Jealousy and in the Labyrinth (11 page)

To hear better, A. . . has turned her head toward the open window next to her. In the hollow of the valley, work is under way to repair the log bridge over the little stream. The dirt revetment has been removed from about a quarter of its width. The men are going to replace the termite-infested wood with new logs that still have their bark on, cut to the proper lengths beforehand, now lying across the road, just in front of the bridge. Instead of piling them up in an orderly fashion, the porters have thrown them down and left them lying in all directions.

The first two logs are lying parallel to each other (and to the bank), the space between them equivalent to approximately twice their common diameter. A third cuts across them diagonally at about a third of the way across their length. The next, perpendicular to this latter, touches its end; its other end almost touches the last log which forms a loose V with it, its point not quite closed. But this fifth log is also parallel to the two first logs, and to the direction of the stream the little bridge is built over.

How much time has passed since the bridge underpinnings last had to be repaired? The logs, supposedly treated against termite action, must have received defective treatment. Sooner or later, of course, these earth-covered logs, periodically doused by the rising stream, are liable to be infested by insects. It is possible to protect over long periods of time only structures built far off the ground, as in the case of the house, for instance.

In the bedroom, A . . . has continued her letter in her delicate, close-set, regular handwriting. The page is now half full. But she slowly raises her head and begins to turn it gradually but steadily toward the open window.

There are five workmen at the bridge, and as many new logs. All the men are now crouching in the same position: forearms resting on their thighs, hands hanging between their knees. They are facing each other, two on the right bank, three on the left. They are probably discussing how they are going to complete their job, or else are resting a little before the effort, tired from having carried the logs this far. In any case, they are perfectly motionless.

In the banana plantation behind them, a trapeze-shaped patch stretches uphill, and since no stems have been harvested in it yet, the regularity of the trees' alternate arrangement is still absolute.

The five men, on each side of the little bridge, are also arranged symmetrically: in two parallel lines, the intervals being the same in each group, and the two men on the right bank—whose backs alone are visible—placed in the center of the intervals determined by their three companions on the left bank, who are facing the house, where A . . . appears behind the open window recess.

She is standing. In her hand she is holding a sheet of pale blue paper of ordinary letter-paper size, which shows the creases where it has been folded into quarters. But her arm is half-bent, and the sheet of paper is only at her waist; her eyes, which are looking far above it, wander toward the horizon, at the top of the opposite hillside. A ... listens to the native chant, distant but still distinct, which reaches the veranda.

On the other side of the hallway door, under the symmetrical window of the office, Franck is sitting in his chair.

A . . . who has gone to get the drinks herself, sets down the loaded tray on the low table. She uncorks the cognac and pours it into the three glasses lined up on the tray. Then she fills them with soda. Having distributed the first two, she sits down in her turn in the empty chair, holding the third glass in one hand.

This is when she asks if the usual ice cubes will be necessary, declaring that these bottles come out of the refrigerator, though only one of the two has frosted over upon contact with the air.

She calls the boy. No one answers.

"One of us had better go," she says.

But neither she nor Franck moves.

In the pantry, the boy is already taking the ice cubes out of their trays, according to the orders his mistress gave him, he declares. And he adds that he is going to bring them right away, instead of specifying when this order was given.

On the veranda, Franck and A . . . have remained in their chairs. She has not been in any hurry about serving the ice: she has still not touched the shiny metal bucket which the boy has just set down next to her, its luster already frosted over.

Like A . .. beside him, Franck looks straight ahead, toward the horizon, at the top of the hillside opposite. A sheet of pale blue paper, folded several times—probably in eighths—now sticks out of his right shirt pocket The left pocket is still carefully buttoned, while the flap of the other one is now raised by the letter, which sticks above the edge of the khaki cloth by a good half inch.

A ... notices the pale blue paper is attracting attention. She starts explaining about a misunderstanding between herself and the boy with regard to the ice. Then did she tell him not to bring it? In any case, this is the first time she has not succeeded in making herself understood by one of her servants.

"There has to be a first time for everything," she answers, with a calm smile. Her green eyes, which never blink, merely reflect the outline of a figure against the sky.

Down below, in the hollow of the valley, the arrangement of the workmen is no longer the same, at either end of the log bridge. Only one remains on the right bank, the other four being lined up opposite him. But their postures have not changed at all. Behind the single man, one of the new logs has disappeared: the one which was lying on top of two others. A log with earth-covered bark, however, has appeared on the left bank, quite a way behind the four workmen facing the house.

Franck stands up with sudden energy, and sets down on the low table the glass he has just emptied at one gulp. There is nothing left of the ice cube in the glass. Franck walks stiffly to the hallway door. He stops there. His head and the upper part of his body turn toward A. . . who is still sitting in her chair.

"Forgive me, again, for being such a bad mechanic."

But A . . .'s face is not turned toward him and the grimace which accompanies Franck's words has remained far outside her field of vision, a grimace that is, moreover, immediately absorbed, at the same time as the wrinkled white suit, by the shadow of the hallway.

At the bottom of the glass he has set down on the table as he left, a tiny piece of ice is melting, rounded on one side, on the other formed into a bevelled edge. A little further away come the bottle of soda, the cognac, then the bridge crossing the little stream where the five crouching men are now arranged as follows: one on the right bank, two on the left, two others on the bridge itself, near its far end, all facing the same central point which they seem to be considering with the closest attention.

There remain only two more new logs to put in place.

Then Franck and his hostess are sitting in the same chairs, but they have exchanged places: A ... is in Franck's chair and vice versa. So now it is Franck who is nearest the low table where the ice bucket and the bottles are.

A . . . calls the boy.

He appears at once on the veranda, at the corner of the house. He walks with mechanical steps toward the little table, picks it up without spilling anything on it, sets the whole thing down a little farther away, near his mistress. He then continues on his way, without saying a word, in the same direction, with the same mechanical gait, toward the other corner of the house and the eastern side of the veranda, where he disappears.

Franck and A . . still silent and motionless in their chairs, continue to stare at the horizon.

Franck tells a story about his car's engine trouble, laughing and gesturing with a disproportionate energy and enthusiasm. He picks up his glass from the table beside him and empties it in one gulp, as if he had no need to open his throat to swallow the liquid: everything runs down into his stomach at once. He sets the glass down on the table, between his plate and the place-mat. He begins eating again right away. His considerable appetite is made even more noticeable by the numerous, emphatic movements he makes: his right hand that picks up in turn the knife, the fork and the bread, the fork that passes alternately from the right hand to the left, the knife that cuts up the pieces of meat one by one and which is laid on the table after each use, so as to leave the fork free play as it changes hands, the comings and goings of the fork between plate and mouth, the rhythmic distortions of all the muscles of the face during a conscientious mastication which, even before being completed, is already accompanied by an accelerated repetition of the whole series.

The right hand picks up the bread and raises it to the mouth, the right hand sets the bread down on the white cloth and picks up the knife, the left hand picks up the fork, the fork sinks into the meat, the knife cuts off a piece of meat, the right hand sets down the knife on the cloth, the left hand puts the fork in the right hand, which sinks the fork into the piece of meat, which approaches the mouth, which begins to chew with movements of contraction and extension which are reflected all over the face, in the cheekbones, the eyes, the ears, while the right hand again picks up the fork and puts it in the left hand, then picks up the bread, then the knife, then the fork. . . .

The boy comes in through the open pantry door. He approaches the table. His steps are increasingly jerky, as are his gestures when he raises the plates one by one to put them on the sideboard and replace them by clean plates. He goes out immediately afterwards, moving arms and legs in cadence, like a crude mechanism.

