Omi smiled again. ‘That’s right. You don’t have to talk. In a bag of walnuts, it’s the empty one that makes most noise.’ She looked across the street, where a trio of young women in niqab was passing by, talking and laughing. All three were in black, except for one, whose veil was tied with a neon-pink ribbon bisecting her face. I smiled and waved in greeting; the conversation stopped at once. I heard it resume when they had passed, although its pitch had dropped by then, and there was no more laughter.
Omi shook her head. ‘Pff. That was Aisha Bouzana and her friends Jalila El Mardi and Rana Jannat. Silly gossips, all three of them. Rattling like empty nuts. Spreading their talk all over the village. Did you know that Aisha – she was the one with the pink stripe – was telling my Yasmina that Maya’s name is not permitted, according to Islamic law? She says it’s some kind of goddess name in some old pagan religion. As if she cared. It’s just a way of attracting attention. Same as wearing the niqab. She never used to wear it before Karim Bencharki came here. None of those young women did. But all at once, when a handsome man happens to mention he likes niqab, suddenly dozens of them are wearing the veil and making eyes at each other.’ She gave me one of her humorous looks. ‘You’re not saying you haven’t noticed him yet? Looks like an angel? Lives at the gym?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve noticed him.’
Omi cackled. ‘You’re not alone.’
‘What about his sister?’
‘Inès.’ Her face was suddenly expressionless. ‘We don’t have much to do with her. She mostly stays in the house nowadays. She wasn’t a popular teacher, either.’
‘Why was that?’
The old woman shrugged. ‘Who knows? But I must be going. My little Maya is waiting for me. We will be making pancakes. Oh, not for now, of course. But for later, we have crêpes aux mille trous, and harira soup, with lemons and dates. At Ramadan, everyone fasts, but we think about food all the time; we buy food, we prepare food, we offer food to our neighbours, we even dream of food – that is, if this wind allows us to sleep. I will bring some Moroccan sweets; some macaroons, and gazelle’s horns, and almond meringues, and chebakia. And maybe then you can share with me the recipe for your chocolate.’
I watched her as she walked away, feeling a little puzzled that even Omi al-Djerba, with her cheery contempt for convention and what the neighbours might think of her, should still be so reluctant to talk to me about Inès Bencharki—
Rosette signed: I like her.
‘Yes, Rosette. I like her too.’
She reminds me in so many ways of Armande, whose appetite for everything – food, drink, gossip, life – once scandalized her family. But Omi’s family is different. Their love and respect increases with age. I cannot imagine the al-Djerbas ever thinking of doing what Caro Clairmont tried to do – to bully her mother into a home, or to keep her from seeing her grandchild.
The streets of Les Marauds were empty once more as I made my way back to Armande’s house. Only a couple of people passed, and neither of them greeted me. But all along the Boulevard des Marauds I felt the windows watching me, and heard the whispers in the walls. The wind cannot keep a secret, as my mother used to say, and today the wind is telling me that Les Marauds is in distress. Is it because of Alyssa? Or is it some deeper, darker malaise? I look at the sky, which should be clear, but all I can see is that fine, bright dust. It makes Rosette sneeze; and every time she sneezes, Bam rolls in the dust and laughs at her.
She looked at me, bright-eyed. ‘Pilou,’ she said.
‘Not today,’ I told her. ‘But remember, he and Joséphine are coming to dinner tomorrow.’
She made a face. ‘Rowr.’
Roux.
I hugged her. She smelt of the river and of something sweeter, like baby soap and chocolate. ‘I know you miss him, Rosette,’ I said. ‘I miss him too. All of us do. But we’re having a good time, aren’t we?’
She crowed emphatically and spoke a string of words in her personal language, from which all I caught was Pilou and Vlad, and (surprisingly) awesome. The scribble of red that is Bam today capered madly around her feet, all gilded and dusty with road-bronze.
I had to laugh. My little Rosette is a born comedian. For all her strangeness, my winter child can sometimes bring the sunshine.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get you home.’
