A pause. ‘You know I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
Another, longer pause. I could sense his frustration. ‘Why don’t you trust me?’ he said at last. ‘Why can’t it ever be simple?’
Because it isn’t simple, Roux. Because, however far you stray, the river brings you home in the end. And because I see more than I want to see, even when I’d rather be blind—
‘Is this because of Joséphine? Don’t you trust me?’
‘I don’t know.’
Once more that silence, like a screen full of jumping shadows. Then he said: ‘OK, Vianne. I only hope it’s worth it,’ and I was left with the sound of the sea in my ear, like the surf through a seashell—
I shook my head. My face was wet. The cold had numbed my fingertips. This is my fault, I told myself. I shouldn’t have summoned the wind that day. It feels so harmless, doesn’t it, so effortless and natural? But the wind can change at any time; and these little things we build for ourselves are swept away in front of it.
Did Armande see this coming? Did she guess about Roux and Joséphine? Could she have guessed that her letter-bomb would blow my life with Roux apart? That’s what happens, I suppose, when you open a letter from the dead. Better by far to never look back; like Roux, to cast no shadow.
Still, it’s far too late for that. I imagine Armande knew that, too. Why did I come back to Lansquenet? Why must I face the Woman in Black? For the same reason the scorpion stung the buffalo, knowing it would mean both their deaths. Because we have no choice, she and I. Because we are connected.
The rain had stopped, but the wind had reached that tremulous point of intensity where it plucks at the telephone wires and keens – giving the Black Autan a voice: a voice, and maybe a message. What did you think would happen, Vianne? Did you think I’d let you go? Did you think I’d let you belong to someone else for ever?
I left the Boulevard des Marauds and made my way on to the old jetty. That’s where the black houseboat was moored, surrounded by those bare-rooted trees. It’s sheltered by the riverbank, but just a few metres further out the Tannes has become a surging, unruly animal; its sleek surface ramshackle with debris; deadly assemblages of branches and detritus, snarled together with cable and wire. To swim in there now would be more than unwise; even the shallows are treacherous. If Alyssa had jumped from the bridge last night instead of six days ago, she would never have survived: nor would Reynaud, for that matter. I moved a little closer. I called out: ‘Madame Bencharki?’
I knew she was home; I could feel her eyes. I took another step forward. The wind whipped my hair into my face; the ground at my feet was waterlogged.
‘Inès?’
I imagined her watching me, hidden away; watching with feral, suspicious eyes. I wished I’d thought to bring a gift; but the peaches are almost gone, and besides, I had no idea what kind of approach would work with her. Beneath her many veils Inès hides as many different faces: to Omi, a scorpion; to Zahra, a friend; to old Mahjoubi, a subversive; to Alyssa, a figure of dread—
And to Karim?
Once more, I called. This time I thought I heard movement from inside the houseboat. The tiny door to the galley opened. A woman in niqab appeared.
‘What do you want?’ Her voice is low and barely accented; and yet, there is something discordant about it, like music played in the wrong key.
‘Hello, I’m Vianne Rocher,’ I said, and held out my hand.
She did not move. Her eyes above the square of cloth were as blank as buttons. I started to say what I had prepared; that I had once lived in the chocolaterie; that I was staying in Les Marauds; that I wanted to help her and Du’a.
Inès listened without a word. Standing on the low deck, she seemed to be walking on water. Behind her, a fine spray arose from the Tannes. She might have been a ghost – or a witch.
‘I know who you are,’ she said at last. ‘You are a friend of the priest, Reynaud.’
I smiled. ‘He and I go back a long way. But we weren’t always friends. In fact, he once tried to drive me out of town.’
Her eyes showed no expression. Her hands, gloved in black, stayed at her sides. Her feet, too, were hidden beneath her abaya – in fact, but for those expressionless eyes, she might have been a trick of the light, with nothing beneath her niqab but air.
‘Some people are saying he lit the fire. That isn’t true,’ I told her. ‘Reynaud’s a good man, in spite of his faults. He isn’t a sneak or a coward. The person who lit that fire is both. And now they’re letting him take the blame—’
‘Is that why you came? To plead his case?’
