Шоколад / Chocolat - Харрис Джоанн

The wind has gone to my head. I send him a cheery wave as I turn to go back into the shop. He will see this as defiance, I know, but this morning I do not care. The wind has blown my fears away. I wave to the Black Man in his tower, and the wind plucks gleefully at my skirts. I feel delirious, expectant.

Some of this new courage seems to have infused the people of Lansquenet. I watch them as they walk to church, the children running into the wind with arms spread like kites, the dogs barking wildly at nothing, even the adults bright-faced, eyes streaming from the cold. Caroline Clairmont in a new spring coat and hat, her son holding her by the arm. For a moment Luc glances at me, gives me a smile hidden by his hand. Josephine and Paul Marie Muscat, arms entwined like lovers, though her face is twisted and defiant beneath her brown beret. Her husband glares at me through the glass and quickens his step, his mouth working. I see Guillaume, without Charly today, though he still carries the bright plastic lead dangling from one wrist, a forlorn figure oddly bereft without his dog. Arnauld looks my way and nods. Narcisse stops to inspect a tub of geraniums by the door, rubs a leaf between his thick fingers, sniffs the green sap. He is sweet-toothed in spite of his gruffness, and I know he will be in later for his mocha and chocolate truffles.

The bell slows to an insistent drone – domm! domm! – as the people make their way through the open doors. I catch another glimpse of Reynaud – white-cassocked now, hands folded, solicitous – as he welcomes them in. I think he looks at me again, a brief flicker of the eyes across the square, a subtle stiffening of the spine beneath the robe – but I cannot be sure.

I settle at the counter, a cup of chocolate in my hand, to await the end of Mass.

The service was longer than usual. I suppose that as Easter approaches Reynaud’s demands will become greater. It was over ninety minutes before the first people emerged furtively, heads bowed, the wind tugging impudently at headscarves and Sunday jackets, ballooning under skirts in sudden salaciousness, hurrying the flock across the square. Arnauld gave me a sheepish smile as he passed; no champagne truffles this morning. Narcisse came in as usual, but was even less communicative, pulling a paper out of his tweed coat and reading it in silence as he drank. Fifteen minutes later half the members of the congregation were still inside, and I guessed they must be awaiting confession. I poured more chocolate and drank. Sunday is a slow day. Better to be patient.

Suddenly I saw a familiar figure in a tartan coat slip through the half-open church door. Josephine glanced across the square, and, seeing it empty, ran across towards the shop. She noticed Narcisse and hesitated for a moment before deciding to come in. Her fists were clenched protectively in the pit of her stomach.

“I can’t stay,” she said at once. “Paul’s in confession. I’ve got two minutes.” Her voice was sharp and urgent, the hurried words falling over themselves like dominoes in a line. “You have to stay away from those people,” she blurted. “The travellers. You have to tell them to move on. Warn them.”

Her face worked with the effort of speaking. Her hands opened and closed.

I looked at her.

“Please, Josephine. Sit down. Have a drink.”

“I can’t!” She shook her head emphatically. Her wind, tangled hair blurred wildly around her face. “I told you I don’t have time. Just do as I say. Please.” She sounded strained and exhausted, looking towards the church door as if afraid of being seen with me. “He’s been preaching against them,” she told me in a fast, low tone. “And against you. Talking about you. Saying things.”

I shrugged indifferently.

“So? What do I care?”

Josephine put her fists to her temples in a gesture of frustration.

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“You have to warn them,” she repeated. “Tell them to go. Warn Armande too. Tell her he read her name out this morning. And yours. He’ll read mine out as well if he sees me here, and Paul?”

“I don’t understand, Josephine. What can he do? And why should I care, anyway?”

“Just tell them, all right?” Her eyes flicked warily to the church again, from which a few people were drifting. “I can’t stay,” she said. “I have to go.”

She turned towards the door.

“Wait, Josephine?”

Her face as she turned back was a blur of misery. I could see that she was close to tears.

“This always happens,” she said in a harsh, unhappy voice. “Whenever I find a friend he manages to ruin it for me. It’ll happen the way it always does. You’ll be well out of it by then, but me?”

I took a step forward, meaning to steady her. Josephine pulled back with a clumsy gesture of warding.

“No! I can’t! I know you mean well, but I just – can’t!” She recovered with an effort. “You have to understand. I live here. I have to live here. You’re free, you can go where you like, you?”

“So can you,” I replied gently.

She looked at me then, touching my shoulder very briefly with the tips of her fingers.

“You don’t understand,” she said without resentment. “You’re different. For a while I thought maybe I could learn to be different too.” She turned, her agitation leaving her, to be replaced by a look of distant, almost sweet, abstraction. She dug her hands into her pockets once more. “I’m sorry, Vianne,” she said. “I really tried. I know it isn’t your fault.” For a moment I saw a brief return of animation to her features. “Tell the river people,” she urged. “Tell them they have to go. It isn’t their fault either – I just don’t want anyone to be hurt,” finished Josephine softly. “All right?”

I shrugged. “No-one is going to be hurt,” I told her.

“Good.” She gave a smile painful in its transparency. “And don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I really am.” Again that stretched, painful smile. As she edged past me through the door I caught a glimpse of something shiny in her hand, and saw that her coat pockets were stuffed with costume jewellery. Lipsticks, compacts, necklaces and rings spilled from between her fingers. “Here. This is for you,” she said brightly, pushing a handful of looted treasure at me. “It’s OK. I’ve got lots more.”

Then with a smile of dazzling sweetness she was off, leaving me with chains and earrings and pieces of bright plastic set in gilt weeping from my fingers onto the floor.

Later in the afternoon I took Anouk for a walk into Les Marauds. The travellers’ camp looked cheery in the new sunlight, with washing flapping on lines drawn between the boats, and all the glass and paint gleaming. Armande was sitting in a rocking-chair in her sheltered front garden, watching the river. Roux and Mahmed were perched on the roof’s steep incline, resetting the loose slates. I noticed that the rotten facia and the gable-ends had been replaced and repainted a bright yellow. I waved at the two men and sat on the garden wall next to Armande while Anouk raced off to the river bank to find her friends of last night.

The old lady looked tired and puffy-faced beneath the brim of a wide straw hat. The piece of tapestry in her lap looked listless, untouched. She nodded to me briefly, but did not speak. Her chair rocked almost imperceptibly, tick-tick-tick-tick, on the path. Her cat slept curled beneath it.

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“Caro came over this morning,” she said at last. “I suppose I should feel honoured.” A movement of irritation. Rocking: tick-tick-tick-tick. “Who does she think she is?” snapped Armande abruptly. “Marie Bloody Antoinette?” She brooded fiercely for a moment, her rocking gaining momentum. “Trying to tell me what I can and can’t do. Bringing her doctor – ” She broke off to fix me with her piercing, birdlike gaze. “Interfering little busybody. She always was, you know. Always telling tales to her father.” She gave a short bark of laughter. “She doesn’t get these airs from me, in any case. Not on your life. I never needed any doctor – or any priest – to tell me what to think.”