Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé

by Joanne Harris

  She must have been running, I suppose. She almost ran into me as I approached. I could hear her breathing, ragged and fast; her eyes above the black veil were wide with alarm and astonishment. I feared she might scream.

  I said: ‘It’s all right. Sonia, it’s me. Francis Reynaud.’

  If anything, I thought her alarm increased. She gave a tiny, strangled cry.

  I said: ‘I was taking a walk, that’s all. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

  Of course, my story failed to explain the rucksack on my shoulder. But the last thing I wanted right now was any kind of attention. Why was Sonia here at all? By the river – alone, at this time?

  ‘Sonia,’ I said. ‘Is anything wrong?’

  She made a sound at the back of her throat.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘I can’t leave you like this. Does your father know you’re here?’

  ‘No.’ Her voice was a whisper.

  I thought of Alyssa. This wasn’t fair. All I wanted was to leave. Mon père, I thought: why make it so hard? How many obstacles must God put in my way?

  She is not my responsibility. Alyssa is not my responsibility. Inès Bencharki is not my responsibility. Everything bad that has happened to me over the course of the past few weeks has been the result of my interfering with matters that are not my responsibility. Well, this is where it ends, I thought. Les Marauds has its own priest. Let him deal with the flock himself.

  And then I smelt the petrol. My God, had she been bathing in it?

  ‘What were you doing here?’ I said, more harshly than I’d intended. ‘Why do you smell of petrol? Were you going to burn yourself?’

  She started to whimper. ‘You don’t understand—’

  ‘We’re going to get your father,’ I said, taking hold of her by the wrist. ‘It’s up to him to sort this out.’

  ‘No. No.’ She shook her head so hard that the whole of her body followed suit. The can of petrol that she had been carrying under her robe fell to the ground.

  The frustration I had felt over the past few weeks had reached the point of combustion. Anger made me pitiless. I know, père. I’m not proud of this.

  ‘What is it with you people?’ I said. ‘First your sister, then you! Are you crazy? Do you want to die? Do you really believe that if you die during Ramadan, God will give you a free pass into Paradise?’

  She looked at me blankly. ‘I don’t want to die.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Her reply was inaudible.

  ‘Then what?’

  She winced at my raised voice. ‘I wanted Inès to go away.’

  That woman again. ‘Who the hell is she? And how has she managed to somehow infect the whole of Les Marauds with her insanity?’ I stopped. ‘Hang on a minute,’ I said. ‘How exactly did you propose to make her go away?’ I indicated the petrol can. ‘Sonia, what were you planning to burn?’

  Sweet Jesus. The penny dropped. It felt like repeated blows to the head. The houseboat. The petrol can. Sonia. The school. The graffiti in Arabic. Whore. The act that sent my world crashing down, that has made me a pariah, both in Les Marauds and Lansquenet, that has cost me my reputation, my pride—

  ‘You lit the fire,’ I told her. ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanted her to leave,’ she said. Her voice was like tiny metal tacks being hammered into a piece of wood. ‘I want her to go away for good. Back to wherever she came from. She was never supposed to stay. She only came for the wedding. If she goes, then Karim will be mine all the way through, the way he was supposed to be. But for as long as she’s around—’

  ‘You could have killed someone,’ I said. ‘Inès, or her daughter, or one of the people who came to help—’

  She shook her head. ‘I was careful,’ she said. ‘I lit the fire at the front of the house. The fire escape is at the back. And I threw stones at the windows, to make sure they were awake.’

  For a moment I was speechless. That it should be Sonia who had tried to burn down the school – Sonia, whom I’d always liked, who used to play with the boys in the square and drink diabolos at Joséphine’s—

  ‘Have you any idea of the harm you’ve done? You do know everyone blames me?’

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, so that excuses it?’ Anger made me intemperate. My voice ripped into the silence like fire. ‘Arson, attempted murder, and lies?’

  Surprisingly, she did not cry. I’d rather expected her to, père, but her voice was as small and as hard as before. ‘I’m four months pregnant, Curé,’ she said. ‘If he divorces me now, I’m alone. I get nothing. He can stay here or go back to Morocco if he likes. I have no rights. Do you understand?’

