Chocolat

  Armande plumped into the chair and took her glass in both hands. She looked eager as a child, her eyes shining, her expression rapt.

  “Mmmm.” It was more than appreciation. It was almost reverence. “Mmmmmm.” She had closed her eyes as she tasted the drink. Her pleasure was almost frightening.

  “This is the real thing, isn’t it?” She paused for a moment, bright eyes speculatively half-closed. “There’s cream and — cinnamon, I think — and what else? Tia Maria?”

  “Close enough,” I said.

  “What’s forbidden always tastes better anyway,” declared Armande, wiping froth from her mouth in satisfaction. “But this”— she sipped again, greedily — “is better than anything I remember, even from childhood. I bet there are ten thousand calories in here. More.”

  “Why should it be forbidden?” I was curious. Small and round as a partridge, she seems as unlike her figure conscious daughter as can be.

  “Oh, doctors.” Armande was dismissive. “You know what they’re like. They’ll say anything.”

  She paused to drink again through her straw. “Oh, this is good. Good. Caro’s been trying to make me go into some kind of a home for years. Doesn’t like the idea of me living next door. Doesn’t like to be reminded where she comes from.”

  She gave a rich chuckle. “Says I’m sick. Can’t look after myself. Sends that miserable doctor of hers to tell me what I can eat and what I can’t. Anyone would think they wanted me to live for ever.”

  I smiled. “I’m sure Caroline cares very much about you,” I said.

  Armande shot me a look of derision. “Oh, you are?”

  She gave a vulgar cackle of laughter. “Don’t give me that, girl. You know perfectly well that my daughter doesn’t care for anyone but herself. I’m not a fool.”

  A pause as she narrowed her bright, challenging gaze at me. “It’s the boy I feel for,” she said.

  “Boy?”

  “Luc, his name is. My grandson. He’ll be fourteen in April. You may have seen him in the square.”

  I remembered him vaguely; a colourless boy, too correct in his pressed flannel trousers and tweed jacket, cool green-grey eyes beneath a lank fringe. I nodded.

  “I’ve made him the beneficiary of my will,” Armande told me. “Half a million francs. In trust until his eighteenth birthday.”

  She shrugged. “I never see him,” she added shortly. “Caro won’t allow it.”

  I’ve seen them together. I remember now; the boy supporting his mother’s arm as they passed on their way to church. Alone of all Lansquenet’s children, he has never bought chocolates from La Praline, though I think I may have seen him looking in at the window once or twice.

  “The last time he came to see me was when he was ten.”

  Armande’s voice was unusually flat. “A hundred years ago, as far as he’s concerned.”

  She finished her chocolate and put the glass back onto the counter with a sharp final sound. “It was his birthday, as I recall. I gave him a book of Rimbaud’s poetry. He was very — polite.”

  There was bitterness in her tone. “Of course ‘I’ve seen him in the street a few times since,” she said. “I can’t complain.”

  “Why don’t you call?” I asked curiously. “Take him out, talk, get to know him?”

  Armande shook her head. “We fell out, Caro and I…” Her voice was suddenly querulous. The illusion of youth had left with her smile, and she looked suddenly, shockingly old. “She’s ashamed of me. God knows what she’s been telling the boy.”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s too late. I can tell by the look on his face — that polite look — the polite meaningless little messages in his Christmas cards. Such a well-mannered boy.”

  Her laughter was bitter. “Such a polite, well-mannered boy.”

  She turned to me and gave me a bright, brave smile. “If I could know what he was doing,” she said. “Know what he reads, what teams he supports, who his friends are, how well he does at school. If I could know that—”

  “If?”

  “I could pretend to myself—” For a second I saw her close to tears. Then a pause, an effort, a gathering of the will. “Do you know, I think I might manage another of those chocolate specials of yours. How about another?”

  It was bravado, but I admired it more than I could say. That she can still play the rebel through her misery, the suspicion of a swagger in her movements as she props her elbows on the bar, slurping.

  “ Sodom and Gomorrah through a straw. Mmmm. I think I just died and went to heaven. Close as I’m going to get, anyway.”

