The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (16 page)

Yet within an hour at the computer store, she’d spent a third of her check. Her head was spinning. Salespeople buzzed around her, offering soothing advice, like the sirens that enchanted Ulysses. She wasn’t used to it, and didn’t dare say no. Any question she asked was quickly and smoothly deflected.

For a few more euros, they would install the necessary software
on the computer. For a few more euros, they could deliver it all to her home. For a few more euros . . .

Feeling half drunk, Joséphine agreed to everything. “You can deliver everything today because I work at home. And could you do it during the day, during school hours, to keep it a secret from my girls?”

“No problem, madame.”

Jo walked home in the wind that howled along the wide avenues of La Défense, her collar turned up and her head down. She could have bought herself something warmer, she thought.
Maybe I’ll splurge and buy myself a new coat after the next translation. Antoine gave me this one ten years ago.

Antoine wouldn’t be home for Christmas. Their first Christmas without him.

The other day, at the library, Joséphine had looked at a book on Kenya and found Mombasa, the white beaches, the old neighborhood of Malindi, the small craft shops. Everyone looked friendly and welcoming. What about Mylène? Was she warm and welcoming, too? Joséphine snapped the book shut.

She never saw Duffel Coat Man at the library anymore. He had probably finished his project and was strolling the streets of Paris with a pretty blonde’s hand slipped into his pocket.

In front of her apartment building, Joséphine ran into Christine Barthillet, and instinctively pulled back. The woman had the look of a trapped animal. She stared at her shoes when she saw Joséphine, and they passed each other in tense silence. Joséphine couldn’t bring herself to ask how things were. She had heard that Monsieur Barthillet had left.

Her happy mood from earlier in the afternoon had vanished. The phone was ringing when she opened the door to her apartment; she answered it wearily. It was Faugeron, calling to congratulate her for the check she had deposited at the bank. Then he said something she didn’t immediately grasp.

“This deposit is very timely, Madame Cortès. As you know, you’ve been overdrawn for the past three months.”

Joséphine’s mouth went dry, her hands suddenly gripping the telephone. Overdrawn? For three months? But she’d been balancing her checkbook every day. She couldn’t possibly be overdrawn.

“As you know, your husband opened an account before leaving for Kenya. He took out a big loan and hasn’t made any payments since October fifteenth.”

“A loan? Antoine?”

“The account is in his name, Madame Cortès, but you’re a cosigner of the loan and responsible as the loan’s guarantor.”

Jo’s silence told Faugeron a great deal.

“You must have signed some papers, Madame Cortès. Try to remember.”

Concentrating with great effort, Joséphine recalled that, indeed, Antoine had had her sign some bank papers before he left. He had talked about some sort of plan, an investment in the future. That was at the beginning of September. She had trusted him. She always signed with her eyes closed.

“I’m sorry to say this, but you are responsible for his debts. Now, if you could stop by the bank, we can find a way to
restructure the loan. Perhaps you could ask your father-in-law for help.”

“Never, Monsieur Faugeron! I’ll never do that.”

“I’m afraid you may have to, madame.”

“I’ll find a way. I’ll manage.”

“That’s fine. In the meantime, we’ll apply the eight thousand and twelve euros to the shortfall your husband left.”

“It’s just that I bought some things this afternoon. For the girls. For Christmas,” she finally managed to say. “I bought a computer and . . . Wait, I have the credit card receipts.”

She dug around in her bag, found her wallet, and took out the receipts. She slowly added the amounts and gave Faugeron the total figure.

“Well, it’ll be awfully tight, Madame Cortès. Especially if your husband doesn’t make the January fifteenth installment on time.”

Joséphine didn’t know what more to say. Her gaze lit on the kitchen table and the old IBM Selectric typewriter that Marcel had given her.

“I’ll deal with this, Monsieur Faugeron. Just give me some time to get on my feet. I was offered another well-paid job this morning. It’ll only be a matter of days.”

