The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe (22 page)

Trousseau had been waiting for at the foot of the hill, sitting in the Peugeot with the door open, reading his illustrated scriptures while occasionally looking up as pretty adolescents left the
lycée
. “Back to the
palais de justice
?” Sunlight bounced off the dark polish of the car’s roof.

“Yes.”

Nothing wrong other than her son was turning into a juvenile delinquent and that it was her fault.

“Where do these young people get the money from? They can’t all be rich but they are all so well-dressed.” Trousseau shook his head. “With that kind of money, I could’ve built myself a villa. In my day, my parents could scarcely afford my books. We wore the clothes handed down from one brother to the next. Eight brothers—plus two girls. We were always clean, mind.”

She knew her face was still flushed. “Does the name Siobud mean anything to you?”

“When we were kids, everybody laughed at us because we wore rags, because we had to walk the three kilometers to school. My poor father, God rest his soul, never learned to read and write. Like all the Indians, he had to wait until 1928 before they decided to make us French citizens.”

“You know anything of the Siobud family, Monsieur Trousseau?”

“I know nobody.” He ran a finger along the thin line of his moustache before rising from the seat and opening the car door for her. “You seem to forget that I’m a
greffier
.”

“Siobud?” Anne Marie repeated coaxingly as she slid into the rear seat.

“I don’t walk the corridors of power. I keep my own company—it’s the best way to avoid problems. The inhabitants of this island enjoy interfering into your affairs, always asking questions and telling lies. They’ll even put a curse on you, because they’re jealous of your success.” He closed the rear door quietly and then took his place behind the steering wheel.

“Well, Monsieur Trousseau?”

“A family from Pointe-à-Pitre, isn’t it?” He tapped his chest. He was wearing the same frayed shirt as yesterday. “I’ve lived in Paris,
madame le juge
, and I know what it’s like to live in a big city.”

“Of course.”

“You seem at last to be aware of the lack of respect your race has shown toward the black man.”

“Have I ever shown you a lack of respect?”

“Siobud—try writing it. Or if you prefer, try writing it backward … D-U-B-O-I-S.”

“I fail to understand.”

“You understand perfectly. The superiority of the white race must manifest even in our family names.”

“How?”

“When Victor Schoelcher set the black race free, names had to be found for people who’d been little more than beasts of burden. What better way of reminding us how ridiculous we were than by giving us ridiculous names?”

“Dubois written backward?”

Trousseau sighed. “Look in the telephone directory and you’ll find names like Nirélep and Noslen, Trébor and Succab, Cirederf, Nomis and Divad. As well as Nègre and Pasbeau, just to inform the world we’re black and ugly.”

“Do you know Siobud?”

The heave of an exaggerated sigh. “The father had a printing business in rue Moretenol.”

“The Siobud who teaches English at the
lycée
?”

“One of those families where the father has enough money to have many children and several mistresses.” He turned in his seat to look at her. “Wasn’t he married to a white woman?”

“Who?”

Trousseau again ran the finger along the line of his upper lip, and Anne Marie knew he was no longer offended. “The Siobud who teaches. There’s a son who works at the dispensary and another at the agricultural institute. A daughter who died in childbirth and whose husband returned to France with the newborn baby and was remarried within a couple of months.” His shoulders jerked in soundless amusement. “The Siobuds—they all married whites.”

“Love’s blind, Monsieur Trousseau.”

“Not color blind.” He grinned maliciously. “The man you’re talking about—Michel Siobud. Small—he was at university in Montpellier studying languages and that’s where he met his wife—a woman several years his senior who speaks English.”

Anne Marie nodded. “What do you know about him?”

Trousseau put the key into the ignition but did not turn it. “Typical mulattos.”

“Pointe-à-Pitre’s full of typical mulattos. Guadeloupe is full of typical mulattos.”

“Stuck-up and self satisfied. The Siobuds worshipped the whites, despising anybody with a skin that’s a shade darker than their own.” A dry laugh as he plucked at the dark hair of his arm. “Better than me because I’m black.”

“You’re not very tolerant yourself.”

