Nice work. I pretended not to notice until the ladies had left the shop with their parcels. Josephine, left alone in front of the counter, pretended to examine the display, turned over a couple of boxes with nervous, careful fingers. I closed my eyes. The thoughts she sent me were complex, troubling. A rapid series of images flickered through my mind: smoke, a handful of gleaming trinkets, a bloodied knuckle. Behind it all a jittering undercurrent of worry.
Madame Muscat, may I help you? My voice was soft and pleasant. Or would you just like to look around?
She muttered something inaudible, turned as if to leave.
I think I may have something youll like.
I reached under the counter and brought out a silver packet similar to the one I had seen her take, though this one was larger. A white ribbon secured the package, sewn with tiny yellow flowers. She looked at me, her wide unhappy mouth drooping with a kind of panic. I pushed the packet across the counter towards her.
On the house, Josephine, I told her gently. Its all right. Theyre your favourites.
Josephine Muscat turned and fled.
5
Saturday, February 15
I know this isnt my usual day, mon pere but I needed to talk. The bakery opened yesterday. But it isnt a bakery. When I awoke yesterday morning at six the wrapping was off, the awning and the shutters were in place and the blind was raised in the display window. What was an ordinary, rather drab old house like all the others around it has become a red-and-gold confection on a dazzling white ground. Red geraniums in the window boxes. Crepe-paper garlands twisted around the railings. And above the door a hand-lettered sign in black on oak:
LA CELESTE PRALINE CHOCOLATERIE ARTISANALE.Of course its ridiculous. Such a shop might well be popular in Marseille or Bordeaux even in Agen where the tourist trade grows every year. But in Lansquenet-sous-Tannes? And at the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial? It seems perverse, perhaps deliberately so.
I looked into the display window this morning. On a white marble shelf are aligned innumerable boxes, packages, cornets of silver and gold paper, rosettes, bells, flowers, hearts and long curls of multicoloured ribbon. In glass bells and dishes lie the chocolates, the pralines, Venuss nipples, truffles, mendiants, candied fruits, hazelnut clusters, chocolate seashells, candied rose-petals, sugared violets Protected from the sun by the half-blind which shields them, they gleam darkly, like sunken treasure, Aladdins cave of sweet cliches. And in the middle she has built a magnificent centrepiece. A gingerbread house, walls of chocolate-coated pain depices with the detail piped on in silver and gold icing, roof tiles of florentines studded with crystallized fruits, strange vines of icing and chocolate growing up the walls, marzipan birds singing in chocolate trees And the witch herself, dark chocolate from the top of her pointed hat to the hem of her long cloak, half astride a broomstick which is in reality a giant guimauve, the long twisted marshmallows that dangle from the stalls of sweet-vendors on carnival days.
From my own window I can see hers, like an eye closing in a sly, conspiratorial wink. Caroline Clairmont broke her Lenten vow because of that shop and what it sells. She told me in the confessional yesterday, in that breathless girlish tone which goes so ill with her promises of repentance.
Oh, mon pere, I feel so dreadful about it! But what could I do when that charming woman was so sweet? I mean, I never even thought about it until it was too late, though if theres anyone who should give up chocolates I mean, the way my hips have absolutely ballooned in the last year or two, it makes me want to die-
Two Aves.
God, that woman. Through the grille I can feel her hungry, adoring eyes.
She feigns chagrin at my abruptness. Of course, mon pere.
And remember why we fast for Lent. Not for vanity. Not to impress our friends. Not so that we can fit into next summers expensive fashions.
I am deliberately brutal. It is what she wants.
Yes, I am vain, arent I? A tiny sob, a tear, blotted delicately with the corner of a lawn handkerchief. Just a vain, foolish woman.
Remember Our Lord. His sacrifice. His humility.
I can smell her perfume, something flowery, too strong in this enclosed darkness. I wonder whether this is temptation. If so, I am stone.
Four Aves.
It is a kind of despair. It frets at the soul, reduces it piece by piece, as a cathedral may be levelled over the years by the erosion of flying dust and fragments of sand. I can feel it chipping away at my resolve, my joy, my faith. I should like to lead them through tribulation, through wilderness. Instead, this. This languid procession of liars, cheats, gluttons and pathetic self-deceivers. The battle of good and evil reduced to a fat woman standing in front of a chocolate shop, saying, Will I? Wont I? in pitiful indecision. The devil is a coward; he will not show his face. He is without substance, breaking into a million pieces which worm their evil ways into the blood, into the soul. You and I were born too late, mon pere. The harsh, clean world of the Old Testament calls to me. We knew then where we stood. Satan walked amongst us in flesh. We made difficult decisions; we sacrificed our children in the Lords name. We loved God, but we feared Him more.
