The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (41 page)

“The good news is, she’s pregnant. Three months. She was about to tell you before you had that fight.”

Marcel’s jaw dropped. He looked as innocently surprised and delighted as a child. He grabbed her hand so hard she winced.

“Say that again, Ginette! Say it again!”

“She’s pregnant, Marcel. And she’s over the moon. She found out soon after you left for China. If Henriette hadn’t brought in the photo of that Russian babe, she would’ve shouted it over the phone so loud, it would’ve blown your eardrums.”

“She’s pregnant! Oh my God, she’s pregnant! I’m going to be a dad, Ginette, do you realize? Oh my God!”

Marcel had his arms around Ginette and was rubbing her head.

“Calm down, Marcel. Calm down! And leave me some of my hair.”

“This changes everything! I’d given up. I stopped working out and taking my vitamins. As of today, I’m starting again. If she’s pregnant, that means she’ll come back. I’ve got everything we need in my office—crib, stroller, breast pump, baby monitors. I even have an electric train! Josie knows this. She’ll come back. She can’t keep all that happiness to herself. She knows how much this kid means to me.”

Ginette looked at him and grinned. Marcel’s joy was so touching. But she wasn’t so sure that Josiane would be coming back. The woman didn’t scare easily, and raising a child on her own didn’t frighten her. She’d probably been saving her salary, and with what Marcel had given her over the years, she would be okay.

Before they went back to work, Ginette made Marcel swear not to say anything to Josiane in case she decided to come out of hiding.

“Cross your heart, Marcel?”

He nodded, and put a finger to his smiling lips.

“But promise you’ll let me know the moment she calls you,” he said.

“Come on, Marcel! She’s my friend. I’m not going to give her away!”

“You don’t have to tell me where she is. Just say something like, ‘Oh, by the way, Josiane called and she’s doing fine. She gained five pounds, her back aches, she’s craving candied chestnuts.’ Things like that. And don’t forget to ask her if her belly is
pointed out or spread sideways. The first shows it’s a boy, and the second, a girl. Oh, and tell her to eat well—plenty of red meat—and to go to bed early. And to sleep on her back so she doesn’t crush the baby. And to take it easy!”

“Listen, Marcel, I had three of ’em, and I survived. Calm down. And now I’m going back to work. Last I heard, you don’t pay me to stand around waiting by the phone.”

Marcel abruptly stood up, wrapped his arms around a branch of the wisteria vine, and kissed it. Raindrops ran down his cheeks. It looked as if he was crying for joy.

Iris threw the magazine onto the coffee table and frowned. She’d been set up. She had invited the writer to her home for the interview; she had Carmen serve tea on the big wooden tray and treated the woman to lemon meringue pie. She answered her questions calmly and objectively. Everything had gone perfectly, or so she’d thought. But Iris’s nonchalance had been seen as arrogance.

She practically calls me a nouveau riche show-off
, she fumed, rereading the article. They were always the same old questions: How did relations between men and women in the twelfth century differ from today? What did women suffer from most in those days? Are they really happier in the twenty-first century than in the twelfth? What has really changed? In the end, doesn’t modernity and equality between the sexes wind up killing passion?

“Women don’t have any more emotional security than they did in the past,” Iris said. “They just deal with it better, that’s
all. The only real security would come from turning our backs on men altogether—not needing them anymore. But that would be a kind of death. At least that’s how I see it.”

What was so bad about that?
she wondered.
And it wasn’t the least bit arrogant.

“There is no ideal man,” Iris had continued. “The ideal man is the one you’re in love with. He can be eighteen or eighty-eight—there’s no rule, as long as you love him. I don’t know any ideal men. I know men. Some I love, others I don’t.”

“Could you fall in love with an eighteen-year-old?”

“Why not? When you’re in love, age doesn’t count.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m as old as the man I love wants to think I am.”

Iris had struggled to hide her annoyance.

For the next novel, Joséphine will have to work in a more sophisticated vein
, she thought.
This business about dying husbands making Florine rich one after the other is all well and good, but it reads like chick lit. No wonder people think I’m a bimbo.

She kicked at the pile of magazines on the floor.
Next time, I want them to talk to me like a real writer. Stop asking these idiotic questions. What do I know about relations between men and women? I’ve been married for fifteen years, and been so faithful it’s bored me to tears.

She had to admit that she didn’t even know where the only man she’d ever loved was. The press said Gabor was always off someplace between London, New York, and Budapest; maybe Mali. He wandered wherever he pleased, and probably slept with anyone he liked. Stopped filming when he got death threats, and
came skipping back home to actors who adored him and would do whatever he said.

I see he’s still wearing the same old jeans and knitted cap
, thought Iris.
That’s what I should have told that idiot! That the handsome, famous movie director Gabor Minar was my lover, and that I still love him.

And she was finally going to see him again.

It was Philippe who had suggested they go to New York for the film festival, where Gabor would be the guest of honor. Iris pulled her shawl tightly around her.
Is it Gabor’s love I miss, or is it the fame, the celebrities, and the glitter? After all, he was a nobody when we met.

She drove that thought from her mind. She and Gabor were made for each other. Her marriage to Philippe had been the mistake.

I’m going to see him again
, she thought.
I’m going to see him, and my life will change. What’s fifteen years of absence when we loved each other the way we did? He won’t be afraid. He’ll carry me off and smother me with kisses, the way he did when we were students at Columbia.