  ‘Why would he divorce you?’ I said.

  ‘He will if he finds out I lit the fire. I told you before. He worships Inès. And don’t expect my father to help. He loves Karim like a favourite son. My mother – she thinks he’s an angel come down from Jannat to save us all. And as for Inès—’

  She looked away. The muezzin began the call to prayer. It’s really quite a musical chant, taken out of context. The chimney of the old tannery provides a resonant platform from which to harangue the faithful. Hayya la-s-salah. Hayya la-s-salah. In moments, the streets will be busy again. So much for my quiet exit.

  She said: ‘He goes to her at night. I hear him getting out of bed. He comes back smelling of perfume, and her. I know it’s her. I can feel it. I can see and feel and hear everything, and yet I can’t speak. She’s bewitched him. He’s under her spell. We both are.’

  This is ridiculous, père, I thought. I have forsaken the way of the cloth, and here I am taking confession again. ‘There are no witches,’ I told her. ‘Have you spoken to Karim?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I tried,’ she said. ‘But he just gets angry. Then my mother and father say that I’m not being obedient. They say I should be more like Inès, modest and respectful.’

  ‘What about your grandfather? Have you tried confiding in him?’

  For the first time, I saw a smile in her eyes. ‘Dear Jiddo. But he doesn’t live with us any more, and so I don’t see him as often. My father and he had an argument; my father says he’s a bad influence. And Jiddo doesn’t like it that my father has taken his place at the mosque. He lives with the al-Djerbas now, my Uncle Ismail’s family. They’re saying he’s ill. That he’s going to die.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I realized I was; Mohammed Mahjoubi has been here for years. In spite of our disagreements, I have always considered him an honest man. If he dies, he will leave a space in this community. I wish the same were true of me.

  ‘Go home,’ I said. ‘And change your dress. That one reeks of petrol.’

  She looked at me uncertainly. ‘You won’t tell Karim, or my father?’

  ‘No. As long as you leave Inès alone. Whatever is between you, you should solve it honestly. That means openly, with words, not with dangerous pranks like this.’

  ‘You promise you won’t tell them?’

  ‘As long as you stop this nonsense right now.’

  She gave a sigh. ‘All right.’

  ‘Two Avés.’

  She looked at me in surprise.

  ‘Joke.’

  I think you need to be a priest to really see the humour, père. But she smiled with her eyes. I like that.

  ‘Jazak Allah, Curé,’ she said.

  Then she quietly crept away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Wednesday, 25th August

  I SLIPPED FROM one dream to the other all night, and awoke at dawn to the tiny sound of the front door closing on the latch. I sat up on my sofa-bed, and saw a shadow through the glass; a figure in a black robe, features hidden behind a scarf.

  ‘Alyssa?’

  I turned on the lights. She was by the door, only her eyes visible behind the tightly folded scarf. But it wasn’t Alyssa. Now I could see that this was a much slighter figure; hidden, not under an abaya, but under a black coat much too
big for her.

  ‘Du’a?’

  She turned to look at me. Her small, expressionless face was pale. She said in a strangely adult voice: ‘I need to talk to Alyssa.’

  I stood up and pulled on my robe. ‘Of course. Is anything wrong?’

  She gave me a look. It is the same look that Anouk, at nine, used to give me when I said something she considered particularly obtuse.

  I said: ‘I’ll get her.’

  She followed me up to Alyssa’s little bedroom. I found Alyssa already awake, watching the rain through the window. She jumped to her feet when she saw Du’a, and there followed a rapid interchange in Arabic, from which I caught practically nothing but the word Jiddo – grandfather – and a general sense of urgency. Alyssa listened intently, occasionally breaking in with a comment or a question.

  Then she said: ‘I have to go.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Jiddo. He’s ill. He says he wants to see me.’

  Now I remembered Fatima telling me old Mahjoubi was ill. In my haste to find Inès, I hadn’t paid much attention. I recalled something about a disagreement with Saïd – or was it Inès? – and that old Mahjoubi had come to stay with the al-Djerbas for a while. I thought of the one occasion on which I’d had a chance to speak to him. I’d liked the roguish look of him and his mischievous humour. Whatever his illness, I told myself, it must have come on very quickly.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  She shrugged. ‘No one knows. He doesn’t say. He won’t see a doctor. He won’t even eat. Just reads his book, or sleeps all day. He’s asking for me. I have to go.’ She hesitated. ‘Come with me? Please?’

