Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé (26 page)

Could Reynaud have gone away?

I moved back into the living room, where Rosette was playing quietly. The sound of her game and of the clock that was ticking above the mantelpiece was all the life there was left in the place. Some people leave a part of themselves in the house where they once lived; but there is no trace of Francis Reynaud; no footprint; no shadow; not even a ghost.

‘Where has he gone?’ I said aloud.

Rosette looked up and hooted at me.

‘
Bam!
’ It’s an invitation to play.

I shook my head. ‘Not now, Rosette. I’m thinking. Where would he go, without telling us?’

The river
, signed Rosette at once, as if the answer were obvious.

The river. The thought of it made me feel cold. Swollen now by a week of rain, it must be getting treacherous. And hadn’t old Mahjoubi warned me it was dangerous? I had a sudden, disquieting image of Reynaud standing on the parapet, looking into the water.

Could it be that Caro was right? Could Reynaud have suffered some kind of a nervous breakdown? Could the stress of the past few weeks have driven him to suicide? Surely not. He isn’t the type. And yet—

People change
, my mother’s voice whispers from the darkness.
After all, you changed, didn’t you? You, and Roux, and Joséphine—

Now it was Armande’s voice:
You tried to save me, didn’t you? Just as you did your mother. All the same, we both died
.

‘Bam!’ said Rosette. ‘
Bam bam, badda-bam!
’

That’s right, Rosette. You tell those ghosts. Tell them all to leave us alone. This is just the Black Autan, working its way into my head, giving me unquiet thoughts, making me question my common sense. Reynaud has probably gone for a walk. We’ll see him in the morning. Besides, we have more chocolates to deliver in Les Marauds; coconut truffles for Omi; rose and cardamom for Fatima and her daughters; chilli for old Mahjoubi, that warms the heart and brings courage. And one more package, for Inès; tied with a red silk ribbon. The gift that crosses all cultures; that brings a smile to the sourest face; that pulls back the years and takes us to a simpler, sweeter time. Last time I tried to approach her, I failed. I came unarmed and unaware. This time will be different.

This time I’m bringing her favourites.

CHAPTER SIX

Wednesday, 25th August

I CANNOT HAVE
been unconscious for long, but I awoke in darkness. My head hurt, and so did my back; I guessed that whoever had brought me here had not been especially gentle.

Where was
here
? With care, I sat up. A cellar of some kind, perhaps: the floor was flagged; that cellar smell. It was cold and smelt of damp, of mildew and things gone to rot.

Near by, I could hear the river: its throaty, rushing, roaring sound, charged with floodwater debris, and rolling like a juggernaut.

I called: ‘Hello?’

No one answered.

I could have called again, but did not. I guessed that my attacker might be one of the men who set upon me the other night. If so, did I want to meet him again?

I tried to explore my surroundings. Feeling my way in a darkness that felt as vast as a ballroom, I found some empty wooden crates, some broken plaster, damp cardboard; bundles of ancient newspaper, and beyond that, at last, a dozen stone steps, leading up to a locked door. There was no doorknob on my side. I slammed against it with my fists. No one came. The door was strong. The sound of my fists against the wood was barely audible above the sound of the river.

Mon père
, I know it sounds absurd. But at first I was not afraid. In fact, I found it hard to believe that I was even here at all; easier by far to think that this was all some kind of dream brought about by stress, fatigue or the pain of my still-throbbing fingers. It is only now that fear has moved in, like the unwelcome guest who gradually takes over the entire house. I see that the darkness is not quite complete; a dim rectangle of daylight frames the door at the top of the steps, and high up the far wall there is a grille, like that of the confessional, through which filters a pallid glow.

Now, as my eyes adapt to the dark, a kind of perspective begins to emerge. I find I can see shapes now, and the menacing glint of water. The floor is built on a pronounced slope; the lower end is flooded, which makes me guess that this must be one of the derelict tanneries. As the water levels rise, the cellar will fill with alarming speed. I’ve seen it happen more than once by the river in Les Marauds; it’s one of the principal reasons that most of the buildings along the boulevard are condemned.

Approximately an hour ago, a thin rivulet of water began to trickle out of a pipe in the wall. Since then, the trickle has grown, becoming a puddle of water that streams almost silently down the wall and pools in sinister fashion in the far corner of the room. In an hour, the puddle has crept almost halfway across the floor.

Who has done this? Why am I here? Is it an attempt to intimidate me? I will admit that I am afraid. But mostly,
père
, I am angry. That someone should do this to me – to
me
, a representative of the Holy Catholic Church—

Of course, you might say that I walked away. I tried to evade my duty. I left like a criminal in the night, leaving no word of my intentions. With hindsight, maybe that was a mistake. No one will know I am missing. Perhaps in a few days’ time, someone will think to drop by the house. But how would they know where to look for me? And how high will this water rise?

