Scent of woodsmoke in a cup; a dash of cream, sprinkle of sugar. Bitter orange, your favorite, 70 percent darkest chocolate over thick-cut oranges from Seville. Try me. Taste me. Test me.
She turned around. I knew she would. Seemed surprised to see me but smiled all the same. I saw her face—blue eyes, big smile, little bridge of freckles across the nose—and I liked her so much right away, the way I liked Roux when we first met—
And then she asked me who had died.
I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was because of the shoes; maybe because I knew Maman was standing behind the door. Either way it just came out, like the light on the door and the scent of smoke.
I said, “Vianne Rocher,” a little too loudly, and just as I’d said it, Ma-man came out. Maman in her black coat with Rosette in her arms and that look on her face, that look she gets when I misbehave, or when Rosette has one of her Accidents.
“Annie!”
The lady with the red shoes looked from her to me, and back to my mother again.
“Madame—Rocher? ”
She recovered fast. “That was my—maiden name,” she said. “Now it’s Madame Charbonneau. Yanne Charbonneau.” She gave me that look again. “I’m afraid my daughter’s a bit of a joker,” she told the lady. “I hope she hasn’t been annoying you? ”
The lady laughed right down to the soles of her red shoes. “Not at all,” she said. “I was just admiring your beautiful shop.”
“Not mine,” said Maman. “I just work here.”
The lady laughed again. “I wish I did! I’m supposed to be looking for a job, and here I am, ogling chocolates.”
Maman relaxed a little at that and put Rosette down to lock the door. Rosette looked solemnly at the red-shoe lady. The lady smiled, but Rosette didn’t smile back. She rarely does for strangers. In a way, I was pleased. I found her, I thought. I kept her here. For a while, at least, she belongs to me.
“A job? ” said Maman.
The lady nodded. “My flatmate moved out last month, and there’s no way I can pay for the whole flat on nothing but a waitress’s salary. My name’s Zozie—Zozie de l’Alba—and by the way, I love chocolate.”
You couldn’t help liking her, I thought. Her eyes were so blue, her smile like a slice of summer watermelon. It dropped a little as she looked at the door.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s a bad time. I hope it wasn’t a relative ? ”
Maman picked up Rosette again. “Madame Poussin. She lived here. I suppose she would have said she ran the place, although to be honest, she didn’t do much.”
I thought of Madame Poussin, with her marshmallow face and her blue-checked pinafores. Rose creams were her favorites, and she ate far more of them than she ought to have done, though Maman never said anything.
It was a stroke, Maman said, which sounds quite nice, like a stroke of luck, or someone smoothing down the bedclothes over a sleeping child. But it came to me then that we would never see Madame Poussin ever again, and I felt a kind of dizziness, like looking down and seeing a big sudden hole right at your feet.
I said, “Yes, she did,” and began to cry. And before I knew it her arms were around me, and she smelt oflavender and delicious silk, and her voice in my ear was whispering something—a cantrip, I thought, with a twist of surprise, a cantrip, just like the days in Lansquenet—and then I looked up and it wasn’t Maman there at all. It was Zozie, her long hair touching my face and her red coat shining in the sun.
Behind her, Maman, in her funeral coat and her eyes dark as midnight, so dark that no one can ever, ever tell what she’s thinking. She took a step— still carrying Rosette—and I knew that if I stayed she would put her arms around us both, and I wouldn’t be able to stop crying, though I couldn’t possibly tell her why, not now, not ever, and especially not in front of the lady with the lollipop shoes.
So instead I turned and ran down the bare white alleyway so that for a moment I was one of them, free as the sky. It’s good to run: you take giant strides; you can be a kite with your arms outstretched; you can taste the wind; you can feel the sun racing ahead; and sometimes you can almost outrun them, the wind and the sun and your shadow at your heels.
