The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe by Timothy Williams Page B

autopsy.”
    “You’re an investigating magistrate, you’re not expected to stand in on every postmortem.”
    “The
procureur
wanted me to go.”
    “If it was so important, why did you walk out halfway through?”
    “Sometimes you can be very unfeeling.”
    “You’re stopping me from sleeping, Anne Marie.”
    “I worry about Fabrice.”
    “Go to sleep.”
    “I worry about my son.”
    “There’s nothing you can do. Not in the middle of the night.”
    “I think I’d better get back to the house.”
    “You’re blackmailing me.”
    “Why can’t we ever talk, Luc?”
    “Now?”
    “You never want to discuss anything.”
    “I have a job to do, too.”
    “Sex’s all you care about and once you’ve got what you want, you go to sleep.”
    “I blame my biological clock but you see, I’m not a civil servant. I’ve got an important meeting tomorrow. I’d like to get some sleep.”
    “Fabrice comes home from school and tells me he’s been kicked out of his English class.”
    “You were never kicked out by your teacher when you were at school?”
    “I was only too glad to be able to go to school. Education wasn’t compulsory in Algeria—at least, not for everybody.”
    “A goody-goody.”
    “The English teacher’s written he’s insolent and aggressive.”
    “Who on earth could he have inherited that from?”
    “Fabrice’s never aggressive at home, and he’s good at English. He spends his time watching the American channels on the television.”
    “See the teacher.”
    “I am bogged down with work.”
    “You want a good job—or you want to be a good mother?”
    “I’ve got so much to do.”
    “Work of your own making.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “If you work so hard at the
palais de justice
, it’s because you want to. Because it keeps you occupied, Anne Marie. That’s why you go to the damned autopsy—and everything else. Because it keeps you from asking yourself questions.”
    “Thanks for the sympathy.”
    “Questions about yourself and about your life. You put it all out of your head. The other investigating judges don’t have anything like your workload. Look at Monneron.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “You went to your postmortem to show you’re better than everyone else. A woman but better than all the others. You went because you like to feel that without you there’s no justice.”
    “The
procureur
’s breathing down my neck for results. Since they found the girl …”
    “Let the
gendarmerie
get on with it. You’re always saying it’s the police’s job to do the initial work. The
gendarmerie
and your alcoholic chum Lafitte. Take some time off, for heaven’s sake. Go and see about your son. And then perhaps you’ll let me sleep.”
    “Luc, there are times when I feel …”
    “Not tonight, Anne Marie, not tonight. There’s nothing you can do for Fabrice tonight. He’s a sweet kid and I’m fond of him, even when he sits looking at me and he’s not listening to a word I’m saying because he’s got his Walkman on full blast. Go to sleep. In the morning, you can drop by at the
lycée
. Speak to the teacher, find out what’s going wrong.”
    “Why doesn’t Fabrice talk to me about it?”
    “For somebody who’s dealing with men all day long, you’re not very good with male psychology.”
    “Kind words.”
    “He’s turning into a man.”
    “So what?”
    “Anne Marie, you don’t like men.”
    “What entitles you to say that?”
    “You think Fabrice doesn’t realize that?”
    “You can be a bastard, can’t you, Luc?”
    “Sleep, Anne Marie. You need the rest.”
    “Just listen to me for once. I would like to get Fabrice to talk but he doesn’t want to. This last year he’s been drawing away from me. If he had a father …”
    “Anne Marie …”
    “I’m a woman. There are things I can’t do. I know I’m not always getting through to Fabrice.”
    “You’re using your emotional blackmail.”
    “Blackmail on who?”
    “Anne Marie,