Page 58 of Where the Snakes Sleep

No human society needs this many screws.

I am attempting to determine what exactly the numbers on the packages mean when someone behind me says, “Legrand.”

I turn to see an older man standing at the end of the aisle. He’s thin with a sun-browned face and combed-back white hair—in his seventies, maybe.

He has a cane tucked beneath one arm while he examines me with enough intensity that I briefly wonder whether I have accidentally stolen something.

“Sorry?”

“Le petit-fils d’Alberte?” Alberte’s grandson?

That one I understand.

“Yes.” I point at myself like an idiot. “Alberte’s grandson.”

The man’s mouth presses thin like he has just bitten into something unexpectedly sour. “Tu vis dans le cottage?” You are living in the cottage?

“Oui,” I answer, nodding. Yes.

“Hm.” He takes a step closer, still intensely staring at me. His English, when he switches to it, is heavily accented but far better than my French. “You came from America.”

“Oui, yes. I haven’t been here for very long.”

He taps a finger on top of his cane, as if deciding whether or not to say anything further. Finally, he says, “I knew Alberte.”

That gets my attention.

“You did?”

“Oui. When I was young.”

I set down the package of screws.

“Were… were you friends?”

A strange expression crosses his face. “No.”

“But you knew him?”

“Everyone knew Alberte then.”

The same vague shit everyone keeps saying. I sigh and lean against the shelf. “Yes, that’s what I keep hearing. How did you know him?” I ask.

He studies me a moment longer. “You ask Moreau?”

My stomach does a stupid little thing at Camille’s surname. “About you?”

The man’s brow crinkles, and he lets out a small chuckle. “Non, non. You ask about Alberte?”

“Yes.”

“What does he tell you?”

“Not much.”

The man snorts.

Finally, someone gets it.