And as I watch from the kitchen door, a sudden thought occurs to me. There are too many ghosts in this place, of course. Dangerous ghosts; laughing ghosts; ghosts from a past we cannot afford to see reborn. And the strange thing is, they look oddly alive; as if I, Vianne Rocher, might be the ghost and the little threesome in the shop the real thing, the magic number, the circle that cannot be broken—
That’s nonsense, of course. I know I’m real. Vianne Rocher is just a name I wore, perhaps not even my real name. She can have no purpose beyond that; she can have no future outside of me.
But I still can’t stop thinking about her, like a favorite coat, or a pair of shoes, given on impulse to some charity shop, to be loved and worn by someone else. . . .
And now I can’t help wondering—
How much of myself have I given away? And if I am no longer Vianne—who is ?
✶
✶
PART SEVEN
✶
The Tower
✶
Wednesday, 19 December
Why, hello, madame. Your favorite? let me see—chocolate truffles, to my special recipe, marked with the sign of lady Blood Moon and rolled in something that teases the tongue. A dozen? Or shall we make it two? Packed in a box of crinkly gold paper and tied with a ribbon of brightest red—
I knew she’d come eventually. My specials tend to have that effect. She came just before closing time; Anouk was upstairs doing her homework, and Vianne was in the kitchen again, working on tomorrow’s sales.
First, I see her catch the scent. It’s a combination of many things; the Christmas tree in the corner; the musty aroma of old house; orange and clove; ground coffee; hot milk; patchouli; cinnamon—and chocolate, of course; intoxicating, rich as Croesus, dark as death.
She looks around, sees wall hangings, pictures, bells, ornaments, a doll-house in the window, rugs on the floor—all in chrome yellow and fuchsia-pink and scarlet and gold and green and white. It’s like an opium den in here, she almost says, then wonders at herself for being so fanciful. In fact she has never seen an opium den—unless it was in the pages of the Arabian Nights—but there’s something about the place, she thinks. Something almost—magical.
Outside, the yellow-gray sky is luminous with the promise of snow. Forecasters have been announcing it for several days, though to Anouk’s disappointment it has so far remained too mild for anything but sleet and this interminable mist.
“Lousy weather,” says Madame. Of course, she would think so; seeing, not magic in the clouds, but pollution; not stars, but lightbulbs in the Christmas lights; no comfort, no joy but the endless, anxious grind of people rubbing together without warmth, searching for last-minute gifts that will be opened without pleasure, and in a rush to go to some meal that they will not enjoy, with folk they have not seen for a year, and would not choose to see at all—
Through the Smoking Mirror I look at her face. It’s a hard face in many ways, the face of a woman whose personal fairy tale never had a chance of happily-ever-after. She has lost parents, lover, and child; she has made good through sheer hard work; she wept herself dry years ago and has no pity now for herself or for anyone else. She hates Christmas, despises New Year’s—
All this I see through the Eye of Black Tezcatlipoca. And now, with an effort, I can just glimpse what stands behind the Smoking Mirror—the fat woman sitting in front of the television, eating choux from a white patisserie box while her husband works late for the third night running; the window of an antiques shop, and a china-faced doll under a cloche; the chemist’s where she once stopped to buy nappies and some milk for her baby girl; her mother’s face, broad and harsh and unsurprised, when she came to tell her the terrible news—
But she has come so far since then. So very far—and yet there’s something inside her, this void, still wailing for something to fill it again—
“Twelve truffles. No. Make it twenty,” she says. As if truffles could make a difference. But somehow these truffles are different, she thinks. And the woman behind the counter, with her long dark hair with the crystals braided into it and the emerald shoes with the shining stack heels— shoes made for dancing all night, for leaping, for f lying, for anything but walking—she looks somehow different too, not like everyone else around here, but strangely more alive, more real—
There’s a scatter of dark powder on the counter where the truffles have shed cacao onto the glass. It’s easy, with a fingertip, to sketch the sign of One Jaguar—the feline Aspect of Black Tezcatlipoca—into the powdered chocolate. She stares at it, half mesmerized by the colors and scent as I wrap the box, taking my time with ribbons and paper.
