Page 37 of The Strawberry Thief
‘You’re leaving, aren’t you?’
‘Vianne, it’s time.’
My voice was flat and hateful. ‘Is this about Narcisse’s will, and being a trustee for Rosette?’
It might be that, I told myself. Roux has never been comfortable with the idea of owning land. In Roux’s world, property is dangerous; relationships even more so. In Roux’s world, life is frictionless, slipping by like the river, picking up flotsam and setting it down quietly, gently, further downstream.
He said, ‘I’ll see the solicitor. I’ll make sure Rosette’s all right.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ I said, and now my voice was a blade, its edge glinting dangerously in the light. ‘Rosette doesn’t need you because of the land. She needs you because you’re her father.’
It was the wrong thing to say, I knew. ‘Only when it suits you, Vianne. The rest of the time, I have no idea if you even want me around. You’re like a bloody weathervane. Slave to every gust of wind. I never really know what you want. Tell me, Vianne. What do you want?’
I want to ask him to stay – and yet my mother’s voice reminds me that this was always going to be, that everything must be paid for. I said: ‘I want you to be free.’
He shrugged. ‘I always was,’ he said.
I think of birds against the sky, and the scent of burning chocolate. I want to tell him not to go, but there’s nothing more I can say.
‘It’s over, isn’t it?’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Vianne, I think it is.’
And then he was gone, like an armful of birds, out into the sunlight.
3
Wednesday, March 22
After Roux had gone I sat at the kitchen table and wept. I never cry. Inevercry. And yet the tears kept coming, tears that fell onto the pale old wood, leaving dark splashes like fat drops of rain.
The truth is, I’d begun to think that Roux was my kitchen table. Permanent; dependable; with all the marks and scars of use, so that over the years, I came to believe that he was mine. Well, I was wrong. Nothing is mine. Everything I have is on loan. The shop. The tools. The recipes. Everything except Rosette.
I know who’s to blame. Morgane Dubois. A made-up name, for certain. I should know: over the years, my names have changed like the seasons. And I have evolved an instinct for seeing through the everyday into the hidden layer beneath. But I see nothing in Morgane. Nothing but those black birds, those intertwining strawberry-leaves.
She came to us on a bad wind. I saw her in the Tarot cards and in the chocolate vapour. And while I watched from the shadows, Morgane began to ring the changes. Narcisse was the first. Roux, the second. The Pied Piper plays her tune, and heads lift; eyes shine; the air is filled with dancing spirals of confetti. The Pied Piper plays her tune, andeveryonefeels the call of the wind; the turn of the seasons; the dance of the days. It is a simple tune at first: deceptively simple; deceptively sweet. But it grows like the river, beats like blood, until it becomes a tidal wave, with Morgane Dubois riding it, oblivious to sorrow and loss; relentless and insatiable—
And the worst part is that I know I could have been just like her, without my daughters to anchor me. I could have been that inhuman thing, feeding on those around me. Is this why I fear Morgane? Because she reminds me too much of the person I could have been? The person I couldbecome,if I allowed it to happen? And if I were to become someone else, could Morgane Dubois take my place?
It sounds ridiculous, put that way. And yet she and I are very alike, mirror-images of each other. Both of us have similar gifts. Both of us ring the changes. Both of us have the talent of bringing out in other people what they need to see in themselves – courage; strength; forgiveness. It is no accident, of course, that both of us are traders. Our kind were already selling our wares before the Romans invaded France; before Montségur and La Roche Aux Fées. We sold them from wagons, and on foot. We traded them for what we could. Not chocolate, in those days, but then – it was never chocolate.
And now? I used to tell myself that chocolate was gentler. A harmless kind of magic, a domesticated animal. But animals are never quite tame. A cat at night is different to a cat in daytime. A cat crossing your path at night is filled with dark significance.
When I cast the circle in sand, Rosette was barely three days old. A quiet child, my little Rosette, at least until the wind changed. But the wind had been blowing at our heels for months, and there was snow in the air, and I was exhausted, and Anouk kept asking why we’d left Lansquenet. And the cat had seemed like a sign to me, and instead of singing my mother’s rhyme – the one that keeps cats tame and begins:Où va-t-i, Mistigri? –I let the cat cross my path in the snow, and used its voice for my purpose—
They called her conditioncri-du-chat. A genetic condition, they said, that meant my daughter would always be different from other children. That wailing, catlike cry of hers; the delicate small shape of her head; the learning and behavioural difficulties that might develop later – these were to be expected, they said, from a child withcri-du-chat. Some people praised my courage, little knowing my relief. My child would never be taken away. TheHurakanhad passed us by.
But everything must be paid for. The world is in delicate balance. One child stays; the other leaves. A woman arrives; a man says goodbye. And now this very quiet but significant confrontation: thechocolaterieand the tattoo shop, facing each other across the square, each sending out its seductive call:
Try me, test me, taste me.
Each has its different dialect, and yet we both speak the same language, like the bells from church in the square and themuezzinfrom the mosque, each one calling the faithful to prayer:Find me, face me, feel me.
This batch of chocolate is ruined, of course. The reek of scorched cacao is like the smell of a fire-gutted house overrun with feral cats. Has Morgane’s art ever turned on her? Hassheever missed her shot? The tattoo shop looks deceptively calm now, the luminous sign glowing rosily. But behind the windows, who knows? Maybe she is watching me, waiting for the next move. She knows she has made an enemy. Before Roux, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. The glow around her doorway: the whispered challenges from afar. Those things might yet have been innocent; in spite of my misgivings, I might have learnt to accept her. We might even have come to be friends. But now, after this, we cannot turn back. This town cannot contain us both.
In the days before Zozie, I might not have seen the danger. I was far too trusting then. I nearly let her take me. Now I know better. Now I must face the threat without further hesitation. I have wasted too much time. She already has the upper hand. And how long will it be before Rosette hears the call from the purple door? How long will it be before she too follows the Pied Piper?
First things first. I must bring the community to my way of thinking. That means finding an entry point into her world of deception. I cannot do that by hiding away in thechocolaterie. I have to use my skills, the skills my mother taught me, and that I have so long tried to ignore. I must fight Morgane Dubois using her own weapons. And maybe some that are unique to me – learned from a lifetime on the road. Morgane may be the Piper, but I have a song of my own; a song that has been sung for thousands of years, across every ocean and continent.