My shadow has a name, you know. His name is Pantoufle. I used to have a rabbit called Pantoufle, so Maman says, although I can’t quite remember now whether he was real or simply a toy. Your imaginary friend, she sometimes calls him, but I’m almost sure he was really there, a soft gray shadow at my heels, or curled up in my bed at night. I like to think of him sometimes still, keeping watch over me as I sleep, or running with me to beat the wind. Sometimes I feel him. Sometimes I see him even now, though Maman says that’s just my imagination and doesn’t like me talking about it, even as a joke.
Nowadays Maman hardly ever jokes, or laughs the way she used to do. Perhaps she’s still worried about Rosette. I know she worries about me. I don’t take life seriously enough, she says. I don’t have the right kind of attitude.
Does Zozie take life seriously? Oh, boy. I’ll bet she doesn’t. No one could, wearing those shoes. I’m sure that’s why I liked her at once. Those red shoes, and the way she stopped at the window to look, and the way I was sure she could see Pantoufle—not just a shadow—at my heels.
Wednesday, 31 October
Well, i like to think i have a way with children. parents too; it’s part of my charm. You can’t be in business without a certain charm, you know, and in my particular line of business, when the prize is something far more personal than mere possessions, it’s essential to touch the life you take.
Not that I was particularly interested in this woman’s life. Not then, at least—although I will admit I was already intrigued. Not so much by the deceased. Nor even by the shop itself—pretty enough, but far too small, and limiting, to someone of my ambitions. But the woman intrigued me, and the girl—
Do you believe in love at first sight?
I thought not. Neither do I. And yet—
That flare of colors through the half-open door. That tantalizing hint of things half-seen and half-experienced. The sound of the wind chimes over the threshold. These things had awakened first my curiosity, and second my spirit of acquisition.
I’m not a thief, you understand. First and foremost I’m a collector. I have been since I was eight years old, collecting charms for my bracelet, but now I collect individuals—their names, their secrets, their stories, their lives. Oh, some of it’s for profit, of course. But most of all I enjoy the chase; the thrill of pursuit; the seduction; the fray. And the moment at which the piñata splits—
That’s what I love best of all.
“Kids.” I smiled.
Yanne sighed. “They grow so fast. A blink, and they’re gone.” Way down the alley, the girl was still running. “Don’t go far! ” Yanne called.
“She won’t.”
Yanne looks like a tamer version of her daughter. Black bobbed hair, brows straight, eyes like bitter chocolate. The same crimson, stubborn, generous mouth, lifting a little at the corners. The same obscurely foreign, exotic look, though beyond that first glimpse of colors through the half-open door, I could see nothing to justify the impression. She has no accent; wears well-worn clothes from La Redoute; plain brown beret at a slight angle, sensible shoes.
You can tell a lot from a person by looking at their shoes. These were carefully without extravagance: black and round-toed and relentlessly uniform, like the ones her daughter wears for school. The ensemble slightly down-at-heel, a shade too drab; no jewelry but for a plain gold ring; just enough makeup to avoid making a statement.
The child in her arms may be three at most. The same watchful eyes as her mother, though her hair is the color of fresh pumpkin and her tiny face, no bigger than a goose egg, is a blur of apricot freckles. An unremarkable little family, at least on the surface; and yet I couldn’t rid myself of the idea that there was something more that I couldn’t quite see, some subtle illumination not unlike my own—
Now that, I thought, wou
ld be worth collecting.
She looked at her watch. “Annie! ” she called.
At the end of the street Annie waved her arms in what might have been exuberance or revolt. In her wake, a gleam of butterfly blue confirms my impression of something to hide. The little one, too, has more than a hint of illumination, and as for the mother—
“You’re married? ” I said.
“I’m a widow,” she said. “Three years ago. Before I moved here.”
“Really,” I said.
I don’t think so. It takes more than a black coat and a wedding ring to make a widow, and Yanne Charbonneau (if that’s her name) doesn’t look like a widow to me. To others, perhaps, but I can see more.
So why the lie ? This is Paris, for pity’s sake—here, no one is judged on the absence of a wedding band. So what little secret is she hiding? And is it worth my finding out?
