Chocolat

25

Monday March 10

THEIR LAUGHTER FOLLOWED ME OUT OF THE SHOP AND into the street like a volley of birds. The scent of chocolate, like that of my anger, made me light-headed, almost euphoric with rage. We were right, pere. This vindicates us completely. By striking at the three areas closest to us the community, the Church's festivals and now one of its holiest sacraments – she reveals herself at last. Her influence is pernicious and fast-growing, seeding already into a dozen, two dozen fertile minds. I saw the season's first dandelion in the churchyard this morning, wedged in the space behind a gravestone. It has already grown far deeper than I can reach, thick as a finger, searching out the darkness beneath the stone. In a week's time the whole plant will have grown again, stronger than before.

I saw Muscat for communion this morning, though he was not present for confession. He looks drawn and angry, uncomfortable in his Sunday clothes. He has taken his wife's departure badly.

When I left the chocolaterie he was waiting for me, smoking, leaning against the small arch beside the main entrance.

`Well, pere?’

`I have spoken to your wife.’

`When is she coming home?’

I shook my head. `I would not like to give you false hope,' I said gently.

`She's a stubborn cow,' he said, dropping his cigarette and crunching it with his heel. `Pardon my language, pere, but that's how it is. When I think of the things I gave up for that crazy bitch – the money she's cost me-'

`She too has had much to bear,' I told him meaningfully, thinking of our many sessions in the confessional.

Muscat shrugged. `Oh, I'm not an angel,' he said. `I know my weaknesses. But tell me, pere' – he spread his hands appealingly – `didn't I have some reason? Waking, up to her stupid face every morning? Catching her time and again with her pockets full of stolen stuff from the market, lipsticks and bottles of perfume and jewellery? Having everyone looking at me in church and laughing? He?’

He looked at me winningly. `He, pere? Haven't I had my own cross to bear?’

I'd heard much of this before. Her sluttishness, her stupidity, her thieving, her laziness about the house. I am not required to have an opinion on such things. My role is to offer advice and comfort. Still, he disgusts me with his excuses, his conviction that had it not been for her he might have achieved great, brave things.

`We are not here to allocate blame,' I said with a note of rebuke. `We should be trying to find ways to save your marriage.’

He was instantly subdued. `I'm sorry, pare. I – I shouldn't have said those things.’

He tried for sincerity, showing teeth like ancient ivory. `Don't think I'm not fond of her, pare. I mean, I want her back, don't I?’

Oh yes. To cook his meals. To iron his clothes. To run his cafe. And to prove to his friends that no-one makes a fool of Paul-Marie Muscat, no-one. I despise this hypocrisy. He must indeed win her back. I agree with that at least. But not for those reasons.

`If you want her back, Muscat,' I told him with some tartness, `then you have been about it in a remarkably idiotic way so far.’

He bridled. `I don't see that necessarily-'

`Don't be a fool.’

Lord, pere, how can you ever have had such patience with these people?

`Threats, profanities, last night's shameful drunken display? How do you think that would help your case?’

Sullenly: `I couldn't let her get away with what she did, pere. Everyone's saying my wife walked out on me. And that interfering bitch Rocher…’

His mean eyes narrowed behind his wire glasses. `Serve… her right if something happened to that fancy shop of hers,' he said flatly. `Get rid of the bitch for good.’

I looked at him sharply. 'Oh?’

It was too close to what I have thought myself, mon pere. God help me, when I saw that boat burning… It is a primitive delight, unworthy of my calling, a pagan thing which by right I should not feel. I have wrestled with it myself, pere, in the small hours of the mornings. I have subdued it in myself, but like the dandelions it grows back, sending out insidious small rootlets. It was- perhaps because of this – because I understood – that my voice was harsher than I intended as I replied. `What. kind of thing did you have in mind, Muscat?’

He muttered something barely audible.

`A fire, perhaps? A convenient fire?’

I could feel the pressure of my rage growing against my ribs. Its taste, which is both metallic and sweetly rotten, filled my mouth. `Like the fire which got rid of the gypsies?’

He smirked. `Perhaps. Dreadful fire risk, some of these old houses.’

`Listen to me.’ Suddenly I was appalled at the thought that he might have mistaken my silence that night for complicity. `If I thought – even suspected – outside of the confessional that you were involved in such a thing – if anything happens to that shop-' I had him by the shoulder now, my fingers digging into the pulpy flesh.

Muscat looked aggrieved. `But pere you said yourself that-' `I said nothing!' I heard my voice ricochet flatly across the square – tut-rat-tat! – and I lowered it in haste. `I certainly never meant for you-' I cleared my throat, which suddenly felt wedged full. `This is not the Middle Ages, Muscat,' I said crisply. `We do not – interpret God's laws to suit ourselves. Or the laws of our country,' I added heavily, looking him in the eye. His corneas were as yellow as his teeth. `Do we understand each other?’

Resentfully: `Yes, mon pere.’

`Because if anything happens, Muscat, anything, a broken window, a little fire, anything at all…’

I overtop him by a head. I am younger, fitter than he. He responds instinctively to the physical threat. I give him a little push which sends him against the stone wall at his back. I can barely contain my rage. That he should dare – that he should dare! – to take my role, pere. That it should be he, this miserable self-deluding sot. That he should place me in this situation; to be obliged officially to protect the woman who is my enemy. I contain myself with an effort.

`Keep well away from that shop, Muscat. If there's anything to be done, I'll do it. Do you understand?’

Humbler now, his bluster evaporating: `Yes, pere.’

`Leave the situation entirely to me.’

Three weeks until her grand festival. That's all I have left. Three weeks to find some way of curbing her influence. I have preached against her in church to no effect but my own ridicule. Chocolate, I am told, is not a moral issue. Even the Clairmonts see my obduracy as slightly irregular, she simpering with mock concern that I seem overwrought, he grinning outright. Vianne Rocher herself takes no notice. Far from trying to blend in she flaunts her alien status, calling impertinent greetings to me across the square, encouraging the antics of such as Armande, perpetually dogged by the children whose growing wildness she invites. Even in a crowd she is instantly recognizable. Where others walk up a street, she runs down it. Her hair, her clothes; perpetually wind-torn, wildflower colours, orange and yellow and polka-dotted and floral-patterned. In the wild, a parakeet amongst sparrows would soon be torn apart for its bright plumage. Here she is accepted with affection, even amusement. What might raise eyebrows elsewhere is tolerated because. it is only Vianne. Even Clairmont is not impervious to her charm, and his wife's dislike has nothing to do with moral superiority and everything to do with a kind of envy which does Caro little credit. At least Vianne Rocher is no hypocrite, using God's words to elevate her social standing. And yet the thought – suggesting as it does a sympathy, even a liking, that a man in my position can ill afford – is another danger. I can have no sympathies. Rage and liking are equally inappropriate. I must be impartial, for the sake of the community and the Church. Those are my first loyalties.