Шоколад / Chocolat - стр. 33

I told her I wasn’t sure who his friends were, but that most of the children came and went regularly.

“I might come here again,” decided Armande. “I like your chocolate, even if your chairs are terrible. I might even become a regular customer.”

“You’d be welcome,” I said.

Another pause. I understood that Armande Voizin does things in her own way, in her own time, refusing to be hurried or advised. I let her think it through.

“Here. Take this.”

The decision was made. Briskly she slapped a hundred-franc note down on the counter.

“But-”

“If you see him, buy him a box of whatever he likes. Don’t tell him they’re from me.”

I took the note.

“And don’t let his mother get to you. She’s at it already, more than likely, spreading her gossip and her condescension. My only child, and she had to turn into one of Reynaud’s Salvation Sisters.” Her eyes narrowed mischievously, working webby dimples into her round cheeks. “There are rumours already about you,” she said. “You know the kind. Getting involved with me will only make things worse…”

I laughed.

“I think I can manage.”

“I think you can.” She looked at me, suddenly intent, the teasing note gone from her voice. “There’s something about you,” she said in a soft voice. “Something familiar. I don’t suppose we’ve met before that time in Les Marauds, have we?”

Lisbon, Paris, Florence, Rome. So many people. So many lives intersected, fleetingly criss-crossed, brushed by the mad weft-warp of our itinerary. But I didn’t think so.

“And there’s a smell. Something like burning, the smell of a summer lightning-strike ten seconds after. A scent of midsummer storms and cornfields in the rain.” Her face was rapt, her eyes searching out mine. “It’s true, isn’t it? What I said? What you are?”

That word again.

She laughed delightedly and took my hand. Her skin was cool; foliage, not flesh. She turned my hand over to see the palm.

“I knew it!” Her finger traced lifeline, heartline. “I knew it the minute I saw you!” To herself, head bent, voice so low it was no more than a breath against my hand, “I knew it. I knew it. But I never thought to see you here; in this town.” A sharp, suspicious glance upwards. “Does Reynaud know?”

“I’m not sure.”

It was true; I had no idea what she was talking about. But I could smell it too; the scent of the changing winds, that air of revelation. A distant scent of fire and ozone. A squeal of gears left long unused, the infernal machine of synchronicity. Or maybe Josephine was right and Armande was crazy. After all, she could see Pantoufle.

“Don’t let Reynaud know,” she told me, her mad, earnest eyes gleaming. “You know who he is, don’t you?”

I stared at her. I must have imagined what she said then. Or maybe our dreams touched briefly once, on one of our nights on the run.

“He’s the Black Man. “

Reynaud. Like a bad card. Again and again. Laughter in the wings.

Long after I had put Anouk to bed I read my mother’s cards for the first time since her death. I keep them in a sandalwood box and they are mellow, perfumed with memories of her. For a moment I almost put them away unread, bewildered by the flood of associations that scent brings with it. New York, hotdog stands billowing steam. The Cafe de la Paix, with its immaculate waiters. A nun eating an ice-cream outside Notre-Dame cathedral. Onenight hotel rooms, surly doormen, suspicious gendarmes, curious tourists. And over it all the shadow of It, the nameless implacable thing we fled: