The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (4 page)

How could I have spent nine months in the womb of that woman people claim is my mother?
Joséphine wondered.

The day Joséphine was hired by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, she’d raced to the phone to tell her mother and sister. Neither understood what there was to be excited about. Recruited by a research center? Why would she want to work in that black hole?

Joséphine had to face facts: she just didn’t interest her family. Marrying Antoine had been the only thing they understood. For once they had reacted positively. She had stopped being a mystery to them and become an ordinary woman, a wife, a mother.

But Henriette and Iris were soon disappointed: Antoine wasn’t going to cut it. His hair was too neat (no charm), his socks too short (no style), his paycheck too small (and paid by Americans!), and he sold hunting guns—how degrading! Worst of all, he had a sweating problem. Antoine’s in-laws intimidated him, and when he was with them—and only them—he would perspire profusely.

Jo suddenly felt a wave of pity for Antoine. Forgetting that she had resolved not to talk about him, she blurted: “I just kicked him out, Iris. I—”

“You kicked him out? For good?”

“You don’t know what it’s been like to live with an unemployed husband. I feel so guilty about my job. I’ve been hiding my work behind pots and pans and potato peelings.”

Joséphine looked at the kitchen table.
I should clear it off before the girls get home from school for lunch.
She’d done the math: eating at home was cheaper than in the cafeteria.

“After a year, I would think you’d have gotten used to it,” said Iris.

“That’s a shitty thing to say!”

“I’m sorry, darling. But you seemed to be coping. So what are you going to do now?”

“I’ll keep working, of course, but I need to find something else, too. Give French lessons, grammar, spelling, whatever.”

“You know, there’s a need for that. There are so many dunces out there these days! Starting with your nephew Alexandre. He came home from school yesterday with a 38 in dictation. A 38! You should have seen Philippe. I thought he was going to have a stroke!”

Jo couldn’t help but smile: the highly accomplished Philippe Dupin, father of a dunce.

Alex was ten, the same age as Zoé. At family gatherings the two would hide under the table and talk, looking serious and concentrated, or go off to build models together.

“Do the girls know?”

“Not yet.”

“How will you explain it to them?”

Joséphine didn’t answer. She picked at the edge of the Formica table with her nail until she’d accumulated a little black ball of grease, then flicked it across the kitchen.

“Jo, darling, I’m here.” Iris’s voice had turned soothing, and it made Joséphine feel like crying again. “You know I’m always here for you, and I’ll never let you down. I love you as much as I love myself, and that’s saying something!”

Jo laughed.

The doorbell rang.

“That must be the girls. I have to go, but please, not a word about this tomorrow night. I really don’t want to be the main topic of the evening!”

“All right, Jo, I promise. And don’t forget: Cric and Croc clobbered the big Cruc creeping up to crunch them.”

It was the old tongue twister they used to recite as kids. Joséphine laughed again and hung up. She wiped her hands, took off her apron, pulled the pencil out of her hair, and ran to the door. Hortense breezed in without looking at her mother.

“Is Dad here? I got a terrific grade in creative writing! And I got it from that bitch Madame Ruffon.”

“Hortense, please! That’s your French teacher you’re talking about.”

“Well, she
is
a bitch.”

Hortense put down her backpack and took off her coat with the studied grace of a debutante removing her wrap before the ball.

“Don’t I get a kiss?” asked Joséphine, annoyed at sounding needy.

Hortense offered her soft, peachy cheek, pulling a mass of copper-colored hair away from her neck.

“I can’t believe how hot it is! Positively tropical, as Dad would say.”

Hortense went to the stove and lifted the lid off one of the pots. At fourteen, she already had the look and manners of a woman. Her pale complexion contrasted with her coppery hair and her large green eyes.

Just then, ten-year-old Zoé burst into the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Joséphine’s legs.

“Mommy! Guess what? Max Barthillet invited me over to watch
Peter Pan
at his place! His dad gave him the DVD. Can I go after school? I don’t have any homework for tomorrow. Okay, Mommy? Can I?”

Zoé looked at her mother, her face full of trust and love.

“Of course you can, sweetie.”

“Max Barthillet?” scoffed Hortense. “You’re letting her go to his house? He’s my age and he’s still in Zoé’s class! He keeps being held back. He’s probably going to end up being a butcher or a plumber.”

“There’s no shame in being a butcher or a plumber, Hortense.”

“Whatever. There’s just something weird about him, with his pants two sizes too large, his studded belts, and his long hair. I don’t think we should be seen with him.”

“I don’t care if he is a plumber,” cried Zoé. “I think Max is handsome. You’ll let me go, right, Mommy? What’s for lunch? I’m starving!”

“Scrambled eggs and potatoes.”

“Yum! Can I break the yolk? I can squoosh it all together and add tons of ketchup.”

Zoé still had her babyish looks: round cheeks, chubby arms, freckles, and deep dimples in her cheeks. She loved to give people loud kisses, and hug them tight.

“Max is only inviting you over because he wants to get to me,” Hortense declared as she nibbled a French fry with her perfect white teeth.

“That’s not true. He invited me! Nobody else! So there!”

“Little brat! Max Barthillet. Let him dream. He doesn’t stand a chance. I want a big strong man, like Marlon Brando.”

“Who’s Marion Bardo, Mommy?”

“A famous American actor, sweetie.”

“Marlon Brando! He’s so handsome. He was in
A Streetcar Named Desire.
Dad took me to see it. He says it’s a masterpiece.”

