The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (49 page)

“How do you know?”

“I’m pretty sure they don’t read that tabloid crap in Mustique. Plus, hey, my stud factor is really going to shoot up! All the girls will want to go out with me! I’ll be the star of the school, at least for a few days.”

“Is that all this means to you, Gary?” Jo asked, dumbfounded.

“Hey, you should have seen the British press in the days of Diana. It was pretty terrible, but it eventually died down. Can I finish the Camembert? And is that all the bread?”

Defeated, Joséphine nodded.

As she had hoped, the photos put Iris back in the media spotlight, if only briefly.

“I don’t understand this flurry of attention,” she wondered out loud on a popular talk show. “I mean, if a forty-year-old man goes out with a twenty-year-old, it doesn’t exactly make headlines. I’m for equal rights for men and women—on all fronts.”

Sales of
A Most Humble Queen
started to climb again. Women copied Iris’s beauty secrets, and men sucked in their stomachs
when they saw her. She was asked to host an evening radio talk show, but declined, saying she wanted to devote herself heart and soul to literature.

Seven thousand miles from the brouhaha in Paris, Antoine was sitting on the veranda of his house in Kenya. He was miserable that he hadn’t been able to bring the girls down for winter break. They didn’t come at Christmas, either. Jo asked if she could take them to a friend’s house in Mustique, and the girls were so excited about going to the Caribbean that he had to say yes. His and Mylène’s Christmas was makeshift and sad. Unable to find a turkey at the Malindi market, they cooked wapiti, and ate it in silence. Mylène gave him a diving watch. He didn’t have a gift for her. She didn’t say anything. They went to bed early.

For Antoine, things were now going really badly.

A particularly aggressive crocodile killed Pong’s pet Bambi one day as he was happily waddling along the edge of the swamp. Pong and Ming were devastated.

Mylène, on the other hand, was fine. Her little business was booming, and her partnership with Mr. Wei was taking on new dimensions.

“Leave those dirty beasts and come to China with me,” she whispered to Antoine one evening as they climbed under the mosquito netting on their bed.

But leaving would be admitting that the crocodiles had won, and Antoine refused to let that happen. He would walk away
from those dirty beasts with his head high. He wanted to have the last word.

Meanwhile, he was spending more and more time with them, especially in the evening. During the day he exhausted himself at work, but after dinner, he would leave Mylène to her spreadsheets and order books and go walking along the swamp.

The idea of going to China for Mylène’s cosmetics business didn’t appeal to him. It meant a new struggle, and for what? He didn’t have the energy to fight anymore.

“But I’ll do all the work,” said Mylène. “You can keep the books and take it easy.”

She just doesn’t feel like going alone
, Antoine thought.
So now I’m nothing but her boy toy.

He had started drinking again, while staring at the yellow eyes in the darkness. He imagined he could feel the sarcasm in the crocodiles’ gaze.
We kicked your ass
, they seemed to be saying.
Look what you’ve turned into: a loser. You drink on the sly, you don’t want to fuck your girlfriend, you eat wapiti at Christmas. We could rip you to shreds if we felt like it.

“You filthy bastards!” he growled. “I’ll kill you all!”

Antoine missed Joséphine. He missed the girls. When he leaned against the door to his office, it reminded him of the doorway in his old kitchen. Just rubbing his shoulder against the wood took him back to Courbevoie.

Life was so sweet back in Courbevoie
, he thought. Courbevoie. Those magic syllables, Cour-be-voie. They set his mind wandering, the way Ouagadougou, Zanzibar, Cap-Vert, or Esperanza
once did. To return to Courbevoie. After all, he’d only been gone for two years . . .

A few weeks later, Antoine called Joséphine late at night, and was surprised to get her answering machine. He looked at his watch; it was 1:00 a.m. in France. He hung up without leaving a message. When he called again the next morning, he asked to speak to the girls. She reminded him that they were away on vacation.

“They went to Shirley’s house in Mustique.”

“Weren’t you home last night, Jo? I called, and no one answered.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Are you seeing someone?”

“Yes.”

“Are you in love?”

“Yes.”

“Well, good for you.”

There was another silence, longer this time.

“It was bound to happen,” said Antoine.

