Another Sun by Timothy Williams Page A

realized the action was quite pointless. She knew what was there, waiting for her.
    It was Trousseau who interceded. He unceremoniously pushed her aside and pulled back the edge of the woolen blanket.
    Pale blue eyes, now protuberant and sightless.
    The eyes seemed to stare at Anne Marie. The leathery jaw lolled open and revealed a few yellow teeth and a tongue that stuck out—as if in one last, hopeless gesture of defiance.
    Anne Marie forced herself to look at the face.
    “Why?” she whispered.
    Trousseau let the blanket fall back into place, hiding the pink triangle of the tongue.
    “Why?” Her body had begun to tremble.
    “Why indeed, madame le juge?”
    “How did this happen?” She turned to face the procureur. She wanted to control her voice but it seemed distant, strange—spoken by someone else. A cold rage had begun to swell up inside her.
    “With the shoulder strap of his overalls.” Dr. Bouton wore steel-rimmed spectacles. His face was thin, pale and angular. He had a small mouth. Dr. Bouton was like a fish—like a shark—at the bottom of a murky sea. “Somehow managed to attach his overall to the bars.”
    Anne Marie felt giddy. “How could he have done that?” The bars of the cell seemed to be moving.
    “Hégésippe Bray wanted to die.”
    A bitter taste of bile rose from the back of her throat. “I don’t believe that.”
    “Believe what you choose, madame le juge,” the procureur replied. He sat down on the bench, his fat thighs apart. “I can only tell you what I know to be the truth. The only possible truth.”
    “I don’t believe Hégésippe Bray.…”
    The procureur jabbed with his cigar. “This is an old colonial prison. The architecture here doesn’t come up to the requirements of French penitentiary establishments. With a modern infrastructure, there is no way Bray could have killed himself. But the old man wanted to die—and without too much difficulty, he’s succeeded.”
    “No.”
    “Bray told the guard he did not want to live any more—not in a prison.”
    “No.”
    “Lower your voice, madame.”
    Anne Marie felt sick—stunned and sick. The dingy cell seemed to sway. Then the door opened, and the white man with the pistol stood aside to let a woman enter.
    “Ah!” the procureur said.
    Dr. Bouton stood up. He shook hands with the woman.
    “Maître Gisèle Legrand—who was appointed Bray’s lawyer yesterday.”
    Trousseau said softly, “Lawyer? Bray’ll be needing an undertaker.”
    The procureur swung round, opened his mouth to say something, but his features relaxed as he attempted a smile.
    Maître Gisèle Legrand wore sober clothes; a jacket with a hint of pinstripe, a silk shirt that opened low on her deep, freckled chest. A grey skirt that ended below her knees. Exclusive shoes—bought in Paris.
    “We have already met.” Anne Marie shook hands.
    Maître Legrand had fair skin, and there were freckles on her cheeks. She wore red lipstick and a lot of rouge. Her hair had been straightened and it now formed a thick plait—like a bread loaf, it seemed to Anne Marie, who could distinguish between the natural hair and the finer, more lustrous hairpiece.
    The eyes were glassy. “Pleased to meet you, madame le juge.”
    The procureur pulled back the edge of the blanket. Again the dead man’s stare and his loose jaw held Anne Marie’s attention. She leaned on Trousseau’s arm.
    “Hanged himself,” the procureur said.
    Maître Legrand nodded.
    The procureur stood up, briskly rubbed his hands, straightened his shoulders and looked around the cell—at the scratched bars, the wall, the small bed attached to the stonework. “We should go somewhere else to talk.”
    There was graffiti on the wall—a few initials, a few sprawling obscenities.
    The procureur replaced the cigar in his mouth. “Somewhere a bit more congenial.”

20
Chair
    She felt sick.
    “Something to drink perhaps?”
    Anne Marie rested her weight against the edge of the desk. “Hégésippe