“Your mother looks tired.”
I thought—you can talk. He looked exhausted; his face even paler than usual, and his hair in desperate need of a wash. I wondered if he was getting enough to eat, and whether I ought to have brought some food.
“Well, it’s a busy time for us. With Christmas, and everything—”
Hang on a minute, I thought to myself.
“Have you been spying on us? ” I said.
Roux shrugged. “I’ve been around.”
“Doing what? ”
He shrugged again. “Call me curious.”
“Is that why you stayed? Because you were curious? ”
“That, and because I thought your mother was in some kind of trouble.”
I jumped at that. “But she is,” I said. “We all are.” And I told him again about Thierry, and his plans, and how nothing was the same anymore, and how I missed the old days when everything was simple.
Roux smiled. “It was never simple.”
“At least we knew who we were,” I said.
Roux just shrugged and said nothing. I put my hand in my pocket. There was his peg-doll, the one from last night. Three red hairs, and a whispered secret, and the spiral sign of Ehecatl, the Changing Wind, drawn in felt pen over the heart.
I closed my hand around it, hard, as if that could make him stay.
Roux shivered and pulled his coat tighter around him.
“So—you’re not really leaving, are you? ” I said.
“I was going to. Perhaps I should. But there’s still something bothering me. Anouk, have you ever had the feeling there’s something going on, that somebody’s using you, manipulating you somehow, and that if only you knew how and why . . .”
He looked at me and I was relieved to see no anger in his colors, just reflective blues. He went on in a quiet voice, and I thought that it was the most I’d ever heard him say all at once, Roux being a man of not many words.
“I was angry yesterday. So angry that Vianne could have hidden such a thing from me that I couldn’t see straight—couldn’t listen—couldn’t think. Since then I’ve been doing some thinking,” he said. “I’ve been wondering how the Vianne Rocher I knew could have turned into someone so different. At first I thought it was just Thierry—but I know his type. And I know Vianne. I know she’s tough. And I know that there’s no way she’s going to let someone like Le Tresset take over her life, not after everything she’s been through. . . .” He shook his head. “No, if she’s in trouble, it’s not from him.”
“Then who? ” I said.
He looked at me. “There’s something about your friend Zozie. Something I can’t put my finger on. But I can’t help feeling it when she’s around. There’s something too perfect. Something not right. Something almost— dangerous.”
“What d’you mean? ”
Roux just shrugged.
Now I was starting to feel annoyed. First Jean-Loup, and now Roux. I tried to explain.
“She’s helped us, Roux—she works in the shop, looks after Rosette, she teaches me things.”
“What kind of things? ”
Well, if he didn’t like Zozie, I was hardly going to tell him that. I put my hand in my pocket again, where the peg-doll felt like a little bone wrapped up in wool. “You don’t know her, that’s all. You should give her a chance.”
Roux looked stubborn. When he makes up his mind, it’s hard to change it. It’s so unfair—my two best friends—
“You’d like her. Really. I know you would. She looks after us—”
“If I believed that, I’d be gone by now. As it is—”
“You’ll stay? ”
I forgot about being mad at Roux and threw my arms around his neck. “You’ll come to our party on Christmas Eve? ”
“Well . . .” He sighed.
“Fabulous! That way you can really get to know Zozie. And you can meet Rosette properly—oh, Roux, I’m so glad you’re staying.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
But he didn’t sound glad. In fact he sounded worried as hell. Still, the plan worked, which is what counts. Rosette and I managed to change the wind—
“So, how are you doing for cash? ” I said. “I’ve got . . .” I looked in my pocket. “Sixteen euros and some change, if it helps. I was going to buy Rosette a birthday present, but. . . .”
“No,” he said, a bit sharply, I thought. He’s never been good at taking money, so perhaps it was the wrong thing to say. “I’m fine, Anouk.”
