The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (24 page)

“Because I’m only on the first rung; I’m just a humble novice! And remember, we’re talking about my book’s character, not about me. Don’t confuse the two.”

Iris shook her head, laughing.

“Serrurier loved your character’s name, by the way: Florine. Very pretty! Want to drink a glass of champagne to Florine’s health?”

“No, thanks. I have to work this afternoon. When does he want to publish my book?”

“Our book! Jo, don’t forget! And when it comes out, it’ll be
my
book. We can’t afford a mistake.”

Joséphine felt a pang. She was already so attached to her story—to Florine, and to her parents and her husbands. In bed, she would go over their names, the color of their hair and eyes, their personality traits. At times she felt as if she was living their lives, and it kept her awake at night. She would have liked to tell Iris that it was
her
story.

“Let’s see,” said Iris, “it’s February now. . . . If you can deliver the manuscript in July, he’ll publish it sometime next winter. That gives you six, seven months to write it. That’s enough time, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” said Joséphine, feeling stung. Her sister was talking to her like a secretary.

“You’ll manage fine. Stop worrying! And above all, not a word to a soul! If we want our plan to work, we can’t tell anybody, Jo. No one, absolutely no one. You understand, right?”

“Yes,” said Joséphine weakly.

She sighed. She felt like telling Iris that this wasn’t some plan they were talking about, but her book, her baby . . .

“S
o, still nothing?”

“Not a thing. I’m starting to give up hope, Ginette.”

“Relax, it’s normal. You’ve been on the pill for years, and now you think you can just snap your fingers and bingo, you’re pregnant? Be patient! The baby will come in its own time.”

“Maybe I’m too old, Ginette . . . Thirty-nine, soon. And the wait’s driving Marcel crazy! He makes me take all these tests to make sure the plumbing’s in order. Before now, you just looked at me, and I got pregnant.”

“You mean you’ve been knocked up before?”

Josiane nodded gravely.

“Yeah, and I’ve had three abortions, so—”

“You ditched a kid of Marcel’s?” Ginette was shocked.

“Well, did you think I was going to be the Virgin Mary without a Joseph to stand by me? You know Marcel’s scared shitless of the Toothpick. Who’s to say that he’ll even give my baby his name?”

“He said he would. He promised.”

“Sure, promises: easy to make, hard to keep.”

“Come off it, Josie. It’s not true in this case, and you know it. This baby is all Marcel talks about these days. He’s gone on a diet, rides a bicycle, eats organic food. He stopped smoking and takes his blood pressure morning and night. He’s even starting to pick onesies out of catalogs.”

Josiane looked unconvinced.

“Well, we’ll see what happens once I’m pregnant. If he caves in to her again, I’m blowing everything away, him and the kid!”

“Quiet! Here he comes!”

Marcel was coming upstairs, followed by a heavyset man who panted at every step. They came into Josiane’s office, and Marcel introduced the women to Monsieur Bugalkhoviev, a Ukrainian businessman. Josiane and Ginette nodded and smiled. Marcel quickly kissed Josiane on top of her head once the man had gone ahead into his office.

“Everything okay, sweetie-pie?”

He put his hand on her stomach, but she brushed it away.

“Stop treating me like a mother hen. I’ll end up laying an egg.”

“Still nothing?”

“You mean since this morning?” she asked sarcastically. “Nope. There’s nobody in sight.”

“Don’t tease me, honeybunch.”

“I’m not teasing, I’m fed up. There’s a difference!”

Marcel straightened and walked into his office. Before closing the door, he turned around and whispered: “I love you! I’m the happiest man in the world.”

The door closed, and Josiane gave Ginette a helpless look. Since Marcel had suggested she have his baby, everything had changed. At Christmas, he sent her to the mountains to get some fresh air. He phoned every day to see if she was breathing properly, worried when she coughed, and told her to go see a doctor right away, to take vitamins, to sleep ten hours a night.

She spent hours walking in the snow.
Will I be a good mother?
she wondered.
Who knows, considering the mother I had . . . Is a person born a mother, or do you become one? What if I start acting just like my mom, without intending to?
Josiane shivered at the thought, pulled her collar tight, and set off walking again.

She thought of Chaval at times, of his lean, taut body, of his hands on her breasts, of the way he would bite her until she begged him to stop. She shook her head to drive him from her thoughts.

“I’m going nuts!” she said aloud, and sighed.

“Is it my imagination, or has Marcel gotten hair implants?” Ginette asked.

“You’re not imagining it. And once a week he gets a facial at a beauty parlor. Wants to be the handsomest daddy in the world, he says.”

