Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [93]
“Take care of that sciatica,” the grandfather advised, scowling at him, “and thanks for the invitation.”
Their cowardice is sickening, and their friendship is pathetic. God be praised for letting him probe their souls and see into their true feelings. For he had believed in them. Not without pain did he recall the long walks he had taken with Jacob, their babble after the invalid would fall asleep, the meals shared casually. When his only daughter died, Jacob grew so desperate that the grandfather didn’t dare leave him alone. They had followed the hearse arm in arm, and when the grave had been closed, Jacob sobbed on his shoulder. Of course, sometimes two men go around together without any real feelings for each other. But he, Claude Normil, had never been able to treat someone he despised as a friend. He was disappointed, for there is nothing worse than misplacing one’s trust in another at an age when experience should have armed you against misapprehensions and illusions. How naïve he had been to believe for a single minute that a Syrian could feel sincere and disinterested friendship for a black man! He knew now that as long as a human being could still open his eyes, even at the bottom of a ditch, he would still have a lot to learn from life. “Pusillanimous and pathetic!” he added, and made for the bedroom where the child was waiting for him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rose went with her father to the lawyer’s on the appointed day.
There were a dozen people in a room that was furnished with only a few dusty chairs. Standing with her arms crossed, an outrageously made-up woman in a black tight-fitting dress gazed in agony at the young man in livery who stood watch over the door. A toothless, trembling old man approached and beseeched him in a respectful whisper. The guard froze the old man in place with his look. He trembled even more and emitted a sort of submissive falsetto chuckle as if he agreed with the guard. The other clients were farther off, likewise standing and casting furtive glances at the empty chairs. When they saw Rose and her father sit down, they exchanged winks of admiration that turned to mockery when the guard opened the door and had the woman in black go before them. There was a grumble of protest. So the woman turned around and said: “I’ve been here for two days and haven’t even sat down, isn’t that right, sir?” The guard looked at Rose and for a brief moment an elusive smile loosened the fixed expression on his face.
The woman in black remained inside over an hour. The trembling old man had looked at his watch with a desperate grimace and left the room. Sitting beside his daughter, Louis Normil was getting impatient and anxious. What new lie was he going to have to come up with to explain his absence at the office? On account of the harsh reprimands he received, he was losing the prestige he enjoyed among the other employees. They probably knew all about his predicament and went out of their way to let him know they knew.
“Well then, my little sheep, getting sheared are you?” one of his colleagues had recently asked.
Overexcited from all these thoughts, he stood up and went toward the guard.
“I would like to remind you, sir,” he said, “that this is my third appointment. I’ve been waiting for two hours. Can I expect to be admitted?”
The guard leaned toward him without looking at him, his eyes on Rose, who was yawning and wriggling in her chair. At about eleven, a peephole high up on the wall opened up and eyes appeared behind it, noticed by no one save Louis Normil. The guard tilted his head to listen to someone talking to him from the other side of the door and immediately said:
“Monsieur Louis Normil.”
Rose got up, gestured at her father, and, shrugging her shoulders, went through the door that the guard held wide open. For a brief instant she waited for her father, who hesitated as if he had suddenly thought to run away. He was