  I smiled. ‘Of course. Let me get dressed.’

  We set off five minutes later under the slow and steady rain. Alyssa was wearing her hijab again, and her face looked small and angular beneath the folds of fabric. Les Marauds smells even more strongly now of the sea at low tide; a brackish scent that reminded me of harbours and journeys and beaches at dawn, with footprints in the black mud and children digging for cockles. The Tannes has broken its banks overnight, flooding one end of the boulevard; forming a kind of shallow lake, in which the mosque, with its white minaret, is reflected like a mirage. A little more of this, I think, and the houses on the street will flood, from the cellars upwards, water pouring in from the sewers and drains and filling the houses, one by one.

  Fatima did not comment when the three of us arrived. Instead she simply waved us inside, tidied away our clothes and shoes, and showed us into the front room. Zahra and Omi were already there, dressed for the mosque, sitting on cushions and playing a game that looked like chequers, but was not. Maya was in the kitchen with her mother, but came out when she heard us. No one seemed surprised to see me.

  ‘How bad is it?’ said Alyssa.

  Omi shook her head. ‘Who knows? He came to us five days ago. Said he preferred to stay with us. Since then, he hardly talks, doesn’t eat, doesn’t even go to mosque. Just sits and reads that book of his and looks out of the window. It’s almost as if he has given up hope, now that Saïd has taken his place. But if you talk to him, perhaps—’ She shrugged. ‘Inshallah. It’s worth a try.’

  Alyssa said nothing for a while. She seemed to be thinking furiously. ‘Does anyone else know I’m here?’ she said.

  Fatima put a hand on her arm. ‘I promise, we haven’t told anyone. But nothing stays secret here for long. People talk. People guess.’

  ‘Has anyone else been here?’ she said. ‘Sonia? My father? Karim?’

  ‘No. Saïd says we shouldn’t indulge the old man. Says no one is to visit him unless he agrees to come back home.’ Fatima sighed and shook her head. ‘They’re both as stubborn as old mules. Neither one will give way. Mehdi’s with the old man now. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you both.’

  She led us up the narrow stairs. Old Mahjoubi’s room is an attic bedroom at the back of the house, overlooking the river. A single triangular window lets in the daylight; the eaves are low and made of ancient timber, bleached pale and eaten by woodworm. Old Mahjoubi was sitting there, a tartan blanket over his knees. His face was pale and sunken. Beside him, on the bedside table, the third volume of Les Misérables, with a bookmark just past the halfway point. Standing next to him was a man I took to be Fatima’s husband, Mehdi; grey-haired, with a little paunch, and a humorous face, now pouchy with concern.

  I stayed at the door. Alyssa went in and flung her arms around her grandfather. In Arabic, she addressed him; urgent, staggered sentences spoken in a low voice. Of course I didn’t understand; but as she spoke the old man’s face took on a little more animation; reflecting for a second or two a vestige of the personality I’d seen just a few days earlier.

  ‘Alyssa,’ he said in a papery voice. His eyes turned slowly to look at me. ‘And Madame Rocher. Isn’t it? The one who brings peaches for Ramadan?’

  ‘My friends call me Vianne,’ I told him.

  ‘I owe you a debt.’ He lifted a hand. An oddly courtly gesture, like an old king conferring favour. ‘On behalf of my little Alyssa.’

  I smiled. ‘You owe me nothing,’ I said. ‘If anything, Monsieur le Curé is the one who deserves the credit.’

  He nodded. ‘So I understand. I hope you can pass on my thanks to him.’

  Alyssa was kneeling on the rug beside the old man’s chair. His hand, as sallow and misshapen as a piece of driftwood, came to rest on the girl’s head. He said something gently in Arabic, in which I caught the word zina, and nothing else.

  Softly, Alyssa began to cry. ‘I don’t want you to die, Jiddo. You have to see a doctor.’