And, shielding our eyes against the dust, we turned away from the river and started back up the steep hill towards the place I’d just called home, where the first of Armande’s peaches were already beginning to fall.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Saturday, 21st August
WE CAME BACK on the tail of the wind, Rosette singing all the way: Bam, bam BAM, bam badda-BAM—
It’s my mother’s song, of course. Rosette doesn’t really sing words, but she has her father’s ear. She stamps her feet and claps her hands—
‘Bam, bam BAM! Bam, badda-BAM!’
And the wind joins in; the blown leaves dance; autumn is coming early this year, and already the colours are turning. The linden trees are the first to go, shaking confetti into the sky. Rosette’s hair is almost the same shade of red-gold as those falling leaves, which she stamps out like flames with her small bare feet.
Stamp, stamp, stamp. ‘Bam, badda-bam!’
From the cottage, I could sense Alyssa watching through the half-closed shutters. She has not spoken more than a few words to me since she first arrived here, but she seems easier with Anouk and Rosette, although she is still cautious. She has abandoned her hijab, and now wears her hair in two long plaits, which fascinate Anouk and Rosette. We take our main meal after sunset, so that she can observe Ramadan, but as far as I know, she has not prayed. Instead she watches TV and reads—
Not today, I decided.
I went to the other side of the house and looked at Armande’s peach tree. I have already given some to Guillaume; some more to Poitou; some to Yasmina Al-Djerba; plus a clafoutis to Narcisse and his wife, and I’d promised a tart to Luc Clairmont, who is working to repair the chocolaterie, and another to Joséphine. Even so, there are too many left, and now, with the wind, they are falling.
‘We have to gather the peaches today,’ I said as I entered the kitchen. ‘Armande would never forgive me if I let the wasps get to them.’
‘Yay! Peach jam!’ said Anouk, jumping up from the sofa.
I smiled. One of Anouk’s most endearing traits is the way she flits so easily from childhood to adulthood, light to shade, like a butterfly moving from flower to flower, unaware of the changing worlds. Today she is almost as young as she was the day we first arrived here.
Alyssa, so close to her in age, already seems so much older. What are her parents thinking now? Why has no one come looking for her? And how long can I keep her here before the news of her presence gets out?
‘Did you know Armande?’ I said. ‘She was Luc’s grandmother, and a friend of mine. I think you would have liked her. Not everyone did – she infuriated Monsieur le Curé – but she had a good heart, and Luc thought the world of her. She’s the reason I came here. I promised I’d harvest her peaches.’
At last, the glimmer of a smile from the solemn little face. ‘That sounds like my grandfather,’ she said. ‘He likes to grow things. He has a persimmon tree by his house. It’s only ever given fruit once, but he cares for that little persimmon like it’s his only son.’
This was by far the longest speech I had heard Alyssa make. Perhaps the contact with Anouk has helped her find her voice again. I smiled. ‘Would you like to help?’ I said. ‘We’re going to make some peach jam.’
‘Bam. Jam. Pam. Badda-bam!’ sang Rosette, picking up a wooden spoon and making it dance on the table-top.
Alyssa looked curious. ‘Peach jam?’
‘It’s such an easy recipe. We already have everything we need. Jam sugar – that’s sugar with pectin added, so that the jam sets properly – a copper pot, jars, cinnamon – oh, yes, and peaches, of course.’ I smiled. ‘Come on. You can h
elp us pick.’
For a moment, she hesitated. Then she followed me outside. It was quite safe; the house is secluded, and the peach tree invisible from the road. The Autan wind is merciless; already, the ground at the foot of the tree was covered with windfalls. Leave them more than a minute and the wasps will start to attack them, but windfall peaches are perfect for jam, and together we gathered more than enough in no more than ten minutes.
The copper pot belongs to Armande, though I have one very like it. It’s large and shaped like a kettle-drum, with a hammered, uneven surface. Sitting on Armande’s kitchen range, it looks like a witch’s cauldron – not too far from the truth, I suppose, for what could be closer to alchemy than changing raw ingredients into something that makes the mouth water?
‘Bam, bam,’ went Rosette, drumming on the copper pot.
‘Now, we have to prepare the fruit.’
