Шоколад / Chocolat

”

For a second she faces me out, her face set stubbornly. Glamours swim between us like golden smoke. It would be so easy, she tells me with her eyes, so easy, like invisible fingers stroking, inaudible voices coaxing the people in…

“We can’t. We shouldn’t.” I try to explain to her.

It sets us apart. It makes us different. If we are to stay we must be as like them as possible. Pantoufle looks up at me in appeal, a whiskery blur against the golden shadows. Deliberately I close my eyes against him, and when I open them again, he is gone.

“It’s all right,” I tell Anouk firmly. “We’ll be all right. We can wait.”

And finally, at twelve-thirty, someone comes.

Anouk saw him first -

“Maman!” but I was on my feet at once. It was Reynaud, one hand shielding his face from the dripping canvas of the awning, the other hesitating at the door handle. His pale face was serene, but there was something in his eyes… a furtive satisfaction. I somehow understood he was not a customer. The bell tangled as he entered, but he did not walk up to the counter.

Instead he remained in the doorway, the wind blowing the folds of his soutane into the shop like the wings of a black bird.

“Monsieur.” I saw him eye the red ribbons with mistrust. “Can I help you? I’m sure I know your favourites.”

I lapsed into my sales banter automatically, but it is untrue. I have no idea of this man’s tastes. He is a complete blank to me, a man-shaped darkness cut into the air. I feel no point of contact with him, and my smile broke on him like a wave on a rock.

Reynaud gave me a narrow look of contempt.

“I doubt that.”

His voice was low and pleasant, but I sensed dislike behind the professional tones. I recalled Armande Voizin’s words – I hear our M’sieur le Cure already has it in for you. Why? An instinctive mistrust of unbelievers? Or can there be more? Beneath the counter I forked my fingers at him in secret.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be open today.”

He is more sure of himself now he thinks he knows us.

His small, tight smile is like an oyster, milky-white at the edges and sharp as a razor.

“On a Sunday, you mean?”

I was at my most innocent.

“I thought I might catch the rush at the end of Mass:”

The tiny gibe failed to sting him.

“On the first Sunday of Lent?”

He sounded amused, but beneath the amusement, there was disdain. “I shouldn’t think so. Lansquenet folk are simple folk, Madame Rocher,” he told me.