I suppose you would say it serves me right. I never should have tried to leave. A priest cannot simply walk away from God, or from his calling. Although God does not speak to me as you do,
père
, and over the years I have found myself wondering whether this calling of mine is not simply another way of trying to impose order upon a world grown increasingly strange and chaotic. But without the Church, I am defenceless; my current predicament proves it. Like Jonah, I have been swallowed up into the belly of something too large and too alien to tackle alone.

I dragged the crates against the far wall, making a kind of pyramid. Climbing on to this, I found that I could now just see out through the grille. There isn’t much to see,
père
: nothing but a brick wall. It must be an alley, flooded now that the Tannes has broken its banks. It smells vaguely of piss,
père
, overlaid with chlorine and disinfectant; in the distance, I can also smell
kif
, and spices, and something cooking. The alley must be very small; perhaps one of the connecting passages – barely a metre or so in width – that link the street with the riverside. Even in good weather, they are not often used. My chances of being heard by a passer-by are insignificant.

And now I am hungry – hours have passed, and my stomach is protesting that I have missed at least one meal. I eat some of the food I brought with me in my rucksack – unfortunately, that’s not very much; I was planning to buy supplies as soon as I left Lansquenet. A couple of tins of tuna in oil; some bread left over from the previous day. An apple. A bottle of water. I force myself not to eat it all.

But now that my need has subsided, I find that my fear has become all the more acute. I try the door at the top of the steps every twenty minutes or so, as if it might open miraculously, although I know it to be locked. It’s cold in here – much colder than the air outside – and I am already shivering. I find the oversized sweater that I packed inside my rucksack and put it on under my coat. The wool is coarse, but comforting. If I close my eyes, I find that even the sound of the water has a soporific effect. I might be at sea; the sound of the Tannes comes to me from a distance. At sea, on my way to a new world; a childhood fantasy long abandoned by the time I went off to the seminary.

This is what happens, Francis Reynaud, to boys who run away to sea
.

That’s your voice,
mon père
. I know. You’re right. I should ask God’s forgiveness. And yet, I cannot help but feel a kind of exhilaration. Perhaps this is why I cannot pray. I do not feel repentance.

Once more, I consider the sea-monster, which has swallowed me so efficiently. Are you right to blame me? Is this my punishment for running away? Or could it be that all my life I was
already
living inside the beast, unaware of the world outside?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Wednesday, 25th August

I MUST HAVE
slept. How long, I don’t know. But when I awoke, night was falling, and even the small square of daylight that appeared around the grille had faded to a reddish glow. My body was stiff and my muscles hurt from lying on the stone floor. Even so,
mon père
, I slept. I must have been exhausted.

I checked the view of the alleyway from my position on the crates, noting as I did that the puddle was much deeper now, soaking into my walking boots.

The wind had died down, and the rain had stopped. Standing on the pile of crates, face pressed up against the grille, I found that the smell of cooking had become more pronounced. Of course. These people eat after sunset, sometimes at midnight or later.

I considered crying out for help. Maybe someone would set me free. After all, how long could my captors hope to perpetuate this ridiculous state of affairs? The more I thought about it now, the more this looked like a prank gone wrong, a joke that someone had taken too far.

The water coming from the pipe in the wall continues unabated. Perhaps it is the outlet to a disused system of gas pipes – whatever it was, the rising Tannes has channelled it in my direction. There is no way to stop up the pipe, as I found to my cost when I made the attempt; all I managed to achieve was to wet my clothes a little more.

I stood on the crates and called for help.

No one came. There was no response. My voice sounded barely audible in the belly of the whale.

I called until my voice was hoarse. Five minutes; maybe ten. I could smell something like baking bread; like sauces rich with spices and oil; like rose petals and roasting lamb and chickpea pasties and chestnuts.

‘Help me! I’m
here
! It’s Francis Reynaud!’

By now I was dizzy with shouting. I would have been grateful to see anyone – even my attackers,
père
– rather than face this solitude. The knowledge surprised me a little. I have never had so little taste for my own company. Even the face of Père Henri Lemaître would be manna in this wilderness.

‘Help me!
Please!
’

I was unsure whom I was addressing. Maybe you,
mon père
– or God. In any case, nobody answered, and in the end I left my post and returned to the steps – soon to become the only part of the cellar untouched by the rising water – wrapped myself in my overcoat and tried to go to sleep again. I may have done so; or maybe I simply lapsed into a kind of dull lethargy, from which I was roused some time later by a thudding sound above my head.

