Page 50 of The Strawberry Thief
Try me. Taste me. Test me.
So far Francis Reynaud has not responded as well as I’d hoped to Morgane’s threat. He has been weaker, more tolerant than I would have expected. His sermons have been unconvincing, dealing more with evil in general than the specific evil represented by Morgane’s business. I know this because Caro Clairmont has told me about it in the shop: after one of my special chocolates, she can become quite expansive.
‘Monsieur le Curé is losing his touch,’ she tells me with an air of contempt. ‘His sermons hardly make sense any more, and last week in the confessional, I didn’t feel he was evenlistening—’
But Reynaud is the heart of Lansquenet. His influence goes far beyond that of the churchgoing community. With Francis Reynaud on my side, I still have a chance of victory. Even in forty-eight hours, together, we could shut her down. After all, I am still Vianne Rocher. And I know all his favourites.
4
Wednesday, March 29
Yannick Montour is avoiding me. Apparently, even the lure of cake is insufficient to make him rebel against his mother’s influence. This is a disappointment,père. I had hoped that the missing folder would have returned to me by now. Has the boy been lying to me? Could Madame Montour still have it in her possession?
Over the past week I have prayed and suffered and sweated in equal quantity. I cannot eat; I cannot sleep; and my sermons are rambling, shameful things, unstructured and repetitive. I began yesterday’s sermon with the intention of quoting Leviticus 19:28 –Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: Iamthe LORD –and ended up speaking, for far longer than the usual weekday sermon, about the mark of Cain instead, and about how a crime is never erased, even beyond the grave.
The woman Morgane in her tattoo shop looks at me with a kind of concern – I do not know whether this is because of the content of my sermons, or if she sees my unravelling and wonders at the cause. In any case, I do not need her sympathy – or anyone’s. My garden is my only release, and I take out on the wild strawberries the vengeance that I cannot direct at my human tormentors.
Omi Mahjoubi, being too old to care, comments where the others dare not. ‘You look ill, Monsieur le Curé,’ she says as she passes my garden. ‘Too manywaswas, and not enough of my little Maya’s samosas.’
She’s right. I wish I could tell her so. But my confession is not for her ears. If I still believed in such things, I might take a bus, and head for Agen, and seek out another confessor. Butyouabsolved me of my sin, and yet it has grown, like the strawberry plants, duplicating itself again and again, cell by dark and cancerous cell, just as I believed it was gone. Later I realized that you had not been following God’s plan, but your own. That made your absolution a sham, and my repentance null and void. But now, to whom should I confess? To Père Henri Lemaître, the young priest from the neighbouring village? Perhaps to the Bishop, whose love of God comes second to his love of paperwork? The victims of my crime – Pierrot, nicknamed La Marmite, and his girl Choupette – are long gone. Even the river-folk have forgotten them. And yet, the crime itself remains. It leaves a mark that cannot be erased.
If only I could be sure the Montours had not read Narcisse’s document. If only I could believe the boy when he tells me the folder just disappeared – like the answer to a prayer. But God does not answer my prayers. He means to watch me die in silence.
They passed me today as I was at work: the boy buttoned into an ill-fitting suit, as if attending an interview. I tried to catch his eye, but he was with his mother and scurried away without looking at me. Madame Montour was bolder, flashing me a triumphant smile, and I noticed that she too was wearing clothes more suited to church than to shopping. A sudden suspicion came over me. Had they been to Agen? Had they been to see the solicitor?
A telephone call to Mme Mak’s office proved less than satisfactory. Her secretary confirms the fact that Madame Montour had an appointment, but refuses to tell me why. Maybe she means to contest the will. This explanation – plausible though it is – does nothing to reassure me. I stop short of asking directly whether the green folder is involved. I do not want it to be known that I have lost it. I tell myself that Madame Montour’s attitude may still be a bluff, an attempt to make me show my hand. I tell myself that there is still hope of the folder being returned to me, but my voice is far from convincing.