Then Anouk comes in—right on cue—all wild-haired and laughing at something Rosette has done, and Madame looks up, her face going suddenly slack.
Does she recognize something, perhaps? Could it be that the vein of talent that runs so richly in Vianne and Anouk has left some vestige here at the source ? Anouk gives her beaming smile. Madame smiles back, hesitantly at first, but as the conjunction of Blood Moon and Rabbit Moon joins the pull of One Jaguar, her doughy face becomes almost beautiful in its longing.
“And who’s this? ” she says.
“It’s my little Nanou.”
That’s all I need to say. Whether or not Madame can see something familiar in the child, or whether it is simply Anouk herself, with her Dutch-doll face and Byzantine hair, that has captured her, who can say? But Madame’s eyes have grown suddenly bright, and when I suggest that she stay for a cup of chocolate (and perhaps one of my special truffles on the side), she accepts the invitation without a murmur, and sitting at one of the handprinted tables, she stares with an intensity that is far beyond mere hunger at Anouk as she goes in and out of the kitchen; greets Nico as he passes the door and calls him in for a cup of tea; plays with Rosette and her box of buttons; talks about the birthday tomorrow; runs outside to check for snow; runs back inside; peers at the changes to the Advent house; rearranges a key figure or two; then checks for snow again—it will come, it must come at least for Christmas Eve, because she loves snow almost more than anything. . . .
It’s time to close the shop. In fact, it’s twenty minutes past our closing time when Madame seems to shake herself free of some daze.
“What a sweet little girl you have,” she says as she stands up, brushes the chocolate crumbs from her lap, and looks wistfully at the kitchen door, through which Anouk has already gone, taking Rosette with her at last. “She plays with the other one just like a sister.”
That makes me smile, but I don’t put her right.
“Got any kids of your own? ” I say.
She seems to hesitate. Then she nods. “A daughter,” she says.
“Going to see her this Christmas? ”
Oh, the anguish such a question may inadvertently cause—I see it in her colors, a pure streak of brilliant white that cuts like lightning across the rest.
She shakes her head, not trusting the words. Even now, after so many years, the feeling still has the power to surprise her with its immediacy. When will it fade, as so many people have promised it will? So far it has not—that grief that overrides everything else, sending lover, mother, friend, plunging into insignificance in the face of the desolate chasm that is the loss of a child—
“I lost her,” she says in a quiet voice.
“I’m so sorry.” I put my hand on her arm. I’m wearing short sleeves, and my charm bracelet, laden with its tiny figures, makes its heavy chinking sound. The shine of silver catches her eye—
The little cat charm has gone black with age, more like the One Jaguar of Black Tezcatlipoca than the cheap shiny bauble it once was.
She sees it and stiffens, thinking almost at once that it’s absurd, that such coincidences do not happen, that it’s only a cheap charm bracelet and that it could have nothing at all to do with the long-lost baby bangle and its little silver kitty-cat—
But oh! What if it could, she thinks. You hear about
these things sometimes—not always in movies, but sometimes in life—
“That’s a-an interesting b-bracelet.” Her voice is shaking so much now that she can hardly say the words.
“Thanks. I’ve had it for years.”
“Oh, really? ”
I nod. “Each of these charms is a reminder of something. This was when my mother died. . . .” I point out a charm shaped like a coffin. It’s from Mexico City, in fact—I must have got it in some piñata or other—and there’s a little black cross on the coffin lid.
“Your mother? ”
“Well, I called her that. I never knew my birth parents. This key was for my twenty-first. And this cat is my oldest, luckiest charm. I’ve had it all my life, I think, even before I was adopted.”