I ran some cold water into the sink. We washed the peaches and took out the stones. A little bruising doesn’t hurt; it makes the peach all the sweeter. And as we worked, our sleeves rolled up, the sweet juice running down our arms, the kitchen was filled with the sunny scent of peaches and sugar and summertime.
‘Bam. Jam. Bam-badda-bam,’ sang Rosette. In the slices of light and shade, she looked like a blurry bumblebee; Bam, in her shadow, a cluster of motes chasing into the rapturous air.
I saw Alyssa watching, a crease between her espresso eyes, and knew that she could see him too. After three days, that doesn’t surprise me. It doesn’t usually take very long for people to start to notice Bam. Children are most susceptible; but even adults can see him, as long as they have an open mind. It begins as a trick of the light, a bloom like that on a bunch of golden grapes, and then, one day—
‘Jam! Bam!’
‘Why don’t you take Rosette outside?’
Anouk gave me a comical look. Rosette is a plastic trumpet, too loud for me to hear whispers. And whispers are my business today; the whispers that Omi calls waswaas, or worry-whispers from Satan. But so far, Alyssa’s whispers have been too timid for me to overhear. Perhaps, if we were alone, I thought, with the everyday magic of making jam—
At first, I did not try to make her speak. Instead I kept up a monologue that needed no reply from her; I talked about the recipe, and about Armande, and the chocolate shop; and Roux in Paris, and our boat, and Anouk, and Rosette, and the peaches.
‘We’re not going to cook the peaches today. Instead, we leave them overnight. A kilo of sugar to each one of fruit, minus the leaves and stones, of course. We slice them into the copper pan – copper’s best for cooking because it heats up more quickly. We add the sugar. Then, with a wooden spoon, we crush the sugar into the fruit. Rosette likes this part best—’ I smiled – ‘because it’s messiest. And because it smells so good—’
I saw Alyssa’s nostrils flare.
‘Now we add the cinnamon,’ I said. ‘Sticks, not powder; broken in half. Three or four should do the trick—’ The summery scent had turned autumnal; bonfires and Halloween. Cinnamon pancakes cooked outside. Mulled wine and burnt sugar.
‘What do you think?’
‘It’s nice,’ she said. The diamond stud in her nostril flared again, catching the light. ‘What next?’
‘We wait,’ I said. ‘We cover the pot with a cloth and leave the whole thing overnight. Then, in the morning, we light the range and stir as we bring the jam to the boil. It doesn’t need to boil for more than four minutes, then we can put it into pots, ready for the winter.’
She looked at me quickly. ‘The winter?’
‘Of course, I won’t be here,’ I said. ‘But jam is best in wintertime, when the nights are long and there’s frost in the air, and every pot is like opening a little jar of sunshine—’
‘Oh.’ She sounded crestfallen. ‘I thought perhaps you were going to stay.’
‘I’m sorry, Alyssa. We can’t,’ I said.
‘When?’ It was almost a whisper.
‘Soon. A couple of weeks, at most. But don’t worry. We won’t abandon you.’
‘You’d take me with you to Paris?’ she said. Suddenly her eyes were bright.
‘We’ll see. I hope I don’t need to.’ I turned away from the copper pan and looked at her directly. ‘Whatever you’re running away from, I hope we can find a better solution than that. Isn’t there anyone you trust in Les Marauds? A family member? A teacher, perhaps?’
Alyssa flinched. ‘No,’ she said.
‘But you do go to school, don’t you?’ I said. ‘The little school opposite the church?’
Once more, Alyssa flinched. ‘I did.’
There she is again, I thought. Inès Bencharki, the Woman in Black. I haven’t even mentioned her name, yet once more her shadow is strong enough to eclipse even this little gleam of light. Is this what Alyssa fears so much? What is she trying to escape?
‘Wouldn’t you miss your family if you went to Paris? Your parents? Your sister?’
Silently, she shook her head. The bright look of hope that had been in her eyes had dimmed once more to a sullen flame.
‘Your grandfather, then. I know you’d miss him.’ It was a tentative shot, but there’d been a genuine note of affection in her voice as she spoke about old Mahjoubi and the persimmon tree.
