Шоколад / Chocolat

We’ve got croissants too, but the pain au chocolat is better.”

He shook his head.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Thanks.”

I put one of the pastries on a plate and set it beside him.

“On the house,” I told him. “Try one, I make them myself.”

Somehow it was the wrong thing to say. I saw his face close again, the flicker of humour replaced by the now familiar look of careful blankness.

“I can pay,” he said with a kind of defiance. “I’ve got money.”

He struggled to pull out a handful of coins from his overall pocket.

Coins rolled across the counter.

“Put that away,” I told him.

“I told you, I can pay.” Stubborn now, igniting into rage. “I don’t need – ”

I put my hand on his. I felt resistance for a moment, then his eyes met mine.

“Nobody needs to do anything,” I said gently. I realized I had hurt his pride with my show of friendship. “I invited you.” The look of hostility remained unchanged. “I did the same with everyone else,” I persisted. “Caro Clairmont. Guillaume Duplessis.

Even Paul-Marie Muscat, the man who ran you out of the cafe.” A second’s pause for him to register that. “What makes you so special, that you can refuse when none of them did?”

He looked ashamed then, mumbling something under his breath in his thick dialect. Then his eyes met mine again and he smiled.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t understand.” He paused awkwardly for a few moments before picking up the pastry. “But next time you’re the ones invited to my place,” he said firmly.

“And I shall be most offended if you refuse.”

He was all right after that, losing much of his constraint. We talked of neutral topics for a while, but soon progressed to other things. I learned that Roux had been on the river for six years, alone at first then travelling with a group of companions. He had been a builder once, and still earned money doing repair jobs and harvesting crops in summer and autumn. I gathered that there had been problems which forced him into the itinerant life, but knew better than to press for details.

He left immediately as soon as the first of my regulars arrived. Guillaume greeted him politely and Narcisse gave his brief nod of welcome, but I could not persuade Roux to stay to talk with them. Instead he crammed what remained of his pain au chocolat into his mouth and walked out of the shop with that look of insolence and aloofness he feels he has to affect with strangers.

As he reached the door he turned abruptly.