Free Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner Page A

a kilo of protein, a bluefin tuna must swallow 8 kilos of herring, herring that have previously consumed 70 kilos of miniature shrimp, which in turn have ingested some 200 kilos of phytoplankton. Thus, beyond outward appearances, 2.5 kilos of tuna lying on crushed ice in a fish store represents something like a half-ton of plankton—a terrifying equation that would drive away the customers if it were revealed to them by mistake.
    “The golden rule of fish stores,” Maelo explains, “is
never
mention the food chain to the customers. This isn’t Japan.”
    Because, as everyone knows, the Japanese have strong stomachs and steely eyes, and they buy their tuna at auctions held right on the blood-soaked wharves. The clientele of the Poissonnerie Shanahan is, shall we say, more delicate, being by and large made up of suburbanites from Laval-des-Rapides, Chomedey or Duvernay. But one should not be fooled by the innocuous demeanour of these predators. According to some estimates, the bluefin tuna population in the Atlantic has declined by 87 per cent since 1970, a rate that matches quite closely the expansion of the suburbs over the same period.
    “It can thus be deduced,” Maelo concludes, “that suburban development is very much in step with the movement of the tuna shoals.”
    He slices a thin strip of raw tuna, slides it into his mouth and chews it with an ambivalent expression on his face. He seems torn between his respectful admiration for the Giants, and the delicate taste of their flesh—an insoluble dilemma. He shakes his head and puts down the knife. The sashimi lesson is over.
    Fifteen-minute break. Joyce pours herself a cup of black, too-sweet Dominican coffee, and goes to sit in the back doorway with her feet propped up on an empty box of mussels. A sip of coffee and a thin smile. She watches the already familiar bustle of the Jean-Talon market. What seemed larger than life a few days earlier has now taken on familiar proportions, a scale of 1:1.
    It has been seven days since she ran away, and Joyce is becoming accustomed to her new routine. She shows up at work exactly on time, listens dutifully to Maelo’s biology lessons, smiles at the fussiest customers and makes progress with her Spanish. Her aim is to become a model employee, to blend in with the great mass of sardines in the shoal, to dissolve into the ecosystem.
    The golden rule of running away: Pay attention to your camouflage.
    In this regard, Joyce could take some pages out of her own mother’s book. She has looked up all the possible variations of her name in the phone directory andharassed a half-dozen telephone operators, all to no avail. Did she assume a new identity and start a new life with a suburbanite? Has she gone into exile in the Bahamas? Is she still alive, even? A total mystery.
    Joyce has the feeling that the last ties with her buccaneering forebears are slowly unravelling. She hangs on to the newspaper clipping about Leslie Lynn Doucette as the ultimate proof that the family vocation has not died out. And yet she knows nothing about this distant cousin. She has no idea of her plans, her buccaneering techniques, her favourite targets, her modus operandi and, especially, the fatal error that allowed the FBI to nab her.
    Joyce will have to learn everything on her own. Piracy is a self-taught discipline.
    Maelo appears in the doorway and announces that there will be an exciting lesson on the anatomy of the octopus
(Octopus vulgaris).
Joyce finishes her coffee and stands up.
    “So tell me, Maelo, if I’m not mistaken, you come from the Dominican Republic, right?”
    “You’re not mistaken.”
    “And Miguel and Enrique, they’re from Cuba, right?”
    “Right.”
    “So why doesn’t your fish store have a Spanish name?”
    “Because of the Irish immigrants who used to work in the Miron quarry at the start of the century. EverySunday afternoon, they would play lacrosse right on this spot. They called it the Shanahan Athletic Club.