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paintings on the floor, piled one on top of the other, on the sofa, on the desk and on all the walls. The canvases were crammed with very bright colours: black-skinned men and women were labouring in sugar cane fields, carrying baskets on their heads, or crafting straw hats. In one corner of the room dozens of masks were piled up, their oval faces seemed to wish to extract both laughter and tears from anyone who looked at them too long. Nonetheless, in the very middle of the living room, what attracted your attention most was an easel, which bore a painting that was just being sketched out. Cléo came back with two small bags in his hands.
    â€œIs your mother a painter?” you asked in a low voice.
    Circling his arms to encompass the whole room, Cléo answered, “She’s the one who painted everything you see here.”
    You were especially fascinated by the masks: you examined them, touched them, weighed them in your hands, turned them all around. Akira put one of them on and pretended to roar. Cléo immediately rushed towards you: he’d told you – absolutely no noise!
    â€œI know what we’ll do,” Cléo said softly. “You can each take a mask home. If your parents like them, tell them we’ll sell them for forty dollars. If they don’t like them, you can bring them back. But tell them they sell for double that in other places.”
    You and Akira each shoved a mask into your school bag: okay, you’d show your parents, you promised. Then, Cléo showed
off his porcelain marbles, decorated with spellbinding spirals and eccentric arabesques, in rare, exotic colours. They’re fantastic, Akira said excitedly. Check out this one! To which you replied, “Wow!” Cléo gave you each a bag, he had lots more. Thanks, Cléo! Thanks a lot! Why don’t we play a little now, on the rug? Now? No, no, you couldn’t, he’d already told you why.
    â€œCléo!” boomed a gravely voice. “ Va ten dewò !”
    For an instant, you looked at each other intently. The voice sounded like it had a cold, it was changing, drunken.
    â€œBut, Mom. . . .”
    A long exasperated sigh, then footsteps caused the wooden parquet flooring to creak. Then the sound of broken glass rang out, it sounded like a lamp had been thrown on the floor. A few seconds passed, then the voice continued, “ M ap bezwin dòmi ! Yo pa fè com toujou ak done tout jwè la !”
    You tried to hand the bag of marbles back to him, but Cléo shook his head no, with his index fingers in front of his lips once again. Then he quietly asked you to get your school bags, you’d better leave. Outside, the three of you stood there looking at your shoes for quite a long time. It’s no big deal, Cléo said, my mother was taking a nap, that’s all. She works a lot at night and has to rest during the day. Akira looked at his watch: in any case, he should go, the Power Rangers show started at four-thirty. Yeah, you said, I’m gonna go, too. You and Akira began to move away but, after a little while, you turned around and saw that Cléo hadn’t moved a centimetre, so you shouted: after dinner, you want to play hockey with us? The Haitian boy’s face lit up: okay. But there was a problem, he didn’t have a hockey stick. No problem, you’d lend him one. Seven o’clock, in front of his building? Okay, okay, and each of you went home.

II
    â€œY ou’re always out!” his mother shouts. “What’s going on with you, Flaco? Can’t even spend one night at home . . . ¡No sé para qué tuve un hijo! ”
    Standing in the doorway to the living room, his hands in his pockets, Flaco rocks back and forth in his sneakers as she stares at him and shakes her head, as if she’s trying to knock loose any sad thoughts. Opposite the TV with the sound way too loud, she’s lying on the sofa cleaning her toenails. It’s only eight