‘I thought you might need help,’ I said.
‘Thank you, I don’t.’ Her voice was flat.
‘You’re living on a boat,’ I said.
‘So what?’ said Inès Bencharki. ‘You think living on a boat is hard? Believe me, I have known much worse. This country is easy compared with mine. Easy, and soft, and lazy.’ Her voice had risen in contempt; her eyes had narrowed above the veil. And now I could see her colours at last, flaring in the sullen light, giving her plain black abaya a brilliant lining of moiré silk. I reached for her thoughts instinctively; came back with a plundered handful. A basket of scarlet strawberries; a pair of yellow slippers; a bracelet of black jet beads; a woman’s face in a mirror. And silks; embroidered, coloured silks; gauze like misted spider’s web; chiffon scattered with crystals; wedding-dress white; saffron-gold; mulberry-purple; forest-green—
So much colour; bewildering. Without it, you might never have guessed that she and Karim were related; but scratch the surface, and there they are, those colours that cannot be concealed.
She flinched. It was as if I had touched her in some forbidden, intimate way. Her eyes widened in outrage, and now I could see their colour, too – a green so dark it might almost be black, into which a droplet of gold has dissolved.
She said: ‘Stop that!’
I held out my hand. ‘It’s all right, Inès. I understand.’
She laughed, a jangly, discordant sound. ‘Is that what you think? That you understand? Because you see a little more than all these other blind people?’
‘I came here for a reason,’ I said. ‘I had a letter from the dead. It told me I was needed here. And then I saw you—’
‘And you thought – what? Poor, downtrodden Muslim woman in niqab, victimized by the kuffar? Poor, frightened widow, will welcome any offer, however patronizing, of friendship – or of chocolate? Yes, I know all about you, Vianne—’ she went on, seeing my look of surprise. ‘I know how you came here eight years ago and charmed everyone into loving you – yes, even that odious priest. You think I haven’t heard all that? You think Karim hasn’t told me? That woman from the café, she talks about you all the time. So does the old man with the dog, and the baker, Poitou, and the florist, Narcisse. They make you sound like an angel come down from Jannat to save us. And now, Fatima al-Djerba and her mother have caught it too – ah, how they all love the chocolate woman, who thinks that because she once went to Tangier she understands our culture—’
I listened to her in silence, stunned by the depth of her contempt. Whatever I’d expected from our first encounter, it wasn’t this; this opening of the floodgates, this outpouring of venom. A scorpion, Omi had said. And now I was drowning, and the worst of it was that I had no one to blame but myself. The buffalo in the story is as much a slave to its nature as the scorpion is to hers; and didn’t a part of me want to be stung, to prove what I’ve always secretly known? That nothing lasts; that magic can fail; that everything we work for and love comes back to the same blank wall in the end—
Was this the lesson I came here to learn? Is this why I came back to Lansquenet?
‘I know you’re hiding Alyssa,’ she said.
I shivered, feeling suddenly cold.
‘You think I don’t hear? You think I don’t see? You think because I wear niqab I don’t pay attention the way you do? You think because you can’t see
me, I don’t notice everything?’
‘It’s nothing to do with niqab,’ I said. ‘And I’m not hiding Alyssa. She’s staying with me of her own accord, until she decides what she wants to do.’
Inès made a harsh sound in her throat. ‘I suppose you think you’re helping,’ she said.
‘Someone had to help,’ I said. ‘She was trying to kill herself.’
She fixed me with her green-gold gaze. Beneath the abaya she is graceful, poised and straight as a dancer. From the beauty of her eyes, I knew she must be striking.
‘You think like a child,’ she told me. ‘A child sees a baby bird fall from the nest. She picks it up and takes it home. One of two things happens next. The baby bird dies almost at once; or it survives for a day or two, and the child takes it back to its family. But the scent of human is on it now, and the family rejects it. It dies of starvation, or a cat kills it, or the other birds peck it to death. With luck, the child will never know.’
