The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (14 page)

“You’re such a prude! You mean you have your period?”

Joséphine nodded.

“Well, let’s go have some tea, then.”

Iris pulled her bathrobe closed, grabbed her bag, and headed toward the tearoom, which was behind a hedge. Joséphine followed.

“Do you want a piece of cake or pie to go with your tea?” Iris asked as she sat down. “The apple tart’s delicious.”

“Just tea. I started a diet when I walked in the door of this place, and I feel thinner already.”

Iris ordered tea and a slice of tart. As the waitress left, two smiling women approached the table. Iris stiffened, and Joséphine was surprised at her sister’s obvious discomfiture.

“Hello!” the women exclaimed in unison. “What a surprise!”

“Hello,” Iris replied. “My sister Joséphine . . . These are friends, Bérengère Clavert and Nadia Serrurier.”

The women flashed a brief smile at Joséphine and promptly ignored her, turning back to Iris.

“So what’s this Nadia tells me? That you’ve taken up writing?” Bérengère’s face was taut with envy.

“My husband told me about it after that dinner the other
night,” Nadia explained. “I couldn’t go because my daughter had a fever. He was all excited.” To Joséphine she said, “My husband’s a publisher.”

“Bravo, darling!” said Bérengère. “I think it’s fantastic! You’ve been talking about it forever and now it’s really happening. So when will we get to read it?”

“I’m just toying with the idea right now,” said Iris fiddling with the belt of her bathrobe. “I’m not actually doing any writing.”

“Don’t say that!” exclaimed Nadia. “Gaston expects a manuscript soon. You really hooked him with your stories about the Middle Ages! That’s all he talks about these days.”

Joséphine stifled a cry of surprise when her sister kicked her under the table.

“And you’re so photogenic, Iris,” said Bérengère. “All they have to do is put those big blue eyes on the cover and it’ll be a best seller! Don’t you think so, Nadia?”

“Last I heard, eyes don’t write books,” Iris snapped.

“No, but Bérengère is right. Gaston always says that it’s not enough to
write
a book, you have to
sell
it. And that’s where your eyes will make a big impression. With your eyes and your connections, you’re bound to have a hit.”

“All you have to do is write it, darling!” Bérengère clapped her hands to show how exciting she thought it all was. “Whoops! I have to hurry. I’m late! Bye, darling. We’ll talk.”

The women left in a little flurry of friendly waves.

“Great!” Iris said with annoyance. “Now all Paris will know I’m writing a book.”

“A book about the Middle Ages? Was that some kind of joke?”

“Take it easy, Jo. It’s not a big deal. I was at a dinner party the other night, and I was so bored that I made up this story about writing a book. When they asked what it was about, I started blathering about life in the twelfth century. Don’t ask me why. It just came out.”

“But you always said that stuff was so hokey.”

“Yeah, I know. I was caught off guard. But it really hit home. You should have seen Serrurier’s face. He got all worked up about it. So I kept on talking, and I got excited too, the way you do when you talk about it. Funny, isn’t it? I must have repeated some of the things you’ve spouted over the years, word for word. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I’ll just have to keep them in suspense.”

“You can read some of my work. I can give you my notes, if you want. The twelfth century is full of stories that would make wonderful novels.”

“Jo, get serious! I can’t write a novel. I’d love to, but I can’t even string five sentences in a row.”

“Have you actually tried?”

“Yes, I have. I’ve been trying for the last four months, and all I have is a couple of lines to show for it. I’m not even close!” Iris laughed sarcastically. “I just need to keep up the pretense long enough for everyone to forget about the whole thing.”

Baffled, Joséphine stared at her sister.

“You think I’m ridiculous, don’t you?” Iris asked. “Go ahead, say it. You’d be right.”

“No . . . I’m just sort of surprised, really. Telling people something like this isn’t like you, that’s all.”

“Well, yeah. But let’s not make too much of it. I’ll find a way. I’ll make something up. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Joséphine was taken aback. “What do you mean, it wouldn’t be the first time? That you told a lie?”