Joséphine was babbling. She felt she was drowning.

“Of course, Madame Cortès. I’m sure you’ll manage. In the meantime, do you and your family have any Christmas plans?”

“I’m going to my sister’s place in Megève,” she said, sounding like a groggy boxer being given the referee’s ten count.

“That’s nice. It’s good to have family. People shouldn’t be alone during the holidays. Merry Christmas, Madame Cortès.”

Joséphine hung up and stumbled out onto the balcony, where she’d taken to hiding of late. She liked looking at the stars, and whenever she saw a twinkle or a shooting star, she took it as a sign that someone or something was watching over her. That night, she kneeled on the concrete pad, put her hands together, and prayed aloud:

“Stars, please, please make it so that I’m not alone anymore, or poor, or tired. Give me strength. Send me someone to love, who will love me. I don’t care if he’s tall or short, rich or poor, young or old. But I can’t live without love.” Joséphine bowed her head to the cement floor and gave herself up to an endless prayer.

M
any years before, Marcel Grobz had fallen in love with a two-story building with a private courtyard that was festooned with wisteria vines, and bought it. He’d been looking for a classy place to start his company, and was amazed that they sold it to him for so little. It felt monastic, yet the kind of place that would bolster his authority. He was happy as a flea in a doghouse.

Marcel bought it all: the main building, the workshop, the courtyard, and the wisteria vines, as well as an old stable with broken windows that he fixed up.

It was there, at 75, avenue Niel, that Casamia took off.

It was also there that, one October day in 1970, René Lemarié showed up. René was ten years younger than Marcel, and had a narrow waist and broad shoulders. He had a shaved head, a deep tan, and a broken nose.

What a guy!
thought Marcel as the younger man made his pitch.

“I can do anything under the sun, no bullshit,” said René. “And I don’t screw around. I may not have a big name or a fancy
diploma, but I know how to make myself useful. Take me on probation, and you’ll be begging me to stay.”

René had recently married a tiny, cheerful blonde named Ginette. Marcel hired them both, giving Ginette a job in the warehouse. She had wanted to be a singer, but it was either René or the stage, and she chose René. Every so often the mood would hit her and she’d go stand under the big shop windows and belt out a song while imagining a horde of screaming fans at her feet. She’d sung backup for Rocky Volcano, Dick Rivers, and Sylvie Vartan, and every Saturday was karaoke night at René and Ginette’s place.

Ginette had never outgrown the sixties; she wore flats and checkered capris and big hair, like Sylvie Vartan in the old days. She owned every back issue of
Salut les copains
and
Mademoiselle age tendre
and would flip through them when she was feeling nostalgic.

Marcel let René and Ginette have the space above the stables. They turned it into a real home, and raised their three children there: Eddy, Johnny, and Sylvie.

When Marcel first hired René, he put off defining his job too exactly. “I’m starting out,” he said. “You can start out with me.” Since then, the two men had grown as close as the wisteria vines twining up the building facade.

Every night before leaving work, Marcel would head down to the warehouse to have a glass of red wine with René. René would bring out some sausage, a Camembert, a baguette, and some salted butter. They would shoot the breeze while looking at the wisteria vines through the windows. In thirty years, the
wisteria had grown from young tendrils into thick, knotty vines, covering everything.

But Marcel hadn’t come down to hang out with René for a month now.

And when he did come, it was because of some problem or other. He would storm in, grumpily ask a question or bark an order, then leave, avoiding René’s eye.

At first René had been offended. So when Marcel showed up in one of his black moods, René would jump on a forklift and go off to inventory crates in the back of the warehouse. This little game lasted three weeks. Three weeks without a hunk of sausage or a shot of red wine, without any gossip under the wisteria. Eventually René realized that he was playing Marcel’s game, and that Marcel wasn’t going to make the first move.

So he swallowed his pride and went upstairs to talk to Josiane.

