The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe (2 page)

“My husband is dead.”

“I need to know why he died.”

Madame Dugain raised her eyes. “Is that important?”

“You said he was hounded to death by the police.”

“The police, the media, whoever else—it doesn’t matter. Not now.”

“It matters.”

A moment of hesitation. “You don’t believe my husband was innocent?”

“Innocent or guilty, suicide is not a normal reaction.”

“The SRPJ threw him from the fourteenth floor.”

“Unlikely.”

Madame Dugain allowed her shoulders to sag. Then she took her bag. “I must be going.” She stood away from the chair. She was in her late thirties, with a trim, girlish silhouette and attractive brown legs. She ran a hand through her hair.

“Unlikely the
police judiciaire
should want to murder your husband.”

“It’s been nice meeting you.”

“When somebody’s pushed through a window, the victim hits the ground close to the building. The car on which your husband landed was nearly four meters from the entrance to the Tour Sécid.”

Madame Dugain stared in silence at the clasp of her handbag.

“Nothing else you can tell me?”

“Else in what way,
madame le juge
?”

“Anything worrying your husband?”

A hard laugh. “His name in the papers? The accusation of embezzlement? The police coming to search his offices? Worrying my husband? What more do you want, for heaven’s sake? His probity, his reputation—his very life were being called into question. His dignity was being put on trial. No, not a trial. A public lynching without trial. The telephone never stopped ringing.”

“With a good lawyer …”

“Rodolphe was innocent.”

“With a good lawyer, he could have—”

“My husband did not need a lawyer. He needed to be left alone, he needed to not be dragged through the mud. The mud his enemies wanted. That the police wanted. And that’s what you’ve got now. You’re satisfied, aren’t you?”

“Satisfied?”

“Rodolphe’s dead.”

Anne Marie caught her breath. “Who are these enemies that you talk about?”

“I’ve nothing further to say.”

“Why don’t you want to help me set your husband’s record straight?”

“You couldn’t care less about my husband’s reputation.”

“I care about the truth.”

“Your truth.” Madame Dugain turned and walked out into the sunshine, the handbag held to her body. Her heels clicked on the stone paving of the courtyard as she passed beneath the flame trees.

“Liliane Dugain’s my cousin.”

It used to be the
lycée
. Then, in the mid-sixties, a new school complex was built at Baimbridge on the edge of the city to accommodate the increase in the number of pupils. Consequently the old colonial Lycée Carnot, with its courtyard, its mango and flame trees, its airy, wooden classrooms, stranded in the heart of Pointe-à-Pitre, was transformed into a
collège
, a junior high school.

The two women walked out of the staff room and across the yard, between the trees. A breeze rustled through the leaves, and the pendulous mangoes swayed gently at the end of their long stalks. Other mangoes had fallen to the ground and split their bruised skin.

(Anne Marie was reminded of her school years in Algeria.)

“I got the impression she was more angry than upset.”

The headmistress shrugged. “Liliane had been married long enough to know what Dugain was like.”

There was surprise in Anne Marie’s voice. “He was fond of women?”

“You know a man who isn’t?”

Anne Marie glanced at Mademoiselle Salondy as they stepped into the school building. “That’s why you never married, Lucette?”

“One of many reasons.” The headmistress put her finger to her lips and nodded to the closed doors of the administrative offices.

The muffled sound of a typewriter.

They went up the wooden stairs and entered an air-conditioned
room. A photograph of President Mitterrand hung on the wall between a poster of the Declaration of Human Rights and a calendar from a local garage. The cables leading into the light switches were unconcealed and had been tacked into the wall with staples. A telephone on the large desk, and beside it, a plastic cube containing various pictures of Lucette Salondy’s relatives. In a small glass jar stood a solitary anthurium.

“Madame Dugain’s your cousin?”

“Sit down, Anne Marie.” Lucette Salondy had a smile that formed wrinkles at the corner of her bright eyes. “Who isn’t a cousin on this island?” She was a large woman whose dress could not hide matronly hips. In her youth, she had been very beautiful.

“You know her well?”