“It must be hard, running a shop. Here, of all places.” Montmartre, that strange little stone island with its tourists and artists and open drains, and beggars and strip clubs under the linden trees, and nightly stabbings down among the pretty streets.
She gave a smile. “It’s not so bad.”
“Really? ” I said. “But now that Madame Poussin’s gone—”
She looked away. “The landlord’s a friend. He won’t throw us out.” I thought I saw her flush a little.
“Good business here ? ”
“It could be worse.”
Tourists, ever on the lookout for overpriced tat.
“Oh, it’s never going to make us a fortune—”
As I thought. Barely worthwhile. She’s putting a brave face on it, but I can see the cheap skirt; the frayed hem on the child’s good coat; the faded, illegible wooden sign above the chocolaterie door.
And yet there is something oddly attractive about the crowded shop window with its piles of boxes and tins, and its Hallowe’en witches in darkest chocolate and colored straw, and plump marzipan pumpkins and maple-candy skulls just glimpsed beneath the half-closed shutter.
There was a scent too—a smoky scent of apples and burnt sugar, vanilla and rum and cardamom and chocolate. I don’t even really like chocolate; and yet I could feel my mouth watering.
Try me. Taste me.
With my fingers I made the sign of the Smoking Mirror—known as the Eye of Black Tezcatlipoca—and the window seemed to glow brief ly.
Uneasy, the woman seemed to sense the flare, and the child in her arms gave a silent mew of laughter and held out her hand—
Curious, I thought.
“Do you make all the chocolates yourself? ”
“I used to, once. But not anymore.”
“It can’t be easy.”
“I manage,” she said.
Hm. Interesting.
But does she manage ? Will she continue to manage now that the old woman’s dead? Somehow I doubt it. Oh, she looks capable enough, with her stubborn mouth and her steady gaze. But there’s a weakness inside her, in spite of all that. A weakness—or perhaps a strength.
You have to be strong to live as she does; to bring up two children alone in Paris; to work all hours in a business that brings in, if she’s lucky, just enough to cover the rent. But the weakness—that’s another matter. That child, for a start. She fears for her. Fears for them both, clings to them as if the wind might blow them away.
I know what you’re thinking. Why should I care ?
Well, call me curious if you like. I trade in secrets, after all. Secrets, small treacheries, acquisition, inquisition, thefts both petty and grandiose, lies, damn lies, prevarications, hidden depths, still waters, cloaks and daggers, secret doors, clandestine meetings, holes and corners, covert operations and misappropriation of property, information and more.
Is that so wrong?
I suppose it is.
But Yanne Charbonneau (or Vianne Rocher) is hiding something from the world. I can smell the scent of secrets on her, like firecrackers on a piñata. A well-placed stone will set them free, and then we’ll see if they are secrets that someone such as I can use.
I’m curious to know, that’s all—a common enough characteristic of those fortunate enough to be born under the sign of One Jaguar.
Besides, she’s lying, isn’t she ? And if there’s anything we Jaguars hate more than weakness, it’s a liar.
Thursday, 1 November
All Saints
Anouk was restless again today. perhaps the aftermath of yesterday’s funeral—or perhaps just the wind. It takes her like that sometimes, cantering her about like a wild pony, making her willful and thoughtless and tearful and strange. My little stranger.
I used to call her that, you know, when she was small and there were just the two of us. Little stranger, as if she were on loan from somewhere or other, and one day they’d be coming to take her back. She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world.
A gifted child, her new teacher says. Such extraordinary powers of imagination, such vocabulary for her age—but already, there’s a look in her eye, a measuring look, as if such imagination is in itself suspect, a sign, perhaps, of a more sinister truth.
It’s my fault. I know that now. To bring her up in my mother’s beliefs seemed so natural at the time. It gave us a plan; a tradition of our own; a magic circle into which the world could not enter. But where the world cannot enter, we cannot leave. Trapped inside a cocoon of our own making, we live apart, eternal strangers from the rest.
