Colour of Dawn (13 page)

At the other end of the hall, Luckson, sitting at our table, did not take his eyes off me. And I could no longer quieten my rising desire for him. A harsh, painful desire. For the first time I felt pain as I approached a man. For the first time I was afraid as I approached a man. And I wanted to keep hold of this pain and this fear which made me feel good like I never had with anyone before him. I remember placing my hand on the table as I stood there facing up to his stare. He lit a cigarette and ordered a beer. He watched me from behind the wreaths of smoke that he concentrated on blowing out from time to time with rounded lips. His stubbornness enchanted me. And I matched it with a stubbornness of my own coursing through my veins. At that precise moment in the night we were like two deranged wrestlers, each refusing to yield an inch of ground to the other. We fought with an intensity equal to our desire for one another. We were on the verge of reeling from this test of strength. And I repeated to myself over and over: ‘I can wait, however much I want you, Luckson.'

After a few minutes of this game, Luckson came up to me and I suddenly realised my outer defences were badly guarded. But instead of patrolling my boundaries I attacked my opponent full on. I smiled at him. Having tested it out on others I had overestimated the effect of my weapon. Luckson placed an authoritative hand on my hip and gently pulled me against him. He led me outside. I recognised the old banger belonging to the neighbour who had taken me home after our first meeting. The car moved through dark streets, in the voluptuous obscurity of the night. Men, women and houses streamed by the windows. The old car spluttered out black, noxious smoke and made a deafening noise. The infrequent passers-by turned to watch us pass. I wished these hazy images would never end. I had entered another game, intense, extravagant. Lulled by the motion of the car, I was departing on a long voyage.The others, all the others were left behind, tied to the dock. In my detachment, the world could no longer touch me. I had loosed my moorings. I was drifting gently.

Luckson parked the car outside the same house at the end of the narrow alleyway. And just like the first time he simply told me in his husky, almost savage voice:

‘Come on.'

TWENTY-FIVE

T
he gallery is east-facing and always in the shade in the afternoons. On my return I sit myself down in the corner I have arranged for myself just to the right, where a section of wall hides me from the curiosity of passers-by. I hear Gabriel, as if from behind a curtain of mist, kicking a ball with a few of the neighbourhood kids, shouting at the tops of their voices. I recall those evenings when we would turn our backs on the commotion of the adults' world and Mother would lead us in her deep, cavernous voice into the phosphorescent blue world of dreams, evoking all the fears, the scandals and the marvels rooted deep inside us, stories of ogres and blood, of the blue-tinted, diaphanous marvels of our origins. Beneath the watchful eye of the moon in the back yard, or the golden lights that danced beneath the gallery, we would fall asleep like happy young savages immersed in the feats of heroes, vivid images of joy, the secrets of plants, the voyages of the galipotes, the beauty of flying fish and phosphorescent shells. I remember a certain evening. We were sitting beneath a December sky, the Tropics' most beautiful. And we were gazing, fascinated, at the thousands of stars. We also listened to the mongrel dogs of the streets howling out their dread of death, the voices of men clouded by alcohol, the cries and laughs of women. We were immersed in all that, Joyeuse, Fignolé and I: separations, pain, deprivation, injustice and death. And yet the world still smelt of innocence. The time had not yet come when the imminence of disaster caused cracks to appear in Fignolé's joyful nature.

Faced with the irremediable and the infernal, the three of us reacted in different ways: Fignolé with absolute bravado, stubbornly creating a distance from the seductions that sought to offer forgetfulness of the world's cruelties. Joyeuse with indirect confrontation. And I in submission to the world as God had created it.

Today, I have broken with my usual routine and have not changed out of my uniform or shoes because I have to go to the police station to find out what has become of Fignolé. I have contented myself with sitting down to get my bearings. And this afternoon I really need to do that.To touch base with my centre of gravity. Define my destination. Follow my compass. Rediscover my balance and set my course. Life has been so difficult for some time. On this island. In this district. So difficult between the walls of this house.