She snuggled in her shawl and admired her perfectly manicured nails.

At the Hotel George V, Josiane had developed a routine. She woke up every morning around nine, had room service bring her breakfast, stepped on the bathroom scale and noted her weight, sprayed herself with Chance by Chanel, then went back to bed to listen to her horoscope on the radio. The astrologer
was never wrong, and always gave her a feel for what the day would bring. Josiane ate a few croissants. She couldn’t bring herself to eat eggs, even though her gynecologist urged her to have protein in the morning.

“Those greasy things may be fine for the English,” she said aloud, “but I can’t stomach ’em.” Having no other company, Josiane had gotten into the habit of talking to herself.

She had the newspapers sent up with breakfast. After leafing through them, she would turn on the TV, stretch her arms a little out on the balcony, and take a shower.

Later, she went down to the Restaurant des Princes, where she ordered the most extravagant dishes on the menu. She wanted to taste things she’d never tried before.

“This is my education,” she told herself as she bit into another blini with caviar. “I’m here to forget my troubles, and eating helps.”

In the afternoons, Josiane went out for a walk, wearing the mink coat she’d bought one day when she’d been window shopping on avenue George-V. What fun, she remembered, to see the look of surprise on the salesgirl’s face when she pulled out her platinum credit card and pointed to the coat, saying, “I want that.” She enjoyed revisiting the event, like a scene from a movie.

Josiane strolled down the avenue, holding the soft fur collar to her cheeks, and turned onto avenue Montaigne. She whipped out the platinum card at the slightest temptation. It tickled her no end to see the same pinched expressions on the clerks’ faces. Only one gave her a big smile, saying, “You’re going to love this sweater, madame!” Josiane asked the saleswoman’s
name—Rosemary—and bought her a beautiful cashmere scarf on the spot. They became pals, and after work, Rosemary would join her for dinner at the Restaurant des Princes.

Josiane was happy to have the company. She sometimes felt lonely, especially at night. And she wasn’t the only one, she noticed. There were lots of lonely hearts living “chez George,” as she called the hotel. From time to time Rosemary would stay the night. She would put her head against Josiane’s stomach and speculate whether it was a boy or a girl. They would try to think of names. “If it’s a boy, he’ll be Marcel. If it’s a girl, I get to choose.”

“Where do you get all the money?” Rosemary asked, disconcerted by her friend’s spending.

“From my sweetie. He gave me a platinum card one Christmas Eve when he ditched me to go spend it with the Toothpick, as usual.”

“What’s he like, this Marcel of yours?”

“He’s no spring chicken, but I like him. We both come from the streets.”

“You gonna stay here a long time?”

“Until I get the call from the big guy. The day I know he’s finally dumped that bitch. Then I’ll come back, same way I left, with my little suitcase.”

“And your mink coat.”

“I want my baby surrounded by comfort. Even squeezed in my belly, I want him to be in the lap of luxury.”

“You know what? You’re gonna be an amazing mom.”

Josiane loved hearing that.

Returning mink-clad from her daily stroll one day, she spotted Bruno Chaval standing at the hotel bar. She came up behind him and put her hands over his eyes.

“Guess who?” she shouted. Josiane was happy to see a familiar face—even Chaval’s. “Buy a girl a drink?”

He glanced at the entrance to the bar, then at his watch, and waved her to a stool.

“What brings you here?” Josiane asked.

“I’m waiting for someone.”

“Is she late?”

“She’s always late. So, what are you up to?”

“I’m living here in the hotel.”

“What? Did you win the lottery?”

“Almost. I hit the jackpot, sort of!”

“Oh, yeah? Who’s the guy?”

“Santa Claus!”

As Josiane hoisted herself onto the bar stool her coat opened, revealing her round belly.

“Hey, you’ve got a bun in the oven! Congratulations! So, you left Casamia?”

“Yeah. My boyfriend doesn’t want me to work anymore. Wants me to take it easy.”

“Did you hear about old man Grobz?”

Josiane’s heart missed a beat. Something had happened to Marcel!

“What? Did he . . . die?”

“Of course not, dummy! Don’t you know? He just pulled off the deal of the century. He bought the world’s largest manufacturer
of home goods. It was like a mouse swallowing an elephant, and nobody saw it coming. Old Grobz must’ve had the deal cooking for months.”

Suddenly, Josiane understood everything. Marcel hadn’t been afraid of the Toothpick, he’d just been waiting for this deal to go through. Until everything was signed, Henriette had him by the short hairs, she realized.
And now he’s beat her. What a guy! And to think I ever doubted him!

Josiane ordered a whiskey straight up, apologized to Junior for the alcohol, and drank to her man’s success.

Chaval, on the other hand, wasn’t doing so well. He sat slumped on his stool, and kept glancing anxiously at the front door.

“Come on, Chaval, buck up. You never knuckled under to a woman before!”

“Josiane, if you only knew. I can barely drag myself out of bed in the morning. I didn’t realize it could be so bad.”

“Breaks my heart, Chaval.”

“Yeah, well, shit happens.”

“But things work out in the end. I’m drinking to things working out. And to think I used to be crazy about you!”

Josiane asked the front desk to prepare her bill for the next day. Then she went up to her room to take a bath.

She was relaxing in the tub, popping soap bubbles and talking to the mirrors about her future happiness, when she suddenly felt something kick inside her. For a moment, she was so happy she couldn’t breathe, then tears started rolling down her cheeks, and she whooped for joy.