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    Among Predators: A Tale of Paris
    Among Predators: A Tale of Paris
    Among Predators: A Tale of Paris
    Ebook60 pages57 minutes

    Among Predators: A Tale of Paris

    By Alex Shishin

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    Residing in Passy, Paris, Greek-American journalist Rick and African-French Martiniquean Yolanda, author and ex-model, lead a socially active and domestically quiet life. Unexpectedly they are asked by the wealthy and powerful Ogawa family, through Rick’s old editor in Tokyo, to let their daughter, Masami, homestay with them. This changes their lives. Their acne-ravaged and troubled Japanese guest idolizes Yolanda and likened herself to an abandoned cat perpetually searching for a home. After Masami starts giving Yolanda expensive gifts wrapped in exquisite Japanese paper, the couple soon wonder whether Masami is shoplifting, when does not have to, to demonstrate affection in some twisted way. The mystery deepens with the appearance boyfriend Brian, a secretive person and a seemingly talented poet. Without quite understanding why, he arouses Rick’s “cynical” journalistic suspicions. Then when Masami is about the leave, the Ogawas beg Rick and Yolanda to let Masami stay longer for a reason that will prove crucial to understanding the outcome of the strange mix of relationships in this tale.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlex Shishin
    Release dateMar 20, 2015
    ISBN9781310840593
    Among Predators: A Tale of Paris
    Author

    Alex Shishin

    Alex Shishin has published fiction, non-fiction and photography in Japan, North America, and Europe in print and online. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Shishin is a permanent resident of Japan. Shishin is the author “Nippon 2357:A Utopian Ecological Tale,” and five other ebooks published exclusively by Smashwords and available for free. He is co-author with Stephan F. Politzer of “Four Parallel Lives of Eight Notable Individuals,” also published by Smashwords. Shishin's short story "Mr. Eggplant Goes Home," first published in “Prairie Schooner” received an O. Henry Award Honorable Mention and was anthologized in “Student Body: Stories About Students and Professors” (University of Wisconsin Press). His short story "Shades," originally published in “Sunday Afternoon” (Kobe) was anthologized in The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan (Stone Bridge Press) and reprinted by invitation in “The East” (Tokyo).  Shishin’s book “Rossiya: Voices from the Brezhnev Era” (a Russian-American memoir of a train odyssey through the Soviet Union and Poland) was published by iUniverse. It is available as a print-on-demand book and an ebook. Shishin has also published a collection of photographs entitled “Ordinary Strangeness” with Viovio in conjunction with his joint exhibition at the Twenty-first Century Museum of Art, Kanazawa, Japan. It is available from the publisher online. Alex Shishin holds degrees in English from the University of California, Berkeley (BA, Phi Beta Kappa) the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (MFA) and the Union Institute and University (PhD).

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      Book preview

      Among Predators - Alex Shishin

      Among Predators

      A Tale of Paris

      By Alex Shishin

      Published by Smashwords

      Copyright 2015 Alex Shishin

      All Rights Received

      No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner and publisher.

      Smashwords Editions License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

      This is a work of fiction. Similarities to actual people, places (except landmarks) and events encountered in this novella are entirely coincidental.

      Among Predators

      A Tale of Paris

      The digital calendar on my desk told me that exactly two years had passed since Masami Ogawa had come to Paris and changed Yolanda’s and my life forever. I was alone in our high-rise apartment in Passy on this abnormally cold August day--an oppressive day with a sky the color of slate, neither promising rain nor allowing a beam of sunlight to pass. I was watching my wife being interviewed live on French national television about our work against land mines. The interviewers were decent. They stuck to the topic. No questions about Miss Ogawa, or Yolanda’s first marriage, or her being married to an American white guy, or about her being an ex-super model once celebrated as The Black Venus of Martinique. Nothing, in short, like what she experienced with the American media.

      Relieved, I turned the TV off. I had a pressing book review deadline. I also had writer’s block. I tried to force myself to write; then I shut down the computer and went shopping.

      I took the Metro to Montparnasse and walked to a noisy little street filled with garish sex video joints to a small shop selling foie gras from the central Pyrenees that Yolanda especially liked. Next I wandered to Gallery Lafayette, buying an expensive wallet I didn’t need, and then to the Montparnasse cemetery.

      As I meandered past Sartre and Beauvoir, Marguérite Duras, Saint Saëns, my mood lightened--it inevitably does in Parisian cemeteries--though today death sat on my nerves.

      Sitting opposite Guy de Maupassant’s grave was a young blond man, probably in his late twenties, with an opened bottle of white Medoc wine. He wore blue jeans and a checkered shirt that was too thin for this chilly day. His long hair was combed severely back, revealing a pale forehead with a fading violet bruise. His face was so pale it seemed frostbitten. His lips were tight and colorless; his eyes were set in dark, weary craters. His white sneakers, which seemed freshly washed, were nearly worn through at heels.

      You’re an American, he said to me. The voice was distant but not unfriendly. I can tell by your mannerisms.

      Greek-American, I said.

      I like Americans. I like Greeks too, he said. He gave me a second look and said, You are married to Yolanda St. Cloud! I’ve seen your photographs in Le Monde. I’ve read her book.

      Yolanda had written a compassionate memoir about her difficult life with the Guatemalan director Dario Salinas, whom she had married at twenty-six. Before coming to Hollywood he had produced brilliant documentaries on working people and poverty in the Caribbean. Hollywood had co-opted him--enriching him and emasculating him as a political artist. Yolanda had written that he had loved her though he philandered. He was having problems with alcohol and cocaine when he crashed his Cessna into the San Gabriel Mountains, leaving his young widow with little else but debts as a legacy.

      You found me out, I said. Mind if I join you?

      The young man made room for me on the weathered marble. I sat down. He handed me the bottle. I drank.

      Not a bad vintage, I said.

      May I ask you something? he said, Is it remotely possible that you and Madam St. Cloud were once childhood sweethearts?

      I wish, I said. That’s a unique question, you know. No one has ever asked me a question like that. You have a story to tell. So tell it.

      Tell me yours first, he said, looking at Guy de Maupassant. It’s important to me how couples meet.

      Yes, it’s--crucial, I said, thinking of Miss Ogawa.

      Six years ago, I told him, "Yolanda was on a book promotion tour of Japan. My English language newspaper had set up an interview for the day after her arrival in Tokyo.

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