She was forty. It was cancer. She'd known for some time, she told me, but recently… No, there was to be no hospital. No hospital, did I understand? There were months, years left in her and she wanted to see America: New York, the Florida Everglades. We were moving almost every day now, Mother reading the cards at night when she thought I was asleep. We boarded a cruiser from Lisbon, both of us working in the kitchens. Finishing at two or three every morning, we rose at dawn. Every night the cards, slippery to the touch with age and respectful handling, were laid out on the bunk beside her. She whispered their names to herself, sinking deeper every day into the mazy confusion which would eventually claim her altogether.
Ten of Swords, death. Three of Swords, death. Two of Swords, death. The Chariot. Death.
The Chariot turned out to be a New York cab one summer evening as we shopped for groceries in the busy Chinatown streets. It was better than cancer, in any case.
When my daughter was born nine months later I called her after both of us. It seemed appropriate. Her father never knew her – nor am I sure which one he was in the wilting daisy-chain of my brief encounters. It doesn't matter. I could have peeled an apple at midnight and thrown the rind over my shoulder to know his initial, but I never cared enough to do it. Too much ballast slows us down.
And yet… Since I left New York, haven't the winds blown less hard, less often? Hasn't there been a kind of wrench every time we leave a place, a kind of regret? I think there has. Twenty-five years, and at last the spring has begun to grow tired, just as my mother grew tired in the final years. I find myself looking at the sun and wondering what it would be like to see it rise above the same horizon for five – maybe ten, maybe twenty – years: The thought fills me with a strange dizziness, a feeling of fear and longing. And Anouk, my little stranger? I see the brave adventure we lived for so long in a different light now that I am the mother. I see myself as I was, the brown girl with the long uncombed hair, wearing cast-off charity-shop clothing, learning maths the hard way, geography the hard way. How much bread for two francs? How far will a fifty-mark rail ticket take us? – and I do not want it for her. Perhaps this is why we have stayed in France for the last five years. For the first time in my life, I have a bank account. I have a trade.
My mother would have despised all this. And yet perhaps she would have envied me too. Forget yourself if you can, she would have told me. Forget who you are. For as long as you am bear it. But one day, my girl, one day it will catch you. I know.
I opened as usual today. For the morning only – I'11 allow myself a half-day with Anouk this afternoon – but it's Mass this morning and there will be people in the square. February has reasserted its drab self and now it is raining; a freezing, gritty rain which slicks the paving and colours the sky the shade of old pewter. Anouk reads a book of nursery rhymes behind the counter and keeps an eye on the door for me as I prepare a batch of mendiants in the kitchen. These are my own favourites – thus named because they were sold by beggars and gypsies years ago biscuit-sized discs of dark, milk or white chocolate upon which have been scattered lemon-rind, almonds and plump Malaga raisins. Anouk likes the white ones, though I prefer the dark, made with the finest 70 per cent couverture… Bitter-smooth on the tongue with the taste of the secret tropics. My mother would have despised this, too. And yet this is also a kind of magic.
Since Friday I have fitted a set of bar stools next to the counter of La Praline. Now it looks a little like the diners we used to visit in New York, red -leather seats and chrome stems, cheerily kitsch. The walls are a bright daffodil colour. Poitou 's old orange armchair lolls cheerily in one corner. A menu stands to the left, hand-lettered and coloured by Anouk in shades of orange and red:
chocolat chaud 10f
chocolat espresso 15f
chococcino 12f
mocha 12f
I baked a cake last night, and the hot chocolate is standing in a pot on the hob, awaiting my first customer. I make sure that a similar menu is visible from the window and I wait.
Mass comes and goes. I watch the passers-by, morose beneath the freezing drizzle. My door, slightly open, emits a hot scent of baking and sweetness. I catch a number of longing glances at the source of this, but a flick of the eye backwards, a shrugging of the shoulders, a twist of the mouth which may be resolve or simply temper, and they are gone, leaning into the wind with rounded, miserable shoulders, as if an angel with a flaming sword were standing at the door to bar their entry.
Time, I tell myself. This kind of thing takes time. But all the same, a kind of impatience, almost anger, penetrates me. What is wrong with these people? Why do they not come? Ten o'clock sounds, then eleven. I can see people going into the bakery opposite and coming out again with loaves tucked under their arms. The rain stops, though the sky remains grim. Eleven-thirty. The few people who still linger in the square turn homewards to prepare the Sunday meal. A boy with a dog skirts the corner of the church, carefully avoiding the dripping guttering. He walks past with barely a glance.
Damn them. Just when I thought I was beginning to get through. Why do they not come? Can they not see, not smell? What else do I have to do? Anouk, always sensitive to my moods, comes to hug me. `Maman, don't cry.’
I am not crying. I never cry. Her hair tickles my face, and I feel suddenly dizzy with the fear that one day I might lose her.
`It isn't your fault. We tried. We did everything right.’
True enough. Even to the red ribbons around the door, the sachets of cedar and lavender to repel bad influences. I kiss her head. There is moisture on my face. Something, perhaps the bittersweet aroma of the chocolate vapour, stings my eyes.
`It's all right, Cherie. What they do shouldn't affect us. We can at least have a drink to cheer ourselves up.’
We perch on our stools like New York barflies, a cup of chocolate each. Anouk has hers with Creme Chantilly and chocolate curls; I drink mine hot and black, stronger than espresso. We close our eyes in the fragrant steam and see them coming – two; three, a dozen at a time, their faces lighting up, sitting beside us, their hard, indifferent faces melting into expressions of welcome and delight. I open my eyes quickly and Anouk is standing by the door. For a second I can see Pantoufle perched on her shoulder, whiskers twitching. The light behind her seems warmer somehow; altered. Alluring.