Well, he didn’t look fine. I could see that now. And if he wasn’t getting paid—
I made the sign of the Ear of Maize and pressed my palm against his hand. It’s a good-luck sign that Zozie taught me; for wealth and riches and food and stuff. I don’t know how it works, but it does; Zozie used it in the chocolaterie, to make more customers buy Maman’s truffles, and though obviously that won’t help Roux, I’m hoping it’ll work some other way, like getting him another job, or a Lotto win, or finding some money in the street. And I made it glow in my mind’s eye, so that it shone against his skin like sparkly dust. That ought to do it, Roux, I thought. That way
it won’t be charity. “Will you come round before Christmas Eve ? ” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve got—a few things to sort out before then.” “But you’ll come to the party? Promise ? ” I said. “I promise,” said Roux. “Cross your heart and hope to die ? ” “Cross my heart. And hope to die.”
Sunday, 16 December
Roux didn’t come to work today. in fact, he hasn’t been there all weekend. It turns out that he left early on Friday, checked out of the hostel in which he was staying, and hasn’t been seen by anyone since.
I suppose I should have expected as much. After all, I asked him to leave. So why do I feel so strangely bereft? And why do I keep looking out for him?
Thierry is incandescent with rage. In Thierry’s world, to walk off a job is both shameful and dishonest, and it was clear that he would accept no possible excuse. There’s something about a check, too; a check Roux cashed, or didn’t cash—
I didn’t see much of Thierry this weekend. Some trouble with the flat, he’d said, when he dropped in brief ly on Saturday night. He’d mentioned Roux’s absence only in passing—and I hadn’t dared ask for too many particulars.
Today, he told me the whole thing, calling in at the end of the day. Zozie was just closing up; Rosette was playing with a jigsaw—she makes no attempt to link the pieces but instead seems to enjoy making complicated spiral patterns with them on the floor—and I was just starting a last batch of cherry truffles when he came into the shop, clearly furious, red in the face and ready to explode.
“I knew there was something about him,” he said. “Those people. They’re all the bloody same. Shiftless, thieving—travelers.” He gave the word the filthiest inflection, making it sound like an exotic oath. “I know he’s supposed to be a friend of yours. But even you can’t be blind to this. To walk off a job without a word—to mess up my schedule. I’ll sue him for that. Or perhaps I’ll just beat the crap out of the ginger bastard—”
“Thierry, please.” I poured him a coffee. “Try to calm down.”
But where the subject of Roux is concerned, it seems that this is impossible. Of course, they’re very different people. Solid, unimaginative Thierry, who has never lived outside Paris in his life; whose disapproval of single mothers, “alternative lifestyles,” and foreign food has always rather amused me—till now.
“What is he to you anyway? How come he’s such a friend of yours? ”
I turned away. “We’ve been through this.”
Thierry glared. “Were you lovers? ” he said. “Is that it? Were you sleeping with the bastard? ”
“Thierry, please—”
“Tell me the truth! Did you fuck him? ” he yelled.
Now my hands were trembling. Anger, all the more violent for being suppressed, came rushing to the surface.
“And what if I did? ” I snapped at him.
/> Such simple words. Such dangerous words.
He stared at me, suddenly gray-faced, and I realized that the accusation, for all its violence, had just been another of Thierry’s big gestures; dramatic, predictable, but ultimately meaningless. He’d needed an outlet for his jealousy, his need for control, his unspoken dismay at the speed at which our trade has improved—
He spoke again, in a shaky voice. “You owe me the truth, Yanne,” he said. “I’ve let this go for much too long. I don’t even know who you are, for God’s sake. I just took you on trust, you and your kids—and have you ever heard me complain? A spoiled brat and a retard—”
Abruptly he stopped.
I stared at him blankly. Finally, he’d crossed a line.
On the floor, Rosette looked up from the jigsaw she was playing with. A light flickered overhead. The plastic shapes that I use for making biscuits began to rattle against the tabletop, as if an express train were going by.
