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kisses all around, and home they’d go. Home, where they hung their clothes on quilted hangers in closets with mirrored doors. Home, to bed.
    Casson fumbled at his fly, getting the buttons done. Jean-Claude, you are drunk. Well, yes, I am, it’s true. But I have a theory about that, if you’d like to hear it. I believe it may result from drinking a lot of wine. As observed by Doctor Vinkelmeister in his paper read before the Académie Nationale. Casson laughed out loud. Doctor Vinkelmeister.
    Back in the Diable Vert it got louder and louder. Monsieur Bruc had wandered off somewhere. The man who had jumped on a table to sing a song was now crawling around on hands and knees and barking like a dog. People shouted at him, “Down, Fideaux! Roll over! Shake hands!”
    Two men wearing sharp suits came to Casson’s table. Brothers, he thought. They had the same face. Thick shoulders, heavy throats, chins dark only hours after shaving. Casson could smell the hair oil. Pimps. From the south, he thought, the Midi. Come up to Paris to make their fortunes. “Won’t you offer us a drink?” This one was fatter than the other and wore an expensive black shirt.
    Of course. With pleasure.
    They were sniffing at him. And the drink wasn’t optional. The fat one took the flask and filled both their glasses to the rim. “See?” he said to his brother. “I told you he was a good guy.”
    He was glad when they left. The dance-hall girls came back. The dark one with curly hair dropped into the empty chair and said, “What a crowd!”
    “Et alors,” her friend said, hands on hips, playfully indignant. “Kind of you to take the chair.”
    “Don’t mention it. I could tell you wanted me to have it.”
    “Well.” She looked around, then shrugged and settled herself delicately on Casson’s lap. “With your permission, monsieur.”
    “More than welcome.”
    “There, you see?” she said to her friend. “Some people still know how to be polite.” Then, formally, to Casson: “How are you called, monsieur?”
    “Marin,” He said. “Jean Marin.”
    “I am—Julie.”
    As with all English names taken into French, it sounded exotic, the j soft, the accent rolling to the second syllable: Ju -lee. She caressed the name as she said it, clearly relishing the identity it suggested. Who are you really, he thought. Juliette, at best. More likely: Hortense. From some wretched little village somewhere. Ran off to Paris, leaving Albert the butcher’s son heartbroken.
    He could see why. She was one of those lethal girls, with the small face and the big ass, white skin, angelic pout. The hair pinned up under her cap was a strange shade of red, God only knew what had been done to it in various hotel sinks. She wriggled around to get comfortable, then settled in—a warm vee against his thigh— gave him a playful nip on the earlobe and made a brat face. Bit you!
    The friend looked grim and shook her head in mock despair—oh that Julie. She rooted around in her purse, found a small mirror, and went to work repairing the kiss curl on her forehead, wetting her index finger on her tongue and poking at the hair until it was plastered against her skin. For no particular reason that Casson could see, this operation was accompanied by a fierce scowl.
    Julie hummed to herself, took Casson’s glass and finished his wine. He pulled her against him and gave her a kiss. “Mm,” she said, against his mouth. He could smell her lipstick, waxy and sweet. Big, heavy kisses, she moved her head from side to side, arms tight around his neck. He was fifteen again. She drew back and said “ Tiens, ” hanging on to her cap so it wouldn’t blow away in the big storm they were brewing up.
    Casson laughed, then fished a handful of francs from his shirt pocket. “Another chopine, I think.”
    “Let me,” she said, taking the money from his hand. He watched her as she moved through the crowd, richly curved in her thin wool trousers.
    The din grew, and grew