Page 9 of The Strawberry Thief
Neither can I,mon père. My boyhood smells too much of smoke. I looked across at Jean-Philippe Bonnet, and for a moment wished that my guilt was over something as harmless as having outgrown a childhood friend.
‘Rosette will make other friends,’ I said.
‘I hope so, Francis,’ said Joséphine.
‘And so will you,’ I said, clumsily trying for comfort. ‘You’re an attractive woman. I admire your devotion to your son, but if you wanted to marry again – I mean, it would only be natural.’
She gave me an oddly reproachful look, and I remembered the woman she’d been, long ago, before Vianne Rocher blew into town. That woman had hated me – partly for my failure to curb her husband’s violence, and also perhaps because I was, in many ways, a hateful man. One of the unexpected joys of the past few years has been the growing friendship we have shared; but sometimes she still makes me feel as if it is all an illusion, and that if only she knew what Ireallywas, she would recoil in loathing.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I’ve had more than enough of marriage. Paul cured me of that long ago.’ She spoke with no bitterness, but with quiet finality.
I said: ‘This birthday cake is good.’
‘Let me bring you another piece.’
Forgive me,mon père. But Joséphine makes it easy for me to forget that I am a priest. It is a dangerous talent she has, and one that I should view with mistrust. To be honest, I forgot to ask about the Montours, too. She is so warm, so welcoming. She lights up the room like a fire in the hearth. And what harm is there, after all, to sit awhile in the firelight, feeling the warmth of her presence and taking comfort in her words?
9
Thursday, March 16
Poor Rosette. I know how she feels. I’ve felt it so many times myself. The loss of a friend is hard to bear, which is why I’ve always tried so hard to stay aloof and not to be drawn too deeply into the lives of those around me. I have not always succeeded in this. I have lost too many friends. And she will, too, if she persists in expecting too much of their friendship.
I wish I could say something wise; something that would comfort her. ‘Boys are stupid,’ is hardly enough. Nor is chocolate, of course, though that is the only magic I have. She looks at the cup I have brought her, but does not drink. Instead, she stands and goes outside, face as dark as chocolate.
I call her. ‘Rosette! Don’t go far!’
She does not reply, but crosses the square, her red coat flapping in the wind. Where has she gone, my winter child, so silent and so self-possessed? I suspect she has gone to her wood.Her wood. It sounds so strange. I have never owned land, or a house, or even a pair of scissors. My professional equipment is all on loan, delivered by a firm in Marseille; the same that supplies my raw chocolate. My wooden spoons belonged to Armande; as did my copper jam-making pan. They are old and well-worn; I can feel the age in them. It is she whose hands shaped and smoothed the grip of the small utensils I use; most of them handmade by someone long dead, and scarred with the many marks of time.
I too am scarred by many marks. The thought of this reassures me. I am like the wooden spoon; the chopping-board; the table. Life has taken me and made of me something different. But what haveIchanged? What have I done to make those around me different?
It is a thought that has come to me more and more over the years. When I was young I still believed that I could make a difference. That I could change lives with nothing but kindness, and comfort, and chocolate. Now I am not so sure of this. I look at the people around me, and wonder whether, instead of helping them, I have done more harm than good. Joséphine is free of her husband, yet in spite of all of her plans she has never left Lansquenet. Guillaume is mourning the loss of the dog that replaced his old friend Charly. The Mahjoubis and the Bencharkis are still living under a shadow. And Armande – over sixteen years in her grave, and still I feel the loss of her as deeply as the loss of a limb.Shechangedme. But what did I do for her, except hasten her death?
When I was young, I believed that I could pass through the world like the wind through the grass, barely touching, never touched, scattering my seeds to the sky.When I was young. Of course I’m not old. But by the time she reached my age, my mother was already carrying the seeds of the cancer that killed her. She never knew Anouk or Rosette. She was dead by the time she was fifty.
