Page 31 of The Strawberry Thief
‘You should get home. It’s getting late,’ he said.
I wanted to be outside.
‘But you know Vianne worries.’
That’s true, I thought. She worries too much. She worries about the river. The wind. Other people. Rain. Ghosts. I’ll never be afraid. Not of ghosts; not of anything. I said so to Roux, but he only smiled.
‘We all think that at first,’ he said. ‘When you grow up, you’ll understand.’
Except I’ll never grow up. I’ve heard people say that so often. They say it like it’s some kind of curse.You’re not afraid, I told him.
He smiled again. ‘You’d be surprised.’
He kissed my hair, and said: ‘I hear Anouk’s coming down for Easter.’
Coming down,I thought. Funny way to put it; as if Paris was a mountain. But then again, you won’t hear Roux ever use the wordhome. He threw a bundle of leaves on the fire and said: ‘I might move on for a while.’
Move on, he says. I get it. I know he likes to travel the river in spring, to shake the Lansquenet dust from his heels. Except that for the past six years, his boat has been moored down by Les Marauds, and I was starting to think it always would be.
He saw my expression. ‘Rosette, I’d come back. I wouldn’t be gone forever. But this place never suited me. Too many bigots and busybodies. And I’ve been here much too long. Much too long, already.’
I looked at him. I knew what this was. This was about Narcisse, and my wood, and having to be responsible. Narcisse left the land in trust, which means that Roux has to keep it for me. That means staying around for a while, at least until I’m twenty-one. But Roux doesn’t like to be hemmed in. He doesn’t want to have an address. He doesn’t want a passport. I think if he could do without, he wouldn’t even want a name. I wanted to say:You have to stay. Narcisse left you in charge of things. If you go, then what’s to stop Madame Montour from taking my wood?But already the wind had started to change, tearing the smoke like paper, and all I dared say aloud was ‘Narcisse,’ and hope that Roux would understand.
He turned away. I heard him sigh. ‘The old man knew what he was doing,’ he said. ‘He thought he could keep me in Lansquenet. Tie me down to a piece of land, the way he tied himself to his farm.’ His voice was low, but I could tell how angry he was under his calm. ‘What did he think would happen,hé? That I’d grow to love the place? That I’d give up who I am? And for what?’
I started to cry. I didn’t like seeing him angry. And suddenly I could hear the wind, its jeering, persistentwaswas, and I understood that this was my fault. I’d called it to blow Madame Montour away, and instead it was taking Roux …
‘Rosette—’ he began.
I hate this, I said.I hate being different like this. If I was the same as everyone else, you’d want to stay.
‘It’s not your fault. I promise,’ said Roux. But I could tell he was lying. The wind was all around me now, blowing smoke into my eyes. I could taste the flying ash, like dust, like sand, like powder. This is what happens, I told myself, when you try to call the wind. This is how it takes its revenge. And it takes, and it keeps on taking untileverythingis blown away …
I started to run. Roux was calling me back from a million miles away. But I was already halfway home, running along the bank of the Tannes. And the wind ran along beside me, wild and grey and hungry; matching me step for step, like a wolf from an evil fairytale.
9
Monday, March 20
I left the new tattooist’s feeling hazy and unsettled. More time must have elapsed than I’d thought, because the shadows were lengthening. Morgane Dubois has a way of making everyday things seem portentous, so that a column of smoke or a flock of black birds were suddenly filled with significance. In the hope of restoring my equilibrium, I’d decided to make some coffee and continue with Narcisse’s story. But when I got back to the cottage, the green folder was nowhere to be found.
I looked on the kitchen worktop, then at my desk, and finally by the side of the armchair that I think of as my ‘reading chair’. There was my notebook; my spectacles; this morning’s discarded coffee cup. But of the green folder containing Narcisse’s confession, there was no sign, or clue as to where it might have gone, except for the faintest perfume, a scent of decaying gardenia—
Well, yes,mon père. I rarely think to lock my front door when I go out. The people of Lansquenet seldom do, except for those like Caro Clairmont, who believe that the influx of foreigners and river-gypsies down by Les Marauds has made the place more susceptible to crime. In fact, this is nonsense. There is no crime. Well, at least, hardly any, not since old François Giraudin broke his neck trying to steal lead from the church roof. Besides, what do I have,père, that anyone would want to steal? And yet Narcisse’s confession is gone, and that scent confirms what I already suspected – that Michèle Montour is behind the theft. She could easily have done it, I thought. Waited until I went out, then doubled back and stolen the file. Who else would have done it? Who else would have cared?
I mean to call at the farmhouse,mon père. Confront the woman directly. And yet I suspect that if I do, her air of offended righteousness will merely serve to undermine my position still further. The woman is as hard as tacks. Beneath her gasping subservience, she has no more respect for the Church than she does for that son of hers. Why did she steal the manuscript? Surely she must know I would guess who had taken it?
Pacing to and fro, I continued to reflect on the purpose of the theft, and on my best course of action. And then it hit me like a blow.My father, the murderer. For some reason as yet undisclosed, Narcisse had chosen to address his confession directly tome. What if somewhere in it he had included some reference to that riverboat fire, more than thirty years ago?
I sat down, feeling suddenly numb. The scent of gardenia had become the scent of the riverbank at night; the ash from the bonfires; the cooking-pots; the baking stink of river-mud. It all made sense to me suddenly: Narcisse’s inexplicable desire to involve me in the aftermath of his death; his decision to write his confession to me; most of all, his use of the phrase:my father, the murderer. And now Michèle Montour has the folder, and she will read it, and I will be—
Ruined. Exposed. Condemned. Destroyed.
In a way, it is no more than I deserve. The shadow of the hateful act has already darkened so much of my life. In a way it might be a relief to see the curtains opened. I have struggled for so long under the weight of this burden. Would it not be easier to put it aside, and have done with it?
And yet, the fear of exposure is enough to make me feel cold, and to raise the fine hairs on my arms like cactus prickles. It was so long ago,mon père. So much has changed in me since then. I have been – well, notredeemed, exactly, but at least raised in the estimation of those who have come to matter to me. If they – ifshe– were to learn the truth, my life would have no meaning. Better to be dead,mon père,than to see her disappointment …
But I am being overdramatic,père. There is no need for panic, as yet. What must I do? To begin with, I must take back Narcisse’s folder before Michèle can read it. Closely written and irksome to follow, she cannot have got very far with it. There is still time to reclaim the folder.
