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laugh at such fancifulness. But Auguste is not young. So, as he smoothes down his sober dark suit, and grips the Orphanage door knocker in his signet-ringed finger, his hand trembles: what if nobody answers, and his journey has been in vain? What will he tell his wife, waiting expectantly at home?
    The nun who opens the door to Auguste sees a short man with faded blue eyes. From his clothes she would say he is a rich landowner, but his white beard is unkempt. She senses something: a halo of incipient madness. But a client is still a client, however eccentric, so she shakes hands in welcome.
    Auguste doffs his hat and whispers his name to her. Once his relief has passed, he finds he is cowed by the schoolishness of the place – as though it is he who is on display, hoping to be picked, not the orphans.
    The inside of the building is a shaded atrium; colonnades, festooned with thick ornamental swamp-creeper, run around the walls. The sun arches down into the central courtyard; Auguste blinks, dazzled; and realises that, directly in front of him, what he had taken for more columns are ten children, standing in a line, arranged from tallest to shortest.
    The nun’s smile tautens. ‘M. Durand,’ she says, ‘if you would like to step this way—’
    The children stand with their hands behind their backs, eyes fixed on a spot somewhere higher than his head: a mixture of boys and girls and – a little shock to Auguste’s sense of propriety – races. They all wear the same grey serge uniform; faces are scrubbed clean, and the girls’ hair is plaited where possible. The smallest is a toddler still, with a halo of nappy fuzz standing out from his head, and his finger hooked through the hand of the boy next to him. The oldest and tallest, a girl whose thin white hands seem to be all bone, looks to be about seventeen.
    What will become of you
, Auguste thinks, staring into her face,
when you get too old to live here any more?
    The nun clears her throat. In his scrutiny he has walked right up to the tall girl: she is leaning back away from him, nostrils flared, a sapling in wind.
    Auguste steps back, embarrassed. These children are all too old; they already have pasts and histories to themselves. He looks around the room in despair and notices something, someone, else: a boy of about eight, standing watching from beside one of the columns. He is looking directly at Auguste.
    The boy’s eyes remind Auguste of the sea, which Auguste visited once as a child. The beach was disappointingly grey, and so was the water, not the blue of picture-book illustrations. Undaunted, Child-Auguste had run to the line where the water met the land; but dipping his fingers in the surf, the froth bubbled away to nothing.
    The nun has noted Auguste’s interest. Ideally he would take away one of the older children who has less time left to find a family, but she understands an inevitability when she sees it; she moves across and places a hand on the boy’s shoulder – but gingerly.
    ‘This is André,’ she says. ‘A fine strong boy, who loves his building blocks. He would be an asset, M. Durand – am I right in thinking you are in sugar?’
    ‘Yes,’ Auguste says, distracted.
    ‘And as you and Madame Durand have not yet been blessed—’
    The nun lets her voice trail off, intimating visions of the heirless future, the plantation burning, lighting up the night – Auguste pictures the stillborn boy, its full head of black hair, and shakes himself down. He ought to ask a question. He looks at the child’s bewitching stare.
    ‘Who were the boy’s parents?’
    The nun spreads her arms in a shrug. But Auguste’s thoughts have already flitted into a great uprush of joy: he is going to be a father. Just as quickly his eagerness becomes paranoia: is the nun thinking him unsuitable? Will she snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?
    ‘Yes,’ Auguste barks, ‘I’ll take him.’ With one arthritic hand he gestures to the boy to follow. André