“Dry your hair thoroughly, and when you’re finished you can run me a bath.”
“If it’s all right with you,” John says, “I’d like to take a shower first.”
John heads for the bathroom. Becky stares at her shaking hands. “Good Lord,” she thinks. “What’s come over me?”
“Bring me a comb and a brush and I’ll do your hair now. . John-John, dry yourself properly, you’re not a baby anymore. .”
John-John’s sad look. Three days ago Becky would have taken him in her arms and consoled him. Now she is unmoved. And John-John senses the change: he dries himself methodically without taking his eyes off his mother.
“That enough. Go get dressed now. And no squabbling, you three!”
John’s voice from the bathroom. And the sound of his electric razor.
“Would you like me to run your bath, my dear?”
Becky decides not to answer him.
“I asked if you still want to take a bath.”
Silence.
“Have you changed your mind, or do you still want a bath?”
“Damn it, John!”
“Can I not even talk to you anymore?”
“I have had it up to here with your stupid questions!”
“I’ve never seen you behave this way before. Are you nervous about something?”
Becky tightens her grip on the comb and brush to stop her hands from trembling. She exhales through her mouth, a thin stream of air.
“Are you pregnant?”
“By whom would I be?”
“What a question!” John exclaims, laughing.
An embarrassed laugh.
THREE SMALL RAPS on the bathroom door.
“Who is it?” she says dryly.
“It’s me, Mommy,” comes John-John’s small, frightened voice.
“Come in, sweetie.”
John-John opens the door and remains in the doorway, his eyes filled with tears.
“What is it, John-John?”
“You don’t love me anymore.”
Becky isn’t prepared for this stab in the back.
“Why do you say that? It’s just that Mommy’s tired.”
John-John’s sad, closed expression.
“You don’t love us anymore.”
“But what makes you say such a thing?”
“You’re not here. . You’re not with us. .”
“But look, here I am, sweetie! How can you say such a thing? Whatever do you mean?”
John-John remains silent, having nothing to add. He has said everything. Now there is only his limitless sadness.
“Come here, my sweet, come and give Mommy a hug. . There, can you feel Mommy’s here now?”
John-John smiles.
“It smells good in here, Mommy.”
“It’s these scented herbs, my little sweetie-pie.”
“Am I still your sweetie-pie?”
“Of course you are, my darling. .”
AT LAST BECKY is alone. She thinks about what her mother told her about the fact of being a woman. A woman alone with a man. With a man who wants her. She also thinks about the little house on the side of the blue mountain.
She feels like a traveller who, after an absence of many years, has finally come home. Having seen all the wonders of the world, the only thing that still has the power to move her is her little house.
Becky finds herself wondering if perhaps nature has nothing to do with things that happen on the surface. Things like colour, race, nationality, class, social structure. It does what it does. Deep below appearances. Unconcerned with surfaces.
She feels that everything is pulling her away from John, pulling her towards this man whose name she doesn’t even know. Could this be possible?
Maybe people’s names are also meaningless? Nature is deaf, dumb and blind. Then why did it put me in London and give me blonde hair and green eyes, if, in reality, I’m nothing but a simple peasant from the south of Haiti?
Nature makes no reply to that question, either.
JOHN SENSES THAT Becky is no longer beside him in bed. Without opening his eyes he runs his hand over her cold pillow. “She’s probably in the bathroom,” he thinks. When they were first married she would often spend a large part of the night sitting on the toilet seat, holding her head in her hands. When he would ask her what she was doing she would invariably reply that she couldn’t breathe lying next to him.
“My darling, do you not feel well?”
No response.
“Shall I fetch a doctor?” he would ask, wondering where on earth he would find a decent doctor at that godforsaken hour of night.
Now he asks himself why on earth they are not taking their vacation in Rome, or Madrid, or New York, or even Kingston. Becky is right, when it comes down to it: he doesn’t involve himself enough in such matters. He goes along with things too mechanically. Just now, for example, he’s asking the same questions and pulling the same answers out of the same old bag of tricks he’s been using for more than twenty years. He really thinks he’s lost his taste for risk.
Moments later he is still wondering if he should get up or go back to sleep. He decides to get up.
“Becky! What are you doing?”
The children are sleeping on the floor in their blue sleeping bags. John remembers buying them on a rainy day in London. John-John looks like a little pageboy he saw a few years ago in the Prado. He glances tenderly at the two girls. They look like Siamese twins, curled up together like that in one sleeping bag. He goes downstairs, telling himself there is no need to hurry. The fat innkeeper is already calmly sipping a cup of coffee.
“Would you like a cup, monsieur?”
The smell of coffee and the weak morning light fill the tiny room with a degree of intimacy.
“I’m looking for my wife.”
“Hmm.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Yes,” the fat woman replies tranquilly. “She asked me to tell you.”
“Ah! I should have guessed. She’s gone for a walk on the beach,” he says, feeling some colour come back to his cheeks.
“No, she went off towards the mountain. .”
“Do you know which side?”
“Yes,” says the fat woman in a neutral tone that he finds almost alarming.
“You have the advantage of me, madame,” John says, in his British tone of voice.
He is no longer a frightened man; he is now an Englishman talking to an inferior.
“Come over here, monsieur,” says the innkeeper with a tiny smile on her lips, a smile that is all but invisible to the naked eye. . “Do you see that little house up there?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where you will find your wife.”
John blanches.
“What’s she doing up there?” he cries out, then immediately regains control of himself.
“When you go up the road, turn right and take the first path you see on your left. . Are you with me, monsieur?”
“Yes,” he says, his voice level.
“Take the first path you come to on your left. . It will take you right up to the little house. . You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about the children,” she says, her voice filled with kindness. “I’ll look after them.”
“How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing, monsieur,” she says, laughing discreetly. “I advise you to get going before the sun gets too hot. . You don’t have your hat?”
“Yes, I have a hat. . But I left it back there. .”
“I’ll go get it for you.”
“I mean I left it in London.”
“I see. . Here, take this one, otherwise the sun will cook you like a crayfish. . It’s a good hour’s walk for someone like you, who isn’t used to climbing.”
“What’s the way again?”
“I told you, monsieur, take the road that runs past the hotel here, then turn left and keep to your right. . There’s nothing to it. .”