“That’s so cute!”

“No, it’s scary.”

As Ginette was leaving Josiane’s office, she ran into Chaval coming in.

“Is she there?” he asked abruptly.

“‘She’ has a name, may I remind you.”

“Oh, give me a break. I’m not going to eat your pal alive or anything.”

He shouldered his way past her and went into Josiane’s office.

“Hi, beautiful! Still playing the senior circuit?”

“Where I park my fanny is none of your business.”

“Okay, take it easy. Is he around? Can I see him?”

“He doesn’t want to be disturbed under any circumstances. You’ll have to come back when he’s free.”

“That’ll be too late.”

Chaval smiled cockily, his grin accented by the pencil mustache over his upper lip.

“I might as well say it, since he tells you everything,” he said, sounding casual. “I’m outta here. I’ve been asked to run IKEA France, and I said yes.”

“They want
you
? Are they trying to sink the company?”

“Go ahead and laugh. You were the one who wanted to push me to the top, so I can’t be all bad. I was headhunted, babe! Didn’t have to lift a finger. They came to me. Twice the salary and lots of perks, so I said yes. Since I’m a decent guy, I came to tell the old man in person. But you can tell him, and we’ll have a meeting later to sort everything out. I plan to blow Casamia out of the water.”

“Ooooh! You really scare me! I’m getting goose bumps, Chaval.”

“Speaking of bumps, I met Mademoiselle Hortense this morning. Pretty hot stuff.”

“She’s fifteen, Chaval.”

“She is? Well, she could pass for twenty. That must get you down, seeing’s you’re getting close to menopause.”

He gave a nasty laugh and left.

Josiane shrugged and wrote Marcel a memo: “Chaval wants to meet with you. IKEA made him offer. He accepted.”

Barely a year earlier, she’d been sleeping with Chaval.
There’s something rotten about that guy
, she thought.
But he drives me wild. I must be rotten, too.

The trouble with outsourcing is that you have to keep on doing it
, thought Marcel, as he studied the Ukrainian’s heavy eyelids and houndstooth overcoat.
No sooner do you find a nice little country where wages are low, benefits nonexistent, and workers begging for jobs than the place joins the EU or some damned thing, and there goes your profit margin.

Marcel had been forced to keep moving east, toward the sunrise. First Poland, then Hungary, now it was Ukraine’s turn.
What the heck
, he thought,
may as well go straight to China!
But China was far away, and a tough place to do business. He’d already set up a couple of factories there. He needed a right-hand man, but Marcel Junior was taking his sweet time about showing up.
I won’t live to see him get old enough to vote
, Marcel thought gloomily.

He sighed and brought his attention back to the points the Ukrainian was making. Marcel poured him another shot of whiskey, and added ice. Smiling, he handed it to him and pushed the contract across the desk. The man shifted in his seat to take the proffered glass, pulled out a fountain pen, and unscrewed the cap.
This is it!
thought Marcel.
He’s going to sign!
But the Ukrainian instead drew a thick envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to him.

“These are my travel expenses,” he said in a thick accent. “Please you will take care of them?”

Marcel opened the envelope and glanced quickly through the crumpled wads of paper. Receipts for a restaurant, a hotel, a case of champagne, Yves Saint Laurent perfume, and a ring and a bracelet from Mauboussin. All the bills were made out to Marcel Grobz. He could cover this fat pig’s crazy expenses with one stroke of his pen.

“No problem,” he said. He winked at the Ukrainian, who was still holding his fountain pen in the air. Marcel smiled even more broadly, to signal that everything would be settled. The man was waiting, his hooded eyes shining with impatience.

“No problem,” Marcel repeated. “You’re my friend, and whenever you come to Paris, you’ll be my guest.” The Ukrainian smiled and relaxed, his eyes now shrunk to lifeless slits. He put his pen to the contract and signed it.

Philippe put his feet up on his desk and skimmed the file Caroline had sent him. The cover memo read: “We’re in a jam, and only a merger will save the situation.” He sighed and started reading from the beginning. Textile manufacturing in France was finished, that was certain, but a company like Labonal had survived by specializing in luxury hosiery. To make it in the age of globalization, each European country had to focus on its own special abilities. The question was, how do you make clients understand that? They counted on Philippe to come up with the arguments.

He took off his shoes and wiggled his toes in his socks—
Labonals, as it happened.
The British figured this out this years ago
, he thought.
They gave up their heavy industries and turned into a service economy, and now their country’s going great guns.
Philippe sighed. France was a beautiful country and he loved her, but he hated to see her greatest industries go under for lack of flexibility, imagination, and guts.