Boom, boom, boom, boom
.

The sound was persistent and rhythmic, like a distant bassline.

Boom, boom, boom, boom
.

Music? No, I don’t think so. The community of Les Marauds is not a place where music abounds. Besides, that regular pounding has something organic about it; a barely perceptible unevenness, like that of an erratic heart. Perhaps it is the heart of the whale,
mon père
, as it dreams of further conquests.

And then it suddenly hit me. At last,
mon père
, I know where I am. That sound, like that of a giant heart, is the sound of a treadmill.

My cellar is underneath the gym.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Wednesday, 25th August

THE SUNSET WAS
spectacular as we crossed into Les Marauds. The rain has finally stopped, and the result is this glorious sunset; dramatic layers of lemon and rose under an ominous sheet of slate. By the time I crossed the river again, every house was crimson; every window illuminated in gold leaf. And behind them, the Tannes; lustrous and rich; sleek and shining and silken.

I could see Inès Bencharki’s boat moored in the shelter of the trees. A light was shining from inside, and a filament of pale smoke beckoned from the chimney. I took out my last batch of chocolates; a handful of dark and light truffles rolled in spiced cocoa powder. There’s cardamom, for comfort; vanilla seeds for sweetness; green tea, rose and tamarind for harmony and goodwill. Sprinkled with gold leaf, they look like tiny Christmas baubles; prettily scented; perfectly round – how could she resist these?

Rosette had made for the water at once. Bam enjoys swimming, apparently. Rosette can swim as well as Roux, and has no fear of the water. A pointed stick serves to test the depth as well as to fish out any debris that might be promising. As I approached the jetty I saw that she had already rescued several sticks, a champagne cork and a doll’s head, which she had placed on top of the pile like a cannibal’s trophy.

‘Don’t go in the water, Rosette.’ Across the gilded surface, Bam ricocheted like a skimming-stone.

‘What’s that in the water?’

A voice at my side. I turned and saw Maya watching us from one of the little passageways connecting the riverside to the street. There must be half a dozen of these along the Boulevard des Marauds; narrow for an adult to use, but just right for a five-year-old. Maya was wearing bright pink wellingtons and a sweater with the shape of a frog knitted into the pattern. Under her arm she was carrying Tipo, the unidentified knitted toy from which she seems inseparable.

I said: ‘That’s Bam. Rosette’s special friend. Not everyone can see him, though. I think he must like you, Maya.’

Maya’s eyes grew rounder. ‘Is he a Jinni? My
jiddo
says there are Jinn everywhere. Some of them are friendly. Some of them are
shayteen
.’

I smiled and said, ‘He’s a monkey. Rosette doesn’t have many friends back home.’

‘I wish
I
had a monkey. Where did he come from?’

I tried to explain. ‘It’s something my mother taught me to do. It’s like a kind of magic. Anouk has a special friend, too. But hers is a rabbit. His name is Pantoufle.’

Maya’s lip protruded. ‘I wish
I
had an animal friend.’

‘Well, you can, Maya,’ I said. ‘All you have to do is close your eyes, and imagine one.’

Maya screwed her eyes shut so hard that the whole of her body shook. Rosette grinned and poked her.

Maya giggled. ‘
Stop
it, Rosette.’ She opened her eyes and grinned back. ‘Let’s see if my Jinni’s here yet,’ she said, and both of them raced across the boardwalk, bouncing along in their wellington boots like two brightly coloured rubber balls.

I followed them. ‘Don’t fall in,’ I said. ‘That jetty could be slippery.’

Rosette just laughed and started to sing: ‘
Bam bam bam! Bam badda-bam!
’

Soon, Maya had joined her, with more enthusiasm than skill, both of them stamping out the rhythm on the boards of the jetty. They made so much noise that in the end the door of the houseboat opened and Inès Bencharki looked out.

‘I thought perhaps you’d like to try some of my chocolates,’ I told her. ‘I’ve taken some to Fatima. I’d promised some to her mother, too, and to your father-in-law.’

She dipped her head in acknowledgement. Today her black
niqab
was trimmed with a single silver stripe. It gave her face definition; underlined those beautiful eyes.

I handed her the chocolates in a twist of rice paper. ‘Try one,’ I said. ‘They’re your favourites.’

‘Are they now?’ Her voice was dry.

Well, of course, it’s hard to tell when someone is so hard to read. But she took them, albeit reluctantly.

‘It’s after sunset,’ I told her. ‘And don’t they
smell
just marvellous?’

