Another Sun Read Online Free

greffier.
    Anne Marie said, “I want to help you, Monsieur Bray.”
    Lafitte coughed. Behind the typewriter, Trousseau was silent.
    The old man’s forehead formed long ridges. Slowly, very slowly, he looked about the office, at the lace curtains and the filing cabinets. He looked at the photograph of the president of the Republic, Giscard d’Estaing.
    “Please tell me if you understand.”
    Lafitte gave the old man a reassuring nod.
    Hégésippe Bray spoke in Creole. His voice was higher and thinner than Anne Marie had expected.
    Trousseau grinned.
    “What’s he saying?”
    Trousseau rubbed at his moustache and his dark eyes twinkled. Glancing at Lafitte, he tried to smother his smile behind his hand.
    “Well, Monsieur Trousseau?”
    Hégésippe Bray saw the smile on Trousseau’s face and nodded.
    “Kindly tell me what Monsieur Bray’s just said.”
    “You’re a woman.”
    “Of course I’m a woman, Monsieur Trousseau.”
    “He’d like to speak with Monsieur Lafitte—alone.” Trousseau wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He doesn’t wish to talk with you.”
    “Tell Monsieur Bray to remember how he was treated by men.” Anne Marie had to stop herself from bridling. “How men deported him, men put him in prison, men sent him to work in a foreign country. Remind him how men punished him and then forgot all about him. And when it was time for him to return to Guadeloupe, those same men couldn’t be bothered to send him home. Kindly tell him that, Monsieur Trousseau.”
    Trousseau shrugged. “I think he knows.”
    “Kindly do as I say.”
    “He can speak French.”
    “Then why doesn’t he speak French with me?”
    “Perhaps he doesn’t want to.”
    “I’m not going to send him to rot on Devil’s Island. Or on the Moroni.”
    It was Lafitte who then cleared his throat to speak. “He’s not used to dealing with women.”
    “More’s the pity.” She took a deep breath and turned. She gave Hégésippe Bray a reassuring smile. “I’m not going to send you away to die in prison. You’ve already suffered enough, Monsieur Bray.” She stood up and moved round the desk. Today Anne Marie was wearing her Courrèges skirt. The blue eyes followed her.
    With a movement of her hand, she gestured to Trousseau to stop his typing. She approached Hégésippe Bray—he smelt of carbolic soap—and bending down, she placed a hand on the worn cotton of his shirt. “I’m your friend.” She could feel the bones of his shoulder. “I want to help you.”
    The old face remained impassive.
    “There are things I need to know, and I can’t help you if you won’t help me.” She spoke slowly. “You must tell me what happened, Monsieur Bray.”
    The silence was broken only by the brush of the curtains against the wood of the window and the distant sound of traffic.
    “Please help me.”
    Lafitte coughed.
    “For your own sake, you must help me.”
    Hégésippe Bray shook his head, and at the same time, he shrugged her hand away from where it lay on his shoulder. “
Une greluche
,” he said defiantly.
    The slang word for a woman. He used the intonation of Paris. Of Pigalle and Belleville, beyond the boulevards. Paris—the cheap pimps, the dry smell of the
métro
, the weasel-faced gangsters, the painted whores, the
gonzesses
. Paris—a soulless world of asphalt and despair.
    “The penal colony doesn’t exist anymore—you know that.” Anne Marie returned to her seat. “Nobody wants to send you there. You will not leave this island—even supposing you’re found guilty.”
    The old man lowered his head.
    “If you want to live in peace with your goats and your garden, then you must help me—help me by telling me the truth. Monsieur Bray, the gendarmerie at Sainte-Anne believes you’re involved in the death of Raymond Calais. In his murder.”
    “I didn’t kill no one.”
    He spoke in his throat, guttural and tough. He must have picked up the accent from the riffraff of the penal colony—the