The eyes flared. “People like the Siobuds’ve always despised us coolies. Michel’s problem is simple. He’s a runt.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“One meter sixty and the blackest skin in the family. With an inferiority complex like that, you can see why he needed to marry a white woman.”

“Because he loved her?”

“To gain some self-esteem.”

“You married a white woman, Monsieur Trousseau.”

“You used to see them in Pointe-à-Pitre, shopping or going to the cinema or in the smart hotels. He was so proud of his wife.”

Anne Marie found herself laughing. “What was a coolie like you doing in the smart hotels?”

“Siobud’s wife towered head and shoulders over him.” He added, “They even held hands in the street and everyone knows West Indian men don’t hold hands with their women in public.”

Anne Marie asked, “He didn’t have mistresses—like his father?”

Trousseau shook his head. “It was his wife who went off, apparently to be with Dugain—but I never believed that.”

“Dugain? To be with Dugain, Monsieur Trousseau?” Anne Marie repeated, incredulous.

He grinned widely, looking at her, his arm over the back of the driving seat. “Perhaps you know her. She didn’t like the name Siobud—I can understand that. She left him—she even left the children—and reverted to her maiden name.”

“How should I know her?”

“She left him with the two boys.” Trousseau went on, “It was Dugain who got her the job—a job with an American courier service.”

“Madame Théodore?”

Trousseau looked at her and laughed. “That’s right. Mademoiselle Théodore.”

As soon as he closed the door, the car smelled of overripe breadfruit.

A sickly smell made more nauseating by the closeness and heat within the car. Anne Marie lowered the window. More nauseating than Madame Vaton’s
eau de cologne
.

“The conditioner’s on.” Trousseau drove, his illustrated Bible open beside him on the front seat, his thin hands on the wheel.

“You found your breadfruit.”

“Nothing wrong with breadfruit.” Trousseau stopped for the traffic lights at the Baimbridge roundabout. “I own land in Trois-Rivières. I grow pineapples and I have livestock.” He laughed. “When the revolution comes, I’ll be able to look after myself.”

“What revolution?”

He snorted disparagingly.

The lights changed and the Peugeot surged forward. Wind through the window pulled at Anne Marie’s hair. “The hurricane last September put paid to all talk of independence. National solidarity—Guadeloupe can’t do without the help of mainland France. Your compatriots were only too glad when they saw professionals flying out from France to get the island back on its feet. Revolution? It’s a thing of the past. Six years ago there were riots but it didn’t take your compatriots long to see that Faisant’s hunger strike was bogus.”

“A white teacher had chosen to kick a black pupil in the pants. Monsieur Faisant wanted to denounce French colonial injustice.”

“In this
département
, schoolteachers strike children all the time. It is like cockfighting—totally illegal elsewhere in France.”

“Young people need discipline,
madame le juge
.”

“Discipline that is meted out solely to black children, Monsieur Trousseau. West Indian teachers never strike white kids because they’re afraid of the reaction from us white parents.”

“Being hit never did me any harm and in my time, young people respected their teachers. I knew I was going to get the same treatment at home, first from my mother and then from my father.”

Anne Marie fell silent. They were approaching the city and she looked out of the window at a pack of dogs sniffing at the rubbish spilling from an overturned garbage bin.

“I have land here—and my wife owns property in France. At the first hint of independence we’ll be on the first plane out.”

“I thought your wife was in France, Monsieur Trousseau.”

“There are times,
madame le juge
, when I can’t help feeling you’re just like the people of this island—in that you seem obsessed by the details of other people’s lives.”

“Part of my profession.” She leaned forward and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Well?”

“Well what,
madame
?” Trousseau half turned in his seat.

“The pretty young woman I’m supposed to be meeting.”

“Very pretty.” Trousseau nodded in acquiescence. “She said she’d come back to the
palais de justice
.” Trousseau went on, “You really must come down to Trois-Rivières one day. I’ll make you pork tails with breadfruit. You’d like that. You spend too much time with people of your own race.”

“At the moment, my most pressing problem’s my son. According to his teacher, Fabrice’s a clown at school.”

“That’s what Michel Siobud thinks?”

“He says I should spend more time with my children.”

“I’ve been telling you that for years. It’s never too late to get back to the Bible,
madame le juge
.”

