Tropic Moon (6 page)

There was no waiting room; they'd made do by setting a couple of chairs out under the veranda. But the glare was so harsh that you couldn't take off your helmet.

The black helpers sat on the wooden steps. The office door remained open and they'd seen the governor and the prosecutor going in. The typewriter clattered away in another office. When it stopped, bits and pieces of conversation came through.

Adèle was the first person they called in. The loggers glanced at one another, especially when they heard the governor's politely deferential voice.

“… unfortunate circumstances … if you'll excuse us … need to clear things up quickly … painful business …”

It lasted barely five minutes. Chairs were pushed back. Adèle came out, not in the least flustered, made her way down the steps, and headed for the hotel. From inside, the police chief cried out, “Next!”

Bouilloux went in, after making a face at his companions. The typewriter clattered. Nothing could be heard. The logger came out. He gave a shrug.

“Next!”

Timar, the last in line, hesitated to ask a black for a glass of water.

“She was the governor's mistress,” whispered Maritain in his ear. “That's what makes the whole business so complicated.”

Timar didn't answer, but instead moved up a place when it was the assistant director's turn to be called into the office.

“… certain no one left the room between midnight and four? … Thank you …”

The chief of police followed Maritain to the door, glanced around the veranda, and spotted Timar.

“You've been here all along? Come in, then!”

His round face was shiny with sweat. Timar followed him into the room where, because of the contrast with the light outside, he could see nothing but shadows among shadows. An indistinct figure was sitting with knees parted next to a side table covered with glasses.

“This, Mr. Governor, is Mr. Timar, about whom I was just telling you.”

The governor stuck out a moist hand.

“Pleased to meet you. Have a seat … Can you believe it? My wife is from Cognac, too. She knew your uncle very well.”

And, turning to a third person, “Mr. Joseph Timar, a young man of excellent family … Mr. Pollet, our prosecutor. Do you have another glass, Chief?”

Timar had to get used to the dimness and stripes of light from the blinds. The police chief poured the whiskey and operated the siphon.

“Whatever gave you the idea to come to Gabon?”

The governor was some sixty years old, large and red-faced. His white hair stood out in sharp contrast to his blotchy red skin, but it lent him a distinguished air, and he was friendly in the way that men of a certain age are when they enjoy some power—and enjoy eating and drinking even better.

“Oh, not
SACOVA
! Are you aware that if it hadn't been for our renegotiating the fines they'd run up, the company would be bankrupt by now?”

“I wasn't aware of it. My uncle—”

“Is he ever going to run for the senate?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Cheers! You must have a fine opinion of Libreville! Sometimes we can go for two years without an incident, and then the scandals rain down. Why, just last night it seems a bunch of hoodlums abandoned some women out in the jungle. That hasn't made my job any easier, with the blacks furious about Thomas's murder.”

The prosecutor was much younger. Timar had seen him before, on the day of the party, drinking with the Englishmen.

“Chief, any questions for him?”

“Not especially. I've already taken the liberty of issuing him a summons. That's how we first met. By the way, Mr. Timar, if you intend to stay on at the hotel, I suggest a degree of prudence. The inquiry has revealed certain facts to us …”

He waited before going on, but the governor continued good-naturedly, judging Timar worthy of hearing everything. “Apparently, it was that woman who killed Thomas—we have proof of it, almost enough to take to court. We recovered the bullet casing. It's the same caliber as the Renauds' pistol.”

He held out his box of cigars.

“Don't smoke? It's most inconvenient that she's the one, but we can't do anything about it, and we need to set an example this time. You understand? She'll be watched. Her every movement will be observed. If she makes just one mistake …”

“What I wonder,” murmured the prosecutor, who'd said nothing as yet, “is what the boy could have done to her. This isn't a woman to just snap. She knows how to take care of herself.”

Timar would have preferred to be questioned like the others, in a dry tone, standing before the desk.

Why was everyone so stubbornly interested in him? Why were they so set on finding a place for him in town, even the authorities, who had now admitted him into their circle and their secrets?

“Of course, you know nothing about it, do you? The loggers are sticking together. Not one will talk, and that's natural. Any other time and we probably could have hushed the whole thing up. You didn't see anyone leave in the course of the night?”

“No.”

“You'll have to come to our house for dinner one of these evenings. My wife will be delighted to meet you. And don't forget that we have a club, a very modest club, just across from the pier. It's better than nothing. Anytime you feel like a couple of hands of bridge …”

He rose, putting an end to the meeting with the ease of a man used to conducting official business.

“Good-bye, my dear friend. If there's anything at all I can do for you, don't hesitate to ask.”

Timar saluted awkwardly, with a slightly excessive degree of ceremony. Outside he saw the sea again, flat as a pond, and the image that had haunted him that morning came back. It was a map of France, a tiny little France right at the edge of the ocean, the familiar map with its rivers, its administrative regions whose shape he knew by heart, its towns. The governor was from Le Havre, his wife from Cognac. One of the loggers came from Limoges, another from Poitiers. Bouilloux had been born in the Morvan.

They were all neighbors. Timar, in La Rochelle, could have visited every one of them in a couple of hours. And they were gathered here, a mere handful of them, on a narrow strip of land carved out of the equatorial jungle. Boats came and went, little boats like the one he'd seen this morning, with flies buzzing around the winches. And up there, overlooking Libreville, was the cemetery—a fake.

Timar passed the
SACOVA
building, spotted the director in the back, behind a counter crowded with black women. They greeted each other with a wave of the hand.

At that point it wasn't just the misery of homesickness that had him in its grip: it was a sense of futility. The futility of being here! The futility of struggling against the sun that penetrated his every pore. The futility of the quinine that lifted his spirits and that he swallowed every night. The futility of living and dying, only to be buried in a fake cemetery by four half-naked blacks.

