The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (39 page)

“Sweetie-pie! Is this why you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder since forever?”

“I don’t see what’s so funny. I’m not laughing, anyway!”

“You’ve got it all wrong! I planted that picture months ago, to fool Henriette! René said she’d come prowling around here on the first of May, when the place was closed! That sounded fishy, so I carefully looked though my files, and I noticed that a big envelope had been opened and probably Xeroxed. It was the one with that fat Ukrainian’s expenses in it. Poor old Toothpick! She probably figured she could nail me for cheating on her, and embezzling from the company to boot!

“The snapshot was taken at the Lido when I took a big client out one night you didn’t feel like going. I just made up a name for the girl. When Henriette saw it along with the expenses envelope, I bet she swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker. Have you really been stewing all this time because of that?”

Josiane looked at him suspiciously.

“You think I’m going to buy that crap?”

“Why would I lie to you, sweetie-pie? I don’t even know the girl. I posed with her for laughs, that’s all. Try to remember. It
was about a year and a half ago, and you said you were too tired to come along.”

Actually, Josiane did remember: she’d been with Chaval that night. The old guy was right.

Walking over to her desk, he bumped into a suitcase.

“What’s this?”

“I was planning to leave, Marcel. I was gonna wait for us to talk things out, then I was splitting.”

“You’re crazy! Listen, honeybunch, you’d better get used to this, ’cause I’m here. I’m really here for you.”

He took her in his arms and rocked her, murmuring, “She’s silly, she’s so silly.”

Josiane leaned against him, waiting for him to stop so she could give him the news about her pregnancy. One emotion at a time, she figured. I’ll let him come back to earth, and then announce the arrival of Baby Grobz. That’ll send him to seventh heaven.

“With that photo I figured I could kill two birds with one stone,” Marcel was saying. “This way, Henriette won’t get suspicious in case you get pregnant and start to show. She’ll be thinking about Natasha, not about you.”

Josiane slowly stepped out of his arms. She didn’t like what she’d just heard.

“So you’re not planning to tell her when I do get knocked up?”

Marcel turned crimson.

“No, it’s not that! I just . . . I just need a little time to get everything straightened out.”

“Seeing how long we’ve been talking about this kid, you’ve had plenty of time to get things straight!”

“I’ll be honest, sweetie-pie. I don’t know how to handle it without her turning around and screwing me. But I’ll do it when the time comes, I promise!”

At that, Josiane stood up, grabbed her purse, and waved an arm dramatically at her office.

“Take a good look around, Marcel Grobz, ’cause you’re never going to see me again. You’re such a coward, you make me sick! I’m throwing in the towel. I’ve had it!”

“Sweetie-pie! I promise—”

“I’ve been eating promises out of the air for so long, I wanna puke! I don’t believe a word you say anymore.”

She picked up her suitcase and strode out of the office. Heels clicking as she went downstairs. Josiane Lambert quit Marcel Grobz’s company on October 22, at exactly 11:50 a.m.

She didn’t stop to say good-bye to René.

She didn’t stop to hug Ginette.

She didn’t look at the wisteria.

When she went out the front gate, she didn’t look back.

She looked straight ahead, thinking,
If I stop now, I’ll never leave.

That night after dinner, Alexandre showed Zoé his secret hiding place: a big armoire his father had bought in Saint-Valéry-en-Caux, a little seaport in Normandy. Alex had gone there with his parents. His dad had to meet an English client, and the man had sailed over on his boat. After their meeting, the family went for a walk around the little seaport and stopped in a secondhand shop. The moment Philippe saw the armoire, he had to have it.
Iris objected that it didn’t match the rest of their furniture. It was old-fashioned, she said, tacky. It would look all wrong. But Philippe insisted.

He put it in his study, where it soon became Alexandre’s favorite hiding place. It smelled of furniture polish and lavender, and if you listened really, really hard, you could hear the rumble of the ocean and the clicking of mast halyards. Alex would pull the doors closed, put on headphones, and travel to SSIW—his Super Secret Imaginary World. That was a country where everyone lived according to the lyrics in John Lennon’s song “Imagine.” The other essential piece of SSIW equipment was a pair of round glasses that let you see things that were invisible.

He often invited Zoé in with him. “In the SSIW,” he said, “there’s no teachers, no money, no school, no grades, no traffic jams, no divorced parents. Everyone loves everyone else, and the only rule is that you can’t bother the other SSIW inhabitants.”

Also, you had to speak English.

Alexandre insisted on that. He spoke it fluently, because his parents sent him to school in England for a few weeks every summer. At first it was hard for Zoé, but she did her best to keep up with her cousin. When she didn’t understand something, he translated.

That night Carmen made them dinner early, Iris went to a book party, and Philippe had a business dinner. Alexandre and Zoé snuck off to the study and slipped into the magic armoire. He had created a regular ritual. First they had to put on the little
round yellow glasses and say “Hello, John” three times. Then they sat down, closed their eyes, and sang “Imagine.”

