Chocolat

29

Sunday March 16

AT FIRST ARMANDE PRETENDED SHE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I was talking about. Then switching to a high-handed tone, demanded to know who had blabbed, while at the same time declaring that I was an interfering busybody, and that I had no idea what I was talking about.

'Armande,' I said as soon as she paused for breath. `Talk to me. Tell me what it means. Diabetic retinopathy' She shrugged. `I might as well, if that damn doctor's going to blab it all over the village.’

She sounded petulant. `Treating me as if I wasn't fit to make my own decisions any more.’

She gave me a stern look. `And you're no better, madam,' she said. `Clucking over me, fussing – I'm not a child, Vianne.’

`I know you're not.’

`Well, then.’

She reached for the teacup at her elbow. I saw the care with which she secured it between her fingers, testing its position before she picked it up. It is not she, but I, who have been blind. The red-ribboned walking-stick, the tentative gestures, the unfinished tapestry, the eyes shadowed beneath a succession of hats…

`It isn't as if you could do anything to help,' continued Armande in a gentler tone. `From what I understood it's incurable, so it's nobody's business but my own.’

She took a sip of the tea and grimaced. `Camomile,' she said without enthusiasm. `Supposed to eliminate toxins. Tastes like cat's piss.’

She put the cup down again with the same careful gesture.

`I miss reading,' she said. `It's getting too hard to see print nowadays, but Luc reads to me sometimes. Remember how I got him to read Rimbaud to me at that first meeting?’

I nodded. `You make it sound as if it was years ago,' I told her.

`It was.’

Her voice was light, almost uninflected. `I've had what I thought I'd never be able to have, Vianne. My grandson visits me every day. We talk like adults. He's a good lad, kind enough to grieve for me a little-‘

'He loves you, Armande,' I interrupted. `We all do.’

She chuckled. `Maybe not all,' she said. `Still, that doesn't matter. I have everything I've ever wanted right here and now. My house, my friends, Luc…’

She gave me a stubborn look. `I'm not going to have any of that taken away from me,' she declared mutinously.

`I don't understand. No-one can force you to-'

`I'm not talking about any one,' she interrupted sharply. `Cussonnet can talk as much as he likes about his retinal implants and his scans and laser therapies and what he likes' – her contempt for such things was apparent – `but that doesn't change the plain facts. The truth is I'm going blind, and there's not a lot anyone can do to stop it.’

She folded her arms with a gesture of finality.

`I should have gone to him sooner,' she said without bitterness. `Now it's irreversible, and worsening. Six months of partial sight is the most he can give me, then Le Mortoir, like it or not, till the day I die.’

She paused. `I could live another ten years,' she said reflectively, echoing my words to Reynaud.

I opened my mouth to argue, to tell her it might not be all that bad, then closed it again.

`Don't look like that, girl.’

Armande gave me a rallying nudge. `After a five-course banquet you'd want coffee and liqueurs, wouldn't you? You wouldn't suddenly decide to round it all off with a bowl of pap, would you? Just so you could have an extra course?’

`Armande-'

`Don't interrupt.’ Her eyes were bright. `I'm saying you need to know when to stop, Vianne. You need to know when to push away your plate and call for those liqueurs. I'll be eighty-one in a fortnight-'

`That's not so old,' I wailed in spite of myself. `I can't believe you're giving up like this!' She looked at me. `And yet you were the one, weren't you, who told Guillaume to leave Charly some dignity.’

`You're not a dog!' I retorted, angry now.

`No,' replied Armande softly, `and I have a choice.’

A bitter place, New York, with its gaudy mysteries; cold in winter and flashing with heat in summer. After three months even the noise becomes familiar, unremarkable, the sounds of cars-voices-cabs melting into a single sheet of sound which covers the place like rain. Crossing the road from the deli with our lunch in a brown sack between her folded arms, I meeting her halfway, catching her eye across a busy street, a billboard advertising Marlboro cigarettes at her back; a man standing against a vista of red mountains. I saw it coming. Opened my mouth to shout, to warn her… Froze. For a second, that was all, a single second. Was it fear which stapled my tongue to the roof of my mouth? Was it simply the slowness of the body's reaction when faced with the imminence of danger, the thought reaching the brain an aching eternity from the dull flesh's response? Or was it hope, the kind of hope which comes when all dreams have been stripped away and what remains is the long slow agony of pretence? Of course, Maman, of course we'll make it to Florida… Of course we will.

Her face, rigid with smiling, her eyes far too bright, bright as Fourth-of-July fireworks.

What would I do, what would I do without you? It's OK, Maman. We'll make it. I promise. Trust me.

The Black Man stands by with a flickering smile on his face and for that interminable second I know that there are worse things, much worse things, than dying. Then the paralysis breaks and I scream, but the cry of warning comes too late. She turns her face vaguely towards me, a smile forming on her pale lips – Why, what is it, dear? and the cry which should have been her name is lost in the squealing of brakes.

` Florida!' It sounds like a woman's name, shrilling across the street, the young woman running through the traffic dropping her purchases as she runs – an armful of groceries, a carton of milk – her face contorting. It sounds like a name, as if the older woman dying in the street is actually called Florida, and she is dead before I reach her, quietly and without drama, so that I feel almost embarrassed to make so much fuss, and a large woman in a pink tracksuit puts her meaty arms around me, but what I feel most is relief, like a lanced boil, and my tears are relief, bitter burning relief that I have reached the end at last. Reached the end intact, or almost.

`You shouldn't cry,' said Armande gently. `Aren't you the one who always says happiness is the only thing that matters?’

I was surprised to find my face wet.

`Besides, I need your help.’

Pragmatic as always, she passed me a handkerchief from her pocket. It smelt of lavender. `I'm having a party for my birthday,' she declared. 'Luc's idea. Expense no object. I want you to do the catering.’

`What?’ I was confused, passing from death to feasting then back again.

`My last course,' explained Armande. `I'll take my medicine till then, like a good girl. I'll even drink that filthy tea. I want to see my eighty-first birthday, Vianne, with all my friends around me. God knows, I might even invite that idiot daughter of mine. We'll bring in your chocolate festival in style. Arid then…’

A quick shrug of indifference. `Not everyone gets this lucky,' she observed. `Getting the chance to plan everything, to tidy all the comers. And something else' – she gave me a look of laser intensity – `not a word to anyone,' she said. `Not anyone. I'm not having any interference. It's my choice, Vianne. My party. I don't want anyone crying and carrying on at my party. Understand?’

I nodded.

`Promise?’

It was like talking to a fierce child. `I promise.’

Her face took on the look of contentment it always wears when she speaks of good food. She rubbed her hands together. `Now for the menu.’