Once again, I move my hand across the surface of the chocolate. Little tendrils of steam rise up, and now I can smell gunpowder, a dangerous scent, all smoke and fire and turbulence—
And now I see the girl again, playing with a group of other children in a back alley outside a darkened little shop-front. There is a piñata hanging above the doorway, a striped and fabulous tiger-thing in red and yellow and black. The others are shouting – Hit it! Hit it! – and showering it with sticks and stones. But the little girl holds back. There is something inside the shop, she thinks. Something – more – attractive.
Who is the girl? I really don’t know. But I want to follow her inside. There is a curtain across the door, made up of long strips of multicoloured plastic. She holds out a hand – a thin silver bracelet circles her wrist – and looks back to where the children are still trying to dislodge the tiger piñata, then ducks through the curtain into the shop.
‘Don’t you like my piñata?’
The voice comes from the corner of the shop. It belongs to an old woman, a grandmother, no, a great-great-grandmother – so old she might be a hundred, or even a thousand, to the little girl. She looks like a witch from a story book, all wrinkles and eyes and clutching hands. In one of these she holds a cup; and from it, an odd scent reaches the little girl, something heady, intoxicating.
All around her on the shelves are bottles and jars and pots and gourds; dried roots hang from the ceiling, giving out a cellar smell, and there are lighted candles everywhere, making the shadows grin and dance.
A skull looks down from a high shelf.
At first the girl thinks it’s a sugar skull, like the others at the carnival, but now she isn’t so sure any more. And in front of her, on the counter, is a black object about three feet long – the size of a baby’s coffin, perhaps.
It looks like a papier-mâché box, painted a dull and uniform black except for the sign – which looks almost like a cross, but not quite – painted in red across the lid.
Why, it’s a kind of piñata, she thinks.
The great-grandmother smiles and hands her a knife. It’s a very old knife, rather blunt, and looks as if it’s made of stone. The girl looks curiously at the knife, then back at the old woman and her strange piñata.
‘Open it,’ urges the great-grandmother. ‘Open it. It’s all for you.’
The scent of chocolate intensifies. It’s reaching the correct temperature now; the thirty-one-degree threshold beyond which the couverture must not rise. The vapour thickens; the vision blurs; quickly I move the chocolate away from the heat and try to recapture what I have seen—
Open it.
It smells of age. But from inside, something calls to her; not quite a voice, but coaxing, promising . . .
It’s all for you.
What, exactly?
Strike one. The piñata echoes flatly, like a crypt door, like an empty cask, like something much larger than this small black box.
Strike two. It cracks; a split appears along its length. The girl smiles, half-seeing the hoard of tinfoil and trinkets and chocolates inside—
Nearly there now. One more strike—
And now at last the child’s mother appears, pushing the plastic curtain aside and looking in with widening eyes. She calls a name. Her voice is shrill. The little girl does not look up, too absorbed in the black piñata that needs only one more strike to release its secrets—
The mother cries out again. Too late. The child is too absorbed in her task. The grandmother leans forward eagerly, almost tasting it now, she thinks; rich as blood and chocolate.
The stone knife falls with a hollow sound. The split widens—
She thinks: I’m in.
And now the last of the vapour has gone. The chocolate will set correctly, with a good sheen and a pleasing snap. And now I know where I’ve seen her before, that little girl with the knife in her hand—
I’ve known her all my life, I suppose. We fled her for years, my mother and I, running like gypsies from town to town. We have met her before in fairytales: she’s the Wicked Witch in the gingerbread house; she’s the Pied Piper; she’s the Winter Queen. For a while we knew her as the Black Man – but the Kindly Ones have so many disguises, and their kindness spreads like wildfire, calling the tune, ringing the changes, charming us out of Hamelin, sending all of our troubles racing and tumbling in the wake of those enticing red shoes—
And now I can see her face at last. Her real face, hidden behind a lifetime of glamours, variable as the moon and hungry, hungry – as she steps through the door in her bayonet heels and stands watching me with a radiant smile . . .
6
Friday, 21st December
SHE WAS WAITING for me when I came in. Can’t say I was altogether surprised. I’d been expecting a reaction for some days now, and to tell the truth, it’s overdue.
Time, at last, to set things right. I’ve played the tabbycat too long. Time to show my feral side, to face my opponent on her home ground.
I found her in the kitchen, wrapped in a shawl, with a cup of chocolate long since gone cold. It was past midnight; it was still raining outside and there was a lingering smell of something burnt.
‘Hello, Vianne.’
‘Hello, Zozie.’
She looked at me.
Once more, I’m in.
If I have a single regret regarding the lives I have stolen, it’s this: that so much of it was done in stealth, and that my adversaries never knew or appreciated the poetry of their downfall.
My mother – not the brightest spark – may have come close to it once or twice, though I don’t think she ever believed it, really. In spite of her occult interests, she really wasn’t all that imaginative, preferring meaningless rituals to anything closer to the bone.
Even Françoise Lavery, who, with her background, must have caught a glimpse of it at the end, was still unable to grasp the elegance of it all; the way that her life had been neatly reclaimed and repackaged . . .
