"Getting up," he answered. "Your mother must be wondering where we are and what I've been doing."

She gently put her hand on his chest to prevent him from getting up. "Nobody is wondering anything," she said, trying to take off his jacket. He let her do this. His shirt was wet with sweat. "Lie back," she added with a soft but convincing voice, untying his black tie, unbuttoning his shirt to let him breathe a little. "I'll stay with you," she finally said.

So he obeyed and lay back on the bed. He quietly looked at her putting his crumpled linen jacket away from them on the bed and then, he smiled, charmingly: "What about the ceremony?"

Beatrice answered with a kind of indifference, pretending to ignore the amused tone of his question. "The farmers block all the roads to the cemetery, now," she said. She smiled and added: "They scattered cabbages all over the place. I'm afraid we're stuck here until the police clear the road."

"Where's your grandfather?"

"In his room," she replied in a sigh, "waiting in his coffin... Damien is playing for him, as you can hear." She smiled. "He forced my brother to take these piano lessons...at last, it's useful for something."

"Don't be cynical," Clement whispered, caressing her face with the back of his left hand, on which he wore a wedding ring. "The old man is dead," he added.

She shrugged her shoulders like a stubborn kid. "He didn't like me."

"Left you the house."

"Because he hated Mother and Damien," she replied. "He always thought she was a slut and he could not play piano properly."

Clement made his fingers slowly get down on her throat. Then he took her hand and brought it to his lips. "That's the second time you use the word "slut" in less than two minutes," he quietly observed.

"You're sick. Don't think so much," she replied.

The piano finally stopped. An immense and peaceful silence came suddenly into the house, before the grasshoppers became stronger again than the silence. Beatrice and Clement both turned their heads to the door, listening. A few seconds later, another sound invaded the house: a heavy and very loud rap music came to hurt and awaken the sleeping mourning of that summer day.

In the bedroom, they smiled. "No more piano lessons for Damien," Clement noticed.

Beatrice got up and walked to the door. He held out his hand to reach the glass of water on the night table close to the bed. He drank a little, then sighed, and wiped the sweat on his forehead with his shirt sleeve. He then lay back on the bed, exhausted.

When she went to shut the bedroom door, Beatrice saw Angelina standing at the other end of the corridor. Leaning on the wall, she was eating a large slice of watermelon and was staring at Beatrice without a word. The young woman faced this look a short moment, with a great contempt. In the background, she could hear the voice of her mother yelling after Damien to make him turn off the radio.

Beatrice turned her eyes away from Angelina's taunting smile and she shut the door. The room was even darker now. She sighed deeply: "I'm sick of all this," she whispered, leaning her forehead on the door. "Wish he didn't die or at least that we had a good excuse to stay in Paris." she added, almost talking to herself.

"Angelina got the rest, didn't she?" Clement asked, looking at her.

She turned back to him.

"The boat, the flat in Paris, the money, everything is for her, right?" he insisted. "He probably would have given her the whole company if you hadn't bought his shares two years ago..."

Beatrice smiled with irony. "She was very good to him," she said. "Fair reward for her good services...like the old master who leaves his fortune to his dog after his death," she added bitterly.

He smiled with more indulgence: "She's harmless," he said as if he was talking of a little girl or even a nice pet, "and made the old man happy."

She did not answer but nodded, thoughtfully. She had smiled with a painful irony though when Clement had pronounced the word "harmless". Then she came back to sit on the edge of the bed.

"So?" Clement asked, because she was still quiet.

She smiled a little sad smile: "So...you need rest, the doctor said..." she waited a bit more and added, suddenly losing her smile: "And I need tenderness."

Clement did not answer. He stared at her, gently smiling.

"Let me take a nap with you," she then said like a little girl. She had tears in her eyes.

"What if the farmers take back their cabbages?" he whispered, still smiling. "What if your mother is looking for you?"

Beatrice unbuttoned the first buttons of her summer black dress and put her hand on her neck.

"We should buy a fan," Clement said, practically.

"What for?" she asked, "mixing hot air? Heat is good. Like sweat. Will make your fever go."

He did not argue. He sat on the bed one more time and bent over her, gently kissed her naked throat. Then he raised his head again and smiled: "You might catch what I've got," he said.

She smiled, too. "Good," she simply replied.

Behind the door, the rap music had stopped and soon the piano lamentation came back. Damien had lost the game against both his mother and his deceased ancestor. In the cool and dark corridor, Angelina was staring at the door Beatrice had just shut on her. She waited for a short moment, and then, still eating her slice of watermelon, she left, her bare feet brushing against the cool tiling, and went back out to the heat of the garden.