Chocolat (18 page)

TWENTY-SIX

       Wednesday, March 12

       WE HAVE NOT SPOKEN TO MUSCAT FOR DAYS. Josephine, who for some time would not leave La Praline, can now be persuaded to walk down the street to the bakery, or across the square to the florist’s, without me to accompany her. As she refuses to return to the Cafe de la Republique I have lent her some of my own clothes. Today she is wearing a blue jumper and a flowered sarong, and she looks fresh and pretty. In only a few days she has changed the look of vapid hostility has gone, as have the defensive mannerisms. She seems taller, sleeker, abandoning her permanently hunched posture and the multiple layers of clothing which gave her such a dumpy look. She keeps the shop for me while I work in the kitchen, and I have already taught her how to temper and blend chocolate types as well as how to make some of the simpler types of praline. She has good, quick hands. Laughingly I remind her of her gunslinger’s deftness on that first day and she flushes.

       “I’d never take anything from you!” Her indignation is touching, sincere. “Vianne, you don’t think I’d…”

       “Of course not.”

       “You know I…”

       “Of course.”

       She and Armande, who barely knew each other in the old days, have become good friends. The old lady calls every day now, sometimes to talk, sometimes for a cornet of her favourite apricot truffles. Often she comes in with Guillaume, who has become a regular visitor. Today Luc was here too, and the three of them sat together in the corner with a pot of chocolate and some eclairs. I could hear occasional laughter and exclamations from the small group.

       Just before closing-time Roux walked in, looking cautious and diffident. It was the first time I had seen him close to since the fire, and I was struck by the changes in him. He looks thinner, his hair pasted back from a blank, sullen face. There is a dirty bandage on one hand. One side of his face still shows a hectic splash of marks which resembles bad sunburn.

       He looked taken-aback when he saw Josephine

       “I’m sorry. I thought Vianne was…” He turned abruptly as if to go.

       “No. Please. She’s in the back.” Her manner has become more relaxed since she begun working in the shop, but she sounded awkward, intimidated, perhaps, by his appearance.

       Roux hesitated. “You’re from the cafe,” he said at last. “You’re —”

       “Josephine Bonnet,” she interrupted. “I’m living here now.”

       “Oh.”

       I came out of the kitchen and saw him watching her with a speculative look in his light eyes. But he did not pursue the matter any further, and Josephine withdrew gratefully into the kitchen.

       “It’s good to see you again, Roux,” I told him directly. “I wanted to ask you a favour.”

       “Oh?”

       He can make a single syllable sound very meaningful. This was polite incredulity, suspicion. He looked like a nervous cat about to strike.

       “I need some work doing on the house, and I wonder if you might…” It is difficult to phrase this correctly. I know he will not accept what he considers to be charity.

       “This wouldn’t be anything to do with our friend Armande, would it?” His tone was light but hard. He turned to where Armande and the others were sitting. “Doing good by stealth again, were we?” he called caustically.

       Turning back to me again, his face was careful and expressionless. “I didn’t come here to ask for a job. I wanted to ask you if you saw anyone hanging round my boat that night.”

       I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Roux. I didn’t see anyone.”

       “OK.”

       He turned again as if to leave. “Thanks.”

       “Look, wait.” I called out after him. “Can’t you at least stay for a drink?”

       “Some other time.” His tone was brusque to the point of rudeness. I could feel his anger reaching out for something to strike at.

       “We’re still your friends,” I said as he reached the door. “Armande and Luc and I. Don’t be so defensive. We’re trying to help you.”

       Roux turned abruptly. His face was bleak. His eyes were crescents. “Get this, all of you.” He spoke in a low, hateful voice, the accent so thick that his words were barely distinguishable. “I don’t need any help. I should never have got involved with you in the first place. I only hung around this long because I thought I might find out who fired my boat.”

       Then he was gone, stumbling bearishly through the doorway in a bright angry carillon of chimes.

       When he had gone we all looked at each other.

       “Redhaired men,” said Armande with feeling. “Stubborn as mules.”

       Josephine looked shaken. “What a horrible man,” she said at last. “You didn’t set fire to his boat. What right has he to take it out on you?”

       I shrugged. “He feels helpless and angry, and he doesn’t know who to blame,” I told her gently. “It’s a natural reaction. And he thinks we’re offering help because we feel sorry for him.”

