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he’s the best. Very handsome too, at least according to their photo. I was lucky to get an appointment for tomorrow afternoon, at three thirty. Oh, and there’s a sale at the Galeries Modernes. They’re going to remodel the store. I think I’ll take a look at it after the specialist. I need beach towels, and a bathing suit. Would you be interested?”
    Estelle shrugs. “Why not? I haven’t been to Béziers for quite a while. Let’s go and see what’s going on.”
    “Good idea,” Cami says. “What about you, Denise? Let’s all go, shall we? In my car?” Because of her four children, Cami has the largest car.
    Denise Pujol, our next-door neighbor, hesitates. “I’d like to take a look at their tea towels,” she finally says, “but I’ll have to talk to Roger.”
    The other women try not to look at each other, but I know what they’re thinking: “Poor Denise!”
    Not that the Pujols are poor, financially. Quite the opposite. They live next door to us in a bigger and more ornate house (ours is neater, though, with its plain façade and slender roof balustrade). Roger Pujol is one of Father’s oldest friends. He’s a notaire , and his offices take up the whole ground floor of their house. Their daughter lives in Toulouse (she married a surgeon), and their son is studying economics in Germany. They have a cook, two maids and a gardener. Every summer they go to the spa in Luchon, checking into the Grand Hotel. But Denise doesn’t have her own car. She doesn’t even drive. Also, the way the Pujols deal with money is peculiar. Roger gives Denise, every morning, the cash needed for grocery shopping. If she wants more than usual, she has to ask. He’s not actually stingy, he’ll give her what she wants, but she has to ask .
    Mother finds this humiliating. “Every month, I get sixty thousand francs in my bank account,” she likes to say. “Which isn’t a lot, but at least it’s mine. Henri trusts me to spend it as I see fit.” What about Cami? Does her husband, too, put money into her account? He’s a propriétaire, he manages his vineyards with his father and my impression is, they’re in trouble. But Cami’s parents own a few houses around town. Her father has a real-estate business, and her mother a perfume store.
    Estelle “has her own money”, people say. Is this the same as a dowry? My throat starts tingling, my chest is burning, I think I’m going to cough, so I slide back into Father’s study, which is empty. I sit at Father’s desk, forget about coughing, look up dot in the Robert. A dowry, biens dotaux , is what a woman brings to the marriage, to be managed by her husband. What she actually owns personally is called biens paraphernaux .

 
     
Crocodile
    At noon Loli is waiting for us in front of Sainte-Blandine. On our way back, we meet two friends of hers near the école laïque . Coralie, followed by the other maids’ little boys, climbs onto the benches along the avenue, jumps down, runs around the trees, hops on one foot, waves to acquaintances, while I listen to the maids discussing dances and boyfriends in Occitan. They exclaim, disagree, make fun of the men. They’re not going to be maids all their lives, and they don’t want to go back to their parents’ farms: they all came to town to find a husband.
    Loli says to her friends, “There’s no hurry, is there? As long as you don’t have to wear Saint Catherine’s bonnet...” Nobody wants to be a Catherinette , which is what you become if you’re still unmarried when you turn twenty-five. For Saint Catherine’s Day all the Catherinettes make elaborate headdresses and walk in a procession wearing them. Loli is sixteen; in November for Saint Catherine’s day she’ll be seventeen, so she still has eight years left to find a fiancé. I hope it takes her a while, because I like her. She’s so cheerful. It’s not easy to be a maid: even though you are a grown-up, you have to do as you’re told, all day long. Our previous