She stares at me now, almost paralyzed. It’s impossible, and she knows it—but something less rational in her insists that miracles happen, magic exists. It’s the voice of the woman she used to be, the one who—aged barely nineteen—fell in love with a man of thirty-two who told her he loved her, and whom she believed.
And what about that little girl? Didn’t she recognize something in her? Something that pulls and tears at her heart like a kitten tormenting a ball of string.
Some people—myself, for instance—are born to be cynics. But once a believer, always a believer. I sense that Madame is one of these; have known it, in fact, from the moment I saw those porcelain dolls in the lobby of le Stendhal. She’s an aging romantic, embittered, disappointed, and therefore all the more vulnerable, and her piñata needs only a word from me to open up like a flower.
A word? I meant a name, of course.
“I have to shut up shop, Madame.” I propel her gently toward the door. “But if you’d like to come again—we’re having a party on Christmas Eve. If you don’t have any other plans, perhaps you’d like to drop in for an hour? ”
She looks at me with eyes like stars.
“Oh, yes,” she whispers. “Thank you. I will.”
Wednesday, 19 December
This morning anouk left for school without saying good-bye.
I should not be too surprised at this—it’s what she has done every day this week, coming late to breakfast with a Hey, everyone! grabbing her croissant in one hand and racing off into the dark.
But this is Anouk, who used to lick my face in sheer exuberance and shout I love you! across crowded streets—now silent and so self-absorbed that I feel bereft and icy with fear; the doubts that have dogged me since she was born now waxing as the weeks march on.
She is growing up, of course. Other things preoccupy her. Friends at school. Homework. Teachers. Maybe a boyfriend (Jean-Loup Rimbault?), or the sweet delirium of a first crush. There are other things, perhaps; secrets whispered; great plans made; things that she may tell her friends, but which if her mother knew, would make her cringe with embarrassment—
All perfectly normal, I tell myself. And yet the sense of exclusion is almost more than I can bear. We are not like other people, I think. Anouk and I are different. And whatever discomfort that may bring, I cannot ignore it anymore—
With that knowledge I find myself changing—becoming snappish and critical at the slightest thing, and how is my summer child to know that the note in my voice is not anger, but fear?
Did my own mother feel the same ? Did she feel that sense ofloss, that fear even greater than the fear of death, as she tried in vain, as all mothers do, to freeze the remorseless passage of time? Did she follow me, as I follow Anouk, picking up markers on the road? The toys outgrown; clothes cast off; bedtime stories left untold; all abandoned in her wake as the child runs ever eagerly into the future, away from childhood, away from me—
There was a story my mother used to tell. A woman desperately wanted a child but being unable to conceive, one winter’s day made a child of snow. She made it with exquisite care, clothed it, and loved it, and sang to it, until the Winter Queen took pity on the woman and brought the child of snow to life.
The woman—the mother—was overcome. She thanked the Winter Queen with tears of joy and swore that her new daughter would never want for anything, or ever know sorrow as long as she lived.
“But be careful, lady,” the Winter Queen warned. “Like calls to like; and change to change; and the world turns, for good or for ill. Keep your child well out of the sun; keep her obedient as long as you can. For a child of desire is never content—not even with a mother’s love.”
But the mother was barely listening. She took her child home and loved her and cared for her, just as she had promised the Winter Queen. Time passed; the child grew with magical speed; snow white and sloe black and beautiful as a clear winter’s day.
Then spring approached; the snow began to melt; and the Snow Child grew increasingly dissatisfied. She wanted to go outside, she said; to be with other children; to play. The mother refused at first, of course. But the child would not be cajoled. She cried, grew wan, refused to eat, so that finally, reluctantly, the mother gave way.
“Stay out of the sun,” she warned the child. “And never take off your hat and coat.”
“All right,” said the child and skipped away.
All that day, the Snow Child played. It was the first time she had ever seen other children. She played hide-and-seek for the first time; learned singing games and clapping games and running games and more. When she came home she looked unusually tired but happier than her mother had ever seen her before.