       “I just hate scenes,” said Josephine, and I knew she was thinking of her husband. “I’m glad he’s gone. Do you think he’ll leave Lansquenet now?”

       I shook my head. “I don’t think so,” I said. “After all, where would he go?”

TWENTY-SEVEN

    Thursday, March 13

       I WENT DOWN TO LES MARAUDS YESTERDAY AFTERNOON to talk to Roux, with no more success than last time. The derelict house has been padlocked from the inside and the shutters closed. I can imagine him holed up in the dark with his rage like a wary animal. I called his name, and knew he heard me, but he did not answer. I considered leaving a message for him on the door, but decided against it. If he wants to come, it must be on his own terms. Anouk came with me, carrying a paper boat I had made for her out of the cover of a magazine. As I was standing outside Roux’s door she went down the banking to launch it, keeping it from drifting too far with the aid of a long flexible branch. When Roux would not make an appearance I returned to La Praline, where Josephine had already begun the week’s batch of couverture, and left Anouk to her own devices.

       “Watch out for crocodiles,” I told her seriously.

       Anouk grinned at me from under her yellow beret. With her toy trumpet in one hand and the guiding-stick in the other, she proceeded to sound a loud and tuneless alarm, jumping from one foot to the other in mounting excitement.

       “Crocodiles! Crocodile attack!” she crowed. “Man the cannons!”

       “Steady,” I warned. “Don’t fall in.”

       Anouk blew me an extravagant kiss and returned to the game. When I turned back at the top of the hill she was bombarding the crocodiles with pieces of turf, and I could still hear the thin blare of the trumpet — paar-paa-raar!- interspersed with sound effects — prussh! proom! — as battle continued.

       Surprising that it should still surprise, the fierce onrush of tenderness. If I squint hard enough against the low sunlight I can almost see the crocodiles, the long brown snapping shapes in the water, the flash of the cannon. As she moves between the houses, the red and yellow of her coat and beret shooting out sudden flares from the shadows, I can almost make out the half-visible menagerie which surrounds her. As I watch she turns and waves at me, screeches I love you! and returns to the serious business of play.

       We were closed in the afternoon, and Josephine and I worked hard to make enough pralines and truffles to last for the rest of the week. I have already begun to make the Easter chocolates, and Josephine has become skilled at decorating the animal shapes and packing them into boxes tied with multicoloured ribbon. The cellar is an ideal place to store them: cool, though not so cold that the chocolate takes on the whitish bloom which refrigeration encourages; dark and dry, so we can store all of our special stock there, packed into cartons, and still have room for our household supplies. The floor is made of old flagstones, polished brown as oak, cool and smooth underfoot. A single lightbulb overhead. The door to the cellar is bare pine, with a hole cut into the base for a long-departed cat. Even Anouk likes the cellar, which smells of stone and ancient wine, and she has drawn coloured chalk figures on the flags and the whitewashed walls; animals and castles and birds and stars. In the shop Armande and Luc stayed to talk for a while, then they left together: They meet more often now, though not always at La Praline; Luc tells me that he went to her house twice last week, and did an hour’s work in the garden each time.

       “She needs some w-work doing in the flowerbeds, now the h-house is fixed,” he told me earnestly. “She can’t manage the digging the way she used to, but she says she wants some f-flowers this year instead of just weeds.”

       Yesterday he brought a tray of plants from Narcisse’s nursery and planted them in the newly dug soil at the foot of Armande’s wall.

       “I’ve got l-lavenders and primroses and tulips and daffodils,” he explained. “She likes the bright, scented ones best. She doesn’t see all that well, so I got lilac and wallflowers and broom, and things she’ll notice.” He smiled shyly. “I want them settled before her b-birthday,” he explained.

       I asked him when Armande’s birthday was.

       “March the twenty-eighth,” he explained. “She’ll be eighty-one. I’ve already thought of a p-present.”

       “Oh?”

       He nodded. “I thought I’d buy her a s-silk slip.” His tone was faintly defensive. “She likes underwear.”

       Suppressing a smile, I told him that sounded like a fine idea.

       “I’ll have to go to Agen,” he said seriously. “And I’ll have to hide it from my m-mother, or she’ll have a bird.” He gave a sudden grin. “Perhaps we could throw a party for her. You know, to welcome her into the next d-decade.”

