Hurricane Valley (Utah) – with the music on Maille's ears
Scene 16: Dances with Bough
How a wild dance between the good, the bad and the ugly began in Hektor Maille, out of which only a winner could emerge.
One Day in the Life of Odette Sissay
13.10: Port-Louis, Vieux Port, Aquarium
Samson Godet had not established the aquarium of Port Louis himself but he had ensured, during his tenure as the mayor of the town, that it was renovated and equipped with state-of-the-art technology. What's more, the gentleman composed poetry in which he described the elegance with which the fish glided or darted around in their underwater universe. And he found this sort of elegance in Odette as well, especially when the lady cooked for him naked: tomato sauce with broccoli for instance – a recipe that she had devised specially for him as a tribute to his political program: red with streaks of green.
Most of the persons Godet had seen naked before had looked like creatures who felt more or less awkward without their clothes on – Odette's nudity however appeared entirely natural; even when she was naked she sometimes looked almost as though she were clothed.
That was why Godet liked her best when she wore nothing but the little toe-ring with the lion head, which he had gifted her right at the beginning of their clandestine affair – though he was unsure whether she had understood that the figure of the lion was a reference to his name, to Samson, the lion slayer. Alas, he had never had the opportunity to explain this reference to her.