“May I go out again tomorrow? ”
With a heavy heart, her mother agreed—as long as she kept on her hat and coat—and once more the Snow Child was out all day. She made secret friendships and solemn pacts; skinned her knees for the very first time; and once more came home with a gleam in her eye and demanded to go out again on the morrow.
Her mother protested—the child was exhausted—but finally agreed once more. And on the third day the Snow Child discovered the exhilarating joys of disobedience. For the first time in her short life she broke a promise; broke a window; kissed a boy; and took off her hat and coat in the sun.
Time passed. When night fell and the Snow Child had still not returned, the mother went in search of her. She found her coat; she found her hat; but of the Snow Child there was no sign, nor ever again, but a silent pool of water where no pool had been before.
Well, I never liked that story much. Of all the stories my mother used to tell, that was the one that frightened me most; not for the tale itself, but for the expression on her face and the tremor in her voice and the way she held me painfully tight as the wind blew wild in the winter dark.
Of course then I had no idea of why she seemed so afraid. Now I know better. They say that childhood’s greatest fear is that of being abandoned by one’s parents. So many children’s stories reflect it: Hansel and Gretel; the Babes in the Wood; Snow White pursued by the evil queen—
But now it is I who am lost in the woods. Even in the heat of the kitchen stove, I shiver and pull my thick cable-knit sweater tighter around my shoulders. Nowadays I feel the cold; but Zozie might still be dressed for summer, with her bright print skirt and ballet shoes, her hair tied up in a yellow bow.
“I’m going out for an hour or so. Is that OK? ”
“Of course it is.”
How can I refuse, when she still won’t accept a proper wage?
And once again, silently I ask myself—
What’s your price?
What do you want?
The December wind still blows outside. But the wind has no power over Zozie. I watch as she turns out the lights in the front of the shop, and she hums as she closes the shutters over the window display, where the wooden peg-dolls in the stucco house are gathered around the birthday scene, while outside, under the porch lantern, a choir of chocolate mice with tiny hymn sheets pinned to their paws sings silently in the crystal-sugar snow.
Thursday, 20 December
Thierry was back here again today, but zozie dealt with him—I’m not sure how. I
owe her so much, a fact that disturbs me most of all. But I have not forgotten what I saw the other day in the chocolaterie, or that uncomfortable feeling of watching myself—the Vianne Rocher I used to be—reborn in the person of Zozie de l’Alba, using my methods, speaking my lines, daring me to challenge her.
I watched her covertly all today, as I did yesterday and the day before. Rosette was playing quietly; the mingled scents of clove and marshmallow and cinnamon and rum drifted across the warm kitchen; my hands were floured in icing sugar and cocoa powder; the copper glowed; the kettle warbled on the hearth. It was all so familiar—so absurdly comfortable—and yet some part of me could not rest. Every time the doorbell rang, I looked into the shop to check.
Nico dropped by with Alice at his side, both of them looking absurdly happy. Nico tells me he has lost weight, in spite of his addiction to coconut macaroons. A casual observer might not notice the difference (he still looks as large and cheery as ever); but Alice says that he has lost five kilos and can wear his belt three notches tighter.
“It’s, like, being in love,” he told Zozie. “It’s gotta burn calories, or something. Hey, great tree. Triffic tree. You want a tree like that, Alice ? ”
Alice’s voice is less easy to hear. But at least she is speaking; and her small, pointed face seems to have taken some color today. She looks like a child next to Nico, but a happy one, no longer lost; and her eyes never seem to leave his face.
I thought of the Advent house, and of the two little figures with their pipe-cleaner hands joined beneath the Christmas tree.
Then there’s Madame Luzeron, who has started to call in more frequently, and who plays with Rosette while she sips her mocha. She too is looking more relaxed; and today she was wearing a bright red twinset under her black winter coat, and she actually got down on her knees as she and Rosette rolled a wooden dog solemnly to and fro across the tiles—