Tropic Moon by Georges Simenon Page A

the shade.
    Suddenly there was a catastrophic noise, a brutal, wrenching sensation that threw him under the bench. He picked himself up, haggard, with clenched fists and bulging eyes.
    â€œWhat the hell is going on?”
    The flatboat was leaning at an angle and the water was rushing madly past the gunwale. In a sort of semiconsciousness, Timar saw the black step over the rail. He thought he was coming to get him, that he’d been lured into an ambush, and he threw himself at the black man, knocking him into the water with a punch in the face.
    â€œSo that’s what you want! We’ll see about that!”
    The water was no more than a foot and a half deep. The flatboat had drifted into some rapids. Painfully, the black climbed back into the boat. Timar was looking everywhere for the rifle he’d seen that morning.
    â€œYou bastard! You’ll see …”
    But he tripped over something, he wasn’t sure what—the bench, maybe, or the gun he’d wanted. He stumbled. He fell and in a flash saw Adèle looking at him in horror, certainly in despair. His head struck something hard.
    â€œBastard!” he repeated.
    And everything was spinning, everything moved, things flew up in the sky and the shadows came down from above.
    Yet there were still moments of vague consciousness. One time, when he opened his eyes, he was sitting on the bottom of the boat; the black was holding him up while Adèle, struggling to lift his arms, was putting his jacket back on.
    Another time, it was Adèle’s face bent over him. He was lying down. His temples were a little cool and damp, while his hands, neck, and chest were roasting.
    At last he was being carried. It wasn’t just two people, but ten, a hundred! A multitude of blacks, their legs all moving at the height of his head.
    They spoke a language he didn’t recognize. Adèle was speaking it, too.
    Through the black legs he could see trees, many trees, then a darkness from which a damp smell of compost rose.

8
    H E WAS sitting on his bed, and what he noticed before anything else wasn’t Adèle, who’d helped him up, but the walls. They were pale green. So he hadn’t been dreaming. If one detail was real, everything was.
    Timar frowned suspiciously. His mouth was set like a judge’s.
    â€œHow long have I been here?”
    He stared hard at Adèle, as if he wanted to catch her in a lie.
    â€œFour days. Why are you looking at me that way?”
    She was still putting him on. She laughed nervously, without meaning to.
    â€œGive me a mirror!”
    She went looking for it, and he ran his hand over his unshaved cheeks. He was thinner. He didn’t recognize his eyes. And here he’d only made a few small gestures and was already tired.
    â€œWhere’s Bouilloux?”
    He knew he was upsetting her and the fact gave him pleasure. He guessed his feverish stare seemed threatening.
    â€œBouilloux? We’re not in Libreville anymore. We’re at home, at the concession.”
    â€œWhere’s Bouilloux?”
    He had lots and lots of other questions, too. Questions? More like a case to prosecute. Because while he’d been lying there with a fever of a hundred and five, he’d seen a lot and he’d heard a lot, too. And just as soon as he’d discovered that the room was green …
    It was on the second day—in any case near the beginning—that Adèle, after settling them in, had looked at the walls with disgust. He heard her moving around downstairs, giving orders. Later on, she’d painted the partitions lime green.
    She had no idea he’d seen her. His eyes had been wide open. She’d called someone else in to do the ceiling.
    â€œWhat about Bouilloux?”
    He wanted to get that question out of the way, because he had another waiting.
    â€œHe hasn’t been here, Joe, I swear!”
    So what? He’d see about Bouilloux later; he was almost positive he’d heard