“What was that?” I asked.
Cassis shrugged. I could see that he was pleased with himself, too pleased to withhold the information just to annoy me. He lowered his voice conspiratorially and allowed me a glimpse of rolled-up papers, which he immediately covered up again.
“Comic books. Serial story.” He winked at Reine self-importantly. “American film magazine.”
Reine uttered a squeak of excitement and made as if to grab his arm.
“Let me, let me see!”
Cassis shook his head irritably.
“Shh! For God’s sake, Reine!” He lowered his tone again. “He owed me a favor. Black market,” he mouthed. “Kept them for me under the counter.”
Reinette looked at him in awe. I was less impressed. Perhaps because I was less aware of the scarcity of such items; perhaps because the seeds of rebellion already growing in me pushed me to scorn anything of which my brother seemed overly proud. I gave a shrug to show my indifference. Still, I wondered what kind of “favor” the newspaper man might have owed Cassis, and finally concluded that he must have been bragging. I said as much.
“If I had contacts with the black market,” I said with a passable show of skepticism, “I’d make sure I got better stuff than a few old papers.”
Cassis looked stung.
“I can get anything I want,” he said quickly. “Comics, smokes, books, real coffee… chocolate-” He broke off with a scornful laugh. “You can’t even get the money for a rotten cinema ticket!” he said.
“No?”
Smiling, I took the purse from out of my apron pocket. I jingled it a little, so that he could hear the coins inside. His eyes widened as he recognized the purse.
“You little thief!” he breathed at last. “You rotten, bitching little thief!”
I looked at him, but said nothing.
“How did you get that?”
“Swum out and got it,” I answered defiantly. “Anyway, it wasn’t stealing. The treasure belonged to all of us.”
But Cassis was hardly listening.
“You bitching, thieving…” he said again.
Clearly he was disturbed that anyone other than he should obtain anything by guile.
“I don’t see that it’s any different from you and your black market,” I said calmly. “It’s all the same game, isn’t it?” I let this sink in before I continued. “And you’re just upset because I’m better at it than you.”
Cassis glared at me.
“It isn’t anything like the same thing,” he said at last.
I kept my expression disbelieving. It was always so easy to make Cassis give himself away. Just like his son, all those years later. Neither of them ever understood anything about guile.
Cassis was red-faced, almost shouting now, his conspiratorial tone forgotten.
“I could get you anything you liked. Proper fishing tackle for your stupid pike,” he hissed savagely. “Chewing gum, shoes, silk stockings, silk underwear if you wanted-”
I laughed aloud at that. Brought up as we had been, the idea of silk underwear was ludicrous. Enraged, Cassis grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me.
“You stop that!” His voice cracked with fury. “I got friends! I know people! I could get-you-anything-you-wanted!”
You see how easy it was to take him off balance. Cassis was spoiled in his way, too used to being the great older brother, the man of the house, the first to go to school, the tallest, the strongest, the wisest. His occasional bouts of wildness – his escapades into the woods, his daredevilry on the Loire, his small thefts from market stalls and shops in Angers – were uncontrolled, almost hysterical. He took no enjoyment from them. It was as if he needed to prove something to both of us, or to himself.