I felt myself flush. ‘This isn’t the same. Alyssa isn’t a baby bird.’
‘Isn’t she?’ said Inès. ‘You’ll be telling me next she’s kept her fast and she hasn’t cut her hair.’
‘Did Maya tell you that?’ I said.
‘I don’t need a child to tell me. You think you’re the only one who sees things?’
I thought of what Alyssa had said: that Inès Bencharki was an amaar, an evil spirit in human form, sent to corrupt the innocent. I’ve heard that accusation before – more than once – on my travels. People with insight – people like us – are often seen as sinister. My mother called herself a witch. That was her style; I never did. That word is overburdened now with history and prejudice. Those people who say that words have no power know nothing of the nature of words. Words, well placed, can end a regime; can turn affection to hatred; can start a religion, or even a war. Words are the shepherds of lies; they lead the best of us to the slaughter.
I said: ‘My mother was a witch.’
She laughed and said: ‘I should have guessed.’
And at that she turned and went back inside – behind her, that glimpse of colours, like the twist in the eye of a marble – and then the door closed behind her and I was left standing at the side of the Tannes, with the black wind screeching in the wires and the rain beginning to fall again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wednesday, 25th August
MIDNIGHT, AND THE rain has stopped. The sky is cloudy agate. The August full moon – the one which, according to folklore, père, is causing all our problems – is all in rags, a supplicant on the night’s horizon. I cannot sleep. My fingers hurt. My mind is all static and restlessness. I can already feel tomorrow like an avalanche ready to fall; the telephone calls, the visitors, the poised inevitability of a life about to be toppled.
Outside, the wind is relentless. It tugs at me like an eager child. It strikes me how few possessions I have – the cottage belongs to the Church, as does all the furniture, most of the books, and the pictures. A canvas rucksack with a broken strap – the one I took with me to the seminary more years ago than I like to think – would easily take everything I own. Aside from my priest’s clothes, which of course I would leave behind, what do I have? A couple of shirts; a pair of jeans, three T-shirts, socks and underwear. A thick, hand-knitted sweater that I wear in winter, when it’s cold. A scarf. A hat. A toothbrush. A comb. The copy of Saint Augustine you gave me when I was a boy. My father’s watch. Your rosary, with the green glass beads; a cheap thing, but I am fond of it. A brown envelope of photographs, papers and documents. Some money. Not much. Forty-five years, neatly packed up in a single rucksack.
Now why did I do that, père? It’s absurd. I’m not going anywhere. For a start, I have nowhere to go. It’s the middle of the night. It’s raining. And yet, I can see myself stepping out, rucksack on my shoulder. Leaving the key in the front door, closing the gate behind me. Going down the deserted street in my coat and walking boots, feeling the sky above my head. The sky must feel different to a man who has no home to go to. The road, too, must feel different. Harder on the feet, somehow. My boots are well worn and comfortable. I can walk for hours before I need to think about what to do next.
Mon père, that sounds so attractive. To know that every step I take takes me further from Père Henri Lemaître. To have no responsibility, no choices to make but where to sleep, what to eat, whether to turn right or left. To abandon desire and to offer myself to the randomness of the universe—
Randomness?
Well, yes, père. Of course, I know God has a plan. But in recent years I’ve found it increasingly hard to believe that the plan is running as smoothly as He intended. The more I think about it now, the more I see God as a harried bureaucrat, wanting to help, but crippled by paperwork and committees. If He sees us at all, père, it is from behind a desk piled high with accounts and works-in-progress. That’s why He has priests to do His work, and bishops to oversee them. That is why I bear Him no grudge. But try to juggle too many balls, and this is what happens. Some go astray.
The wind has cleared my head, somehow. History is filled with the stories of men who abandoned conventional life for a life on the road. My namesake, Saint Francis, is one of them. Maybe I’ll go to Assisi.