She turned away. I saw a tear gather and roll down the side of her face. She looked very young at that moment; younger even than Anouk, and almost without thinking I reached out to take her in my arms. She stiffened, then relaxed, and I felt her sobbing against my shoulder, sobbing almost soundlessly, her hands clenched around her elbows.
I let her cry. It sometimes helps. Around us, the scent of peaches was almost too intense to bear. Outside, the wind rattled the windows. When the Autan wind blows, the farmers of this region strip their fruit trees of their leaves, to avoid giving too much purchase to the gusts that tear at the trees, shaking the ripening fruit from the boughs. This may seem cruel to an outsider, but the alternative is broken branches and a ruined harvest. There’s a time to coddle fruit trees, as my friend Framboise used to say, as well as a time to strip them back. Children are not so different. Neither benefits from an excess of sensitivity.
I held her until I sensed that her sobs were close to subsiding. Then I said in a quiet voice, ‘Alyssa. What happened the other night?’
She looked at me.
‘I’d like to help. But I wish you could tell me what’s happening. Why does a girl like you decide she doesn’t want to live any more?’
For a moment I thought she wouldn’t answer. Then she said in a halting voice, ‘Someone once told me: When Ramadan comes, the gates of Paradise are opened, and the gates of hellfire are locked and the devils shackled. That means that if a person dies during the month of Ramadan—’
She paused and looked away again.
‘They wouldn’t go to hell?’ I said.
‘I guess that sounds pretty crazy to you.’
‘Because I’m not a Muslim?’ I said. ‘Well, I’m not a Christian either, and I don’t believe in hell. But I don’t think you’re crazy. Just sad and confused.’
Alyssa sighed.
‘It’s all right. Whatever it is may seem hopeless to you, but there’s always a solution. I promise you we’ll find it. You don’t have to deal with this alone.’
She gave a little nod. ‘But you can’t tell anyone else,’ she said. ‘No one in my family. No one at all. You promise?’
‘I do.’
She sat down at the table, tracing with her fingertips the scars on the wooden surface. Outside, the wind redoubled, making the old eaves whisper and creak. The wind makes Rosette talkative; I hoped today it might do the same for Alyssa.
‘You can talk to me,’ I said. ‘Whatever it is, I bet I’ve seen worse.’
‘Worse?’ said Alyssa.
I thought of all the places I’d seen; of all the years I’d travelled. Over those years I have seen so much; the death of my mother; the loss of my friends; a million casual cruelties; as m
any flashes of sweetness.
I’ve watched the sun rise over mountains where no human being has ever trod and seen it go down over cities where every inch of space is filled with people, pushing and fighting each other for life. I’ve given birth. I’ve been in love. I’ve changed beyond expectation. I’ve seen people die in alleyways; seen others survive impossible odds; known happiness and darkness and grief, and the one thing I’m still sure about is that life is mystery; life is change; it’s what my mother called magic, and it’s capable of anything—
I started to tell Alyssa. It’s hard to put these things into words. For the first time since I arrived here, I wished for my chocolaterie; the scent of melting chocolate; the silver pot on the counter; the cups; the ease of talking without words. I have no desire to challenge her faith. But Ramadan excludes me. It means I cannot offer her the kind of comfort I know best: the square of chocolate on the tongue, childhood’s magic cure-all—
Suddenly, there came a sound, a scratching at the window. Maybe a bramble or a branch, tapping in that restless wind. But when I looked up, I saw a face looking in from behind the half-closed shutters; a round nose pressed against the glass, a pair of dark eyes, widening in recognition—
It was Maya.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Saturday, 21st August
ALYSSA HAD FLED upstairs the moment the child had appeared at the window. But Maya had already seen her. Too late to think of an excuse; I went to the door and opened it.
‘Maya,’ I said.
She smiled up at me. The White Autan was in her eyes, her wild hair, her flushed cheeks. She was wearing a pair of dungarees and a T-shirt with a daisy motif. Under her arm she was carrying a knitted toy that might have been a cat, or a rabbit, and which had clearly been much loved, if somewhat the worse for the experience.
‘You said I could play with your little girl.’
‘Rosette,’ I said. ‘She’s gone outside. Would you like me to call her?’
She peered in through the door. ‘I saw my cousin Alyssa in there.’
Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé Page 14