“Not the first time I’ve been in deep shit, you twit!”

There was an edge to Iris’s voice, a combination of spite and irritation. Joséphine had never heard her sister sound that nasty. But what really surprised her was the hint of jealousy she sensed. She felt guilty for even noticing it.

“I’ll help you! I’ll find a story for you to tell. Next time you see your publisher, you’ll dazzle him with medieval culture.”

“Is that so? Dazzle a highly educated man with my ignorance? I don’t think so.”

“Listen to me! You know the story of Rollo, the leader of the Normans, don’t you? They said he was so tall that when he rode horseback, his feet dragged on the ground.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He was a tireless explorer and a great sailor. From Norway. Terrorized people wherever he went. Claimed the only way a warrior could get to heaven was to die in battle. Doesn’t that ring a bell? You could create a character based on him. He’s the founder of Normandy, for goodness sake!”

“I couldn’t pull it off, Jo. I don’t know a thing about that period.”

“Wait, I have an idea! Tell the publisher that
Gone with the
Wind
—you know, the Margaret Mitchell novel—got its title from a poem by François Villon.”

“Is that really true?”

“Sure is! ‘Autant en emporte le vent’ is a line from a Villon sonnet.”

Eager to get her irritated sister to smile, Jo stood up and began reciting, like a Roman tribune haranguing the masses:

“There you have it: Gone with the wind.”

Smiling weakly, Iris gazed at Joséphine. She’d gotten completely into the recitation. She seemed to glow with a soft light of indefinable charm. She’d become knowledgeable and confident, totally unlike the Joséphine Iris knew! Iris looked at her with a touch of envy. It appeared and vanished in a flash, but it lasted just long enough for Joséphine to notice.

“Come back to earth, Jo. They don’t give a good goddamn about François Villon!”

Joséphine sighed.

“I was only trying to help.”

“I know, and it’s very sweet of you. You’re a nice person, Jo. Completely out of it, but very nice.”

There was resentment in Iris’s voice, and a hint of that jealousy Joséphine was sure she’d glimpsed.
I can’t be all that
hopeless if Iris is jealous of me
, Jo thought, sitting up taller.
And I didn’t order that apple tart. I’ve probably lost a few ounces already.

Joséphine looked triumphantly around her.
I have something my sister doesn’t have, and she covets it! And if a publisher ever asked me, what stories I could tell! Thousands of them! I’d bring them to life, too. The gleaming brass trumpets, the galloping horses, the sweat of battle . . .

Joséphine shivered with pleasure. She suddenly felt a powerful urge to rummage around in her notebooks, to immerse herself in the centuries that so enchanted her.

She glanced at her watch. “I’m afraid I have to go home. I have work to do.” Iris looked up and nodded glumly. “I’ll get the girls on the way. Thanks for everything!”

Jo was eager to leave, to get out of a place where everything suddenly seemed fake and pretentious.

“Let’s go, girls,” she called. “We’re going home. And no whining.”

Hortense and Zoé climbed out of the pool and followed their mother. Joséphine felt a foot taller. She was dancing on air, moving like a queen across the spotless white carpet, catching her reflection in the mirrors. On her way to the changing room, she gave the woman at the front desk a triumphant smile. Just as she did, her bathrobe fell open.

“Oh, congratulations, madame!” said the young woman warmly.

“Congratulations? What for?”

“I hadn’t noticed that you were pregnant. I so envy you! My husband and I have been trying for three years.”

Joséphine gaped at her in disbelief, then looked down at her belly and reddened. Now her feet felt leaden as she stumbled into the changing room.

In the stall next to her mother’s, Zoé was mulling over what Alexandre had said.
Iris and Philippe simply mustn’t break up!
Her aunt and her uncle were the only family she had left. She’d never known her father’s family. “I don’t have any relatives,” her dad used to whisper, kissing her on the neck. “You’re all I’ve got!” Zoé had to come up with a bright idea, some way to keep Iris and Philippe together. She would tell Max Barthillet about it! A big smile lit up her face. She and Max made a great team. He had taught her so many things. Thanks to him, she wasn’t such a scaredy cat. Zoé could hear her mother’s voice, calling impatiently.

