“Okay, Mommy, let’s go!”
Gabrielle’s eyes misted over with tears at the sight of her daughter. Antoine placed a kiss on Maeva’s turned-up nose and smiled thinly at Gabrielle, but in his gut he was saying, “She’s my daughter. Nobody will ever take her away from me. Not even you. I hope you’ve got that clear.”
A quarter of an hour later, Farouk stepped into the house, looking his usual self with his hands stuffed into his pockets and a navy-blue cap on his head. Always on the lookout for a good scam, he wore a broad smile on his face. He was coming to receive his due: a handsome sum of money. Thanks to him, the company Dufour-Planchon was flourishing. A bottle filled with explosives was all it had taken to trigger a media hype around the novel of Yasmine Azoul and Hinda Wafi.
“Now, that’s how you make a bestseller!” boasted Antoine as he greeted Farouk.
Mathieu teased his associate as he poured the drinks. “'Honors dishonor, decorations degrade, and duties demean!’”
“Monsieur’s quoting Flaubert! What’s to be done if literary publishing can’t be measured by the number of books sold?” There was a hint of humor in Antoine’s voice.
“Create a drama!” Mathieu pointed to the sky with his index finger, aping a visionary.
Antoine and Farouk roared with laughter.
“And what a drama!” Farouk exclaimed. “Madame Dufour’s jealousy and Yasmine Azoul’s naiveté really served your cause well. I must say, Mathieu is a good actor. How many detective films have you two guys seen? Mathieu had his role of kidnapper down pat. And that threatening letter was the work of a real pro!”
“They saw the smoke but not the fire. You know, I was mailing that letter at the very moment you were blowing up the bookshop window,” Antoine remarked.
Mathieu held out a Kir Royale to Farouk. “That literary award was the icing on the cake!”
“It certainly was,” Antoine agreed, raising his glass to drink to their success. They all clinked glasses.
That evening, Antoine and Mathieu would be throwing one of those dinners that play such a fundamental role in maintaining good relations with key public figures, journalists, and influential members of organizations that award literary prizes.
Suzuki could count any number of affairs in which the husband, neighbor, or associate was guilty, but where evidence was lacking. This particularly tangled case was obsessing him. There were too many things that Gabrielle Dufour didn’t know. Was it all a huge sham? Maybe not. He had to explore other avenues.
“A literary prize guarantees the survival of a publishing house,” he pointed out to his colleague as he backed into a parallel parking space.
In the rearview mirror, he noticed a tall fellow with a cap on his head leaving Antoine Dufour’s place.
© 2007 by Renée Yim; translation (c) 2007 by Mary Kennedy
Ms. Mitty
by Brenda Joziatis
The character Walter Mitty, from the Thurber story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and later the movie of that title starring Danny Kaye, is one of those fictional creations that have a life beyond the work in which they were born. Says author Brenda Joziatis, “I always thought there should be a female version [of Walter Mitty]... We all have dreams. The only reason I didn’t give Ms. Mitty the Pulitzer was because I was reserving that particular fantasy for myself.”
Ms. Mitty, also known as Margaret Wentworth, knows she is made for better things. During the day, she wears brown cardigans, slightly pilled, and high granny shoes, tightly laced. The latter support her weak ankles. But in free moments, when she lets her mind wander to what should be reality, it is a different story.
She has just performed a triple jump that brings the Olympic crowd to its feet. Ending in an arabesque that threatens to split her skimpy cerise costume, she bows her head modestly, accepting the plaudits of the audience. MargaretMargaretMargaret, they chant. The judges hold up their cards: all tens. She skates around the arena, waving and blowing kisses. Later, the gold medal bouncing between her perky breasts...
The children have finished with the Pledge of Allegiance. Ms. Mitty sighs and removes her hand from her ample chest. It’s March. She supposes she can have them cut shamrocks this week. But when she suggests it, their reaction is lukewarm. “Do we hafta?” whines the little Saunderson girl.
“Yes,” says Ms. Mitty. “Spring is coming. In Ireland, it’s already green.”
Basil Bates looks at her sceptically. “How do you know?”
“Well,” says Ms. Mitty, “I just know. They get spring sooner in Ireland.”
She was reluctant to go — What about Jackie? — but Jack had insisted. I want to show you my father’s land, the thatched cottages, the stone ruins, the Dublin pubs. So she smiled, that wistful little smile that he loved, and packed her bags. They took Air Force Six, the plane he kept for just such assignations. (The bigots called it Air Force Sex, but she ignored them.) Jack quoted Yeats to her over the ocean and they landed in a world of emerald green. Oh, how she sorrowed later in the administration when news of Dallas came crackling over the radio...
“Did you watch the Academy Awards?” The question comes from Serena but is really addressed to her classmates, not her teacher. The room instantly fills with whistles and catcalls.
“Whoo-ee! Some babes!” “Did you see Sharon Stone? I thought her boobs were gonna fall out of her dress!”
Ms. Mitty tries to run a tight ship but is increasingly unsuccessful. She shushes the rowdy ones, turns to Serena, and answers with dignity: “No, dear, I didn’t happen to watch them. Not this year.”
Everyone had told her this was her year. And they were right. She makes her way up the aisle, her mouth a moue of humble disbelief. Her gown is a simple black sheath, slit so her gorgeous legs show as she climbs to the stage. An Oscar de la Renta, of course. Elegant, chic, its very name a portent of what the evening holds. Best Actress. Her peers give her a standing ovation. Tears glisten in her eyes. She blinks them back. I want to thank the little people, she says. Without you, all of you, I couldn’t have done it. This (she waves the golden Oscar high in the air) belongs to all of us...
“Look, Miss Wentworth. I made enough for all of us.” Basil Bates is tugging at her sweater, flourishing a sheaf of shamrocks. Ms. Mitty, still trying to decide if maybe a fiery political diatribe might be more appropriate for the Academy Awards, has trouble focusing.
“Where did you get those, Basil?” She is sure that last year’s fourth-graders had taken their shamrocks home.
“From the computer,” Basil says. “I just did a Web search for shamrocks and printed these for coloring. We can make them orange or pink or purple even.”
This is too much! Basil is an arrogant little creature, she decides. If there’s one thing she hates worse than computers, it’s children who are proficient at using them. Ms. Mitty tries, but the thing always seizes up on her, leaves boxes with indecipherable messages, reduces her to a frazzle that borders on tears.
“Shamrocks are always green,” she informs Basil. Then: “Computers will destroy your creativity. We don’t need computers in Miss Wentworth’s classroom.” She hands out scissors, green construction paper, dittoed shamrock patterns. “This is how we do it in Miss Wentworth’s classroom.”
What type of computer do you use? asks the book reviewer for the New York Times.I don’t, she says sweetly. I compose my poems by hand, letter by exquisite letter, with a Parker fountain pen given me by my late father. The paper, of course, is handmade ragfashioned by my administrative assistant, the ink hand-ground and imported from Thailand...