Page 75 of The Strawberry Thief
All Fools
1
Saturday, April 1
All Fools’ Day, and thechocolaterieis filled with comings and goings. My chocolate fish are bestsellers today, each with its hand-painted sibling, lovingly designed by Rosette, which, according to All Fool’s Day tradition, must be furtively pinned onto the unsuspecting back of a friend, to be worn all day, unless someone kindly points it out. I have already seen my paper fish on the backs of children in the square, as well as on some of their relatives, including old Mahjoubi, whose pretended ignorance of the joke sent his granddaughter Maya into an ecstasy of giggling.
Today my customers are filled with questions and curiosity. The Montours are leaving, I hear; apparently they have already found a buyer for the farmhouse. Yannick Montour told me as he came in to buy his chocolate fish. And Monsieur le Curé was actually heardlaughing aloudin church today – a sound hitherto unknown among the people of Lansquenet.
Joline Drou – who always sits in the pew at the front – thought she saw something on his arm through the half-open vestry door.Something like a tattoo, she says, in the breathy tone of voice she adopts when speaking of something scandalous.
‘Not Monsieur le Curé!’ says Caro, who has been sporting a paper fish, pinned to the back of her jacket since Mass. I suspect that the trickster is Joline herself, or maybe Pilou, or even Roux, who has been in the tattoo shop all morning, helping Rosette move her things in.
Yes, she is a little young. And yet she is not moving far. But a tattooist needs space to work, and the rent is quite affordable. Anouk is strangely unsurprised: she says she always knew Rosette was not made to work with chocolate. ‘She’s too volatile,’ she says. ‘She doesn’t have the discipline.’
I had to laugh at that. That Anouk, barely twenty-one, newly married and about to fly across the world, should know more than I do about it – and yet, there is a wisdom in them both, and a fearless determination.
I had that once. Today I think that maybe I could find it again, like something I thought lost forever, brought back with the rising tide.Everything returns.
‘Do you want some help?’ said Anouk, watching me bring out the big glass jars of raisins and cherries and sprinkles and nuts to decorate themendiants.
I smiled. ‘Of course. My favourites.’
It has been a long time since Anouk wanted to help me make chocolates. Now she does, as a child might play with her favourite toys for one last time before putting them aside for ever. Almonds, candied lemon peel, fat black cherries, green cardamom, and a sprinkle of edible gold to highlight the rich dark chocolate. Once sold by travellers door-to-door, these are kings and queens of the road, gilded, glossy and glorious.
‘I made mine into faces,’ she said.
I smiled at her. ‘You always did.’
Death. The Fool. The Tower. Change.This time,Ihave been the fool. I have feared the wind for so long; I have hidden away from the truth. Now it feels as if the sky has cleared after a storm. The roof of my house has been torn away, and yet the sun is shining. My children have grown up at last, and now instead of loss, I feel a strange kind ofpotential.
Anything could happen, Vianne, says my mother’s voice in my mind.Death. The Fool. The Tower. Change.The wheel keeps turning, turning until everything comes round again.From across the square, I could see the door of the shop. It was open. There was someone at the door, carefully stripping away the purple paint with a blowtorch and a palette knife. His face was turned away from me, but I would know him anywhere: the tattooed spirals on his arms; the red hair tied back in a knot.
Roux tells me that Rosette prefers to choose her own decoration. Yellow, maybe pink, she says. Roux has promised to stay and help. I deliberately did not askhowlong he was staying. Maybe a week. Maybe a year. As Anouk would probably say, now is all that matters.
‘You look different,’ said Anouk.
‘Different?’
‘It suits you.’
Rosette’s design is a simple one, drawn on the inside of my wrist. A strawberry runner, the little trefoil no larger than a clover leaf, flanked with a tiny wild strawberry and a five-petaled flower. It still feels a little sensitive, but, as Anouk would probably tell me, that means I am still alive.
I know a story about a woman who knew what people needed. Her gift was to look into their hearts and find the thing that was missing. And yet, when it came to her own heart, the woman was strangely powerless. And every time she used her gift, she felt a piece of herself disappear, and it made her sad and frightened. And she clung to the pieces of her heart like handfuls of leaves against the wind, but the more she clung, the more the wind would scream and blow and threaten.
And then, one day a stranger came to this woman’s village. A stranger like herself, with a gift for finding out peoples’ secrets, for teasing out their deep desires and most hidden terrors. The stranger was fearless, elusive, and strong, and the use of her gifts, far from weakening her, only made her stronger.
This made the woman uneasy, and she tried to confront the stranger. But for everything she tried to do, the stranger seemed to surpass her, until at last she called the wind, commanding it to do its worst. All night long, the wind screamed and blew. And when it was done, the stranger had gone, blown away into the dark.
And yet the woman was still afraid. Although the stranger had gone, her voice, the sound of her footsteps, the scent of her remained, as if somehow sheherselfhad been displaced, and the wind had found its way into the spaces inside her, and blown the heart of her clean away.
But little by little, the voice of the wind started to talk to the woman. It told her everything returns, that if you set free what you love it comes back like the turning tide. And finally she understood that she had only been fighting herself. There was no mysterious stranger, no shadowy adversary.Hershad been the voice of the wind: raging, scolding, hectoring. And now that it was calm again, she understood that she was free. Free to go or to stay as she chose: free to use her gifts as she chose; free to love without fear of loss.
I put my arms around Anouk and gave her a kiss.
‘Good work,’ I said. ‘Now how about a cup of chocolate, to celebrate?’
She nodded. ‘Let me make it.’
