It is at this hour that the lighting in the dining room is the most favorable. From the other side of the square table where the places have not yet been set, one of the French windows, whose panes are darkened by no dust at all, is open on the courtyard which is also reflected in the glass.
Between the two window-leaves, as through the half-open right one, is framed the left side of the courtyard where the tarpaulin-covered truck is parked, its hood facing the northern sector of the banana plantation. Under the tarpaulin is a raw wood case, marked with large black letters painted in reverse through a stencil.
In the left window-leaf the reflection is brighter, though deeper in hue. But it is distorted by flaws in the glass, the circular or crescent-shaped spots of verdure, the same colors as the banana trees, occurring in the middle of the courtyard in front of the sheds.
Nicked by one of the moving rings of foliage, the big blue sedan nevertheless remains quite recognizable, as well as A . . .’s dress where she is standing next to the car.
She is leaning toward the door. If the window has been lowered—which is likely—A . . . may have put her face into the opening above the seat. In straightening up she rum the risk of disarranging her hair against the edge of the window, and seeing her hair spread out and fall over the driver still behind the wheel.
The latter is here again for dinner, affable and smiling. He drops into one of the leather chairs without anyone's telling him which, and utters his usual exclamation as to their comfort.
“That feels good!”
His white shirt makes a paler spot in the darkness, against the wall of the house.
In order not to risk spilling the contents in the darkness, A . . . has come as close as possible to Franck's armchair, carefully holding his glass in her right hand. She rests her other hand on the arm of his chair and leans toward him, so close that their heads touch. He murmurs a few words, probably thanking her. But the words are drowned out by the deafening racket of the crickets that rises on all sides.
At table, once the arrangement of the lamps has been shifted so that the guests are in less direct a light, the conversation continues on familiar subjects, with the same phrases.
Franck's truck has had engine trouble on the middle of the hill, between the 40-mile marker—where the road leaves the plain—and the first village. It was a police car which passed the truck and then stopped at the plantation to inform Franck. When the latter reached the spot two hours later, he did not find his truck at the place indicated, but much lower down, the driver having tried to start the motor in reverse, at the risk of crashing into a tree if he missed one of the turns.
Expecting any results at all from such a method was ridiculous anyway. The carburetor would have to be completely dismantled all over again. Luckily Franck had brought along a snack lunch, for he didn't get home until three-thirty. He has decided to replace the truck as soon as possible, and it's the last time—he says—that he will buy old military matériel.
“You think you're getting a bargain, but in the long run it costs much more.”
He now expects to buy a new truck. He is going down to the port himself at the first opportunity and meet with the sales agents of the chief makes, so that he can find out the exact prices, the various advantages, delivery time, etc. . . .
If he had a little more experience, he would know that new machines should not be entrusted to Negro drivers, who wreck them just as fast, if not faster.
“When do you think you'll be going down?” A . . . asks.
“I don't know. . . .” They look at each other, their glances meeting above the platter Franck is holding in one hand six inches above the table top. “Maybe next week.”
“I have to go to town too,” A . . . says; “I have a lot of shopping to do.”
“Well, I'll be glad to take you. If we leave early, we can be back the same night.”
He sets the platter down on his left and begins helping himself. A . . . turns back so that she is looking straight ahead.
“A centipede!” she says in a more restrained voice, in the silence that has just fallen.
Franck looks up again. Following the direction of A . . .’s motionless gaze, he turns his head to the other side, toward his right.
On the light-colored paint of the partition opposite A . . ., a common Scutigera of average size (about as long as a finger) has appeared, easily seen despite the dim light. It is not moving, for the moment, but the orientation of its body indicates a path which cuts across the panel diagonally: coming from the baseboard on the hallway side and heading toward the corner of the ceiling. The creature is easy to identify thanks to the development of its legs, especially on the posterior portion. On closer examination the swaying movement of the antennae at the other end can be discerned.
A . . . has not moved since her discovery: sitting very straight in her chair, her hands resting flat on the cloth on either side of her plate. Her eyes are wide, staring at the wall. Her mouth is not quite closed, and may be quivering imperceptibly.
It is not unusual to encounter different kinds of centipedes after dark in this already old wooden house. And this kind is not one of the largest; it is far from being one of the most venomous. A . . . does her best, but does not manage to look away, nor to smile at the joke about her aversion to centipedes.
Franck, who has said nothing, is looking at A . . . again. Then he stands up, noiselessly, holding his napkin in his hand. He wads it into a ball and approaches the wall.
A . . . seems to be breathing a little faster, but this may be an illusion. Her left hand gradually closes over her knife. The delicate antennae accelerate their alternate swaying.
Suddenly the creature hunches its body and begins descending diagonally toward the ground as fast as its long legs can go, while the wadded napkin falls on it, faster still.
The hand with the tapering fingers has clenched around the knife handle; but the features of the face have lost none of their rigidity. Franck lifts the napkin away from the wall and with his foot continues to squash something on the tiles, against the baseboard.
About a yard higher, the paint is marked with a dark shape, a tiny arc twisted into a question mark, blurred on one side, in places surrounded by more tenuous signs, from which A . . . has still not taken her eyes.
The brush descends the length of the loose hair with a faint noise something between the sound of a breath and a crackle. No sooner has it reached the bottom than it quickly rises again toward the head, where the whole surface of its bristles sinks in before gliding down over the black mass again. The brush is a bone-colored oval whose short handle disappears almost entirely in the hand firmly gripping it.
Half of the hair hangs down the back, the other hand pulls the other half over one shoulder. The head leans to the right, offering the hair more readily to the brush. Each time the latter lands at the top of its cycle behind the nape of the neck, the head leans farther to the right and then rises again with an effort, while the right hand, holding the brush, moves away in the opposite direction. The left hand, which loosely confines the hair between the wrist, the palm and the fingers, releases it for a second and then closes on it again, gathering the strands together with a firm, mechanical gesture, while the brush continues its course to the extreme tips of the hair. The sound, which gradually varies from one end to the other, is at this point nothing more than a dry, faint crackling, whose last sputters occur once the brush, leaving the longest hair, is already moving up the ascending part of the cycle, describing a swift curve in the air which brings it above the neck, where the hair lies flat on the back of the head and reveals the white streak