Or we did, until four years ago.
Since then, we have lived a comforting lie.
Don’t look so surprised, please. Show me a mother, and I’ll show you a liar. We tell them how the world should be: that there are no such things as monsters or ghosts; that if you do good, then people will do good to you; that Mother will always be there to protect you. Of course we never call them lies—we mean so well, it’s all for the best—but that’s what they are, nevertheless.
After Les Laveuses, I had no choice. Any mother would have done the same.
“What was it? ” she said again and again. “Did we make it happen, Maman?”
“No, it was an accident.”
“But the wind—you said—”
“Just go to sleep.”
“Couldn’t we magic it better, somehow? ”
“No, we can’t. It’s just a game. There’s no such thing as magic, Nanou.”
She stared at me with solemn eyes. “There is,” she said. “Pantoufle says so.”
“Sweetheart, Pantoufle isn’t real either.”
It’s not easy being the daughter of a witch. Harder still being the mother of one. And after what happened at Les Laveuses I was faced with a choice. To tell the truth and condemn my children to the kind of life I’d always had: moving constantly from place to place; never stable; never secure; living out of suitcases; always running to beat the wind—
Or to lie, and to be like everyone else.
And so I lied. I lied to Anouk. I told her none of it was real. There was no magic, except in stories; no powers to be tapped and tested; no household gods, no witches, no runes, no chants, no totems, no circles in the sand. Anything unexplained became an Accident—with a capital letter—sudden strokes of luck, close calls, gifts from the gods. And Pantoufle—demoted to the rank of “imaginary friend” and now ignored, even though I can still sometimes see him, if only from the corner of my eye.
Nowadays, I turn away. I close my eyes till the colors have gone.
After Les Laveuses, I put all of those things away, knowing that she might resent me—hate me, a little, perhaps, for a while—hoping one day she would understand.
“You have to grow up someday, Anouk. You have to learn to tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s better this way,” I told her. “Those things, Anouk—they set us apart. They make us different. Do you like being differ
ent? Wouldn’t you like to be included, just for once ? To have friends, to—”
“I did have friends. Paul and Framboise—”
“We couldn’t stay there. Not after that.”
“And Zézette and Blanche—”
“Travelers, Nanou. River people. You can’t live on a boat forever, not if you want to go to school—”
“And Pantoufle—”
“Imaginary friends don’t count, Nanou.”
“And Roux, Maman. Roux was our friend.”
Silence.
“Why couldn’t we stay with Roux, Maman? Why didn’t you tell him where we were ? ”
I sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“I miss him.”
“I know.”
With Roux, of course, everything’s simple. Do what you want. Take what you want. Travel wherever the wind takes you. It works for Roux. It makes him happy. But I know you can’t have everything. I’ve been down that road. I know where it leads. And it gets so hard, Nanou. So very hard.
Roux would have said: you care too much. Roux with his defiant red hair and reluctant smile and his beloved boat under the drifting stars. You care too much. It may be true; in spite of everything I care too much. I care that Anouk has no friends in her new school. I care that Rosette is nearly four years old, so alert, and yet without speech, like the victim of some evil spell, some princess stricken dumb for fear of what she might reveal.
How to explain this to Roux, who fears nothing and cares for no one? To be a mother is to live in fear. Fear of death, of sickness, ofloss, of accidents, of strangers, of the Black Man, or simply those small everyday things that somehow manage to hurt us most: the look of impatience, the angry word, the missed bedtime story, the forgotten kiss, the terrible moment when a mother ceases to be the center of her daughter’s world and becomes just another satellite orbiting some less significant sun.
It has not happened—at least, not yet. But I see it in the other children; in the teenage girls with their sullen mouths and their mobile phones and their look of contempt at the world in general. I have disappointed her, I know that. I am not the mother she wants me to be. And at eleven, though bright, she is still too young to understand what I have sacrificed, and why.