Шоколад / Chocolat

On this occasion his adolescent’s dislike of contact is still too strong. He lifts a hand in a shy gesture of farewell, then is gone.

Armande turns towards me, flushed with triumph. For a second her face is naked in its love, hope, pride. Then the reserve which she shares with her grandson returns, a look of enforced casualness, a gruff note in her voice as she says,

“I enjoyed that, Vianne. Perhaps I’ll come again.” Then she gives me one of her direct looks, reaching out a hand to touch my arm.

I shrugged.

“It would have happened at some time or another,” I said. “Luc isn’t a child any more. He has to learn to do things his own way.”

Armande shook her head. “No, it’s you,” she told me stubbornly. She was close enough for me to smell her lily-of-the-valley perfume. “The wind’s changed since you’ve been here. I can still feel it. Everyone feels it. Everything’s on the move.

She gave a little crow of amusement.

“But I’m not doing anything,” I protested, half-laughing with her. “I’m just minding my own business. Running my shop. Being me.”

In spite of my own laughter I felt uneasy.

“It doesn’t matter,” replied Armande. “It’s still you that’s doing it. Look at all the changes; me, Luc, Caro, the folks out on the river”– she jerked her head sharply in the direction, of Les Marauds – “even him in his ivory tower across the square.

It was too close to my own thoughts of the week before. I shook my head emphatically.

“That isn’t me,” I protested. “It’s him. Reynaud. Not me.”

A sudden image at the back of my mind, like the turn of a card. The Black Man in his clock tower, turning the machinery faster and faster, ringing the changes, ringing the alarum, ringing us out of town… And with that unsettling image came one of an old man on a bed, tubes in his nose and arms, and the Black Man standing over him in grief or triumph, while at his back, fire burned.

“Is it his father?” I said the first words which came into my head. “I mean – the old man he visits. In the hospital. Who is it?”

Armande gave me a sharp look of surprise.

“How do you know about that?”

“Sometimes I have – feelings – about people.