“What’s going on with the old man?”

To his surprise, she just shrugged.

“Ask him yourself. He’s been giving me the cold shoulder.”

Josiane looks like hell
, René thought.
She’s thinner, pale, and that dab of color on her cheeks looks like cheap blush.

“Is he in his office?”

Josiane nodded.

René pushed open the office door to find Marcel slumped in his armchair, head down, sniffing a piece of fabric.

“You testing a new product?” René walked over and grabbed it out of his friend’s hands. “What the heck is this?”

“Josiane’s pantyhose.”

“Why the hell are you sniffing that?”

Marcel looked both miserable and angry. René sat down on the desk, looked him in the eye, and waited.

Away from his office and his financial success, Marcel reverted to the unhappy boy he’d once been, wandering the streets of Paris alone. He’d become rich and powerful, but once he’d achieved that, he lost his purpose in life. The richer Marcel got, the more he lost his common sense. And he’d been taken for a ride by Henriette Grobz.

René had thought that marrying Henriette was a bad idea, that signing the prenuptial agreement was stupid, and that making her head of his board of directors was insane. Marcel couldn’t make a single major business decision without her consent.

“You’re nuts!” René yelled when he learned the terms of the contract. “It’s highway robbery. The woman’s a crook. And you think she loves you, you poor idiot?” Marcel stormed out of the warehouse, slamming the door behind him.

They went a whole month without speaking that time. And when they patched things up, they tacitly agreed not to raise the topic again.

And now Marcel was slumped on his desk, sniffing an old stocking.

“You just gonna sit there forever? You look like a toad on a matchbox.”

Marcel didn’t answer. He had lost a lot of weight, and his cheeks sagged like empty bags. He had become a dazed, pale old man on the verge of tears. His eyes glistened, their lids red.

“Pull yourself together, Marcel. You look pathetic. Show some self-respect.”

Marcel shrugged helplessly at “self-respect.” He gave René a rheumy look and lifted a hand, as if to ask,
What’s the point?

René stared at him in disbelief. This couldn’t be the man who had once taught him business as war, who could stare down the toughest union boss in Poland. In those days, Marcel had it all: success, money, and the girl.

“I’ve got it made!” he’d say, slapping René on the back. “And soon I’ll be bouncing little Marcel Junior on my knee.”

But Junior never showed up, and René would sometimes catch Marcel looking sadly at his kids, especially Eddy and Johnny. He would lift a heavy hand to wave, as if he were saying farewell to a dream.

René brushed cigarette ash off his overalls.

“All right, out with it. What the hell’s going on? The way you’ve been looking for the last month, it better be good!”

Marcel hesitated, then slowly looked up at his friend and told him everything: Chaval and Josiane together at the coffee machine, Henriette’s efforts to get Josiane fired, and his loss of interest in the business.

“René, I barely manage to get dressed in the morning. I’ve lost it. Seeing the two of them all over each other reminded me how old I am. It was like having my birth certificate shoved down my throat. It killed me to see my sweetie-pie in the arms of a guy who’s younger and sexier. And especially Chaval, who would steal a gold tooth out of his mother’s mouth!”

Marcel stood up and swept everything off the desk. Files, telephone, lamp, went crashing to the floor.

René was silent for a moment. Then gently but firmly, the
way you would speak to a child having a tantrum, he said to his friend:

“Well, I think your sweetie-pie isn’t doing much better than you are. Her thing with Chaval didn’t mean a damn thing. A little taste on the side, a quick fuck behind the counter. Don’t tell me you’ve never done that.”

“That’s different!” Marcel sat up straight.

“Why? Because you’re a man? That’s old hat, Marcel. Women have changed, you know. Josiane’s in love with you! Do you ever even look at her, moping behind her desk? No, you march right by, proud as a peacock. Haven’t you noticed that she’s lost weight, she’s swimming in her clothes, and the rouge she’s slapping on her face is all fake?”