“A lot of people have been giving me advice—and I don’t listen.” Anne Marie leaned forward and again she tapped him on the shoulder. “Why does this girl want to see me?”

Trousseau did not reply.

“Well?”

“You like breadfruit,
madame le juge
?”

“Monsieur Trousseau, please, just for once answer my question. What does this pretty girl want to see me about?”

He glanced at her in the driving mirror. “Docteur Bouton rang before I left. He wanted to speak with you, madame.”

“Why won’t you answer my question about the girl? I’m not interested in Docteur Bouton.”

“Mademoiselle Salondy’s out of danger.”

“You told me that on the phone.”

“They’re keeping her in intensive care. Docteur Bouton said you might be able to see her tomorrow. He gave his home number which I duly wrote down and left for you on your desk.” He turned to glance at her. “You really must try to smile,
madame le juge
. These last few days, you’ve had a permanent scowl on your face.”

“I didn’t see you smiling at the Pointe des Châteaux yesterday.”

“Siobud teaches your son?”

“You don’t think I’ve got reason to scowl with my sister-in-law in the hospital and my son turning into …”

“Into what,
madame
?”

“And a
greffier
who can’t answer a straight question.” She added hastily, “I’m not sure I like your friend Siobud.”

“Friends? I’ve got better things to do with my time. I have my garden in Trois-Rivières and I have my pigs and my wife owns a hotel in the tenth
arrondissement
so I don’t need friends. And if I did have friends, believe me, there are a lot of people I’d prefer to a jumped-up mulatto.”

“That’s what everybody says about Dugain.”

“Mulatto runt.”

“Monsieur Trousseau, I sometimes suspect you’re a racist.”

“An Indian who marries a white woman? An Indian who has four children who have all completed their university education and who all have jobs?”

“Pork tails with breadfruit—that sounds appetizing,” Anne Marie mused aloud as she stared out of the window. They approached the city and she did not want to quarrel.

“I suppose you’re allowed to eat pork,
madame le juge
.”

Anne Marie sighed noisily.

Shacks, concrete and wood, corrugated iron roofs, new cars and
abandoned wrecks. They went past the ghetto of Boissard on the edge of the city. A violent ghetto, full of clandestine immigrants.

Ten years that the mayor had been promising a renovation of Boissard, but there was still no sidewalk, still no shade. Just puddles after the rain, packs of mongrels, pigs and cats. A few chickens. Rusting refrigerators and the bald trunks of coconut trees that had lost their fronds the night of Hurricane Hugo.

Trousseau spoke. “Docteur Bouton might need to send Mademoiselle Salondy to France.”

Again the fear in Anne Marie’s belly. “Why does he want to send my sister-in-law to France?” Her knuckles turned grey as she gripped the door handle.

Trousseau’s lips parted to reveal his teeth. “Docteur Bouton added that everybody at the hospital was counting on your support.”

“Why send my sister-in-law to France?”

“The sister of your ex-sister-in-law,
madame le juge
.”

“Can’t they treat her here?”

They had reached the main boulevard and Trousseau’s attention was taken up by the traffic. Saturday morning and the city was filled with shoppers before the weekend. “To the
palais de justice, madame
?”

“Monsieur Trousseau, why can’t they treat Lucette Salondy here?”

“The young woman said she’d be at the
palais de justice
before eleven at the latest.”

“I don’t know any young women. At least, not any young woman that’s alive.”

“And dead?”

Anne Marie said, “Let me out here. Something I need to do. Trousseau, I’ll be along in a minute.”

“One other thing,
madame le juge
.” The car had turned into the rue d’Ennery behind the church. Trousseau double-parked in front of the hat shop. “The Indian Richard—you can see him at the hospital. Doctor Lavigne rang to say Richard’d woken up and eaten. Quite lucid.”

“I wish I were lucid.” She got out of the car, the door banging against the high curb. “Tell your girl to wait for me. See if you can get anything out of her. Get her name, for example. Do your understanding older man routine.”

“It’s not a routine,
madame
.” Trousseau waved and there was the rattle of the exhaust pipe as the Peugeot pulled away from the sidewalk.