Шоколад / Chocolat

“We got a busy schedule,” chirped the girl pertly.

I smiled. “Find a window,” I suggested.

Again that measuring, suspicious look.

“Maybe.”

I watched them go down into Les Marauds as Anouk came running up the hill towards me, the tails of her red raincoat flapping like the wings of an exotic bird.

“Maman, Maman! Look, the boats!”

We admired them for a while, the flat barges, the tall houseboats with the corrugated roofs, the stovepipe chimneys, the frescoes, the multicoloured flags, slogans, painted devices to ward against accident and shipwreck, the small barques, fishing lines, pots for crayfish hoisted up against.

the tidemark for the night, tattered umbrellas sheltering decks, the beginnings of campfires in steel drums on the riverside. There was a smell of burning wood and petrol and frying fish, a distant sound of music from across the water as a saxophone began its eerily human melodious wail. Halfway across the Tannes I could just make out the figure of a redheaded man standing alone on the deck of a plain black houseboat. As I watched he lifted his arm. I waved back.

It was almost dark when we made our way home. Back in Les Marauds a drummer had joined the saxophone, and the sounds of his drumming slapped flatly off the water. I passed the Cafe de la Republique without looking in.

I had barely reached the top of the hill when I felt a presence at my elbow. I turned and saw Josephine Muscat, coatless now but with a scarf around her head and half covering her face.

In the semi-darkness she looked pallid, nocturnal.

“Run home, Anouk. Wait for me there.”

Anouk gave me a curious glance, then turned and ran off obediently up the hill, her coat-tails flapping wildly.

“I heard what you did.” Josephine’s voice was hoarse and soft. “You walked out because of that business with the river people.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“Paul-Marie was furious.” The stern note in her voice was almost admiration. “You should have heard the things he was saying.

”

I laughed.

“Fortunately I don’t have to listen to anything Paul-Marie has to say,” I told her blandly.

“Now I’m not supposed to talk to you any more,” she went on. “He thinks you’re a bad influence.” A pause, as she looked at me with nervous curiosity. “He doesn’t want me to have friends,” she added.

“Seems to me I’m hearing rather too much about what Paul-Marie wants,” I said mildly. “I’m not really all that interested in him.