Page 83 of Vianne

I managed to get back home somehow. Home.

That word again, so barbed with dangerous promises.

I’d forgotten my coat in my haste to be gone, and the wind was suddenly biting cold, and the garlands of Christmas lights on the streets looked small and lost against the dark.

But when I reached Xocolatl, my heart beating ferociously, I found the display window brightly lit, with fairy lights on the window-ledge and along the shelves of chocolates.

Cellophane-wrapped and gleaming like a pirate’s buried treasure, they seemed to glow with a precious light, those gilded piles of mendiants, and truffles, rose creams and santons de Margot , while above them rose the centrepiece; a statuette of the Bonne Mère , much larger than the ones in the shop, one hand raised in benediction, the other holding the infant Christ, and robed in darkest chocolate.

And all around the dishes and jars were origami animals; little angular butterflies and cranes and fish and rabbits in multicoloured paper.

I detected the hand of Grandmother Li: imagined those clever old hands at work, folding the pretty papers.

I opened the door. Stéphane was there, putting the finishing touches to a glass display case of smaller chocolate figures, each one wrapped in cellophane and tied with a flourish of ribbon. He looked up as I entered, and smiled.

‘The girls from Happy Noodles came by to help with the decorations. The paper things were their idea. What do you think? Is it okay?’

I felt a sudden sense of loss, as if something small but very much beloved had been taken away. Then I smiled.

‘It’s perfect,’ I said. ‘You didn’t really need me at all.’

He looked at me. ‘Are you okay? You look a little—’

‘Fine, thanks. Any word of Guy?’

He shook his head. ‘If he doesn’t show, we’ll just have to manage together.

It’ll be fine; we have all the stock. The chocolate fountain’s arriving at ten.

The sax player at twelve-thirty. The heaters are in place, in case we need to give folk an incentive.

Everything’s ready. You’ll front the shop; Mahmed and I can take turns in the back.

Mrs Li and her daughters volunteered to help out, too. We can do this. I promise.’

Stéphane so wants it to be true. I can see it in his face, his good-natured, hopeful smile.

He has fought for his place here even more than the rest of us; and he so wants it to succeed.

But for me, my time has run out. The Man in Black is at the door.

I think of the man who spoke with Guy. Is this the same man who spoke to Louis?

And what does he want of Sylviane Caillou, after so many years in the shadows?

My little Anouk, so silent now, clings tight as a promise to my heart.

I have done nothing wrong here. I have to keep reminding myself of that.

But if I let him talk to me, who knows what we will discover?

For the moment, Sylviane Caillou is nothing but a story from a bundle of clippings.

Even the photo Louis showed me may be nothing more than coincidence.

One stuffed rabbit, one small child looks very like another.

But open this box of secrets, and anything could escape.

Jeanne Rochas, of no fixed abode. Who might be travelling with a child.

Imagine the pain of losing a child. Imagine the terrible loneliness.

Imagine waking up every day, knowing that someone had taken her.

But to acknowledge one family is to reject another.

How could I do that to Maman, after all she did for me?

Of course, I said nothing of this to Stéphane.

I cannot leave in Guy’s absence. I cannot abandon my friends at this, their time of reckoning.

In the shop, everything’s ready. The checklist of things for the morning – chocolate fountain, gift bags, cards, a trio of cakes and some madeleines to go with the day’s hot chocolate – has been checked for the third time.

Dinner was a little cold quiche; a simple salad; olives; cheese.

Mahmed ate with us, but silently; Guy’s absence weighs upon us all.

I went to my room and read the cards with a kind of desperation: but nothing made sense, and every hand was the same combination of Change and Death.

Finally I fell asleep with the cards on the bedspread beside me, and when I awoke, with a headful of dreams, to the sound of the bells from Notre-Dame, I could hardly remember where I was, or even what I was doing here.