She’d always been a bit unstable. Like my mother, a mousy type – natural prey to one such as myself. She was a teacher of classical history, living in a flat off Place de la Sorbonne, and she’d taken to me (as most people do) the day we met, not quite by chance, in a lecture at the Institut Catholique.
She was thirty-two; overweight; a borderline depressive, friendless in Paris, plus she’d recently split up with her boyfriend and was looking for a female flatmate in town.
It sounded perfect – I got the job. Under the name of Mercedes Desmoines I became her protector, her confidante. I shared her affection for Sylvia Plath. I sympathized with her over the stupidity of men, and took an interest in her very dull thesis on the role of women in pre-Christian mysticism. It’s what I do best, after all; and little by little I learnt her secrets, nurtured her melancholy tendencies, then when the time came, collected her life.
It wasn’t much of a challenge, of course. There are half a million just like her: milk-faced, mousy-haired girls with neat handwriting and bad dress sense, hiding their disappointments beneath a veil of academia and common sense. You might even say I did her a favour; and when she was ready, I slipped her a dose of something reasonably painless to help her along.
After that, it was just a question of tying up a few loose ends – suicide note, identification, cremation and the like – before I was able to junk Mercedes, gather up what was left of Françoise – bank details, passport, birth certificate – and take her on one of those foreign trips she was always planning, but never booked, while at home, people may have wondered how it could be that a woman could vanish so completely and efficiently, leaving nothing in her wake – no family, no papers, not even a grave.
Some time later, she was to reappear as an English teacher at the Lycée Rousseau. By then, of course, she’d been largely forgotten, lost in a mound of paperwork. The truth is, most people don’t care. Life goes on at such a pace that it’s easier to forget the dead.
I tried, at the end, to make he
r understand. Hemlock is such a useful drug; so easy to come by in summer, of course, and makes the victim so manageable. Paralysis sets in in a matter of minutes, and after that it’s all good, with plenty of time for discussion and exchange of views – or rather view, in my case, as Françoise seemed incapable of speech.
Frankly, that disappointed me. I’d been looking forward to seeing her reaction when I told her, and although I wasn’t exactly expecting approval, I’d hoped for something more from a person of her intellectual calibre.
But all I got was disbelief, and that rictus in her staring face – never pretty at the best of times – so that if I’d been a susceptible person I might have seen her again in my dreams, and heard the choking sounds she made as she struggled vainly against the draught that did for Socrates.
Nice touch, I thought. But wasted on my poor Françoise, who sadly discovered her zest for life only minutes before its end. And I was left, once again, with a sense of regret. Once more, it had been too easy for me. Françoise was no challenge at all. A silver mouse charm on my bracelet. Natural prey to one such as myself.
Which brings me to Vianne Rocher.
Now there’s an opponent worthy of me – a witch, no less, and a powerful one, for all her silly scruples and guilt. Perhaps the only worthy opponent that I have ever encountered thus far. And here she is, waiting for me with that quiet knowledge in her eyes, and I know she sees me clearly at last, sees me in my true colours, and there’s no sensation quite as fine as that first true moment of intimacy—
‘Hello, Vianne.’
‘Hello, Zozie.’
I sit down at the table opposite her. She looks cold, bundled up in her shapeless dark sweater, her white lips pinched with unsaid words. I smile at her, and her colours shine out – strange, how much affection I feel, now that the knives are drawn at last.
Outside, the wind is riding high. A killer wind, charged with snow. Sleepers in doorways will die tonight. Dogs will howl; doors slam. Young lovers will look into each other’s eyes and for the first time will silently question their vows. Eternity is such a long time – and here, at the dead-end of the year, Death seems suddenly very close.
But isn’t that what it’s all about, this festival of winter lights? This little defiance in the face of the dark? Call it Christmas if you like, but you and I know it’s older than that. And beneath all the tinsel and the carol-singing and the glad tidings and the gifts lies a bleaker and more visceral truth.
This is a time of essential loss; of the sacrifice of innocents; of fear, darkness, barrenness, death. The Aztecs knew, and so did the Maya, that, far from wanting to save the world, their gods were bent on its destruction, and that only the blood of sacrifice could appease them for a little while . . .
We sat there in silence, like old friends. I fingered the charms on my bracelet; she stared into her chocolate-cup. Finally she looked at me.
‘So what are you doing here, Zozie?’
Not too original, but – hey, it’s a start.
I smiled. ‘I’m a – collector,’ I said.
‘Is that what you call it?’
‘For want of a name.’
‘And what do you collect?’ she said.
‘Debts outstanding. Promises due.’
She flinched at that, as I knew she would.
‘What do I owe you?’
‘Let’s see,’ I smiled. ‘For assorted workings, glamours, charms, tricks, protection, turning straw into gold, averting bad luck, piping the rats out of Hamelin and generally giving you back your life—’ I saw her begin to protest, but moved on. ‘I think we agreed you’d pay me in kind.’
‘In kind?’ she repeated. ‘I don’t understand.’
In fact, she understood me perfectly. It’s a very old theme, and she knows it well. The price for your heart’s desire is your heart. A life for a life. A world in balance. Stretch a rubber band far enough and at last it snaps back in your face.