Dont think I blame Vianne Rocher. Indeed I hardly think of her at all. She is only one of the influences against which I must fight every day. But the thought of that shop with its carnival awning, a wink against denial, against faith Turning from the doorway to receive the congregation I catch a movement from within. Try me. Test me. Taste me. In a lull between the verses of a hymn I hear the delivery-vans horn as it pulls up in front. During the sermon the very sermon, mon pere! I stop mid phrase, certain I hear the rustle of sweet-papers.
I preached with greater severity than usual this morning, though the congregation was small. Tomorrow Ill make them pay. Tomorrow, Sunday, when the shops are closed.
6
Saturday, February 15
School finished early today. By twelve the street was rampant with cowboys and Indians in bright anoraks and denim jeans, dragging their schoolbags the older ones dragging on illicit cigarettes, with turned-up collars and half a nonchalant eye to the display window as they pass. I noticed one boy walking alone, very correct in grey overcoat and beret, his school cartable perfectly squared to his small shoulders. For a long moment he stared in at the window of La Celeste Praline, but the light was shining on the glass in such a way that I did not catch his expression. Then a group of four children of Anouks age stopped outside, and he moved on. Two noses snubbed briefly against the window, then the children retreated into a cluster as the four emptied pockets and pooled resources. A moment of hesitation as they decided who to send in. I pretended to be occupied with something behind the counter.
Madame?
A small, smudgy face peered suspiciously up at me. I recognized the wolf from the Mardi Gras parade.
Now, I have you down as a peanut brittle man. I kept my face serious, for this purchase of sweets is serious business. Its good value, easy to share, doesnt melt in your pockets and you can get I indicated with hands held apart oh, this much at least for five francs. Am I right?
Madame?
A small, smudgy face peered suspiciously up at me. I recognized the wolf from the Mardi Gras parade.
Now, I have you down as a peanut brittle man. I kept my face serious, for this purchase of sweets is serious business. Its good value, easy to share, doesnt melt in your pockets and you can get I indicated with hands held apart oh, this much at least for five francs. Am I right?
No answering smile, but a nod, as of one businessman to another. The coin was warm and a little sticky. He took the packet with care.
I like the little gingerbread house, he said gravely. In the window.
In the doorway the three others nodded shyly, pressing together as if to give themselves courage.
Its cool.
The American word was uttered with a kind of defiance, like smoke from a secret cigarette. I smiled.
Very cool, I agreed. If you like, you and your friends can come over and help me eat it where I take it down.
Eyes widened.
Cool!
Hypercool
When?
I shrugged.
Ill tell Anouk to remind you, I told them. Thats my little girl.
We know. We saw her. She doesnt go to school.
This last was uttered with some envy
She will on Monday. Its a pity she doesnt have any friends yet, because I told her she could ask them over. You know, to help me with the displays.
Feet shuffled, sticky hands held out, shoving and pushing to be first in line.
We can
I can-
Im Jeannot
Claudine-
Lucie.
I sent them out with a sugar mouse each and watched them fan across the square like dandelion seeds in the wind. A slice of sunlight glanced off their backs one after the other as they ran red-orange-green-blue then they were gone. From the shaded arch of St Jeromes I saw the priest, Francis Reynaud, watching them with a look of curiosity and, I thought, disapproval. I felt a moments surprise. Why should he disapprove? Since his duty visit on our first day he has not called again, though I have heard of him often from other people. Guillaume speaks of him with respect, Narcisse with temper, Caroline with that archness which I sense she adopts when speaking of any man under fifty. There is little warmth in their speech. He is not a local, I understand. A Paris seminarian, all his learning from books he does not know the land, its needs, its demands. This from Narcisse, who has had a running feud with the priest ever since he refused to attend Mass during the harvesting season. A man who does not suffer fools, says Guillaume, with that small gleam of humour from behind his round spectacles, that is to say so many of us, with our foolish little habits and our unbreakable routines. He pats Charlys head affectionately as he says it, and the dog gives his single, solemn bark.