“Coming, Mommy!” she cried.

T
he screams woke Antoine up. Mylène was clinging to him, shaking and pointing at something.

“Antoine! Look there! There!”

Her lips were white and her eyes bulging with fear.

“Antoine, do something!”

Antoine had trouble getting his bearings. Even after more than three months at Croco Park, he still woke up half dazed every morning, searching for the curtains of his room in Courbevoie. He looked at Mylène, surprised that she wasn’t Joséphine in her nightie with the blue forget-me-nots, surprised that the girls weren’t bouncing on their bed, yelling, “Get up, Dad! Get up!”

Each morning, he had to go through the same process of remembering.
I’m in Croco Park, on the east coast of Kenya between Malindi and Mombasa, and I’m raising crocodiles for a big Chinese company. I’ve left my wife and my two daughters. And I’m not going back. I’m raising crocodiles and I’m going to be rich as Croesus. I’ll double my money, and people will flock to me with other
investment projects, and I’ll smoke a big cigar and choose the one that will make me even richer! And then I’ll return to France. I’ll pay Joséphine back a hundred times over, I’ll dress the girls like Russian princesses, and I’ll buy them each a beautiful apartment. We’ll be a happy, prosperous family. When I’m rich.

Every morning, he got up, took a shower, shaved, dressed, and went down to breakfast, prepared by Pong, his manservant. To please him, Pong had learned a few words of French. “Dejeuner est prět, patron,” he would say. “Mangez! Bon appétit!”

Mylène would fall back asleep under the mosquito netting.

At seven o’clock, Antoine met the workers with Mr. Lee, who gave them their orders for the day. Forever smiling, they stood ramrod-straight, their skinny legs in baggy shorts, like soldiers at attention.

“Yes, sir!” they would chorus, their chins up.

But that morning, Antoine knew things weren’t going to go as usual. “What is it, darling? Did you have a nightmare?”

“Antoine. Look over there! I’m not dreaming! It . . . it licked my hand!”

There weren’t any cats or dogs on the plantation. The Chinese fed them to the crocodiles.

“Mylène, darling, go back to sleep. It’s still early.”

But she dug her nails into Antoine’s neck. He rubbed his eyes. Then, leaning over her shoulder, he saw a fat, shiny crocodile, its yellow eyes fixed on him in the half-light.

“Right,” he said, gulping. “We have a problem here. Don’t move, Mylène. Whatever you do, don’t move! Crocodiles attack if you move. If you stay still, they won’t bother you.”

“But look at it! It’s staring at us!”

“If we don’t move, it’ll be friendly.”

Antoine stared at the animal. The crocodile stared back. Yawning, it revealed a row of sharp, powerful teeth. Then it waddled closer to the bed.

“Pong!” Antoine yelled. “Pong, where are you?”

Now the crocodile was looking at Mylène and making a strange whining sound deep in its throat. Antoine burst out laughing.

“I think it’s courting you, Mylène.”

He heard hurrying footsteps on the stairs, then a knock at the door. It was Pong. Antoine told him to deal with the animal. He pulled the sheet up over Mylène’s breasts, which Pong pretended not to see.

“Bambi! Bambi!” he squealed affectionately. “Come here, my beautiful Bambi! Those people are friends!”

The crocodile slowly swung its yellow eyes around, paused for a moment, and sighed. Then it ambled toward Pong, who stroked it tenderly between the eyes.

“Good boy, Bambi. Good boy.”

He pulled a chicken thigh out of the pocket of his shorts and held it out for the animal, who snapped it out of the air. That was too much for Mylène.

“Pong,” she said hoarsely, “take . . . that thing . . . Bambi out!
Now!
”

“Yes, ma’am. Come on, Bambi.”

The crocodile swaggered off after him. Shaking with fury, Mylène gave Antoine a long look that meant,
I never want to see
that animal in the house again, get it?
Antoine nodded, threw on shorts and a T-shirt, and took off after Pong and Bambi.