Fifty used to sound very old. Fifty was half a century. But now it feels alarmingly close. I have closed the shutters on the morning side of the house, and opened those on the other side to watch the shadows lengthen. The shadows are still whisper-thin, and yet I can see them growing as fast as dandelions in the spring. They cannot be stopped: their seeds will be everywhere by dinnertime. My mother said you can never die as long there’s someone who needs you. If so, as long as I have Rosette, I could live forever.
I wonder what her wood is like. I have never been there – it would have been an intrusion. I’m happy for her that she has it, I think; and yet it makes me uneasy, too. What will Rosette do with a wood?
I took out my mother’s Tarot pack last night, for the first time in months. The cards are so familiar now that I scarcely need to look.Death. The Fool. The Tower. Change.They tell me nothing I do not know. They tell me nothing about Rosette.
Maybe Narcisse left the wood to her to ensure that we stay in Lansquenet. Narcisse always liked Roux, and Roux has always stayed here against his inclination. Roux does not trust Lansquenet. Even after all this time, he prefers to live on his boat, away from the community. Sometimes he spends the night at the shop; but most of the time he leaves early, before even Rosette is awake; sleeping alone under the stars with the sounds of the river around him.
If I am to be honest, maybe I prefer it this way. Roux is uncomfortable indoors, restless as Rosette herself. If she were not here, I think he would have moved on with the river by now; moved on like the flotsam carried down the swollen Tannes. If she were not here, perhaps I too would have moved on down the river, where the wind always blows and nothing stays forever.
The florist’s on the square has been let. TheTO LETsign taken down, and since yesterday I see that someone has repainted the door. Once it was a sensible green: now it is bright purple – a colour that Anouk adores, but that, in Lansquenet, seems out of place: too garish, too impractical.
Who did the work? It surprises me that I did not notice. But so far, I have not seen anyone coming or going from the shop. There is no sign yet of who will be the florist’s new manager. It may of course not be a florist’s at all: that purple door suggests something else – a gift shop selling knick-knacks, perhaps, souvenirs for the tourists. A new shop in a village like ours always attracts attention. People are curious; they try to peer in through the papered window. But there is nothing to see as yet: no delivery van, no sign of human habitation. It could almost be me in there, the Vianne of seventeen years ago, with Anouk and her toy trumpet frightening away the ghosts. That Vianne would not have been slow to greet the newcomer, whoever they were. That Vianne would have invited them for hot chocolate, on the house. But I am more careful. I have learned. I am a different person now.
It makes me uncomfortable somehow, thinking of that other Vianne. Would she recognize herself, I wonder, if she saw me now? And what about the hole in my heart? That Anouk-shaped hole, through which the wind blows ever more insistently?
She’s coming here for Easter, she says. She sent me a message this morning.
Thought we’d come over for Easter. Maybe stay for a few days. Would that be OK? Not sure what time I can get off work. I’ll tell you when I know. Love, A. xxx
Of course it’s okay. Does she have to ask? And yet I feel uneasy. Thatwe– she means herself and Jean-Loup – makes her visit more formal than if she were dropping by on her own. And she sayscome over, notcome home. One word makes a world of difference.A few days. How long does she mean? A long weekend? A week? No more. Anouk’s visits are always brief, because of her job – because of Jean-Loup. And I know that Paris is good for her – that she has a world to explore – but we were always so close, she and I. It never occurred to me that she might want to explore without me.
The other Vianne would have laughed at the thought that Anouk might want to leave Lansquenet. But that other Vianne was naïve: as yet unmarked by time and events. She allowed herself to believe that maybe things could stay the same: that maybe change was avoidable. Now I begin to wonder if that other Vianne was me at all, or whether I have always been something more akin to the dark reflection of myself that I encountered in Paris: Zozie de l’Alba, the eater of lives, still alive in my memory. Where is she now?Whois she now? And why do I feel, after all this time, that she may still be inside me?
