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their chops. It’s a matter of being aware, senses on edge, waiting for the clacking of the pieces in a great domino game. Hours later, the noise of these dominos will be drowned out by stormy discussions at a football match, the appearance of supernatural creatures, men with goats’ horns, a smiling bullock with a gold tooth, or by suggestive laughter about their masculine prowess. It is hard to hear these voices and this laughter without thinking of the pain which hides behind the eyes, beneath the chest, in the small of the back and along calves weary from running towards nothing. These voices and this laughter also explain why misfortune always finds as much space as it needs on this island to spread its wings and grow, but not enough space to be alone. And so we rock back and forth like the movement of a rocking chair. It’s crazy, the things we wait for in this country! When there is nothing to be done about it. Crazy! And time goes by. And time goes by… And the earth gradually, slowly decomposes … But I, Joyeuse Méracin, I don’t wait. I do and I undo.
    Wiston and the others have set up a table and four rickety chairs right beneath the sign announcing Le Bon Berger, Boss Dieuseul’s forge. From time to time one or other of them will leave the gaming table to go off and hang out beneath other roofs or sow their wild oats, then return an hour or so later. Or the next day. In three days. Or perhaps never. In any case, all the men on this island are just passing through. Those who stay longer are just a little more permanent, that’s all. On this island there are only mothers and sons.
    His back against a wall, right leg folded up beneath him, Jean-Baptiste draws slowly on his cigarette. Jean-Baptiste is seen to keep an eye on them. He reigns over this small kingdom. Jean-Baptiste is a petty king who likes the smell of the herd. His flock may be idle to the point of inertia, but the arrangement is that Boss Dieuseul works solely for him as blacksmith, painter, electrician and divine healer. Hammer in hand, Boss Dieuseul raises his emaciated face with its drawn-out chin. It is the moment when he will predict – a prediction that is met with indifference – that men will writhe in torment, women will wallow in the stench of their own suffering, rivers will be swollen with entrails and blood, and whatever else… Then his protruding eyes, which seem to bulge from his face as a result of some distant suffering, are once more fixed on his hands.
    Jean-Baptiste turns his whole upper body. Passing before him on the arms of Mother and Lolo, I meet two eyes drunk with the force of looking at me. Jean-Baptiste can’t resist looking at me, he just can’t. Jean-Baptiste doesn’t look at me, he undresses me. Deep inside himself, Jean-Baptiste thinks I don’t choose. That I will lie down beneath the first man who comes along and snaps his fingers. He expects that all he has to do is click with his thumb and middle finger to have me fall at his feet. Mother’s eyes linger on him as if to say, ‘You will have to dance on my grave before you can have this girl who walks by my side, young man.’
    Jean-Baptiste does not dare look Mother in the eye and turns his head away. I suspect that Jean-Baptiste, gasping and panting like an old dog, has served up to Ti Louze that threat he keeps concealed in his pants, after cornering her one afternoon between two doorways. Jean-Baptiste is a pig.
    I leave Mother and Lolo, intrigued, at the end of the road and slip away for a few seconds, hoping that the neighbourhood’s only phone box is working. I dial the number written on Fignolé’s scrap of paper and reach a voicemail service asking me to leave a message. Naturally, I don’t. Best to be careful. I leave any further attempt till later. Lolo and I accompany Mother to the tap-tap station. She takes her leave of us, but only listens with half an ear to our