After that, they held hands and waited for an emissary of the SSIW to come.

“Concentrate,” said Alexandre. “Let’s call the White Rabbit.”

Zoé closed her eyes, and he said the magic words: “Hello, White Rabbit. Where are you?”

“Here I am, children,” Alexandre answered in a deep voice. “Where do you want to go today?”

He glanced at Zoé, and said, “To Central Park in New York. To the Imagine circle in Strawberry Fields.”

“Okay, children. Fasten your seat belts!”

They pretended to fasten their seat belts.

“I’ve never been to New York,” Zoé whispered.

“I have. You’ll see, it’s great. Central Park has horse-drawn carriages, lakes with ducks, and a statue of Alice in Wonderland. There’s even a statue of the White Rabbit!”

After playing for a while, the two children were about to leave the armoire when they heard the study door open, then footsteps.

“Is it your dad?”

“Shh! We’ll see.”

It was indeed Alex’s father, and he was on the phone, speaking English.

“Is he pretending to be playing with us?” asked Zoé. “Does he know about the SSIW?”

“Shh!” Alex put his hand over her mouth, and they held their breath and listened.

“She didn’t write the book, Johnny. Her sister wrote it for her. I’m sure of it.”

“What’s he saying?”

“Wait!” Alexandre hissed.

“Yes, she pulled a stunt like this before,” said Philippe. “She’s such a liar! She made her sister write the book, and now she’s pretending she did! It’s a huge hit here in France. . . . No, really. I’m not kidding!”

“
What’s he saying?
” Zoé asked plaintively

“Shut up! I can’t hear with you whispering in my ear!”

“So let’s do it in New York, at the film festival. I know for sure that he’ll be there. Can you manage everything? Okay, we’ll talk soon. Let me know.”

He hung up.

In the armoire, the two children were afraid to move, or even whisper. But then Philippe put on some classical music, and they were able to speak

“Alexandre, what did he say?” Zoé demanded, taking off her round glasses.

“He said that my mom didn’t write that book. Your mother wrote it. He said my mom’s done that before, that she’s a big liar.”

“Do you believe him?”

“If he says so, yeah. Dad doesn’t tell lies.”

“Well, the Middle Ages is certainly more my mom’s thing. So she wrote it and your mother . . . But why, Alex?”

“No idea.”

They could hear Philippe moving about the study. Then he
stopped, and the smell of tobacco began to fill the room. He had lit a cigar.

“Yuck, that stinks!” complained Zoé. “We gotta get out. It makes my nose itch.”

“Wait until he leaves first. We can’t let him see us. Otherwise, no more SSIW. If a secret place is discovered, it doesn’t exist anymore.”

They didn’t have to wait long. Philippe left the study to go ask Carmen where the children were.

They crept out of the armoire and ran to Alexandre’s room. When Philippe found them, they were sitting on the floor, reading comic books.

“You all right, kids?”

They looked at each other nervously.

“Want to watch a movie together? There’s no school tomorrow, so you can stay up late.”

Relieved, they agreed. Then they got into an argument over what to watch. Alexandre voted for
The Matrix
, and Zoé, for
Sleeping Beauty.
Philippe settled the matter by choosing a comedy,
The Murderer Lives at Number 21.
“You’ll like it, Zoé. It’s a little scary, but it all turns out okay in the end.”

They settled in front of the television. As Philippe was starting the movie, Zoé and Alex exchanged a meaningful look. They were in this together now.

Six months earlier, Luca had told Joséphine about the colloquium that would be held in Provence that fall.

“It’s a conference on the sacred in the Middle Ages, in Montpellier in October. I’m presenting a paper. You should too. It’s a good idea to build up your list of publications.”

October had arrived, and Joséphine was now on the Montpellier train to join him. Luca had given his talk yesterday, Friday. Jo had signed up to speak this afternoon.

When Luca came to the station, he seemed very happy to see her. He was wearing the same old blue duffel coat, and his thin cheeks were dark with a three-day beard. He picked up Joséphine’s suitcase and steered her toward the exit, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder.

They passed a bookstore, and Joséphine was startled to see a big window display of
A Most Humble Queen.

“A real best seller,” said Luca. “I bought a copy to see if it lived up to all the hype, and you know what? It wasn’t half bad. I couldn’t put it down, in fact. Very well written. Have you read it?”

Joséphine mumbled yes, then immediately asked how the conference had been going. The other participants were interesting, Luca said. Yes, his talk had gone well; yes, there would be a publication.

The afternoon went by quickly. Joséphine spoke for twenty minutes in a lecture hall to thirty people. She made her points clearly, surprised by her new self-confidence. A few colleagues stayed afterward to congratulate her. One mentioned the success of
A Most Humble Queen
, and said he was glad the twelfth century was back in the spotlight, and presented free of the usual
clichés. “Nice job!” the man said before leaving. Joséphine wondered whether he meant her talk or the novel, then reminded herself that she’d written both.

She met Luca back at the hotel. They took a cab to a restaurant on the beach at Carnon, and chose a table near the water.