“Whatever made you want to come to Gabon?” the governor had asked.

What about him? What about all the others? What about that
SACOVA
employee, up there in the middle of the jungle, who threatened to shoot anyone who came to take his place?

It was August. In La Rochelle, near the harbor entrance, on the beach with its border of salt cedar, young men and girls were lying on the sand.

“Timar? He went off to Gabon.”

“Lucky bastard! What an adventure!”

Because that's how they'd talk. While he was just sitting here, his legs weak, in a countryside that was the color of rust. The idea of going back flitted through his head, but he rejected it outright.

True, he was the nephew of Gaston Timar, counselor general and future senator. But what he hadn't said was that his father worked for the town council, that he'd had to leave the university for lack of funds, that he didn't even have enough money to go out with his friends to a café or nightclub.

The flatboat that was supposed to take him to his post in the interior was still lying on the sand among the native canoes. Nobody was working on it; nobody was worrying about repairing it.

Suddenly—and so abruptly that he startled himself—Timar made a decision. Gasping at his own audacity, he carried it out. A garage where they repaired cars, machines, and boats faced the sea. He went in. A white man was trying to start up an old car by getting some blacks to push it.

“Could you fix that boat there?”

“Who's paying for it—
SACOVA
?” The man waved his finger to show he wouldn't do it.

“No. I'll pay.”

“That's different. You realize it could run to several thousand francs.”

An obscure force was driving Timar on, a need for action, for heroism. He opened his wallet.

“Here's a down payment of a thousand. It's urgent.”

“All I need is three days. Something to drink?”

So the die was cast! In three days, the flatboat would be repaired and Timar would head off to take over his post. That would be a real feat.

Timar opened the door to the hotel with a firm, categoric movement. The big room was empty, bathed in the familiar shadow of African houses. The tables had already been set for lunch. Adèle was alone behind the counter.

Before he even sat down, Timar announced, “I leave in three days.” He wasn't looking at her.

“For Europe?”

“No. The interior.”

The word, which was so nice to utter, brought Adèle's ambiguous smile to her lips. Annoyed, Timar went off to sit in the corner and pretend to read newspapers he'd read twice already. She didn't pay him any attention. She came and went, gave orders to the kitchen, rearranged bottles, opened up the till.

He was furious. He needed to stir things up. From the very first word he knew he was making a mistake, but it was too late to stop.

“You know they found the bullet casing?”

“Ah.”

“The casing of the bullet that killed Thomas.”

“I understood the first time.”

“That's all you have to say?”

She turned her back to him and arranged the bottles.

“What do you want me to say?”

They exchanged words across the empty damp room with its bands of light and shadow.

“You should watch out.”

He didn't mean to threaten her. Still, he would have liked to give her a bit of a scare.

“Emile!”

Her only response was to call for the boy. He came running.

“Put these carafes of wine on the tables.”

The boy kept darting in and out between them after that, making his way from one table to another. The raw white of his waiter's outfit was like a stain.

The loggers showed up, then Maritain, as well as a notary clerk, and a traveling salesman from England, and the atmosphere was just like every other meal, though this time the events of the previous night led to murmurs and stifled laughter.

Timar's bleary-eyed face was the most haggard of the lot.

That night, he remained in his corner until the very last moment, pretending to read. Maritain had left first. The loggers had gone on playing card games with the clerk until ten, when they all trooped off heavily. The boy had locked the doors, closed the windows and blinds, and turned out some of the lights. Timar still hadn't spoken a word to Adèle. He hadn't even looked at her.

But now that the doors and windows were shut, he was relishing the intimacy.

She was at the counter, locking up the drawers with a key. Had she guessed his thoughts? Had she been looking at him? Had she glanced at him sometimes in the course of the evening?

He heard the boy declare, “All done, ma'am!”

“Good. Get to bed.”

She lit a candle, because the electric generator would soon cut off.

Timar stood up, uncertain, and approached the counter. When he was almost there, Adèle headed for the door and the staircase, candle in hand.

“Coming?”

All he could do was follow. She climbed in front of him and he saw her naked legs, the dress that spread like a corolla. She stopped on the landing, and he stammered, “Which room do I …”

“Your old one, of course.”

The one he'd slept in the first few days, the one where she'd come to him one morning, the one he'd been exiled from so they could put the coffin in there. She was handing him the candle. He realized clearly that, when he took it, it would be all over. She'd go to her own room. He'd have to go off to his bed. That was why he remained standing, awkward, hesitant. She jiggled the candle in her hand as a sign for him to take it.

“Adèle!”

It was hard to go on. He didn't know what he wanted. He was like a little boy whining for no reason, or simply because he's unhappy—unhappy about everything and nothing.

Adèle was half in shadow. There was a hint of a smile as she took the two steps to Timar's door and opened it. She let him in first, then closed the door behind her and set the candle on the dresser.

“What do you want?”

Maybe it was the light that made her body stand out so clearly under her dress, its blackness tinged with red.

“I want …”

He stretched out his hands the way he had the night before. He touched her, but he was afraid to take her in his arms. She didn't push him away. She barely moved.

“See, you're not going to be leaving in three days. Get in bed.”

She spoke and pulled off her dress. She opened the mosquito net, smoothed the sheets, and fluffed the pillows. After stripping to the waist, he paused.

She got in the bed ahead of him, as if they'd always slept together there. She waited without impatience.

“Blow out the candle.”

H
E FELT
better when he woke up. Before he even opened his eyes, he could tell that the bed beside him was empty. He felt around with his hand and smiled, straining to hear the sounds of the house. The boy was sweeping the big room. Adèle must be behind the counter. He rose lazily, and his first thought looking out the window was: “It's going to rain.”