Page 24 of Vianne

The bar still smelt of grilled sardines.

Combined with the smoke of his cigarette, it felt like an assault on my senses as I set Emile’s main course in front of him, and went to open the bistrot door to let in a little fresh air, but now the wind had turned cool, and the sudden draught made him look round in annoyance.

‘Are you trying to give me pneumonia?’

‘I’m sorry. I just needed some air. I’ll close it in a minute.’

By then it was almost three o’clock. The dishes were cleared; most people had left.

It struck me that Emile’s arrival was often the signal for others to leave, although his friendship with Louis means that he is generally tolerated.

He ate his lunch in silence, pushing away his main course without comment, waiting for me to bring the dessert even without so much as a smile.

Behind him, only a few customers remained, lingering over hot chocolate.

I poured a cup for Emile, who pretends to scorn it when Louis is around, and still believes that I have not noticed his appetite for sweet things.

‘This chocolate tastes different. I liked it better yesterday.’

‘I used coconut milk today. Maybe that’s what you can taste.’

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’ He took a navette. ‘Make these yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘ Heh. ’ He has the same mannerisms as Louis, as if through years of proximity.

But unlike Louis, he has never changed in his attitude towards me.

He is still guarded, suspicious, as if I were something badly made; impermanent; ready to fall.

He looked at me from narrowed eyes, his colours low, but blowtorch-hot.

He reached into his pocket and brought out a pack of unfiltered Gitanes .

Most of our other regulars have quietly stopped smoking around me, but Emile is the exception; and the sharp reek of dark tobacco caught in my throat like a fishbone.

He must have seen me flinch, because his narrow smile grew broader.

‘Something wrong, mademoiselle ?’

I shook my head. ‘Have an ashtray.’

‘Good idea.’ He grinned again. ‘And another cup of that chocolate.’

Herbs to ease a troubled heart. But it will take more than a pinch of spice to ease whatever drives Emile. His anger – glimpsed that first day in July as I came down for breakfast – is a permanent flame in him, unquenchable as a piece of his soul. Anger or – hate. But for whom?

I tried to look through the weaving smoke rising now from his cigarette, but all I could see was the face of a woman seated by the bar, watching me with curious eyes from under a bright silk headscarf.

‘Chocolate! May I try a cup?’

She wasn’t one of our regulars. In fact, I hadn’t noticed her sitting there a moment before.

People here tend to wear drab clothes; berets in rusty black and brown; sailcloth trousers; dark overcoats.

This woman was wearing a patchwork coat; her brown face was as ripe as a nectarine, with eyes that flashed with mischief.

‘Do I know you?’

The woman smiled. I looked at her more closely and saw, with a jolt of surprise, that it was the old woman from Rue du Panier, whom I had last seen in La Bonne Mère on the day of the bouillabaisse.

Without her straw hat and basket she looks a lot younger than before – sixty, rather than eighty – with a bright and merry smile all nested in fine wrinkles.

I poured her a cup of chocolate. She drank it slowly, contemplatively.

‘I can taste the ocean,’ she said. ‘Coconut palms on a rocky coast. The sand is gritty and almost black; the air smells of frangipani. Tastes are so good at conjuring place. Place, and maybe other things.’ She smiled.

‘You’re looking well, Vianne. Better than when I first saw you. Pregnancy suits you. Chocolate, too.’

I glanced at Emile. He seemed not to have noticed the woman sitting behind him. The rising smoke from his cigarette bloomed like a corona.

The woman smiled at me again. We might have been alone in the room.

‘And yet you gave yourself that name. The name of that village on the Ba?se. Names are good at conjuring, too. Names are words of power.’

I said: ‘What’s your name?’

She smiled again. ‘Why would I give anyone power over me? But you can call me Khamaseen . It’s one of the many names I’ve had over the years, and I’m fond of it.’

‘How do you know so much about me?’ I said. I was starting to feel light-headed; the smell of Emile’s cigarette smoke made my stomach flip like a pancake.

The woman looked sympathetic. ‘The smell of chocolate helps,’ she said. ‘Try it. It kills the nausea.’ I held up the pot of chocolate and inhaled the scent. It smelt rich and warm and comforting; calm as an unbroken highway. ‘Drink some. It’s good for the baby, too.’

I realized I was hungry, and poured myself a cup.

She was right; it did help. I felt Anouk flutter like a moth; the reek of smoke diminished.

The woman finished her chocolate and set down the cup on the counter.

Reaching into her pocket, she brought out a flat parcel, wrapped in tissue paper, and handed it to me.

‘She would have liked you to have this,’ she said. ‘Maybe it will help you.’

I looked down at the parcel. It felt like a book. I started to ask who she meant, who she was , but even as I struggled for words, the woman from Rue du Panier had gone, slipping through the open door, light-footed as a leaf in the wind, closing it behind her.

‘That’s better,’ said Emile, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘Some people want us all to freeze.’

I looked at him. ‘Who was that?’ I said.

He poured himself another cup of chocolate from the pot. ‘Who?’

‘The woman with us at the bar.’ I struggled to describe her. ‘Grey hair. Headscarf. Patchwork coat. She was sitting here, just now.’

Emile gave me a puzzled look. ‘I didn’t see any woman there. Sure you didn’t imagine her?’