“I didn’t go looking for it. I didn’t think I would ever interest anyone again.”

“But Jo, you’re a wonderful person.”

“You never used to tell me that.”

“‘We only recognize happiness by the sound it makes when it leaves.’ Who said that, Jo?”

“Jacques Prévert, I think. How are you?”

“Oh, overwhelmed with work, but I’m fine. I’m going to finish paying off the bank loan and I’ll send you some money for the girls. Business is much better. I’ve hit my stride again.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“Take good care of yourself, Jo.”

“You, too, Antoine. I’ll tell the girls to call you when they get back.”

He hung up, and wiped his sweaty brow. He found a fresh bottle of whiskey on a shelf and polished it off.

J
osiane felt the first contraction on May 6, at around six in the morning. Remembering her birthing class, she kept track of the time between each contraction. She woke Marcel at seven.

“Marcel, I think it’s happening. Junior is coming!”

He sat up like a punch-drunk boxer and muttered, “He’s coming? Are you sure, sweetie-pie? Oh my God, he’s coming!”

He stumbled out of bed, tripped on the quilt, spilled a cup of water reaching for his glasses, swore, sat back down, swore again, and turned to her, completely at a loss.

“Take it easy, Marcel! Everything’s ready to go. I’m going to get dressed. You take that suitcase over there, next to the cupboard. Get the car, and I’ll be right down.”

“No! No way are you going downstairs by yourself. I’m coming with you.”

He jumped in the shower, splashed himself with aftershave, brushed his teeth, and combed the tufts of hair around his bald scalp. Then he stopped dead, unable to choose between two blue shirts, one plain and one striped.

“I have to look my best, honeybunch! I have to look my very best!”

Josiane looked at him affectionately and chose a shirt at random.

“You’re right! That one’s brighter, more youthful. And a tie, a tie! I want to greet him in style!”

“You don’t need a tie.”

“Oh, yes, I do.”

He came out holding three neckties. Josiane again picked one at random, and again Marcel approved.

“I don’t know how you can stay so calm. Don’t forget to time the contractions!”

“Are you done in the bathroom?”

“Yes. I’ll go get the car and come back up for you. Don’t go anywhere, okay? Promise?”

Marcel left, came back because he’d forgotten the keys, left again, and came back again: he couldn’t remember where he’d parked the car. Josiane calmed him down and told him where the car was. He went out again, but this time walked into the kitchen by mistake.

She burst out laughing, and he turned around, visibly upset.

“Don’t make fun of me, sweetie-pie! I’ve been waiting for this day for thirty years. I’m not sure I’m able to drive.”

In the taxi, Marcel kept giving the driver instructions. The amused cabbie, who had eight children of his own, watched the father-to-be in his rearview mirror. On the backseat, Marcel was clutching Josiane, his arms around her like a second seat belt.

“Are you okay, sweetie-pie? Are you okay?” He was mopping his brow and panting like a puppy.

When they arrived at the clinic Marcel gave the driver a hundred-euro bill, and the man grumbled that he didn’t have any change.

“I don’t want change! It’s for you. My son’s first cab ride!”

“Hey, I’ll give you my number, and you call me whenever your son feels like going somewhere.”

The baby let out his first cry at half past twelve. The new father almost fainted, and had to be led out of the delivery room. Josiane held her breath as they put her wet, sticky son on her belly.

“He’s so beautiful! Look how big he is! And strong! Have you ever seen such a beautiful baby?”

“Never,” replied the doctor.

Marcel recovered enough to come back to cut the umbilical cord and give his son his first bath. He was crying so hard he couldn’t hold the child and wipe his eyes at the same time, but he wouldn’t give him to anyone else.

“It’s me, baby. It’s Daddy! Do you recognize me? See, sweetie-pie? He recognizes my voice. He turned his head toward me, and he stopped squirming. My son! My boy! Wait till you see the life we’ve got in store for you, your mother and I. A life fit for a prince! You’ll have to work, too, because here on earth, if you don’t bust your butt, you don’t get anywhere. But don’t worry! I’ll show you how. Just wait and see.”

“This son of yours has his work cut out for him,” the obstetrician said with a smile. “What are you going to call him?”