1927.â
âOh! The natives donât know when they are born,â offered the naval officer, plunging his hands in his pockets.
âI donât know why she killed herself. She was well treated here, she ate the same food, shared the same rooms as my children.â
âAnd your husband, where is he?â
âHe left for Paris the day before yesterday.â
âAh!â said the inspector, still looking at the knickknacks. âWhy do you think it was suicide?â
âWhy?â said the retired officer ⦠âOh! Who do you think would make an attempt on the life of a Negro girl? She never went out. She didnât know anyone, except for Madameâs children.â
The reporters were getting impatient. The suicide of a maidâeven if she was blackâdidnât amount to a hill of beans. There was nothing newsworthy in it.
âIt must have been homesickness. Because lately sheâd been behaving very strangely. She wasnât the same.â
The police magistrate went upstairs, accompanied by one of the inspectors. They examined the bathroom, the window.
âSome boomerang, this story,â said the inspector.
The others waited in the living room.
âWeâll let you know when the coroner is finished,â said the inspector, on his way out with the police magistrate an hour after their arrival.
The cars and the reporters left. In the Villa of Green Happiness the two women and the retired naval officer remained silent.
Bit by bit, Madame Pouchet searched her memory. She thought back to Africa and her elegant villa on the road to Hann. She remembered Diouana pushing open the iron gate and signaling to the German shepherd to stop barking.
It was there, in Africa, that everything had started. Diouana had made the six-kilometer round trip on foot three times a week. For the last month
she had made it gailyâenraptured, her heart beating as if she were in love for the first time. Beginning at the outskirts of Dakar, brand-new houses were scattered like jewels in a landscape of cactus, bougainvillea, and jasmine. The asphalt of the Avenue Gambetta stretched out like a long black ribbon. Joyous and happy as usual, the little maid had no complaints about the road or her employers. Though it was a long way, it had no longer seemed so far the past month, ever since Madame had announced she would take her to France. France! Diouana shouted the word in her head. Everything around her had become ugly, the magnificent villas she had so often admired seemed shabby.
In order to be able to travel, in order to go to France, since she was originally from the Casamance, she had needed an identity card. All her paltry savings went to get one. âSo what?â she thought. âIâm on my way to France!â
âIs that you, Diouana?â
â Viye , Madame,â came her answer in the Senegalese accent. She spoke from the vestibule, nicely dressed in her light-colored cotton, her hair neatly combed.
âGood! Monsieur is in town. Will you look after the children?â
â Viye , Madame,â she agreed in her childish voice.
Though her identity card read âBorn in 1927,â Diouana was not yet thirty. But she must have been over twenty-one. She went to find the children. Every room was in the same condition. Parcels packed and tied with string, boxes piled here and there. After ten whole days of washing and ironing, there wasnât much left for Diouana to do. In the proper sense of her duties, she was a laundress. There was a cook, a houseboy, and herself. Three people. The servants.
âDiouana ⦠Diouana,â Madame called.
âMadame?â she answered, emerging from the childrenâs room.
Madame was standing with a notebook in her hands, making an inventory of the baggage. The movers would be coming at any moment.
âHave you been to see your parents? Do you think they will be happy?â
â Viye ,