“Yanne, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Thierry was trying to regain lost ground, like a door-to-door salesman who still sees a chance of nailing that elusive deal—
But the damage was done. The house of cards, so carefully built, now swept away at a single word. And now I can see what I’d missed before. For the first time, I can see Thierry. I’ve already seen his pettiness. His gloating contempt of the underling. His snobbery. His arrogance. But now I can see his colors too; his hidden vulnerabilities; the uncertainty behind his smile; the tension in his shoulders; the odd stiffening of his posture whenever he has to look at Rosette.
That ugly word.
Of course I have always been aware that Rosette makes him slightly uncomfortable. As always, he overcompensates, but his cheeriness is a forced thing, like someone petting a dangerous dog.
And now I can see that it’s not just Rosette. This place makes him uncomfortable; this place we made without his help. Every batch of chocolates; every sale; every customer greeted by name; even the chair on which he sits—all of these things remind him that we three are independent, that we have a life outside of him, that we have a past in which Thierry le Tresset played no part at all—
But Thierry has a past of his own. Something that makes him what he is. All his fears are rooted there. His fears, his hopes, his secrets—
I look down at the familiar granite slab on which I temper my chocolates. It’s a very old piece, black with age, already worn when I acquired it and bearing the scars of repeated use. There are flecks of quartz in the stone that catch the light unexpectedly, and I watch them shine as the chocolate cools, ready to be heated and tempered again.
I don’t want to know your secrets, I think.
But the granite slab knows different. Spackled with mica, it winks and gleams, catching my eye, holding my gaze. I can almost see them now, images mirrored in the stone. As I watch, they take shape, they begin to make sense, glimpses of a life, a past that makes Thierry the man he is.
That’s Thierry in the hospital. Younger by twenty years or more, he’s waiting outside a closed door. He has two gift packs of cigars in his hand, each tied with a ribbon—one pink, one blue. He has covered every base.
Now it’s another waiting room. There are murals of cartoon characters on the walls. A woman sits close, with a child in her arms. The boy is maybe six years old. He stares vacantly at the ceiling throughout, and nothing—not Pooh or Tigger or Mickey Mouse—brings the smallest gleam to his eye.
A building, not quite a hospital. And a boy—no, a young man—on the arm of a pretty nurse. The young man looks about twenty-five. Bulky like his father, he stoops, his head too heavy for his neck, his smile as vacant as a sunflower’s.
And now at last I understand. This is the secret he has tried to hide. I understand that broad, bright smile, like a man selling false religion door to door; the way he never speaks of his son; his intense perfectionism; the way he sometimes looks at Rosette—or rather, how he doesn’t look at her—
I gave a sigh.
“Thierry,” I said. “It’s all right. You don’t have to lie to me anymore.”
“Lie to you? ”
“About your son.”
He stiffened then, and even without the granite slab I could see the agitation growing in him. His face was pale; he started to sweat, and the anger that his fear had displaced came rushing back like an evil wind. He stood up, bearlike suddenly, knocking over his coffee cup and scattering the chocolates in their brightly colored wrappers all over the tabletop.
“There’s nothing wrong with my son,” he said, rather too loudly for the room. “Alan’s in the building trade. A real chip off the old block. I don’t see him much, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect me—doesn’t mean I’m not proud of him.” He was shouting now, making Rosette cover her ears. “Who’s been saying anything else? Was it Roux? Has that bastard been snooping around ? ”
“It’s nothing to do with Roux,” I said. “If you’re ashamed of your own son, then how can you ever care for Rosette ? ”
“Yanne, please. It’s not like that. I’m not ashamed. But he was my son, Sarah couldn’t have any more children, and I just wanted him to be . . .”
“Perfect. I know.”
He took my hands. “I can live with it, Yanne. I promise I can. We’ll get a specialist on the case. She’ll have everything she could ever want. Nannies, toys—”
More gifts, I thought. As if that would change the way he feels. I shook my head. The heart doesn’t change. You can lie, hope, pretend to your-self—but in the end, can you ever escape the element to which you were born?
