Page 36 of The Strawberry Thief
‘No. Rosette was different.’
Of course she was. A special child. A cat crossed your path in the snow, and mewed. The Hurakan was blowing. And you were lonely and afraid, and loss was all around you—
‘Stop it. Rosette wasn’t stolen.’ Her voice in my mind has not been this clear since before Rosette was born. Rosette, my winter changeling, conceived in loss, and born from loss, and kept in fear and hiding.
All children are stolen, my mother says.We keep them close, as long as we can. But one day, the world will steal them back. That’s what you said the day she was born. That’s why you cast the circle in sand.
‘That was only a game, Maman.’ A game to keep the shadows away. And sheishappy, isn’t she? Happy as a little bird, singing from her gilded cage—
The Hurakan was blowing.
‘No.’
I walk into the kitchen. The scent of chocolate is strong, strong enough to silence her voice. The scent of other places rushes in to fill the void: the ozone of the Pacific; the salt tang of the Côte d’Emeraude. I put a handful of Criollo beans into the grinder. Their scent is very far from sweet. I can smell oud, and sandalwood, and the dark scents of cumin and ambergris. Seductive, yet faintly unsavoury, like a beautiful woman with unwashed hair.
A moment in the grinder, and the beans are ready to use. Their volatile essence fills the air, freed from one form into another.The Maya tattooed their bodies, you know, in order to placate the wind. No, not the wind. Thegods. The gods.
I add hot water to the beans and allow them time to percolate. Unlike coffee beans, they release an oily kind of residue. Then I add nutmeg, cardamom and chilli to make the drink that the Aztecs calledxocoatl– bitter water. That bitterness is what I need. I think of Anouk, heading home at last, and I feel the heat of the chilli scrawl a hectic path into my throat. The vapour rising from the cup makes complex patterns in the air; patterns that remind me of the wall-hanging in the tattoo shop; leaves and fronds and abstract designs sketched in sepia in the air.
The chocolate suddenly tastes too strong, too bitter for my palate. I throw away what’s left in the cup, and find Roux once more standing there, a stony, patient look on his face, like that of an ancient statue.
‘You should have said something.’
He shrugs, as if to convey that words have never been his currency.
‘Let me make you some chocolate.’
‘No thanks.’
‘Okay.’ I sit at the table, hoping he will join me. But Roux does not; its scars are not the familiar scars of home, and he stays there standing by the door, still with that stubborn look on his face.
At last he says: ‘I checked out that place.’
I know at once which place he means. The tattoo place.Les Illuminés. I feign an interest I do not feel, while ignoring the growing sense of unease that spreads like a stain into the air.
‘What did you think?’
He opens his shirt. A dizzy sensation of déjà vu as I see the new darkness over his heart, ringed with a new sensitivity that I know will fade with time. It is a familiar design: a serpent, with its tail in its mouth, theourobourosthat has existed since Egyptian times. This version is deceptively simple; a perfect, dynamic circle that looks like a piece of calligraphy. But I can see how carefully the design has been placed on the skin; the line that looks so like brushwork formed of many smaller strokes. The head of the serpent is abstract, and yet it has a personality; a kind of playful ferocity, like that of a puppy biting its tail. The shading is slightly uneven, as if executed in haste with a brush overladen with dry pigment, and it looks a little like fur, a little like black feathers. But I already know the style, distinctive as the sound of her voice, and I can see the look on her face as she worked on the design.
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘I’m a little surprised. It’s not like you to act on impulse.’
This is true. Roux thinks things out. He may not always discuss his plans, but I know that any decision he makes has been turned and turned like wood on a lathe; shaped and smoothed and finished.
‘It wasn’t an impulse. I talked to Morgane. Not even about her work, at first. We talked about all the places she’d been, all the people she’d met. It was nice.’
It was nice. I tried to suppress a feeling of resentment. He sounds like a man about to confess to some kind of betrayal. Some illicit liaison, or worse – some deeper, closer intimacy. I give myself an inward shake. I do not own Roux. More to the point, I do notwantto own Roux.
‘I’ve met her. She’s charming,’ I said. (It was true.)
He nodded. ‘She reminds me of you. She has the same kind of gentle way of looking into the heart of things. Of making you see what you already know, but have been hiding from yourself.’
‘And what did she make you see?’ I said.
He shrugged. His eyes were filled with dancing lights. Outside, the wind made a playful sound, like a half-tamed animal that could easily turn on its keeper. I could feel my heart beating fast, in angry little shallow beats. The anger was irrational, and yet I could feel it, like the wind, getting ready to turn once more. I whispered a soothing cantrip:Tsk-tsk, begone!
But I already know from his face that the wind will not be placated. That look, so calm and relentless. The serpent eating itself, tail-first. We live to repeat the same mistakes, to push away the ones we love, to move on when we want to stay, to wait in silence when we should speak. In the life we have chosen to lead, loss is the only constant. Loss, that eats up everything – like the snake, even itself.