  “I could get news of Luc, if you wanted. I could pass it on to you:” Armande considered this in silence. Beneath the lowered eyelids I could feel her watching me. Assessing.

  At last she spoke. “All boys like sweets, don’t they?”

  Her voice was casual. I agreed that most boys did. “And his friends come here too, I suppose?”

  I told her I wasn’t sure who his friends were, but that most of the children came and went regularly.

  “I might come here again,” decided Armande. “I like your chocolate, even if your chairs are terrible. I might even become a regular customer.”

  “You’d be welcome,” I said.

  Another pause. I understood that Armande Voizin does things in her own way, in her own time, refusing to be hurried or advised. I let her think it through.

  “Here. Take this.”

  The decision was made. Briskly she slapped a hundred-franc note down on the counter.

  “But—”

  “If you see him, buy him a box of whatever he likes. Don’t tell him they’re from me.”

  I took the note.

  “And don’t let his mother get to you. She’s at it already, more than likely, spreading her gossip and her condescension. My only child, and she had to turn into one of Reynaud’s Salvation Sisters.”

  Her eyes narrowed mischievously, working webby dimples into her round cheeks. “There are rumours already about you,” she said. “You know the kind. Getting involved with me will only make things worse…”

  I laughed. “I think I can manage.”

  “I think you can.”

  She looked at me, suddenly intent, the teasing note gone from her voice. “There’s something about you,” she said in a soft voice. “Something familiar. I don’t suppose we’ve met before that time in Les Marauds, have we?”

  Lisbon, Paris, Florence, Rome. So many people. So many lives intersected, fleetingly criss-crossed, brushed by the mad weft-warp of our itinerary. But I didn’t think so.

  “And there’s a smell. Something like burning, the smell of a summer lightning-strike ten seconds after. A scent of midsummer storms and cornfields in the rain.”

  Her face was rapt, her eyes searching out mine. “It’s true, isn’t it? What I said? What you are?”

  That word again.

  She laughed delightedly and took my hand. Her skin was cool; foliage, not flesh. She turned my hand over to see the palm. “I knew it!” Her finger traced lifeline, heartline. “I knew it the minute I saw you!” To herself, head bent, voice so low it was no more than a breath against my hand, “I knew it. I knew it. But I never thought to see you here; in this town.” A sharp, suspicious glance upwards.

  “Does Reynaud know?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  It was true; I had no idea what she was talking about. But I could smell it too; the scent of the changing winds, that air of revelation. A distant scent of fire and ozone. A squeal of gears left long unused, the infernal machine of synchronicity. Or maybe Josephine was right and Armande was crazy. After all, she could see Pantoufle.

  “Don’t let Reynaud know,” she told me, her mad, earnest eyes gleaming. “You know who he is, don’t you?”

  I stared at her. I must have imagined what she said then. Or maybe our dreams touched briefly once, on one of our nights on the run.

  “He’s the Black Man. “

  Reynaud. Like a b
ad card. Again and again. Laughter in the wings.

  Long after I had put Anouk to bed I read my mother’s cards for the first time since her death. I keep them in a sandalwood box and they are mellow, perfumed with memories of her. For a moment I almost put them away unread, bewildered by the flood of associations that scent brings with it. New York, hotdog stands billowing steam. The Cafe de la Paix, with its immaculate waiters. A nun eating an ice-cream outside Notre-Dame cathedral. Onenight hotel rooms, surly doormen, suspicious gendarmes, curious tourists. And over it all the shadow of It, the nameless implacable thing we fled: I am not my mother. I am not a fugitive. And yet the need to see, to know; is so great that I find myself taking them from their box and spreading them, much as she did, by the side of the bed. A glance backwards to ensure Anouk is still, asleep. I do not want her to sense my unease. Then I shuffle, cut, shuffle, cut until I have four cards.

  Ten of Swords, death. Three of Swords, death. Two of Swords, death. The Chariot. Death. The Hermit. The Tower. The Chariot. Death.