“I taught her. Liliane’s more than twenty years younger than I am and when I came back from France in sixty-six she was doing her philosophy baccalaureate. A bright girl, and the youngest in her class.” She tapped the desk. “That was when the
lycée
was still here, before they built the concrete jungle on the ring road.”

“I shouldn’t discuss things that have been told to me in confidence.”

“Then don’t.”

“Liliane Dugain was acting out a role—that’s the impression I got.”

“Liliane’s too old to act.”

“My looking into his death doesn’t seem to interest her.”

“She needs to be left alone.”

“That’s what she said.”

“The women in Guadeloupe hide their suffering.”

“Here at school, do you ever talk to her?”

“My prison.” The headmistress gestured to the office, the walls painted the pale grey of France’s tropical public buildings and beneath the opaque louvers, the potted dieffenbachia, leaves yellowing at the edges. “My job’s to sign bits of paper or phone the
rectorat
in Martinique. No time for idle chat—there are at least three new teachers this year whom I’ve never spoken to.” She pulled a blue cardigan from the back of the chair onto her shoulders. “Headmistress? I’m just a cog in a big, faceless administration. A factory, an educational factory. The gentlemen of Martinique fail to understand our problems here.”

“The gentlemen of Martinique fail to understand the good folk of Guadeloupe?”

“You’re learning your West Indian culture!” The headmistress clapped her hands in pleasure. “
The noblemen of Saint Domingue, the gentlemen of Martinique and the honest folk of Guadeloupe
. Two centuries after the independence of Haiti, the honest folk of Guadeloupe run around in SUVs while Saint Domingue’s aristocrats cut cane in our fields.”

Anne Marie smiled. “Despite the gentlemen of the
rectorat
in Martinique, you have time to talk with me, Lucette.”

She stretched a plump arm across the desk and squeezed Anne Marie’s hand. “I rarely manage to get out of this office.”

“You’ve just been out.”

“Because I wanted to talk to my sister-in-law before she scurries back to the
palais de justice
.”

“Not your sister-in-law, Lucette. I’m your sister’s sister-in-law—remember? You still have your beach apartment in Le Moule?”

“I just don’t get time to go there. My weekends are taken up with administrative work. Perhaps when I retire …”

“I don’t think you’ll ever retire, Lucette.”

The large woman sighed. “It was Dugain’s second marriage, you know.”

“They weren’t happy?”

“Liliane married someone who was seventeen years older than her. That kind of age difference’s common here in our islands, but Liliane’s an educated woman and she wanted a companion, a friend. In the end she married somebody who could’ve been her father. She wanted equality and found a man who never treated her as an equal. Someone who gave her two lovely daughters but who went elsewhere for his pleasure.”

“Other women?”

“You sound surprised, Anne Marie.”

“Not the sort of thing you expect.”

“What would you expect?”

“When there’s a big age difference, aren’t men supposed to lose interest in philandering?”

“Are they?”

“Or so I am told.”

“Perhaps French men—but not here,” Lucette Salondy said, folding her arms. “Dugain appeared on television—he was a public figure,
the kind of person to appeal to women, to our groupie psychology. We’re all attracted by the dominant male.” She clicked her tongue, as if reproaching herself for something. “Dugain didn’t go out of his way looking for women—but they were there.”

“Who?”

“There are always women.”

“Who?”

“Even a headmistress and a spinster locked away in her office gets to hear things.” She got up and went to a small filing cabinet. She turned the key. “Care for a drink?”

“No thanks.”

“I often wonder how you manage to stay so slim, Anne Marie. So slim and so young.” Lucette Salondy poured a thimbleful of white rum into a small glass. From a small refrigerator, she took a slice of green lime. “Worry about my figure at my age?” She sipped and winced. “The great thing about being old is you don’t have to try to please any more, and it’s only when you’ve stopped trying to please men they actually start to notice you. Not for your body, for your figure, for what you can do in bed—they actually notice you for what you are.” She smiled wistfully. “I was thinking about your husband only the other day, Anne Marie.”

“My ex-husband.”

Another sip. “How’s your son?”

“Who were Dugain’s women?”

“Tell me about Fabrice, Anne Marie. We were all sad when he moved on to the
lycée
.”

