Шоколад / Chocolat

He was good-humoured, filling and refilling the mugs with wine and cider, touchingly pleased to be the host. He flirted with Armande, paying her extravagant compliments, making her caw with laughter. He taught Anouk how to skim flat stones across the water. Finally he showed us his boat, carefully maintained and clean, the tiny kitchen, the storage hold with its water tank and food stores, the sleeping area with its plexiglass roof.

“It was nothing but a wreck when I bought it,” he told us. “I fixed it up so that now it’s as good as any house on land.

” His smile was a little rueful, like that of a man confessing to a childish pastime. “All that work, just so I can lie on my bed at night and listen to the water and watch the stars.”

Anouk was exuberant in her approval.

“I like it,” she declared. “I like it a lot! And it isn’t a mid – mid – whatever Jeannot’s mother says it is.”

“A midden,” suggested Roux gently.

I looked at him quickly, but he was laughing.

“No, we’re not as bad as some people think we are.

”

“We don’t think you’re bad at all!” Anouk was indignant.

Roux shrugged.

Later there was music, a flute and a fiddle and some drums improvised from cans and dustbins. Anouk joined in with her toy trumpet, and the children danced so wildly and so close to the river bank that they had to be sent away to a safe distance. It was well past eleven when we finally left, Anouk drooping with fatigue but protesting fiercely.

“It’s OK,” Roux told her.

“You can come back any time you like.”

I thanked him as I picked up Anouk in my arms.

“You’re welcome.”

For a second his smile faltered as he looked beyond me to the top of the hill. A faint crease appeared between his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure. Probably nothing.”

There are few streetlights in Les Marauds. The only illumination comes from a single yellow lantern outside the Cafe de la Republique, shining greasily on the narrow causeway. Beyond that is the Avenue des Francs Bourgeois, broadening to a well-lit avenue of trees.

He watched for a moment longer, eyes narrowed.

“I just thought I saw someone coming down the hill, that’s all. Must have been a trick of the light. There’s no one there now.”

I carried Anouk up the hill. Behind us, soft calliope music from the floating carnival. On the jetty Zezette was dancing, outlined against the dying fire, her frenzied shadow leaping below her.