Chocolat by Joanne Harris

Author:Joanne Harris [Harris, Joanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf

TWENTY-TWO

Friday, March 7

THE GYPSIES ARE LEAVING. I walked by Les Marauds early this morning and they were making ready, stacking their fishing-pots and taking in their interminable lines of washing. Some left last night, in darkness. I heard the sounds of their whistles and airhorns, like a final defiance, most superstitiously awaiting first light. It was just after seven when I passed. In the pale grey-green of the dawn they looked like war refugees, white-faced, sullenly tying the last remains of their floating circus into bundles. What was garish and magical-tawdry last night is now merely drab, scorched of its glamour. A smell of burning and oil hangs in the mist. A sound of flapping canvas, the hacking of early-morning engines. Few even bother to look at me, going about their business with tight mouths and narrowed eyes. No-one speaks. I do not see Roux among these stragglers. Perhaps he left with the early crowd. There are maybe thirty boats still left on the river, their bows sagging with the weight of the accumulated baggage. The girl Zezette works alongside the wrecked hulk, transferring unidentifiable pieces of blackened something onto her own boat. A crate of chickens rests precariously on top of a charred mattress and a box of magazines. She flings me a look of hatred, but says nothing.

Don’t think I feel nothing for these people. There is no personal grudge, mon pere, but I have my own congregation to think of. I cannot waste time in unsolicited preaching to strangers, to be jeered at and insulted. And yet I am not unapproachable. Any one of them would be welcome in my church, if their contrition were sincere. If they need guidance, they know they can come to me.

I slept badly last night. Since the beginning of Lent I have suffered troubled nights. I often leave my bed in the early hours, hoping to find sleep in the pages of a book, or in the dark silent streets of Lansquenet, or on the banks of the Tannes. Last night I was more restless than usual, and, knowing I would not sleep, left the house at eleven for an hour’s walk along the river. I skirted Les Marauds and the gypsies’ camp and made my way across the fields and upriver, though the sounds of their activity remained clearly audible behind me. Looking back downriver I could see campfires on the river bank, dancing figures outlined in the orange glow. Looking at my watch I realized I had been walking for almost an hour, and I turned to retrace my footsteps. I had not intended to pass through Les Marauds, but to walk across the fields once more would add half an hour onto my journey home, and I was feeling dull and dizzy with fatigue. Worse, the combination of cold air and sleeplessness had awoken in me an acute feeling of hunger which I already knew would be inadequately broken by my early morning collation of coffee and bread.

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