bear; the smell of hot fat from the rotisserie in the Place des Beaux-Arts a shaft from hell. I myself have touched neither meat nor fish nor eggs for over a week, subsisting on bread, soups, salads and a single glass of wine on Sunday, and I am cleansed, pere, cleansed. I only wish I could do more. This is not suffering. This is not penance. I sometimes feel that if I could only show them the right example, if it could be me on that cross bleeding, suffering…That witch Voizin mocks me as she goes by with her basket of groceries. Alone in that family of good churchgoers she scorns the Church, grinning at me as she hobbles past, her straw hat tied around her head with a red scarf and her stick rapping the flags at her feet. I bear with her only because of her age, mon pere, and the pleas of her family. Stubbornly denying treatment, denying comfort; she thinks she’ll live for ever. But she’ll break one day. They always do. And I’ll give her absolution in all humility; I’ll grieve in spite of her many aberrations, her pride and her defiance. I’ll have her in the end, mon pere. In the end, won’t I have them all?
ELEVEN
Thursday, February 20
I WAS WAITING FOR HER. TARTAN COAT, HAIR SCRAPED back in an unflattering style, hands deft and nervous as a gunslinger’s. Josephine Muscat, the lady from the carnival. She waited until my regulars — Guillaume, Georges and Narcisse — had left before she came in, hands thrust deeply into her pockets.
“Hot chocolate, please.”
She sat down uncomfortably at the counter, speaking down into the empty glasses I had not yet had time to clear.
“Of course.”
I did not ask her how she liked her drink but brought it to her with chocolate curls and Chantilly, decorated with two coffee creams at the side. For a moment she looked at the glass with narrowed eyes, then touched it tentatively.
“The other day,” she said, with forced casualness. “I forgot to pay for something.”
She has long fingers, oddly delicate in spite of the calluses on the fingertips. In repose her face seems to lose some of its dismayed expression, becoming almost attractive. Her hair is a soft brown, her eyes golden. “I’m sorry.”
She threw the ten-franc piece onto the counter with a kind of defiance.
“That’s OK.”
I made my voice casual, disinterested. “It happens all the time.”
Josephine looked at me for a second, suspiciously, then sensing no malice, relaxed a little. “This is good.” Sipping the chocolate. “Really good.”
“I make it myself,” I explained. “From the chocolate liquor before the fat is added to make it solidify. This is exactly how the Aztecs drank chocolate, centuries ago.”
She shot me another quick, suspicious glance.
“Thank you for the present,” she said at last. “Chocolate almonds. My favourite.”
Then, quickly, the words rushing out of her in desperate, ungainly haste, “I never took it on purpose. They’ll have spoken about me, I know. But I don’t steal. It’s them”— contemptuous now, her mouth turned down in rage and self-hatred — “the Clairmont bitch and her cronies. Liars.”
She looked at me again, almost defiantly. “I heard you don’t go to church.”
Her voice was brittle, too loud for the small room and the two of us.
I smiled. “That’s right. I don’t.”
“You won’t last long here if you don’t,” said Josephine in the same high, glassy voice. “They’ll have you out of here the way they do everyone they don’t approve of. You’ll see. All this”— a vague, jerking gesture at the shelves, the boxes, the display window with its pieces montees — “none of this will help you. I’ve heard them talking. I’ve heard the things
ELEVEN
Thursday, February 20
I WAS WAITING FOR HER. TARTAN COAT, HAIR SCRAPED back in an unflattering style, hands deft and nervous as a gunslinger’s. Josephine Muscat, the lady from the carnival. She waited until my regulars — Guillaume, Georges and Narcisse — had left before she came in, hands thrust deeply into her pockets.
“Hot chocolate, please.”
She sat down uncomfortably at the counter, speaking down into the empty glasses I had not yet had time to clear.
“Of course.”
I did not ask her how she liked her drink but brought it to her with chocolate curls and Chantilly, decorated with two coffee creams at the side. For a moment she looked at the glass with narrowed eyes, then touched it tentatively.
“The other day,” she said, with forced casualness. “I forgot to pay for something.”
She has long fingers, oddly delicate in spite of the calluses on the fingertips. In repose her face seems to lose some of its dismayed expression, becoming almost attractive. Her hair is a soft brown, her eyes golden. “I’m sorry.”
She threw the ten-franc piece onto the counter with a kind of defiance.
“That’s OK.”
I made my voice casual, disinterested. “It happens all the time.”
Josephine looked at me for a second, suspiciously, then sensing no malice, relaxed a little. “This is good.” Sipping the chocolate. “Really good.”
“I make it myself,” I explained. “From the chocolate liquor before the fat is added to make it solidify. This is exactly how the Aztecs drank chocolate, centuries ago.”
She shot me another quick, suspicious glance.
“Thank you for the present,” she said at last. “Chocolate almonds. My favourite.”
Then, quickly, the words rushing out of her in desperate, ungainly haste, “I never took it on purpose. They’ll have spoken about me, I know. But I don’t steal. It’s them”— contemptuous now, her mouth turned down in rage and self-hatred — “the Clairmont bitch and her cronies. Liars.”
She looked at me again, almost defiantly. “I heard you don’t go to church.”
Her voice was brittle, too loud for the small room and the two of us.
I smiled. “That’s right. I don’t.”
“You won’t last long here if you don’t,” said Josephine in the same high, glassy voice. “They’ll have you out of here the way they do everyone they don’t approve of. You’ll see. All this”— a vague, jerking gesture at the shelves, the boxes, the display window with its pieces montees — “none of this will help you. I’ve heard them talking. I’ve heard the things
Similar Books