If I were someone else, I might turn to Vianne Rocher for advice. But Vianne is busy preparing for her daughter’s visit, and besides, so close to Easter, the shop is always filled with customers. What can I do? I have started to take a measure of Armagnac every night, to help me sleep. But my dreams are strange, and I awake unrested, heavy-eyed and desperate. I sometimes try to tell myself this is all in my mind: that there may be no mention of what I did in the man’s confession. And yet my certainty remains. Why else would he have taunted me with the words:my father, the murderer?
Seven days,mon père. Seven days. That’s more than it took to make the world. Anything would be better,mon père, than this incessant waiting. Even death would be preferable to this calm before the storm. I do not fear death. I only fear there may be an afterlife. I keep thinking back to a poem I learnt by heart at primary school, a poem by Victor Hugo, entitledThe Conscience. The murderer Cain, troubled by the constant presence of God’s Eye, attempts to escape it. But wherever he goes, the Eye of God is always watching. At last, in despair, Cain buries himself alive, hoping to find rest in the darkness. And the last line of the poem, the one that never fails to make me shiver, goes:
But the Eye was in the tomb, and was watching Cain.
Mon père. Is this my punishment? Not to see God, but to feel His Eye on me forever? Or is it the gaze of Pierre Lupin, known as Pierrot La Marmite? Pierrot and Choupette. They sound like cartoon characters from a children’s TV show. I never saw their faces. There was no photograph in the news, and yet they are very clear in my mind: the man a big, soft, ugly brute; the woman a slender thing, with tattoos.
For you, something radical and pure. Maybe something to do with fire.
Morgane knows,mon père. Who else has she told? Her customers are many. Does she have her equivalent of the sanctity of the confessional? Or does she whisper her secrets to every wind that passes?
5
Thursday, March 30
After I gave the file to Morgane, I did a lot of thinking. I thought about the strawberry wood, and why Narcisse wanted to leave it to me. Mostly because of Mimi, I suppose, because I reminded him of her. And I thought about her story, and how itshouldhave ended, and I drew a picture of Narcisse and Mimi sailing away in Mimi’s boat, and the horrible aunt being left behind, to be eaten by ducks on the riverbank.
That made me feel a bit better. Pictures tell stories as well as words do, and words aren’t really my favourites. But a picture can make what happened into whatshould havehappened, and that’s a kind of magic you can’t even make from chocolate.
I thought about Morgane, too. I think about Morgane a lot. I can tell Maman doesn’t like her. She says she’s a bad influence. But so many of our friends have tattoos that I really don’t understand why she hates them so much. Or maybe it’s just Morgane she hates. That could be it. I’ve heard her in thechocolaterie, talking to her customers. I try not to hear what she’s saying, though. She’s so different nowadays, all mean and spiteful and angry. Hervoiceisn’t angry – but I can see the colours behind the words she’s saying, and they look like Reynaud’s colours now, all muddled and confused and scared. I don’t like to think of Maman being scared, especially not of Morgane. Besides Maman doesn’t evenknowMorgane. I’m sure if she did, she’d soon make friends. Perhaps I can help change her mind. She could really use a friend, and Morgane can make friends withanyone—
And so this morning, when Maman was busy with a customer, I went back to the tattoo shop. I took my book of drawings again, to show Morgane my new art. I showed her the picture of Mimi and Narcisse, and she looked at it for a long time.
‘You’re very good,’ she said at last. ‘You know, your style could easily cross over into tattoo design.’
I wasn’t sure about that. I said:It must feel weird, to draw on skin.
She laughed at that. ‘Weird? You bet it is. Rosette, tattooing’s an art, and more. It’s been around for millennia. The Mayans, the Egyptians, the Moche. Why did they do it? No-one knows. Maybe to placate the gods. Maybe to take on the energies of the designs they chose for themselves. But every act of creation is an act of power. It’s magical: transformative. It leaves a permanent mark on the world. And isn’t that really what art is for?’
She says it better than I do. But I’d already thought of that. Pictures are magic. You don’t need words. And words can lie, but pictures don’t.
