Another Sun by Timothy Williams Read Free Book Online

back some of the land. Not everything—Raymond Calais was very careful. But that’s how Hégésippe got the hut at Sainte Marthe.”
    Car beams danced on the low wooden ceiling. Anne Marie noticed a single flex and a light bulb hung from the crossbeam. Hanging in parallel were two sticky rolls of flypaper.
    “Who was the woman from Martinique?”
    Madame Suez-Panama did not reply. The thin lips were tightly drawn.
    “What was her name?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Fabrice whispered, “I want to go, Maman.”
    Anne Marie asked, “Your half-brother married her?”
    Another laugh. “Hégésippe nearly married a white girl. She’d been his
marraine
during the Great War, and she wrote him letters when he was fighting on the front. He would have married her, but she died of influenza in ’19. You think my half-brother’d have married a serving girl like her?”
    “But he lived with this girl from Martinique.”
    “I’ve never understood men.”
    “Were there any children?”
    “She gave him a boy. I was at Pointe-Noire, and I was busy. Running a school single-handed with my husband. I don’t think I saw the child more than twice before she killed him.”
    “Who?”
    “The girl from Martinique. She murdered the little boy.”
    “Let’s go, Maman,” Fabrice whispered hoarsely, his chin against Anne Marie’s thigh. She caressed his hair, knowing she should never have allowed her son to come with her.
    “Why on earth did she kill the child?”
    “She wanted to wear nice clothes—but Hégésippe never had much money. He gave it away, the poor fool—he gave it to me, to help me. And then he bought the land from Calais’ father. But he never spent anything on himself. He wasn’t the kind to indulge in unnecessary luxuries—and she couldn’t stand that. Nice things, that’s what she wanted—gold that glitters and pretty shoes for her
métis
feet. She just couldn’t understand why Hégésippe continued to work for Calais. She jeered at him, told him he was a peasant. Nagged him to spend more money. She had a nice house, and she’d probably known nothing better than a shack. You know what they’re like, the people from Martinique—they think they are better than us.”
    “Why?”
    “They look down on us because they think we’re all peasants. With their arrogance and their French manners. Fort-de-France—they call it the Paris of the Caribbean, and they laugh at Guadeloupe.”
    Another car went past, the lights dancing across the ceiling.
    “No better than us, believe me. For all their put-on airs.”
    “Why did she murder the child?”
    “The war came, that’s what happened. It was hard for us all. Fewer ships getting through and there was less food. Land became important and there was money to be made. On food—on the black market. That woman wanted Hégésippe to transform the land he’d bought. She wanted him to grow corn and other things—even rice.” A laugh. “All she really wanted was money—money for her cheap finery.”
    “Why would she want to kill her own son?”
    Madame Suez-Panama said, “She was a witch.”
    Fabrice’s hand was cold.
    “What happened to the child?”
    The old woman chose not to answer. “He’d be over forty now,” she said. “If he were alive. And Hégésippe would now have a son to look after him.” In the penumbra, Anne Marie could see the corners of the thin lips turn down. “You see my brother now, old and burned-out. But in those days, he could have had any woman he wanted, but like a fool, he fell in love with a witch.” Beneath the blanket the woman’s chest rose in a long sigh. “And now there’s no one to look after the old fool.”
    “He has you, madame.”
    “What can I do to help Hégésippe? I am old. He was too proud to come back when I was still young, too proud to return from that terrible place.”
    “How did the child die?”
    A television came alight across the road.
    “He was drowned in a pond.”
    “A