Page 63 of The Strawberry Thief
TO LET? Has she left without me? And why?
Is this why Maman called the wind?
I pressed my face against the glass to look through the slats in the blinds. The room was bare. NoStrawberry Thief; no mirrors; no chairs. Only some sheets of newspaper on the bare floorboards, and something in the corner—
I couldn’t quite see what it was because of reflections in the glass. But it looked like a box, a shoebox perhaps, left behind in the shadows. I tried to look closer, but there was no way to escape those reflections. And then I thought I saw something move, something inside the darkened room, and I felt a sudden leap of hope. Was she still there? Was she hiding from me?
I ran back to the door and knocked. I knocked as hard as I could, but no-one came to answer. So then I tried the door again, and whispered in my shadow-voice:
‘Open up. I want to come in.’
And at that the door swung open, even though I knew it was locked, and there came the ringing of a bell that wasn’t hanging there any more …
3
Friday, March 31
Knowledge is a burden, Reynaud. It weighs as heavily as guilt. I suppose you must know that already, taking confessions as you do; absolving others of their sin while holding yours as close as a child. And like a child it grows, just as mine grew to fill my entire life. I never told anyone, you know. Not my wife, nor my family. My wife Eloise was a good soul, but she wouldn’t have understood. As for Michèle and her husband – well. Need I say more? Of course it’s my fault. I let poor Eloise spoil her. Michèle was all the love she had, and what should have helped her blossom and thrive made her mean and stunted instead. I blame myself. I was distant. I knew it even then, and yet we cannot stop ourselves from repeating the patterns of childhood. A strawberry, planted in different soil, will still grow into a strawberry. We may wish for peaches, or gages, or pears. But our nature is predetermined. That’s why I wrote this for you, Reynaud. Because, in spite of our differences, we have at least this much in common. Both of us are damaged. But you at least will never have children.
When my father had finished his tale, we carried Tante Anna’s body outside. We used the wheelbarrow to take her down the path to the copse of trees that stood to one side of the strawberry field. We didn’t discuss it, but neither of us wanted her body next to the house. Then we dropped her into the well – an old well that ran nice and deep, right down to the seam of clay. We didn’t say anything as we worked. We didn’t even say a prayer. Then we covered over the well with its wooden lid, and went to bed, and I slept like an animal, dreamless, until my father awoke me at ten o’clock, with news that the priest was on his way.
For a moment, panic clawed at me. But my father simply smiled and said:
‘I thought of a story.’
Even after my long walk, I could not eat breakfast this morning. Nor could I concentrate on Mass. I mouthed the old familiar words without a thought to their meaning, feeling nothing but the itch of Morgane’s needle on my skin, and the greater itch that came with the terrible news of Roux’s parentage.
Confession was worse. I wanted to scream with impatience as time after time my people came to confess their little sins – of pride, of rage, of gluttony. I wanted to confess tothem–I was the one! I lit the fire that killed two people in Les Marauds!And at the same time I wanted to laugh, to weep, to tear my hair – and yet I forced myself to sit in silence behind the confessional screen, itching and stinging and burning. Narcisse’s green file sat next to me. More unfinished business. Six more pages of script remain. Then I will be free of him.
For a last day on Earth,mon père,it could have been more inspiring. There should have been something more than this round of daily chores and duties. I wanted there to bemeaning. I am facing the unthinkable. But everyone else is still the same: Caro Clairmont and Joline Drou, watching each other over the pews; Guillaume Duplessis on his morning walk, for the first time without his dead dog’s lead. Over at Poitou’s bakery, there is a line of people. In Les Marauds, there will be the smell of frying spices and chai; the sound of children’s voices at play. If I died today, how soon would I be forgotten? And who would mourn a man like me – a hypocrite, a murderer?
I must see Roux today, I know. It is my duty to confess, and yet, like a child, I keep putting it off. Like the remaining pages of Narcisse’s confession, it feels like a foreign border, beyond which lies nothing but chaos. I dropped into thechocolaterie– hoping perhaps that Vianne might have some miracle cure for my trouble – and found her in excellent spirits, arranging flowers in a vase, and singing softly to herself.
She smiled at me as I came in with the green file under my arm. ‘I’ve just made some hot chocolate,’ she said. ‘Can I tempt you?’
I wanted to say yes. But my stomach was filled with barbed wire, and my head was pounding.
‘Yes, I know. It’s Lent,’ said Vianne. ‘But sometimes you really have to allow yourself a little indulgence.’ She nodded towards the tattoo shop. ‘I hear our friend moved out last night.’
I nodded. ‘So it would seem.’
She placed the vase on a table. ‘Perhaps she couldn’t afford the rent. Or maybe she realized she just didn’t fit. Either way, it’s for the best. The village can go back to normal now.’ She paused and looked at me. ‘I thought I saw you leaving her place. Quite late, around midnight. Did she say anything to you?’
I shook my head. The design on my arm felt luminous, as if she should be able to see it through my sleeve and the plastic patch. I did not say what I had been doing at midnight at the tattoo shop, but I sensed her curiosity, and behind it, her concern. It was that – her concern for me – that I found unbearable. I wished I could confide in her. I wished more than anything in the world that I could sit at a table, and drink a cup of hot chocolate, and tell her all my troubles. But when she knows my secret,père, she too will turn from me in disgust. How could she not? How could anyone? And so I said nothing, and tried to smile, and left with a sense of quiet despair and went in search of Joséphine. I know. She and Roux are old friends. I cannot expect absolution from her. And yet I wanted to see her. One more time, before the news of what I did was all over town. One last moment of peace, before everything changes.
But when I arrived at the Café des Marauds, I found only Marie-Ange in charge. Joséphine had gone out, she said. She had not said when she would be back. No last moment, then. No reprieve. My duty was inescapable. I had to find Roux, and confess to him. After that – by tomorrow all this will belong to a world in which I am not. I wonder, did Narcisse ever think:What will things be like when I am gone? Did it trouble him at all? Or was he glad to be rid of the weight of his lifelong burden?
Turning towards Les Marauds, I became aware that I was still carrying Narcisse’s folder. Six closely written pages remained. Ten minutes more would finish it. Story told, confession done. At last, I will be free of him.
4
Friday, March 31
It was dark inside the shop. BAM! Of course, I thought: the blinds are down. It smelt very faintly of incense, and the damp smell of an empty house. It was a smell that made me think that no-one had been there for a long time.
In the corner I could see Bam, looking small and faded. And there was the box, with its cardboard lid, left by the door like a present. Written in capitals on the lid was just one word:ROSETTE. I opened it. And inside there was a bundle of tattooist’s practice sheets, and Morgane’s tattoo pen, and an ink cup, and a power pack, and a bottle of tattoo ink in a kind of charcoal grey. There was no note, no message. Just the tattoo kit, the ink, the cup and the pile of practice sheets.
I thought of my dream, and the dream-Morgane telling me to cut off my feet. It wasn’t really a scary dream, even though it might have been. It must have been a message, I thought; and I took the contents of the box and put them in my satchel, and quietly left the empty shop and took the riverside path to my wood. I wanted to think, and that’s the place where I can think best, surrounded by trees, and quiet, with my wishing-well and only the birds for company.