       “We could ask her what she thinks,” I suggested.

       At four Anouk came home tired and cheerful and muddy to the armpits, and Josephine made lemon tea while I ran the bathwater. Stripping off her dirty clothes I tipped Anouk into hot honey-scented water, then afterwards we all sat down to pains au chocolat and brioche with raspberry jam and plump sweet apricots from Narcisse’s greenhouse. Josephine seemed preoccupied, turning her apricot softly over and over in one palm.

       “I keep thinking about that man,” she said at last. “You know, the one who was in this morning.”

       “Roux.”

       She nodded. “His boat catching fire…” she said tentatively. “You don’t think it could have been an accident; do you?”

       “He doesn’t think so. He said he smelt petrol.”

       “What do you think he would do if he found out”— with an effort — “who did it?”

       I shrugged. “I really don’t know. Why, Josephine, have you any idea who it was?”

       Quickly: “No. But if someone did know — and didn’t tell…” She let the phrase falter miserably. “Would he — I mean — what would…”

       I looked at her. She refused to meet my gaze, rolling the apricot absently, over and over across her hand. I caught a sudden glimpse of smoke from her thoughts.

       “You know who it was, don’t you?”

       “No!”

       “Look, Josephine, if you know something…”

       “I don’t know anything.” Her voice was flat. “I wish I did.”

       “It’s all right. No one’s blaming you.” I made my voice gentle, coaxing.

       “I don’t know anything!” she repeated shrilly. “I really don’t. Besides, he’s leaving, he said so, he isn’t from here and he should never have been here and…” She bit off the phrase with an audible click of her teeth.

       “I saw him this afternoon,” said Anouk, through a mouthful of brioche. “I saw his house.”

       I turned to her in some curiosity. “He talked to you?”

       She nodded emphatically. “Course he did. He said he’d make me a boat next time, a proper wooden one that won’t sink. That is, if the bussteds don’t set that one afire as well.” She manages his accent very well. In her mouth the ghosts of his words snarl and prance. I turned away to hide a smile.

       “His house is cool,” continued Anouk. “There’s a fire in the middle of the carpet. He said I could come whenever I liked. Oh.” She put a guilty hand to her mouth. “He said as long as I don’t tell you.”

       She sighed theatrically. “And I did, Maman. Didn’t I?”

       I hugged her, laughing. “You did.”

       I could see Josephine looking alarmed.

       “I don’t think you ought to go into that house,” she told her anxiously. “You don’t really know that man, Anouk. He could be violent.”

       “I think she’s all right,” I winked at Anouk. “As long as she does tell me.” Anouk winked back.

       Today there was a funeral — one of the old people from Les Mimosas down the river — and business was slow, out of fear or respect. The deceased was a woman of ninety-four, says Clothilde at the florist’s, a relative of Narcisse’s dead mother. I saw Narcisse, his one concession to the occasion being a black tie with his old, tweed jacket, and Reynaud, standing starkly in the doorway in his black and white, his silver cross in one hand and the other extended benevolently to welcome the mourners. These were few. Maybe a dozen old women, none of whom I recognized, one in a wheelchair pushed by a blonde nurse, some round and birdy like Armande, some with the almost translucent thinness of the very old, all in black, black stockings and bonnets and headscarves; some in gloves, others with their pale twisted hands clasped to their flattened breasts like Grunewald virgins. I saw mainly their heads as they made their way to St Jerome’s in a tight softly clucking group; among the lowered heads the occasional grey-faced glance, bright black eyes flicking suspiciously at me from the safety of the enclave whilst the nurse, competent and resolutely cheery, pushed from the back. They seemed to feel no distress. The wheelchair-bound one held a small black missal in one hand and sang in a high mewing voice as they entered the church. The rest remained silent for the most part, bobbing their heads at Reynaud as they passed into the darkness, some handing him a black-bordered note to read out during the service. The village’s only hearse arrived late. Inside, a black-draped coffin with a lone spray of flowers. A single bell sounded flatly. As I waited in the empty shop I heard the organ play a few listless, fugitive notes, like pebbles dropping into a well.

       Josephine, who was in the kitchen taking out a batch of chocolate-cream meringues, came in quietly and shuddered. “It’s gruesome,” she said.