He thinks its ridiculous to be so devoted to a dog, said Guillaume ruefully. Hes far too polite to say so, but he thinks its inappropriate. A man of my age
Before his retirement Guillaume was a master at the local school. There are only two teachers there now to deal with the falling numbers, though many of the older people still refer to Guillaume as le maitre decole. I watch as he scratches Charly gently behind the ears, and I am sure I sense the sadness I saw in him at the carnival; a furtive look which is almost guilt.
A man of any age can choose his friends where he likes, I interrupted with some heat. Perhaps monsieur le cure could learn a few things from Charly himself.
Again that sweet, sad almost-smile.
Monsieur le cure tries his best, he told me gently. We should not expect more.
I did not answer. In my profession it is a truth quickly learned that the process of giving is without limits. Guillaume left La Praline with a small bag of florentines in his pocket; before he had turned the comer of Avenue des Francs Bourgeois I saw him stoop to offer one to the dog. A pat, a bark, a wagging of the short stubby tail. As I said, some people never have to think about giving.
The village is less strange to me now. Its inhabitants too. I am beginning to know faces, names; the first secret skeins of histories twisting together to form the umbilical which will eventually bind us. It is a more complex place than its geography at first suggests, the Rue Principale forking off into a hand-shaped branch of laterals Rue des Poetes, Avenue des Francs Bourgeois, Ruelle des Freres de la Revolution someone amongst the town planners had a fierce republican streak: My own square, Place Saint-Jerome, is the culmination of these reaching fingers, the church standing white and proud in an oblong of linden trees, the square of red shingle where the old men play petanque on fine evenings: Behind it, the hill falls away sharply towards that region of narrow streets collectively called Les Marauds.
This is Lansquenets tiny slum, close half-timbered houses staggering down the uneven cobbles towards the Tannes. Even there it is some distance before the houses give way to marshland; some are built on the river itself on platforms of rotting wood, dozens flank the stone embankment, long fingers of damp reaching towards their small high windows from the sluggish water. In a town like Agen, Les Marauds would attract tourists for its quaintness and rustic decay. But here there are no tourists. The people of Les Marauds are scavengers, living from what they can reclaim from the river. Many of their houses are derelict; elder trees grow from the sagging walls.
I closed La Praline for two hours at lunch and Anouk and I went walking down towards the river. A couple of skinny children dabbled in the green mud by the waterside; even in February there was a mellow stink of sewage and rot. It was cold but sunny, and Anouk was wearing her red woollen coat and hat, racing along the stones and shouting to Pantoufle scampering in her wake. I have become so accustomed to Pantouffe and to the rest of the strange menagerie which she trails in her bright wake that at such times I can almost see him clearly; Pantoufle with his grey-whiskered face and wise eyes, the world suddenly brightening as if by a strange transference I have become Anouk, seeing with her eyes, following where she travels. At such times I feel I could die for love of her, my little stranger; my heart swelling dangerously so that the only release is to run too, my red coat flapping around my shoulders like wings, my hair a comets tail in the patchy blue sky.
A black cat crossed my path and I stopped to dance around it widdershins and to sing the rhyme:
Ou va-t-i, mistigri?
Passe sans faire de mal ici.
Anouk joined in and the cat purred, rolling over into the dust to be stroked. I bent down and saw a tiny old woman watching me curiously from the angle of a house. Black skirt, black coat, grey hair coiled and plaited into a neat, complex bun. Her eyes were sharp and black as a birds. I nodded to her.
Youre from the chocolaterie, she said.
Despite her age which I took to be eighty, maybe more her voice was brisk and strongly accented with the rough lilt of the Midi.
Yes, I am.
I gave my name.
Armande Voizin, she said. Thats my house over there. She nodded towards one of the river-houses, this one in better repair than the rest, freshly whitewashed and with scarlet geraniums in the window boxes. Then, with a smile which worked her apple-doll face into a million wrinkles, she said, Ive seen your shop. Pretty enough, Ill grant you that, but no good to folks like us. Much too fancy. There was no disapproval in her voice as she spoke, but a half laughing fatalism. I hear our msieur le cure already has it in for you, she added maliciously. I suppose he thinks a chocolate shop is inappropriate in his square. She gave me another of those quizzical, mocking glances. Does he know youre a witch? she asked.