Page 67 of Vianne
It has been over a week now since that fraught conversation at dinner. The broken window has been repaired, the conching machine is working again, and Guy is back to his usual self; making plans, talking non-stop; telling stories of what will be when Xocolatl is open.
Mahmed blames the Chinese family for the broken window. ‘Who else could it be?’ he tells us. ‘They’ve always blamed us for everything.’
Guy, unsurprisingly, disagrees. ‘It could have been anyone,’ he says.
‘Teenagers. Vandals.’ He tries to make Mahmed understand that Happy Noodles isn’t a threat.
We are all part of the same community, trying to make a living.
We should make friends with our neighbours.
And November, he says, should be all about making stock for Christmas: bars and boxes of chocolate; Christmas decorations; gifts.
This is our time to impress, he says; to make an impact on the community.
The shop is fully fitted now; there is a counter, an old-fashioned till, a couple of little tables and chairs, and a glass display cabinet on the wall, where boxes of chocolates and gifts of all kinds will gleam like buried treasure.
There will be a display window, too, with a Christmas scene in chocolate, and Stéphane’s handmade sign outside, with the single word: Xocolatl .
The local newspaper has been informed, which hopefully will bring us some free publicity.
There is even a telephone, which means that Mahmed will not need to go to the public phone box down the road whenever he needs to order stock.
And Pomponette is back at last, which means that Stéphane is happy again.
He has also finished his work on the van: there is now a customized counter inside, with a stack of paper cups, some jars of marshmallow toppings, and a large urn with a spigot with which to serve the freshly made hot chocolate.
But it is the bodywork of the van that represents the real transformation.
Stéphane has painted it orange, with a design of cacao pods in brown, and gold, and scarlet, and pink, and the word Xocolatl flying across the side in a looping, cursive script.
It is both cheery and eye-catching, and Guy has been fulsome in thanks and praise.
Mahmed has said nothing. Since last week he has been unusually withdrawn; his normally expressive face now immobile and unresponsive. ‘He’ll come round in the end,’ says Guy with his usual optimism. ‘You’ll see. He always does.’
I wonder. I have never seen Mahmed like this.
No comment, no complaint, even when he saw what Stéphane had done to his van.
He simply gets on with his work, eats his meals with the rest of us, sleeps in his usual place.
But something is missing. A layer of skin.
Even Guy’s gentle mockery fails to provoke a reaction.
Tomorrow, I plan to go out in the van with Stéphane and try some outreach; Guy will work on his designs, and Mahmed will lay the new floor tiles – ochre and gold, like the wall paintings – in the public part of the shop.
We should be celebrating. Everything is on time, and in place.
And yet, in spite of all this, it feels as if something is about to fall; as if the power I summoned last week is working somehow against us.
My mother’s voice inside me says: The wind does not come at your beck and call.
And yet I feel it in me; that power. Try me. Taste me. Test me.
I made a big bowl of ganache from the chocolate batch that was ruined.
Where chocolate has seized, it can be brought back to a soft consistency by adding warm water and mixing.
It’s a method Guy disdains; the chocolate cannot be made solid again, so is good only for sauces or drinks.
But we can use it for ganache, so it is not all wasted; and the rest will go into a cake to go with my hot chocolate.
I used one of Margot’s recipes – Gateau Liégois – made with rich vanilla cream and alternating layers of ganache.
Tomorrow it will help us bring a little good into the world.
I wonder what Margot would think of that.
My mother used to tell me that no one ever dies if even one person remembers them.
In these recipes, Margot lives on, gives comfort to strangers; feeds the world.
If she had lived to bring up Edmond, she would have taught him this recipe; given him the spoon to lick; showed him how to spread the ganache using a round-bladed palette knife.
The vision of Margot and Edmond is very vivid in my mind; their faces warm in the sunlight reflected from the window; their heads almost touching as they peer together into the bowl of ganache.
And Louis is there, too, a Louis I have never seen before, his face alight with amusement.
What a difference it would have made, I thought, if Edmond had stayed at La Bonne Mère.
A child is the future; a promise that the world will not forget us.
I think of my little Anouk, no larger than a mango, and of Molfetta, and the harbour in New York, and of the bundle of clippings among my mother’s papers.
And even though the kitchen is warm, I feel a sudden chill, the kind my mother used to call someone walking over my grave .
And I reach for the half-finished bowl of ganache, and spoon some softly into my mouth, and feel it melting against my tongue, releasing its flavours like silent prayers towards the vault of my mouth, and I think; Who were you, Maman?
Who were you really? And if I don’t know that, then how on earth can I know who I really am – Annie or Anne, Sylviane or Vianne – among all the possible lives I have had, the glimpses of possible futures?