I must have slept a little, père. I awoke feeling stiff. My rucksack was propped against the front door. For a moment, clinging to sleep, I couldn’t remember leaving it there. Then I remembered, and felt afraid. The certainties of the past few hours were slipping away as daybreak approached. First thing in the morning, I usually go to Poitou’s, for croissants or pain au chocolat. Today, I did not. I don’t want Poitou talking about me all over the village, and besides, to go to the bakery at this stage would be almost like tempting myself to stay, when I had already decided to leave.
I made coffee and toasted a piece of stale bread. It smelt better than it tasted, but it was enough to remind me how hungry I’d been. I am not as good at going hungry as I once was, père. I no longer keep my Lenten fast. If I left, I told myself, I’d have to get used to hunger. Saint Francis ate roots and berries, of course. I suppose they must have sustained him. But I would find it difficult to go without my breakfast croissant.
I looked at the sky. It was still dark. Dawn was more than an hour away. I did not want to be seen as I left, especially not by the people of Les Marauds as they arose for morning prayers. I knew I would have to pass their way if I wanted to follow the river. That seemed the most sensible plan, at least until I had covered enough ground to guarantee I wouldn’t meet anyone who would recognize me. A clean break, I told myself; no explanations, no goodbyes. Not even to Vianne, or Joséphine—
Especially not to Joséphine.
I finished my breakfast. Time to go.
I washed the dishes in the sink. I watered the plants. I stripped the bed. I loaded the bedclothes into the washing machine on a medium cycle. I put on my boots and raincoat. I hoisted my rucksack on to my shoulder by its one unbroken strap. I turned off the lights.
I said: ‘Goodbye.’
Then I stepped out into the dark.
CHAPTER ONE
Wednesday, 25th August
I KEPT TO the side streets in les marauds. I’d forgotten how early these people rise. Already the lights were on all the way down the boulevard; warm and coloured squares of light in yellow, red, blue, green. So this is what it feels like, I thought. To be an outsider. It pleased me, somehow. The thought was almost romantic. Perhaps to be an outsider is simply to know how to look at things from the outside. I checked my watch. Six o’clock. Soon, the muezzin would call. I planned to be out of Les Marauds by then. Avoiding the boulevard and the gym, I took one of the little alleyways that lead to the old jetty. There, boats were often moored, back in the days of the river-rats, but now no one uses it any more. There’s a towpath here by the river, once used for dragging barges upstream; I knew if I followed it far enough it would lead me to Pont-le-Saôul, where I could take a bus to Agen, and from there—
/>
To Paris? London? Rome?
A multitude of highways, leading me further and further from home, spiralling out like a spider’s web to every corner of the map—
I tried not to think too hard about what I was about to do. One step at a time, I thought. One foot in front of the other. The river had risen again, I saw. At this rate, I thought, the banks will burst and flood the Boulevard des Marauds. Les Marauds is used to flooding, of course; the riverside houses are built on stilts to accommodate the rise and fall of the Tannes. But the houses are old; the original wood has been bleached and warped and twisted by time; some reinforced with metal struts that have rusted and corroded over the years. Each year brings them closer to collapse. To restore them would cost a fortune. One day, maybe, one winter’s day, those struts will give way, and that row of crooked houses that makes up the Boulevard des Marauds will come crashing down into the Tannes, one against the other, gathering momentum like a row of deadly dominoes, leaving nothing but a deadfall of wood and broken plaster.
Would that be such a bad thing?
In any case, père, it is no longer my concern. I am done with Lansquenet. I have decided what I must do. Let the river decide the rest.
It was then that I saw a houseboat moored against the jetty. Well away from the slipstream, tucked into the riverbank like a sleeper into the crook of his elbow. River-gypsies? Surely not. Their time is long gone. And yet I could see smoke coming out of the chimney – smoke or steam, I wasn’t sure which. There was a light in the window. Someone was home.
Instinctively, I made for the trees. A screen of them stands between the river and the end of the boulevard, and I had no wish to be seen. Whoever was living in that boat was no longer any business of mine. I would join the towpath another way.
But just as I reached the stand of trees, I saw a figure heading my way. A slender figure in black, head to toe, a veil across her features. You’d think they’d be impossible to tell apart; but I knew her from the way she moved. It was Sonia Bencharki.