Call it karma, physics, chaos theory, but without it, poles tilt; ground shifts; birds drop from the sky, seas turn to blood and before you know it, the world’s at an end.
By rights I could take her life, you know. Today I’m inclined to be generous. Vianne Rocher has two lives – I only need the one. But lives are interchangeable; in this world identities may be passed around like playing-cards; shuffled; reshuffled and redealt. That’s all I’m asking for. Your hand. And you owe me a debt. You said so yourself.
‘So what’s your name?’ said Vianne Rocher.
My real name?
Ye gods, it’s been so long that I’ve almost forgotten. What’s in a name? Wear it like a coat. Turn it, burn it, throw it away and steal another. The name doesn’t matter. Only the debt. And I’m calling it in. Right here, right now.
One small obstacle remains. Her name is Françoise Lavery. Clearly I must have made a mistake somewhere in my calculations; missed something in the general clean-up, because this ghost still won’t leave me alone. She’s in the papers every week – not on the front page, thankfully, but nevertheless I could do without the publicity, and this week, for the first time, the piece suggests foul play as well as simple fraud. There are posters, too, showing her face, on billboards and lamp-posts around the city. Of course I look nothing like her these days. But a combination of bank and surveillance camera footage may yet lead them uncomfortably close, and all it needs then is some random element to be thrown into the mix, and all my elaborate plans are blown.
I need to vanish – and very soon – and (this is where you come in, Vianne), the best way of doing that is to leave Paris for good.
This, of course, is where the problem lies. You see, Vianne, I like it here. I never imagined I could get so much fun – so much profit – from a simple chocolaterie. But I like what this place has become, and I see its potential as you never did.
You saw it as a hiding-place. I see it as the eye of the storm. From here, we can be the Hurakan – we can wreak havoc; shape lives; wield power – which is really the name of the whole ballgame, when you come to think about it – as well as making money, of course, always a plus in today’s venal world . . .
When I say we—
I mean me, of course.
‘But why Anouk?’ Her voice was harsh. ‘Why bring my daughter into this?’
‘I like her,’ I said.
She looked scornful at that. ‘Like her? You used her. Corrupted her. You made her think you were her friend—’
‘At least I’ve always been honest with her.’
‘And I haven’t? I’m her mother—’ she said.
‘You choose your family.’ I smiled. ‘You’d better be careful she doesn’t choose me.’
She thought about that one for some time. She looked calm enough, but I could see the turbulence in her colours, the distress and confusion and something else – a kind of knowledge I didn’t quite like.
At last she said, ‘I could ask you to leave.’
I grinned. ‘Why not try? Or call the police – better still, call the Social Services. I’m sure they could offer you all kinds of support. They’ve probably still got your notes in Rennes – or was it Les Laveuses?’
She cut me off. ‘What exactly do you want?’
I told her as much as she needed to know. My time is short – but she can’t know that. Nor can she know about poor Françoise – soon to reappear as someone else. But she knows I am the enemy now; her eyes were bright and cold and aware, and she laughed scornfully (if a little hysterically) as I delivered my ultimatum.
‘You’re saying I should leave?’ she said.
‘Well,’ I pointed out reasonably, ‘is Montmartre really big enough to hold two witches?’
Her laughter was like broken glass. Outside, the voice of the wind keened its eerie harmonies. ‘Well, if you think I’m going to pack up and run away just because you did a few sneak workings behind my back, then you’re going to be disappointed,’ she said. ‘You’re not the first to try this, you know. There was this pr
iest—’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘Then what?’
Oh, that’s good. I like that defiance. It’s what I have been hoping for. Identities are so easy to take. I’ve taken enough of them in my time. But the opportunity to face another witch on her home ground, with weapons of choice, to collect her life, to add it to my charm-bracelet with the black coffin and the silver shoes . . .
How many times do you get that chance?
I’ll give myself three days, that’s all. Three days to win or lose. After that it’s so long, goodnight, and off to pastures green and new. Free spirit, and all that. Go wherever the wind takes me. It’s a big world out there, full of opportunities. I’m sure I’ll find something to challenge my skills.
For now, however—
‘Listen, Vianne. I’ll give you three days. Till after the party. Pack up by then, take what you can, and I won’t try to stop you. Stay, and I won’t answer for the consequences.’
‘Why? What can you do?’ she said.
‘I can take it all, piece by piece. Your life, your friends, your children—’
She stiffened. That’s her weakness, of course. Those children – especially our little Anouk, already so very talented . . .
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said.
Good. That’s what I thought you’d say. No one hands over their life like that. Even mousy Françoise fought back a little at the end, and I’m expecting rather more from you. You have three days to make your stand. Three days to placate the Hurakan. Three days to become Vianne Rocher.
Unless, of course, I can get there first.
7
Saturday, 22nd December
TILL AFTER THE party. What does she mean? Surely there can be no party now, with this strange threat hanging over our heads. That was my first reaction, when Zozie had gone to bed and I was left in the freezing kitchen to think out my plan of defence.
The Lollipop Shoes Page 35