  The cards are my mother’s. This has nothing to do with me, I tell myself, though the Hermit is easy enough to identify. But the Tower? The Chariot? Death? The Death card, says my mother’s voice within me, may not always portend the physical death of the self but the death of a way of life. A change. A turning of the winds. Could this be what it means? I don’t believe in divination. Not in the way she did, as a way of mapping out the random patterns of our trajectory. Not as an excuse for inaction, a crutch when things turn from bad to worse, a rationalization of the chaos within. I hear her voice now and it sounds the same to me as it did on the ship, her strength transformed to sheer stubbornness, her humour into a fey despair.

  What about Disneyland? What do you think? The Florida Keys? The Everglades? There’s so much to see in the New World, so much we haven’t even begun to dream about. Is that it, do you think? Is that what the cards are saying?

  By then Death was on every card, Death and the Black Man, who had begun to mean the same thing. We fled him, and he followed, packed in sandalwood.

  As an antidote I read Jung and Herman Hesse, and learned about the collective unconscious. Divination is a means of telling ourselves what we already know. What we fear. There are no demons but a collection of archetypes every civilization has in common. The fear of loss — Death. The fear of displacement — the Tower. The fear of transience — the Chariot.

  And yet Mother died.

  I put the cards away tenderly into their scented box. Goodbye, Mother. This is where our journey stops. This is where we stay to face whatever the wind brings us. I shall not read the cards again.

  THIRTEEN

  Sunday, February 23

  BLESS ME, FATHER, FOR I HAVE SINNED. I KNOW YOU CAN hear me, mon pere, and there is no-one else to whom I would care to confess. Certainly not the bishop, secure in his distant diocese of Bordeaux. And the church seems so empty. I feel foolish at the foot of the altar, looking up at Our Lord in his gilt and agony — the gilding has tarnished with the smoke from the candles and the dark staining gives Him a sly and secretive look — and prayer, which came as such a blessing, such a source of joy in the early days, is a burden, a cry on the side of a bleak mountain which might at any time unleash the avalanche upon me.

  Is this doubt, mon pere? This silence within myself, this inability to pray, to be cleansed, humbled…is it my fault? I look about the church which is my life and I try to feel love for it. Love, as you loved, for the statues — St Jerome with the chipped nose, the smiling Virgin, Jeanne D’Arc with her banner, St Francis with his painted pigeons. I myself dislike birds. I feel this may be a sin against my namesake but I cannot help it. Their squawking, their filth — even at the doors of the church, the whitewashed walls streaked with the greenish daub of their leavings — their noise during sermons. I poison the rats which infest the sacristy and gnaw at the vestments there. Should I not also poison the pigeons which disrupt my service? I have tried, mon pere, but to no avail. Perhaps St Francis protects them.

  If only I could be more worthy. My unworthiness dismays me, my intelligence — which is far in excess of that of my flock — serving only to heighten the weakness, the cheapness of the vessel God has chosen to serve. Is this my destiny? I dreamed of greater things, of sacrifices, of martyrdoms. Instead I fritter away time in anxieties which are unworthy of me, unworthy of you.

  My sin is that of pettiness, mon pere. For this reason God is silent in His house. I know it, but I do not know how to cure the ill. I have increased the austerity of my Lenten fast, choosing to continue even on the days when a relaxation is permitted. Today, for instance, I poured my Sunday libation onto the hydrangeas and felt a definite lifting of the spirit. For now water and coffee will be the only accompaniment to my meals, the coffee to be taken black and sugarless to enhance the bitter taste. Today I had a carrot salad with olives — roots and berries in the wilderness. True, I feel a little light-headed now, but the sensation is not unpleasant. I feel a prick of guilt at the thought that even my deprivation gives me pleasure, and I resolve to place myself in the path of temptation. I shall stand for five minutes at the window of the r6tisserie, watching the chickens on the spit. If Arnauld taunts me, so much the better. In any case, he should be closed for Lent.

  As for Vianne Rocher…I have hardly thought of her these past few days. I walk past her shop with my face averted. She has prospered in spite of the season and the disapproval of the right-thinking elements of Lansquenet, but this I attribute to the novelty of such a shop. That will wear off. Our parishioners have little enough money already for their everyday needs without subsidizing a place more suited to the big cities.

