The garden is, at present, only a square of naked earth, recently spaded, out of which are growing perhaps a dozen thin young orange trees a little shorter than a man, planted at A . . .’s orders.
The house does not occupy the whole width of the garden. Therefore it is isolated on all sides from the green mass of the banana trees.
Across the bare ground, in front of the west gable-end, falls the warped shadow of the house. The shadow of the roof is linked to the shadow of the veranda by the oblique shadow of the corner column. The balustrade here forms a barely perforated strip, whereas the real distance between the balusters is scarcely smaller than the average thickness of the latter.
The balusters are of turned wood, with a median hip and two accessory smaller bulges, one at each end. The paint, which has almost completely disappeared from the top surface of the hand-rail, is also beginning to flake off the bulging portions of the balusters; they present, for the most part, a wide zone of naked wood halfway up the baluster, on the rounded part of the hip, on the veranda side. Between the gray paint that remains, faded with age, and the wood grayed by the action of humidity, appear little red-dish-brown surfaces—the natural color of the wood—where it has been exposed by the recent fall of new flakes of paint The whole balustrade is to be repainted bright yellow: that is what A . . . has decided.
The windows of her bedroom are still closed. However the blinds which replace the panes of glass are opened as far as possible, thus making the interior of the room bright enough. A . . . is standing in front of the right-hand window, looking out through one of the chinks in the blinds toward the veranda.
The man is still motionless, bending over the muddy water on the earth-covered log bridge. He has not moved an inch: crouching, head lowered, forearms resting on his thighs, hands hanging between his knees.
In front of him, in the patch along the opposite bank of the little stream, several stems look ripe for harvesting. Several boles have already been cut in this sector. Their empty places appear with perfect distinctness in the series of geometrical alignments. But on closer inspection it is possible to distinguish the sizeable shoot that will replace the severed banana tree a few inches away from the old stump, already beginning to spoil the perfect regularity of the alternate planting.
From the other side of the house can be heard the noise of a truck coming up the road on the near slope of the valley.
A . . .’s silhouette, outlined in horizontal strips against the blind of her bedroom window, has now disappeared.
Having reached the level portion of the road, just above the rocky outcrop that marks the end of the plateau, the truck shifts gears and continues with a less muffled rumble. Then the sound gradually fades as it drives off east, through the scorched brush dotted with motionless trees, toward the next plantation—Franck's.
The bedroom window—the one nearest the hallway—opens outward. The upper part of A . . .’s body is framed within it. She says “Hello” in the playful tone of someone who has slept well and awakened in a good mood; or of someone who prefers not to show what she is thinking about—if anything—and always flashes the same smile, on principle; the same smile, which can be interpreted as derision just as well as affection, or the total absence of any feeling whatever.
Besides, she has not awakened just now. It is obvious she has already taken her shower. She is still wearing her dressing gown, but her lips are freshly made up—the lipstick color the same as their natural color, a trifle deeper, and her carefully brushed hair gleams in the light from the window when she turns her head, shifting the soft, heavy curls whose black mass falls over the white silk of her shoulder.
She goes to the heavy chest against the rear partition. She opens the top drawer to take out a small object and turns back toward the light. On tile log bridge the crouching native has disappeared. There is no one visible around the house. No cutting crew is working in this sector, for the moment.
A . . . is sitting at the little work table against the wall to her right that separates the bedroom from the hallway. She leans forward over some long and painstaking task: mending an extremely fine stocking, polishing her nails, a tiny pencil drawing. . . . But A . . . never draws: to mend a run in her stocking she would have moved nearer the daylight; if she needed a table to do her nails on, she would not have chosen this one.
Despite the apparent immobility of her head and shoulders, a series of jolts disturbs the black mass of her hair. From time to time she straightens up and seems to lean back to judge her work from a distance. Her hand rising slowly, she puts into place a short curl that has emerged from this shifting mass. The hand lingers as it rearranges the waves of hair, the tapering fingers bend and straighten, one after the other, quickly though without abruptness, the movement communicating itself from one to the other continuously, as if they were driven by the same mechanism.
Leaning over again, she has now resumed her interrupted task. The lustrous hair gleams with reddish highlights in the hollow of the curls. Slight quivers, quickly absorbed, run through the hair from one shoulder to the other, without its being possible to see the rest of the body stir at all.
On the veranda in front of the office windows, Franck is sitting in his customary place, in one of the chairs of local manufacture. Only these three have been brought out this morning. They are arranged as usual: the first two next to each other under the window, the third slightly to one side, on the other side of the low table.
A . . . has gone to get the glasses, the soda water, and the cognac herself. She sets a tray with the two bottles and the three big glasses down on the table. Having uncorked the cognac she turns toward Franck and looks at him, while she begins making his drink. But Franck, instead of watching the rising level of the alcohol, fixes his eyes a little too high, on A . . .’s face. She has arranged her hair into a low knot whose skillful waves seem about to come undone; some hidden pins must be keeping it firmer than it looks.
Franck's voice has uttered an exclamation: “Hey there! That's much too much!” or else: “Stop! That's much too much!” or, “Ten times too much,” “Half again too much,” etc. . . . He holds up his right hand beside his head, the fingers slightly apart. A . . . begins to laugh.
“You should have stopped me sooner.”
“But I didn't see . . .” Franck protests.
“Well, then,” she answers, “you should keep your eye on the glass.”
They look at each other without adding another word. Franck widens his smile, which wrinkles up the corners of his eyes. He opens his mouth as if he were going to say something. But he doesn't say anything. A . . .’s features, from a point three-quarters of the way behind her, reveal nothing.
After several minutes—or several seconds—both are still in the same position. Franck's face as well as his whole body are virtually petrified. He is wearing shorts and a short-sleeved khaki shirt, whose shoulder straps and but-toned pockets have a vaguely military look. Over his rough cotton knee socks he wears tennis-shoes coated with a thick layer of white shoe polish, cracked at the places where the canvas bends with the foot.
A . . . is about to pour the soda into the three glasses lined up on the low table. She distributes the first two, then, holding the third one in her hand, sits down in the empty chair beside Franck. He has already begun drinking.
“Is it cold enough?” A . . . asks him. “The bottles just came out of the refrigerator.”
Franck nods and drinks another mouthful.
“There's ice if you want it,” A . . . says. And without waiting for an answer she calls the boy.
There is a silence, during which the boy should appear on the veranda at the corner of the house. But no one comes.
Franck looks at A . . ., as if he expected her to call again, or stand up, or reach some