       I remember the city crematorium, the piped organ music — a Bach toccata — the cheap shiny casket, the smell of polish and flowers. The minister pronounced Mother’s name wrong — Jean Roacher. It was all over within ten minutes.

       Death should be a celebration, she told me. Like a birthday. I want to go up like a rocket when my time comes, and fall down in a cloud of stars, and hear everyone go: Ahhhh!

       I scattered her ashes across the harbour on the night of the Fourth of July. There were fireworks and candyfloss and cherry-bombs blatting off the pier and the sharp burn of cordite in the air and the smell of hotdogs and frying onions and the faint whiff of garbage from the water. It was all the America she had ever dreamed of, a giant amusement-park, neons flaring, music playing, crowds of people singing and jostling, all the slick and sentimental tawdriness she loved. I waited for the brightest part of the display, when the sky was a trembling eruption of light and colour, and I let them drift softly into the slipstream, turning blue-white-red as they fell. I would have said something, but nothing seemed to be left to say.

       “Gruesome,” repeated Josephine. “I hate funerals. I never go to them.” I said nothing, but watched the silent square and listened to the organ. At least it wasn’t the same toccata. Undertakers’ assistants carried the coffin into the church. It looked very light, and their steps were brisk and barely reverent on the cobbles.

       “I wish we weren’t so close to the church,” said Josephine restlessly. “I can’t think with that going on right next door.”

       “In China, people wear white at funerals,” I told her. “They give out presents in bright red packages, for luck. They light firecrackers. They talk and laugh and dance and cry. And at the end, everyone jumps over the embers of the funeral pyre, one by one, to bless the smoke as it rises.”

       She looked at me curiously. “Did you live there too?”

       I shook my head. “No. But we knew plenty of Chinese people in New York. For them death was a celebration of the dead person’s life.”

       Josephine looked doubtful. “I don’t see how anyone can celebrate dying,” she said at last.

       “You don’t,” I told her. “Life is what you celebrate. All of it. Even its end.” I took the pot of chocolate from the hot plate and poured two glasses.

       After a while I went into the kitchen for two meringues, which were still warm and treacly inside their chocolate envelopes and served with thick creme Chantillyand chopped hazelnuts.

       “It doesn’t seem right, doing this, at this moment,” said Josephine, but I noticed she ate anyway.

       It was almost noon when the mourners left, dazed and blinking in the bright sunshine. The chocolate and meringues were all finished, the dark kept at bay for a little longer. I saw Reynaud at the doorway again, then the old women went away in their minibus — Les Mimosas lettered on the side in bright yellow — and the square was back to normal again. Narcisse came in when he had seen off the mourners, sweating heavily in his tight collar. When I gave him my condolences he gave a shrug.

       “Never really knew her,” he said indifferently. “Great aunt of my wife’s. Went off to Le Mortoir twenty years ago. Her mind was gone.”

       Le Mortoir. I saw Josephine grimace at the name. Behind all its mimosa sweetness, that’s all it is, after all. A place in which to die. Narcisse is merely following convention. The woman was long dead already.

       I poured chocolate, black and bittersweet. “Would you like a slice of cake?” I offered.

       He deliberated for a moment. “Better not while I’m in mourning,” he declared obscurely. “What kind is it?”

       “Bavaroise, with caramel icing.”

       “Perhaps a little slice.”

       Josephine was looking out of the window into the empty square. “That man’s hanging about again,” she observed. “The one from Les Marauds. He’s going into the church.”

       I looked out of the door. Roux was standing just in the side doorway of St Jerome’s. He looked agitated, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, his arms clasped tightly around his body as if he were cold.

       Something was wrong. I felt a sudden, panicky certainty. Something was very wrong. As I watched Roux turned abruptly towards La Praline. He half-ran into the doorway and remained there, head lowered, rigid with guilt and misery.

       “It’s Armande,” he said. “I think I’ve killed her.”

       For a moment we stared at him. He made a helpless awkward little gesture with his hands, as if to ward off bad thoughts.

       “I was going to get the priest. She doesn’t have a phone, and I thought perhaps he…” He broke off. Distress had thickened his accent so that his words were exotic and incomprehensible, a language of strange gutturals and ululations which might have been Arabic, Spanish or verlan, or an arcane melding of all three.