Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [132]
The next day, upon waking, he looked at her as he had not done in a long time. In the last six years, he had only noticed the morsels of her flesh that were still tempting, expressions and movements that would start up the machine of memory without really moving him. And he would leave to bring to another the tenderness he didn’t offer her. How was it that he began to detach himself from her? He had no serious grievance against her. On the contrary. Was it, in fact, precisely because he knew she was so easygoing that he cheated on her? He had chosen her because she was the quiet girl, distant and serene: would he now reproach her for these very qualities?
“We’ll go see Dr. Valois together,” he promised her. “You look thin and worn-out. We need to take care of you.”
She looked at him astonished.
“What’s gotten into you? Do I really look like I’m at death’s door?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Dr. Valois examined me recently.”
“What was the matter?” he asked with real anxiety.
“Oh, I wasn’t feeling well, that’s all. Happens to everybody, doesn’t it?”
“And Dr. Valois was sure there’s nothing wrong with you?”
“Nothing physical. It’s all these worries, these awful worries eating away at me.”
He looked at her and realized she was lying They were two steps away from each other and he could see her nostrils quivering. She closed her eyes and he tenderly put a hand on her shoulder.
“We have to remain hopeful, Laura. We have to.”
“All I know how to do is lie to myself.”
“Without hope, what will become of us?”
“Yes,” she said, “what will become of us?”
She shook herself free and went down to the dining room. Rose was still in bed and they had breakfast without her. Louis Normil caught Paul’s insistent gaze, full of contempt and insolence, and it made him shudder.
“How many parcels of land have you already sold for the Gorilla at a handsome profit?” the young man burst out, the words hissing in his teeth like insults.
“Son, let’s hope I will be able to sell them,” he answered, trying to sound natural, “since at least then I’ll make some money out of it. I just told your mother that only hope can help us. There’s a horde of vultures circling these properties. I am simply trying not to lose everything, that’s all.”
“And in the meantime, you’re making deals with them too,” Paul continued. “One way or another, they’ll manage to buy off each and every one of us.”
He laughed so horribly that the invalid looked at him with open-mouthed curiosity.
“You just laughed like a demon when he catches a condemned soul in his claws,” the grandfather added softly in a voice so gentle it didn’t seem like his own.
“My father has become friends with our persecutor,” Paul cried.
Louis Normil turned pale and his shoulders sagged with utter exhaustion. The grandfather dropped his fork, his beard trembled.
“If this is true, my son, leave my house, don’t impose your presence upon me, I’m not dead yet,” he said.
The father lowered his head in guilt.
“Paul!” the mother called out in painful reproach, and shut her eyes.
“Paul misunderstood me,” the father articulated in a soft and measured voice. “He is very young and he misunderstood.”
At that moment, Rose bounded down the stairs and sat down in her chair. Pushing out his chair, Paul got up from the table, his brows glowering over hardened eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
He watched the Gorilla for two days, walking the streets with the cold blade of his knife caressing his skin through his shirt. He walked a formidable distance in vain, watching cars, searching buildings and public places. He went home seething with rage,