Page 60 of The Strawberry Thief
The light across the square goes out. It is nearly three in the morning. The candles are starting to gutter: the one that goes out first will be the one that determines the outcome. Red for desire. Blue for calm. Green for growth. Pink for love. And black – black as the eye of the storm, the centre of the spiral. The black candle gutters: theHurakanstirs.
Vl’à l’bon vent, v’là l’joli vent—
Find me. Feel me. Follow me.
12
Friday, March 31
I have been awake all night. Sleep,mon père, is impossible. My pounding heart refuses to return to any normal rhythm. My arm feels grazed and painful beneath its protective film of plastic. Underneath, the skin looks inflamed, a shapeless blur of colours. What is it meant to be,mon père? A lightning-bolt? A pillar of smoke? The Eye of God?
‘Be patient,’ she says. ‘Sometimes the skin takes a day or two to heal.’
What have I done? What have I done? A madness must have possessed me. I remember being in the tattoo shop, drinking cocktails with Morgane. I remember sitting in the chair and feeling the needles on my skin. I cannot blame this on drunkenness. In fact, I feel perfectly sober. And yet I cannot sleep, but lie restless as the wind outside rises from an ominous hum to the howl of an angry woman, screaming through the tattered clouds.
Now it is almost dawn, and I know that sleep is no longer an option. And so instead I try to read to the end of Narcisse’s manuscript. But now that the suspense is gone – now Morgane knows my secret – I have no urge to continue. Whatever happens, I must confess. I cannot let an innocent man live with a guilt that belongs to me. And once I have confessed to Roux, all eyes will be upon me. And so I sit and wait for dawn, and feel the scorched mark on my arm; the symbol beneath the plastic patch, glimpsed only through the mirrors.
‘How do you know what people want?’ I ask her, eyes closed, in the chair.
‘I don’t give my customers what theywant,’ replies Morgane, and I can tell from the tone of her voice that she is smiling. ‘I only give them what theyneed.’ And then I feel the needle graze its slow, reflective path through my skin, and I surrender myself to the sound of the chirping of metal songbirds.
‘I know a story,’ she tells me, ‘about a boy who had a secret. The secret was so heavy that the boy could barely carry it. And even as he grew, so did the terrible weight he was carrying, until at last it became so great that he was sure the rest of the world must see it. And so the man the boy had become grew up crooked and solitary. He pushed away his friends, in the fear that they might learn his secret. And as time passed, the secret grew from heavy to unbearable, and still the man chose to carry it, because it was all he had ever known.’
Face it,père, she had me there. No-one else has ever come close. I keep my eyes shut, and pretend to sleep, and follow the path of the needle over my arm, hoping to be able to tell what kind of design she has chosen.
‘This man,’ she goes on,’ was no plaster saint. Neither was he all bad. But he was a creature of absolutes, and he was unable to compromise. As long as he carried the secret, he thought, it would never be part of him, and no-one else would judge him for the terrible thing the boy had done.’
I open my eyes for a moment. I see myself, on the ceiling, with Morgane, in the mirror, surrounded by leaves, and speckled birds, and strawberries.
‘And then one day the man met a witch,’ says Morgane in her smiling voice. ‘The witch told the man that if he paid her in gold, she would change his terrible secret into a fruit, and that if he ate it, he would be free of his lifelong burden. And so the man paid the witch in gold, and ate the fruit she gave him. It tasted sour, and the man was suddenly afraid that it might have been poison. All night he was feverish; tossing and turning in his bed; and all night he went over the witch’s words, which now in his delirium, seemed increasingly sinister.
‘Well, if I am to die,’ said the man, ‘at least I can do so honestly.’ And he flung open his windows and doors, and from his bed of fever and pain he cried out his secret to the wind. And the sly wind carried it far and wide, so that everyone heard it. Some were shocked. Some, angry. But most of the people who heard it felt pity for the man who had spent his life alone with his secret. And they came to his bedside, one by one, bringing flowers, and food, and forgiveness.
‘The dying man closed his eyes, and slept. And when he awoke, his fever was gone, and so had his terrible burden. All that remained of his secret was a handful of seeds from the magical fruit. And so he planted the seeds, and watched to see what kind of a tree would grow. But when it did, he found that it was only an ordinary apple tree, with fruit that was hard, and a little sour, and only good for birds to eat. And the man began to realize that maybe – just maybe – the woman he’dthoughtwas a witch was merely a traveller passing through, with a handful of fruit to sell, and an original sales approach.’
What does that story even mean? Why did I not ask Morgane? Perhaps I was a little drunk last night, though this morning I remember it perfectly. My skin under the plastic sheet burns and itches like nettle rash. I look at the clock. Six thirty-five. I make a fresh pot of coffee. I drink far too much coffee,père: it interferes with my sleep. And yet I find it clears my head, at least as a temporary measure.
Another hour or so and it will be time to prepare for this morning’s Mass. I must be sober for that,père. Perhaps a walk, to clear my head. I choose the riverside path. It smells of rain and wild garlic. It must have been a big storm last night; the trees have been stripped of their blossom. It is still too early for smoke from the chimneys of the riverboats. I do not see Roux’s boat among the dozen or so that are moored by the bridge. I wonder if he has already moved on – and I am slightly alarmed by the surge of helpless relief that comes with the thought.
Then I see it, moored downstream. A shimmer of smoke from the chimney tells me that the man is awake. But I still have a Mass to perform, confessions to take, a flock to tend. I tell myself that I will speak to him this afternoon. I cannot help but look at this day as if it were my last day on earth – tomorrow, everything will change.
Reaching the Place Saint Jérôme, I see, without surprise, that the tattoo shop is closed. The shutters are drawn; even the sign has been taken down from over the door. Of course, her customers do not come early in the morning. Like myself, they prefer to come to her under cover of darkness. Perhaps I will see her after Mass – if only to demand the meaning of that story. But now I see a piece of paper taped to the door: a single sheet of stiff white paper, marked with two stark words in black—
TO LET.