  La Celeste Praline. Even the name is a calculated insult. I shall take the bus to Agen, to the housing rental agency, and complain. She should never have been allowed to take the lease in the first place. The central location of the shop ensures a kind of prosperity, encourages temptation. The bishop should be informed. Perhaps he may be able to exercise the influence I do not possess. I shall write to him today. I see her sometimes in the street. She wears a yellow raincoat with green daisies, a child’s garment but for its length, slightly indecent on a grown woman. Her hair remains uncovered even in the rain, gleaming sleekly as a seal’s pelt. She wrings it out like a long rope as she reaches the awning. There are often people waiting under that awning, sheltering from the interminable rain and watching the window display. She has installed an electric fire now, close enough to the counter to provide comfort though not close enough to damage her wares, and with the stools, the glass cloches filled with cakes and pies, the silver jugs of chocolate on the hob, the place looks more like a cafe than a shop. I often see ten or more people in there on some days; some standing, some leaning against the padded counter and talking. On Sunday and Wednesday afternoons the smell of baking fills the damp air and she leans in the doorway, floury to the elbows, throwing out pert remarks at the passers-by. I am amazed at how many people she now knows by name — it was six months before I knew all of my flock — and she always seems ready with a question or a comment about their lives, their problems. Poitou’s arthritis. Lambert’s soldier son. Narcisse and his prize orchids. She even knows the name of Duplessis’s dog. Oh, she is wily. Impossible to fail to notice her. One must respond or seem churlish. Even I — even I must smile and nod though inside i am seething. Her daughter follows her lead, running wild in Les Marauds with a gang of older girls and boys. Eight or nine years old, most of them, and they treat her with affection, like a little sister, like a mascot. They are always together, running, shouting, making their arms into bomber planes and shooting each other, chanting, catcalling. Jean Drou is among them, in spite of his mother’s concern. Once or twice she has tried to forbid him, but he grows more rebellious every day, climbing out of his bedroom window when she shuts him in. But I have more serious concerns, mon pere, than the misbehaviour of a few unruly brats. Passing by Les Marauds before Mass today I saw, moored at the side of the
Tannes, a houseboat of the type you and I both know well. A wretched thing, green-painted but peeling miserably, a tin chimney spouting black and noxious fumes, a corrugated roof, like the roofs of the cardboard shacks in Marseille’s bidonvilles. You and I know what this means. What it will bring about. The first of spring’s dandelions poking their heads from out of the sodden turf of the roadside. Every year they try it, coming upriver from the cities and the shanty-towns or worse, further afield from Algeria and Morocco. Looking for work. Looking for a place to settle, to breed…I preached a sermon against them this morning, but I know that in spite of this some of my parishioners — Narcisse amongst them — will make them welcome in defiance of me. They are vagrants. They have no respect and no values. They are the river-gypsies, spreaders of disease, thieves, liars, murderers when they can get away with it. Let them stay and they will spoil everything we have worked for, pere. All our education.

  Their children will run with ours until everything we have done for them is ruined. They will steal our children’s minds away. Teach them hatred and disrespect for the Church. Teach them laziness and avoidance of responsibility. Teach them crime and the pleasures of drugs. Have they already forgotten what happened that summer? Are they fool enough to believe the same thing will not happen again? I went to the houseboat this afternoon. Two more had already joined it, one red and one black. The rain had stopped and there was a line of washing strung between the two new arrivals, upon which children’s clothes hung limply. On the deck of the black boat a man sat with his back to me, fishing.

  Long red hair tied with scrap of cloth, bare arms tattooed to the shoulder in henna. I stood watching the boats, marvelling at their wretchedness, their defiant poverty. What good are these people doing themselves? We are a prosperous country. A European power. There should be jobs for these people, useful jobs, good housing. Why do they then choose to live like this, in idleness and misery? Are they so lazy? The red haired man on the deck of the black boat forked a protective sign at me and returned to his fishing.