was weak. I didn’t have the courage to break with my family and marry a mulatto woman. Too afraid of what Maman would think. I knew she’d never forgive me for marrying a woman who wasn’t white.” Jacques Calais ran a hand across his chin. “I still love her—a grandmother, damn it, and I still love her.”

There had been a time in Paris when Jean Michel had taken her regularly to the cinema to see an endless diet of American films. He loved Westerns. Anne Marie had asked him why he refused to see anything French. Jean Michel merely shrugged. “There’s always a funeral in a French film,” he had said. They were waiting to buy tickets for
The Magnificent Seven
at the Cinéma Champollion in the rue des Écoles. “And it’s always raining.”

Anne Marie wished that it would rain now.

Trousseau had parked the Peugeot beneath the shade of a thick gum tree, but the sun was still overhead and moving slowly. It was very hot inside the car.