Шоколад / Chocolat

With an effort she recovers, and the glimpse of fear I thought I saw in her is swallowed by her composure.

“I’m sure there’s room here for both of us,” she says evenly. “Are you sure you don’t want a drink of chocolate? I could explain what I – ”

I shake my head furiously, like a dog tormented by wasps. Her very calm infuriates me, and I can hear a kind of buzzing in my head, an unsteadiness which sends the room spinning about me. The creamy smell of chocolate is maddening. For a moment my senses are unnaturally enhanced; I can smell her perfume, a caress of lavender, the warm spicy scent of her skin.

Beyond her, a whiff of the marshes, a musky tang of engine-oil and sweat and paint from her redhaired friend.

“I – no – I…” Nightmarishly, I have forgotten what I intended to say. Something about respect, I think, about the community. About pulling together in the same direction, about righteousness, decency, about morality. Instead I gulp air, my head swimming. “I–I…”

I cannot shake the thought that she is doing this, pulling the threads of my senses apart, reaching into my mind.

She leans forward, pretending solicitude, and her scent assails me once more.

“Are you all right?” I hear her voice from a great distance. “Monsieur Reynaud, are you all right?”

I push her away with trembling hands.

“Nothing.” At last I manage to speak. “An – indisposition. Nothing. I’ll bid you good – ”

Blindly I stumble towards the door. A red sachet suspended from the door-jamb brushes my face more of her superstition – and I cannot shake off the absurd impression that the ridiculous thing is responsible for my malaise; herbs and bones sewn together and hung there to trouble my mind.

I stagger out into the street, gasping for breath.

My head clears as soon as the rain touches it, but I keep walking. Walking.

I did not stop until I reached you, mon pere. My heart was pounding, my face running with sweat, but at last I feel purged of her presence. Was this what you felt, mon pere, that day in the old chancery? Did temptation wear this face?

The dandelions are spreading, their bitter leaves pushing up the black earth, their white roots forking deep, biting hard.

Soon they will be in bloom. I will walk home via the river, pare, to observe the small floating city which even now grows, spreads across the swollen Tannes. More boats have arrived since last we spoke so that the river is paved with them. A man might walk across.