He must have seen it in my face; his own face fell, his shoulders slumped.
“But everything’s arranged,” he said.
Not I love you, but everything’s arranged.
And for all the bitter taste in my mouth I felt a sudden, soaring rush of joy. As if something poisoned in my throat had managed to dislodge itself—
Outside the wind chimes sounded, once, and without thinking I forked the sign against bad luck. Old habits die hard, of course. I haven’t made that sign in years. But I couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable, as if even such a small thing might reawaken the changing wind. And when Thierry had gone, and I was alone, I thought I heard voices on the wind, the voices of the Kindly Ones, and the distant sound of laughter.
Monday, 17 December
So there it is. it’s off. yippee. some quarrel about roux, i think, and I could hardly wait to tell him after school, except that I couldn’t find him anywhere.
I tried the hostel in Rue de Clichy, where Thierry says he’s been staying till now, but no one opened the door when I knocked, and there was an old man with a bottle of wine who shouted at me for making a noise. Roux wasn’t at the cemetery, and no one’s seen him at Rue de la Croix, so finally I had to give up, although I did leave a note marked urgent for him at the hostel, so I guess he’ll see it when he gets back. If he goes back there, of course. Because by then, the police had arrived, and no one was going anywhere.
At first I thought they’d come for me. It was after dark—nearly seven o’clock—and Rosette and I were having dinner in the kitchen. Zozie had gone out somewhere, and Maman was wearing her red dress, and it was just the three of us for a change—
Then they came round, two officers, and my first stupid thought was that something awful had happened to Thierry, and that it was somehow my fault because of what we did on Friday night. But Thierry was with them, and he looked fine, except that he was even louder and cheerier and more salut-mon-pote than ever, but there was something in his colors that made me think that perhaps he was only pretending to be cheery, something to fool those people he was with, and that made me nervous all over again.
Turns out it was Roux they were looking for. They stayed in the shop about half an hour, and Maman sent me upstairs with Rosette, but all the same I managed to hear quite a lot of what was going on, though I’m not sure of all the details.
Apparently it’s about a check. Thie
rry says he gave it to Roux—he kept the stub and everything—and Roux tried to alter it before putting the money into his account, so that he’d get a lot more money than the check was actually for.
A thousand euros, they said. This is called fraud, Thierry says, and you can go to prison for it, especially if you use a different name to open the account and take out the money before anyone finds out, then disappear without a trace, not even leaving a forwarding address.
So that’s what they’re saying about Roux. Which is stupid, because everyone knows Roux doesn’t have a bank account and would never steal anything, even from Thierry. But he has vanished without a trace. Apparently he hasn’t been seen in the hostel since Friday, and obviously he hasn’t been to work. That means I might be the last person to have seen him. It also means he can’t come back here, because if he does, he’ll be arrested. Stupid Thierry. I hate him. I wouldn’t put it past him to have made all this up just to get at Roux.
Maman and he quarreled about it when the two policemen had gone. I could hear Thierry shouting all the way up the stairs. Maman was being reasonable—saying there must have been some mistake. And I could hear Thierry getting more and more worked up, saying: I don’t see how you can still take his side, and calling Roux a criminal and a degenerate—which means a layabout and not-to-be-trusted—and saying Yanne, it’s not too late. Until at last Maman told him to go, and he did, leaving a blurry cloud of his colors behind him in the front of the shop, like a bad smell.
Maman was crying when I came back downstairs. She said she wasn’t, but I knew. And her colors were all confused and dark, and her face was white except for two red spots under her eyes, and she said not to worry, that things were going to be OK, but I knew she was lying. I always know.
It’s funny, isn’t it, what adults tell kids? There’s nothing wrong. It’s going to be fine. I don’t blame you, it was an Accident—but all the time that Thierry was here I was thinking about the time I’d met Roux by Dalida’s tomb, and how grungy he’d looked, and how I’d given him the Ear of Maize to give him wealth and good fortune—