  Old Mahjoubi shook his head. ‘I will not die, I promise you. At least not until I have finished this book. And remember, it is a long book, and all in French, and the print is small, and my eyes are not as good as they were—’

  ‘Don’t make jokes about this, Jiddo. You have to take more care of yourself. Eat some food. See a doctor. There are lots of people who need you here.’

  Old Mahjoubi sighed. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Of course there are,’ I told him. ‘Some of them may not admit it to you. But the people who refuse your help are often the ones who need it most.’

  I thought the old eyes brightened at that. ‘You are speaking of my son Saïd.’

  I shrugged. ‘Do you think he’s good enough to take your place without guidance? Or—’ I quoted a Moroccan proverb – ‘if, at noon, he says it is night, will you say: Behold, the stars?’

  He looked at me appreciatively. ‘Madame, I think I liked you best when you were just bringing peaches.’

  I quoted another proverb: ‘A nod is enough for a wise man. A fool may need a kick up the—’

  He gave a crack of laughter. ‘You know a lot of our sayings, madame. Do you know the one that goes: A wise woman has much to say, and yet is most often silent?’

  ‘I never said I was wise,’ I said. ‘All I do is make chocolates.’

  He looked at me then, with eyes that seemed to be nothing but shine under a webwork of wrinkles. ‘I dreamt of you, Madame Rocher,’ he said. ‘When I tried to perform istikhaara. I dreamt of you, and then of her. Take care. Stay away from the water.’

  Alyssa looked concerned. She said: ‘You should get some rest, Jiddo.’

  He smiled, and the focus returned to his eyes. ‘See how she nags at me, this child? Alhumdullila, I hope you will come again. Remember what I told you.’

  He was clearly very tired now. I put my hand on Alyssa’s arm. ‘We should let him rest, if he can. Perhaps you can see him tomorrow.’

  She looked at me. ‘Oh, Vianne. Do you think—’

  ‘We’ll come back tomorrow. I promise. For the moment, let him sleep.’

  Reluctantly, she followed me downstairs into the living room. Maya was playing chequers with Omi, the cat, Hazrat, clasped in her arms.

  ‘Is Jiddo better now?’ she said, looking up as we came in. ‘Memti says he’s too tired to play, and Omi always cheats.�
��

  ‘I do not cheat,’ said Omi. ‘I am old, and therefore infallible.’ She gave me her toothless, crumpled smile. ‘How was the old man? Did he talk to you?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Good. You should come again. Bring him some of your chocolate.’

  I nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Don’t leave it too long.’

  Walking home in the rain, I asked: ‘Alyssa. What’s istikhaara?’

  She looked surprised. ‘Oh, that,’ she said. ‘It’s a way of asking for guidance. We pray, and then we go to sleep, and we dream of the answer to our prayer. It sometimes works, but not every time. Dreams aren’t always easy to understand.’

  Like the cards, I thought to myself. Images layered in meaning. Stay away from the water, he’d said. The scorpion and the buffalo.

  Why did the old man dream of me? What kind of guidance does he seek? Was he trying to warn me to stay clear of Inès Bencharki? And if so, is it already too late? Has the scorpion stung me?

  ‘Why did you jump in the river?’ I said. ‘Was it because of Luc Clairmont?’

  The eyes jerked upwards. ‘Luc?’

  I smiled. ‘Du’a told me about him. How you’ve been meeting him online, how you’re afraid someone will find out—’

  She stared at me blankly. ‘Luc?’ she said.

  ‘You used to play football with him in the square. It’s all right. I understand. Your parents were different in those days. Les Marauds was different. But I know Luc. He has a mind of his own. If he loves you, he won’t be put off by family disagreements. He’ll stand up to his parents, the way you stood up to yours. It’ll be all right. I promise you. And if you love him, how can it be wrong?’

  I’d expected her to look different. To cry, perhaps; to express relief. But her expression did not change; her face was as blank as new-baked bread. Then she suddenly started to laugh; unhappy, jagged laughter that cut through the air like shrapnel.

  ‘Is that what you think?’ she said at last. ‘That I’m in love with Luc Clairmont?’