I feel as if I am in free fall, drawn by a strong, invisible force like that which controls the movement of the planets, the rotation and revolution of the Earth. And I feel far too insignificant to set up any resistance to it. After all, these events are a response to the divine destiny written in the movements of the stars. But what about me in the middle of all that?

See, the name of the Lord comes from afar
With burning anger and dense clouds of smoke
He places in the jaws of the people a bit that leads them
astray.

For the first time I feel that these words of the Apocalypse contain more truth than usual. That the end has not yet come, but that all these events herald it. The moment when the shadows no longer allow the day through. When the angel with gigantic wings will blow on that silver trumpet and proclaim in a loud voice that time is no more.

A painful omen has silently taken its place in my heart. I suddenly feel a desire to fall into a sleep deeper than the deepest well. More silent than the surface of Lake Azuei. More regular than the roundness of an orange.

I do not hear Mother arrive. She places a hand on my shoulder and sits by my side. She launches straight into reminding me that I should go to the police station to report Fignolé missing. There is a moment of silence. The silence that waits for words to emerge from our dreams, these words that nightfall will bring. We cling obstinately to our reluctance to speak of this thing, as if each wants to protect the other from a burden too heavy to bear. And yet this thing has the capacity to bring us together like never before in the love of a single man.

Mother is a loving Mother. She loves us today more than yesterday and tomorrow better than today. She loves us to distraction because in this city she knows that she could lose us at any moment.

‘Today, when you set foot outside this house you are like a Borlette number; you don't know if you will return. Today everyone walks with their coffin under their arm because death is no longer confined to the shadows beneath the earth. With its heart on its sleeve, in full daylight, it moves up and down the streets of this city and when the time comes for you to recover yourself on meeting it, you will be as stiff as a corpse.'

I gather all my strength to place one foot in front of the other and make my way to the police station, leaving Mother to her prayers. She will call Madame Jacques and the murmuring of their litanies will mount to the sky like the humming of bees. They will pray, turning the rosary beads over and over until their throats are dry and their fingers blistered.

The presence of Willio as I enter the police station is reassuring. Willio introduces me to his colleagues. Despite everything, the Commissioner on duty thinks nothing of making me wait for over an hour. It's a crazy thing about this country that you have to wait for authorities who are always busy or rushed and who send you away until tomorrow ‘if God wills it'. I assiduously watch this servant of the State charged with guaranteeing us the protection of the Republic. He weighs me up at first glance, concluding that it will be difficult to get anything from me by way of a backhander. He tries giving me a knowing look. He attempts the energy and charm he uses on those young madams who pace up and down, up and down, along the corridors of public administrations. I remain aloof and I don't think that pleases him. He will try to extract from me a sum of money we don't have, but for which we would be ready to get into a decade's worth of debt if we had to.

When my turn comes I sit across from him and try not to repeat to myself the conclusion I have gained from watching him: you clearly have a past that is not squeaky clean, and a similar present. And there is no chance of this state of affairs changing in future.

‘I have come to report the disappearance of my brother Fignolé Hermantin, age twenty-one.'

He tells me to sit without even raising his eyes. And from the way he replies ‘Wait a moment' I know in advance that I will lose this round. A few moments later, at a sign from him, I continue by stating Fignolé's age and occupation, describing a few of his physical characteristics, his size and his hair with its heavy dreadlocks. This last trait clearly does not please him, as his mouth tightens with displeasure. I remain impassive.

The Commissioner listens to me distractedly then favours me with a ‘Call later' and then a ‘Come back tomorrow'. I would perhaps have more of a chance if he said to me: ‘My price is so much. How much are you prepared to pay?' But he doesn't and I don't let him. I don't have the means, and in that case he would ask me to pay with the only asset I have in his eyes. I wouldn't do that, either.

His voice dies away at the same time as anger and despair stifle me. I leave the police station at the same moment as Jean-Baptiste gets in there, giving a very friendly greeting to the commissioner and his men who seem delighted to see him. Surprised by my presence, he tries to reassure me, taking my hands and telling me that he will set things rolling through contacts with people in high places.

