Шоколад / Chocolat

”

I remembered him vaguely; a colourless boy, too correct in his pressed flannel trousers and tweed jacket, cool green-grey eyes beneath a lank fringe. I nodded.

“I’ve made him the beneficiary of my will,” Armande told me. “Half a million francs. In trust until his eighteenth birthday.” She shrugged. “I never see him,” she added shortly. “Caro won’t allow it.”

I’ve seen them together. I remember now; the boy supporting his mother’s arm as they passed on their way to church. Alone of all Lansquenet’s children, he has never bought chocolates from La Praline, though I think I may have seen him looking in at the window once or twice.

“The last time he came to see me was when he was ten.” Armande’s voice was unusually flat. “A hundred years ago, as far as he’s concerned.” She finished her chocolate and put the glass back onto the counter with a sharp final sound. “It was his birthday, as I recall. I gave him a book of Rimbaud’s poetry. He was very – polite.” There was bitterness in her tone.

“Why don’t you call?” I asked curiously. “Take him out, talk, get to know him?”

Armande shook her head.

“We fell out, Caro and I…” Her voice was suddenly querulous. The illusion of youth had left with her smile, and she looked suddenly, shockingly old. “She’s ashamed of me. God knows what she’s been telling the boy.” She shook her head. “No. It’s too late. I can tell by the look on his face – that polite look – the polite meaningless little messages in his Christmas cards.

“Such a polite, well-mannered boy.” She turned to me and gave me a bright, brave smile. “If I could know what he was doing,” she said. “Know what he reads, what teams he supports, who his friends are, how well he does at school. If I could know that-”

“If?”

“I could pretend to myself-”

For a second I saw her close to tears. Then a pause, an effort, a gathering of the will.

“Do you know, I think I might manage another of those chocolate specials of yours. How about another?” It was bravado, but I admired it more than I could say. That she can still play the rebel through her misery, the suspicion of a swagger in her movements as she props her elbows on the bar, slurping. “ Sodom and Gomorrah through a straw. Mmmm. I think I just died and went to heaven. Close as I’m going to get, anyway.