Anne Marie flushed. She was about to say something bitter, but instead she chose to relax. She allowed herself to sit back in the tubular chair. “Wind surfing, most of the time. And probably about to repeat his
première scientifique
at the
lycée
. Fabrice’s pretty hopeless at school.”

“He can’t be too hopeless if he’s in
première scientifique
. Always top of the class here. A lovely boy.”

“English is the only thing he’s willing to put his mind to. He’s stubborn and never wants to be helped.”

“Stubborn like his father.”

Anne Marie looked at her hands. “If Fabrice’s not interested in something, then he just can’t be bothered.”

“Like his father.”

“He spends his time watching the American channels on the satellite dish. Understands everything in English—but refuses to work at school. I mustn’t complain too much—he’s very affectionate and dotes on his little sister.”

Lucette Salondy’s face broke into a broad smile. “And Létitia?”

“The apple of her mother’s eye.”

The headmistress took the plastic cube and pointed to a photograph on one of its faces, a photograph taken outside the church in Pointe-à-Pitre. Children in white dresses, holding flowers and squinting into the sun. Létitia stood in the center of the group. Her dark hair hung in short, beribboned plaits. The soft brown skin of mixed parentage. She looked at the camera with her head to one side. Inquisitive, self-assured eyes. She was holding a bouquet of flowers.

“The apple of her aunt’s eye, too. An aunt who doesn’t get to see her enough.”

“Létitia loves church—goodness knows why. Perhaps it’s the dressing up she likes.” Anne Marie touched the cube with her finger. “I thought I was too old to have a second child, and when I found out about Létitia … It wasn’t the happiest of times. I thought about an abortion. When I now think I could’ve spent the rest of my life without Létitia …” Anne Marie looked up at the older woman. “You could’ve had children, Lucette.”

“Instead I’ve got an entire school. Before long, you’ll be sending Létitia to us—only by then, I’ll be retired.”

“You love this job too much to retire.”

Somewhere a bell rang.

“Why are you interested in Liliane Dugain, Anne Marie?”

“It’s her husband’s death I’m interested in.”

The headmistress folded her arms. “He killed himself—jumped from the top of a building.”

Anne Marie remarked, “There are a lot of nasty rumors.”

“Rumors concerning the
police judiciaire
?”

Anne Marie gave Lucette Salondy an unblinking stare.

“Dugain had a lot of enemies, Anne Marie.”

“Arnaud doesn’t believe it was a suicide.”

“Who’s Arnaud?”

“You don’t know the
procureur
of Pointe-à-Pitre?”

“Not his given name … It’s Arnaud?”

The room seemed to chill suddenly. Lucette Salondy held her glass motionless in mid-air. With the other hand, she pulled the cardigan tight against her large shoulders.

“Dugain had a mistress?”

“You really want to know?”

“It’s my job.”

“Perhaps you ought to change jobs.”

Anne Marie pointed to the poster on the wall. “There’s no republic without justice.”

“I thought it was me who was supposed to teach philosophy.”

“And there’s no justice without truth.”

A laugh lubricated with white rum.

“Never underestimate the
lycée
in Sarlat.” Anne Marie grinned with pleasure. “I won the
prix d’excellence
.”

“You must’ve been teacher’s pet.” The headmistress put down the glass and took a pen from the mahogany inkstand in front of her. “Everybody knew it was a mistake. Liliane should never have married Dugain. Few people will miss him. Not even his groupies.” She jotted something onto a scrap of paper. “In your position, I’d forget about justice and I’d certainly forget about
Monsieur Environnement
.” She folded the piece of paper twice, firmly, as if she wanted to have nothing to do with its written contents. “A womanizer and a fraud.”

“You’re not in my position.” Anne Marie took the slip of paper, without glancing at it.

“But like you, I’m a woman.”

Trousseau had been putting on weight.

“They told me downstairs you were here,
madame le juge
.”

Lucette Salondy smiled brightly. “Please enter.”

Trousseau took a hesitant step into the office. He held a briefcase under his arm, and beneath the white shirt, the narrow shoulders ran down to a bulging belly that pushed at the cracked crocodile belt of his trousers. His eyes darted from one woman to the other. He smiled nervously and straightened his tie. “I wouldn’t have …”