Read Online Tropic Moon by Georges Simenon - Free Book Online

that. Before speaking, she looked him over once again. There was a hint of indecision in her eyes.
    â€œAre you on very good terms with your uncle?”
    That was about the most unexpected thing she could have said! So she was also interested in his famous uncle?
    â€œYes, very good. He’s my godfather—I went to say my farewells before I left.”
    â€œIs he on the right or left?”
    â€œHe belongs to a party called the Popular Democrats—something like that.”
    â€œI suppose you know that SACOVA is bankrupt, or close to it.”
    Stunned, Timar drank his coffee. He wondered if he’d really slept with this woman who was now carefully weighing her every word. But then was she so different from the Adèle he’d taken in his arms?
    This was when the atmosphere of the house was somehow at its most intimate—cleaning time, the time for small domestic tasks. You could make out the low hum of the native market even though it was some four hundred yards away. Women walked by, their waists draped with cloth, carrying jars or food wrapped in banana leaves on their heads.
    Adèle was pale. Her skin must have always been like that—matte, even-toned, smooth. It looked like it had never been touched by the sun. Did she have the same finely creased eyelids when she was younger?
    When Timar was six, he’d experienced a great love—the memory still haunted him. It had been his teacher. At the time he lived in a village where the children were all taught together until high school.
    Like Adèle, the teacher always dressed in black, and her expression was a similar mix of severity and tenderness. Above all, she displayed the same calm, so alien to Timar’s character.
    Right now, for instance, he wanted to take Adèle’s hand in his, to say silly things, to whisper reminiscences of the night before. But seeing her with the face of a schoolteacher grading homework, he grew confused and blushed. And yet he wanted her more than ever.
    â€œSo you see, there’s a good chance you’ll return to France empty-handed.”
    What she was saying should have grated on him, or been hateful. And yet somehow she managed to make her words almost soothing. She enveloped him in a tenderness all of her own, something that went beyond her actions or words.
    The boy was polishing the brass bar. Adèle was contemplating Timar’s forehead as if it was far, far away.
    â€œOn the other hand, there’s a way to make a million in three years.”
    Once again, if anyone else had said that, he would have found it intolerable. Now she stood up. She was speaking even more carefully, pacing back and forth across the café. The sound of her high heels on the flagstones gave rhythm to her sentences. Each one stood out, followed by the exact same silence. Adèle’s smile suited her strange voice. Maybe it seemed low class to some people, but it was full of personality, sometimes soft, sometimes shrill like cheap music.
    What was she saying? It blended in with his other impressions: the black women still filing past outside, the skinny, nervous legs of the boy in his white shorts, the panting of a diesel engine someone somewhere was trying to adjust. And then there were the images her own words evoked. She mentioned loggers and instantly he saw Bouilloux’s face lit by the oil lamp in Maria’s hut.
    â€œThey don’t buy the land—the government gives them a three-year concession.”
    Why, as he gazed at her, did he see her again the way she’d looked that morning, searching for her hairpins while he pretended to sleep?
    She pulled a bottle from a shelf, set two glasses on the table, and filled them with calvados. Was she from Normandy? It was the third time he’d seen her drink apple brandy.
    â€œThe first colonists were given concessions for thirty years or more—even a perpetual lease.”
    A perpetual lease—the words stuck with him