‘Yes of course, Jean-Baptiste, of course…'

And for the first time I see Jean-Baptiste as he really is. A dancer of the compas, the laloz, the gayé pay and the salsa. Pretentious, sensual and, today, dangerous.

Willio is waiting for me at the entrance to the station and clearly wants to tell me something. He comes up to me and simply whispers in my ear:

‘Never set foot in this place again, Miss Angélique. Never again.'

TWENTY-SIX

A
s he opened the door his hand brushed against mine, leaving a bite-like tingle on my skin. Luckson then whispered a few inconsequential words in my ear, words that melted into one another: ‘your lips, you, want'. A river burst its banks inside me and the desire for this man burst through my veins in thousands of tiny bubbles. I said ‘My love' to him without thinking, as if I were singing. In a low murmur. I undid my blouse myself. In my haste I missed a button. My boldness surprised him at first and then pleased him, so much that his face creased up in a grin of admiration and pleasure.

Luckson undressed me like someone dying of thirst peels an orange. Pressing his lips against my breasts, my stomach, slipping his hands towards that dark triangle between my thighs. My body slowly came to life beneath his fingers and his mouth. His touch left feverish traces on my aroused skin. I offered my stomach to his lips, my breast to his brow. His incipient beard tickled me and I let out a surprised laugh. I have never laughed with any of those other men whose fervour has flattered me, repulsed me or left me cold. Luckson's laugh is a favour. I don't know if I should seize it. I don't know… I float my face against his skin. And the Luckson holds me, firmly but gently. Firmly but very gently between his hips. Until the moment of that exquisite suffering that grips me and slowly turns me inside out.

Luckson is a man of will and a man of love, and I like that.

These thoughts skimmed over me, full like the geography of the clouds. I didn't want to hold on to any of them, especially not those which, in the blink of an eye, tried to trap me in a strange melancholy or that hint of happiness that sometimes follows our embraces. I very soon shook from myself both the melancholy and all temptation of happiness. Like the other girls of the inner-city suburbs I first learned the sensual pleasures of the flesh at a very early age. They have never been able to take away from me, soul that I am scoured from birth by deprivation, an inner mistrust of the happiness of books and the melancholy of the cinema.

After a moment I detached myself from Luckson's embrace. I looked at him, fascinated. I went to the bathroom and reapplied my lipstick. My lips were full as if I had just woken from a long sleep. My forehead was glowing. And I wanted to make my eyes lie. They were shining too brightly not to belong to a woman who has just been made love to. Who has just made love herself. My eyes were shining too brightly not to give me away. I looked at myself one last time and told myself in the mirror: ‘My heart, you especially, don't get carried away, don't get carried away…'

But since then, despite myself, a force has grown against which I am helpless. A thought has taken root deep inside me, around an image, always the same one, the image of Luckson. Everyone around me may walk, breathe, smile, but I no longer see them walking, no longer hear them breathing, I am blind to their smiles. Whatever they do I no longer sense them approaching, seeking me out in their arrogance and hunger. No-one can cure me of Luckson. The earthquake has already happened.

I closed the doors of the shop earlier, at four o'clock precisely. I should call to see Uncle Antoine to warn him of Fignolé's absence. I feel my strength leaving me. But I don't want to give in. I mustn't give in. I will go and see Luckson. Luckson's skin will make me forget. Luckson's slim thighs will make me forget. His bold hands. Luckson is missing me. He is waiting for me somewhere in this city…

Black-skinned and from a poor background, Uncle Antoine used this despised colour and low origins as an incontestable argument for robbing the State and committing one wrong deed after another. Every day, without respite and without a word, Aunt Léonide would keep Uncle Antoine from stumbling. After years of this thankless battle, Léonide Nériscat had become a sly, tough, falsely friendly person. Looking more closely, the task of Uncle Antoine and Aunt Léonide was harsh and allowed them no respite. So harsh that it had caused the hair of Antoine Nériscat to go white prematurely and had slowly eaten away at the eyes of his wife, leaving them surrounded by two deep, pallid hollows.