She held up the twist of paper. Behind the veil, I guessed the scent would not be as pronounced. She said, in her half-musical, half-grating voice: ‘Forgive me. My sense of smell is not good.’ I saw her glance at Rosette and Maya at the mouth of the little passageway.

‘That’s my little Rosette,’ I said, sensing her curiosity.

Inès spoke to Maya in Arabic.

Maya looked mutinous, then pulled a face.

Inès spoke in a sharper voice, too quickly for me to understand.

Maya stamped her pink boot and whispered something in Rosette’s ear. Then she ran off down the passage between the houses, pausing only to wave at Rosette as she reached the corner.

‘What did you say to her?’ I asked Inès.

‘Only the truth. That it’s dangerous to play here on the jetty. Her mother does not know where she is. She should not be out here alone.’

‘She wasn’t alone. She was with me.’

Inès said nothing.

‘Isn’t the truth that you disapprove of Maya playing with Rosette?’

Inès made the same gesture – the same half-shrug, half head-tilt – that Alyssa often makes to indicate ambivalence.

‘There’s nothing wrong with Rosette,’ I said. ‘She’s friendly, she loves everyone. And Maya has no friends of her own—’

‘Maya has been spoilt,’ said Inès, her voice surprisingly gentle. ‘Just as Alyssa and Sonia were spoilt. If parents let their children play with
kuffar
children, go to their homes, play with their toys, pet their dogs, they should not be surprised when their daughters turn away from their families and their sons are led astray—’

‘Maya’s only five years old,’ I said.

‘And soon she will have to learn to wear
hijab
. And the children at school will call her names, and ask her why she does not eat
haram
food, or listen to their music, or wear the same clothes as they do. And even if her parents are what you like to call
tolerant
, and let her play with toys, and cut her hair, and watch cartoons on television, she will still be a
Maghrébine
– not one of
them
, but one of
us
.’

I don’t often get angry, but this time I was. Anger like a smokeless flame; blue, almost invisible. ‘Not everyone here is like that,’ I said.

‘Maybe not,’ she told me. ‘But there are more than enough who hate to compensate for those who do not. Even here in Lansquenet. Do you think I can’t hear what they say about me?
Niqab
does not make me deaf, or blind. In Marseille, men used to follow me about and ask me what I looked like. One day, in the supermarket queue, a woman tried to pull off my veil. Every day I would hear someone say,
You don’t belong here. You’re not French. You’re antisocial. You hate the
kuffar.
You won’t eat our food. You sympathize with terrorists. Why else would you hide your face?
’ Her voice had grown harsh. ‘Every day I hear someone say that soon
niqab
will be outlawed. What does it matter to them what I wear? Must I give up
everything
?’

She stopped, a little breathless. In her colours I saw surprise. Perhaps she is not accustomed to speaking so freely to strangers. She lifted the twist of paper with the chocolates inside.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘These do smell good.’

I smiled. ‘You can try them later. I’ll leave a packet for Du’a.’

‘You know my daughter?’

‘We’ve met,’ I said. ‘She seems quite a lonely little girl.’

Once more, I saw her colours change. Surprise gave way to the blue tones of sorrow and regret. She said: ‘We have had to move around more than I intended. It is good for Du’a to live here. She has no family at home.’

‘I’m sorry about your husband,’ I said.

Her colours flared like the sunset.

‘We’re not as different as you might think,’ I said. ‘I used to move around a lot. First with my mother, then with Anouk. I know what it’s like to never belong. To have everybody looking at you. To have people like Caro Clairmont looking down their noses because there is no
Monsieur
Rocher—’

I sensed she was listening closely. I knew I had made a connection.
It may be a cheap kind of magic
, I thought,
but it always works
. It always works. In her hand the rice-paper twist releases its battery of scents; bitter chocolate melted with cream and sweetened with vanilla seeds, scented with roses as red as your heart.
Try me. Taste me. Test me
.

And then she raised her eyes to mine. I saw myself, reflected. For a moment I was haloed in gold against the illuminated sky.

And then she said, without dropping her gaze: ‘Mademoiselle Rocher. With respect, we have nothing in common. I am a widow – unfortunate, but hardly reprehensible. I have been forced to travel abroad by circumstances beyond my control. I have a child, whom I have brought up in modesty and obedience. You, on the other hand, are an unmarried woman with two children, no faith and no proper home. And that, in our culture, makes you a whore.’

And at that she extended her gloved hand and gave me back my chocolates, and went back into the houseboat, just as the bells began to ring for Mass across the water, and I was left holding the paper twist, stupidly, uselessly; with the tears beginning to burn my eyes as if the sky were raining fire.