“Yum! The fries are great, Mommy.”

“Isn’t Dad here? Did he have a meeting?” Hortense wiped her mouth.

This was the moment Joséphine was dreading. She met her elder daughter’s inquisitive gaze, then looked at Zoé, who was absorbed in dipping her fries in her egg yolk, which was splattered with ketchup.

Antoine had never wanted to speak about money troubles or worries about the future in front of the girls. Hortense’s unconditional love for him was all that remained of his past glory. She used to help him unpack when he got back from a trip. She admired his suits, felt the quality of his shirts, smoothed his ties. Joséphine sometimes felt they had their own private world, that their family was divided into two castes: Antoine and Hortense were the nobility, and she and Zoé were the vassals.

Hortense was looking at Joséphine, her question hanging in the air.

“He left.”

“When is he coming back?”

“He’s not. I mean not here.”

Zoé raised her head.

“He left for good?” she asked, her mouth open in shock.

“Yes.”

“He won’t be my dad anymore?”

“Of course he will. He just won’t be living here with us.”

Joséphine was terrified. She wished she could turn back the clock to her first days of motherhood, the first vacations the four of them took together, the first fight, the first making-up, the first awkward silence that became more and more silence. When did the charming man she’d married become Tonio Cortès, her tired, irritable, unemployed husband?

Zoé started to cry. Joséphine hugged her, burying her face in Zoé’s soft curls. Above all, she knew she couldn’t cry. She had to show them that she wasn’t afraid. She told them all the things the psychology books suggest parents say to kids in the event of a separation. Daddy loves Mommy. Mommy loves Daddy. Daddy and Mommy love Hortense and Zoé, but they can’t live together anymore, so Daddy and Mommy are separating. But Daddy will always love Hortense and Zoé, always be there for them, always. Joséphine felt she was talking about people she’d never met.

“I have a hunch he didn’t go very far,” Hortense declared in a tight voice.

“He’ll come back, right, Mommy?” Zoé asked.

“Don’t say such stupid things, Zoé. Daddy left, and he’s not coming back. What I don’t understand is, why her? Why that
bimbo
?” She’d spat the word out with disgust, and Joséphine realized that Hortense knew about Mylène—had probably known long before she had.

“Problem is, now we’re going to be really poor. I hope he’ll give us a little money. He has to, doesn’t he?”

“Listen, Hortense . . .” Joséphine stopped, realizing that Zoé shouldn’t hear the rest.

“Go blow your nose and wash your face, sweetie,” she said, gently pushing her younger daughter out of the kitchen.

Zoé sniffled as she trudged off.

When she was out of earshot, Jo turned to Hortense. “How come you know about . . . that woman?”

“Get with it, Mom. The whole neighborhood knows. I was embarrassed for you. I wondered how you could possibly not know.”

“Actually, I did know about it. I just turned a blind eye.”

That wasn’t true. Joséphine had only learned about Mylène the night before. Shirley, her neighbor and friend across the hall, told her.

“How did you find out?” Jo asked Hortense.

Her daughter stared at her coldly.

“Open your eyes, Mom! Look at how you dress. What your hair looks like! You’ve let yourself go. It’s no surprise he went looking elsewhere! You need to leave the Middle Ages and come live in this century.”

Hortense was using the same amused disdain as Antoine. Joséphine closed her eyes, covered her ears with her hands, and started to yell.

“Hortense! I forbid you to speak to me with that tone! We’ve been scraping by because of me, and because of the Middle Ages!
Whether you like it or not. Don’t you ever look at me like that! I’m, I’m your mother, and I . . . you have to . . . respect me!”

She was babbling, she felt ridiculous. And now a new fear gripped her: she would never be able to bring up her two daughters. She didn’t have any authority, she was in way over her head.

Joséphine opened her eyes, and found Hortense looking at her oddly. She felt ashamed at having lost her temper.
I can’t get everything mixed up
, she thought.
They have only me to look to now, and I have to set an example.

T
he girls walked back to school after lunch, and Joséphine went over to Shirley’s. She already couldn’t bear to be alone.

Shirley’s son Gary opened the door. He was a year older than Hortense and in the same class, but she refused to walk home with him, claiming he was utterly uncool.

“Why aren’t you in school? Hortense already left.”

“We don’t have the same schedule. On Mondays I get back at two thirty.” He paused. “Want to see what I invented? Check this out.”

He showed her two Tampax, and somehow was able to make them swing in circles with one hand without their strings getting tangled.

“I’ve invented environmentally friendly perpetual motion.”

Jo watched in amazement. “It reminds me of those Chinese yo-yos,” she finally said. “Is your mother here?”

“She’s in the kitchen, cleaning up.”

“Aren’t you helping?”

“She doesn’t want me to. She’d rather I invent things.” “Well, good luck with that.”

Shirley was at the kitchen sink, rinsing plates and scraping leftovers. The big pots simmering on the stove smelled of rabbit stew and mustard. Shirley was committed to fresh, natural food. Never ate anything canned or frozen. She allowed Gary to eat one artificial ingredient a week “to immunize him against the dangers of modern nutrition,” as she put it. She hand-washed the laundry with Marseille soap, hardly ever watched TV, and every afternoon listened to the BBC, which she said was the only intelligent radio station. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman, with thick blond hair cropped short. From behind, people sometimes mistook her for a man. “Half man, half vamp,” Shirley would say, laughing. “I knock them out, then I revive them by batting my eyelashes!” She had a black belt in jujitsu.