This is the moment when the scene of the squashing of the centipede on the bare wall occurs: Franck stands up, picks up his napkin, approaches the wall, squashes the centipede against the wall, lifts his napkin, squashes the centipede on the floor.

The hand with tapering fingers has clenched into a fist on the white cloth. The five widespaced fingers have closed over the palm with such force that they have pulled the cloth with them. The cloth shows five convergent creases, much longer than the fingers which have produced them.

Only the first joint is still visible. On the ring finger gleams a thin ribbon of gold that barely rises above the flesh. Around the hand radiate the creases, looser and looser as they move out from the center, but also wider and wider, finally becoming a uniform white surface on which Franck's brown, muscular hand wearing a large flat ring of the same type comes to rest.

Just beside it, the knife blade has left on the cloth a tiny, dark, elongated, sinuous stain surrounded by more tenuous marks. The brown hand, after wavering in the vicinity a moment, suddenly rises to the shirt pocket where it again tries, with a mechanical movement, to push down the pale blue folded letter which sticks out by a good half inch.

The shirt is made of a stiff fabric, a twilled cotton whose khaki color has faded slightly after many washings. Under the upper edge of the pocket runs a line of horizontal stitching over a sewn bracket with the point downward. At the tip of this point is sewn the button normally intended to close the pocket. The button is made of a yellowish plastic material; the thread that attaches it forms a little cross at the center. The letter, above, is covered with a fine, close-set handwriting, perpendicular to the edge of the pocket.

To the right come, in order, the short sleeve of the khaki shirt, the bulging native terra-cotta pitcher which marks the middle of the sideboard, then, at the end of the latter, the two kerosene lamps, extinguished and set side by side against the wall; still further to the right, the corner of the room, immediately followed by the open leaf of the first window.

And Franck's car appears, brought into view through the window quite naturally by the conversation. It is a big blue sedan of American manufacture, whose body—though dusty—seems new. The motor too is in good condition: it never gives its owner any trouble.

The latter is still behind the wheel. Only his passenger has stepped out onto the gravel of the courtyard. She is wearing shoes with extremely high heels and must be careful to put her feet down in places that are level. But she is not at all awkward at this exercise, whose difficulty she does not even seem to notice. She stands motionless next to the front door of the car, leaning toward the gray imitation- leather upholstery, above the window which has been rolled down as far as it will go.

The white dress with the wide skirt almost disappears above the waist: the head, arms, and upper part of the body, filling the window opening, also obscure what is happening inside. A ... is probably gathering up the purchases she has just made to carry them with her. But the left elbow reappears, soon followed by the forearm, the wrist, the hand, which holds onto the edge of the window-frame.

After another pause, the shoulders emerge into daylight too, then the neck, and the head with its heavy mass of black hair, whose loose curls are a little disarranged, and finally the right hand which holds by its string only an extremely tiny green cubical package.

Leaving the print of four parallel tapering fingers on the dusty enamel of the window-frame, the left hand hurriedly arranges the hair, while A . . . walks away from the blue car and, after a last look back, heads toward the door with her decisive gait. The uneven surface of the courtyard seems to level out in front of her, for A . . . never even glances at her feet.

Then she is standing in front of the door which she has closed behind her. From this point she sees the whole house down the middle: the main room (living room on the left and dining room on the right, where the table is already set for dinner), the central hallway (off which open five doors, all closed, three on the right and two on the left), the veranda, and beyond its openwork balustrade, the opposite slope of the valley.

Starting from the crest, the slope is divided horizontally into three parts: an irregular strip of brush and two cultivated patches of different ages. The brush is reddish-colored, dotted here and there with green bushes. A clump of trees marks the highest point of cultivation in this sector; it occupies the corner of a rectangular patch where the bare earth can still be distinguished in spots between the clusters of young leaves. Lower down, the second patch, in the shape of a trapezoid, is being harvested: the plate-sized white discs of the cut trunks are about as numerous as the adult trees still standing.