breathe in his air… and exhale it… thereby contaminating it, turning Franco-mulat air into Neg air.
Now the Creole boys were in the kitchen opening and closing the refrigerator and this-and-that drawer. Ghislaine got up and went to the door, no doubt to open it and let the boys know that they were not alone in the house. But Lantier motioned for her to sit back down and put his forefinger across his lips. Reluctantly and nervously she sat back down.
In Creole, Antoine said, “You see the look on his face when the cops take him by the elbow?”
Philippe tried to maintain his new deep voice, but it was turning gosling on him. So he gave it up and said in Creole, “They not do nothing with him, you think?”
“Dunno,” said Antoine. “Main thing now François. He on probation already. We gotta be there for François. You be with us, right? François, he be counting on you. I see you talk to the cop. What you say, bro?”
“Uhh… I say… I say François say something in Creole and everybody laugh and Estevez, he get François in a headlock,” said Philippe.
“You sure?”
“Uhhh… yeah.”
“François do something first?”
“Uhhh… no. I not see him do something first,” said Philippe.
“You only say No,” said Antoine. “Nome sayin’? Nobody care what you don’ see. François say he need you, man. Only his bloods, his crew not enough. He be counting on you, man. Be bad if you not sure. You see, man. Nome sayin’? This be the time you show you bro—or you low. Unnerstan’?” He said “bro” and “low” in English.
“I unnerstan’,” said Philippe.
“Good. You be good blood, man! You be good blood!” Antoine said with what came close to glee. “You know Patrice? André? Jean—fat Jean? Hervé? They good blood, too!” More glee. “They not in the crew, neither. But they know, man! They know what Estevez did to François. They don’t ‘if I’m correct’ and all that shit. They good blood!” Glee seemed to turn into laughter aimed at Philippe. “Like you, bro!”
Professor Lantier looked at his daughter. She didn’t understand what they were talking about, they were speaking Creole so fast. That was a good sign. Creole really was a foreign language to her! He and Louisette had steered her right! That was not une Haitian—in his mind he pronounced it the French way, “oon-eye-ee-tee-onnnh”—sitting so properly in that little chair. She was French. That was what she was by blood, an essentially French young woman of le monde, polished, brilliant, beautiful—then why did his eye fix upon those little fatty-fibrous mounds on either side of her nostrils?—poised, elegant, or elegant when she wanted to be.
In a low voice, practically under his breath, he said to his mercifully Creole-free daughter, “Something happened at Lee de Forest today. That’s what I get out of it. In some class of his.”
The two boys were heading in the direction of his office, with Antoine doing all the talking.
So Lantier himself gets up and opens the door and says cheerily, in French, “Philippe! I thought I heard your voice! You’re home early today!”
Philippe looked as if he had just been caught… doing something not very nice at all. So did his friend, Antoine. Antoine was a tough-looking boy, heavy but not too fat. Right now he had the tense expression of someone extremely anxious to head in another direction. What a mess the two of them were!… jeans pulled down so low on their hips you couldn’t help but see their loud boxer shorts… obviously the lower and louder, the better. The pants of both boys ended in puddles of denim on the floor, all but obscuring their sneakers, which had Day-Glo strips going this way and that… both in too-big, too-loose T-shirts whose sleeves hung down over their elbows and whose tails hung outside the jeans, but not far enough to obscure the hideous boxer shorts… both with bandannas around their foreheads bearing “the colors” of whatever fraternal organization they thought they belonged to. Their appearance—as American Neg as it could get—made Lantier’s flesh crawl. But he was forced to keep a cheerful demeanor clamped upon his face and said to Antoine, in French, “Well, Antoine… it’s been too long since you last paid us a visit. I was just asking Philippe, how is it that you’re out of school so early today?”
“Papa!” gasped Ghislaine in a low voice.
Lantier immediately regretted saying that. Ghislaine couldn’t believe that her father, whom she admired so much, would do