If only I could be more worthy. My unworthiness dismays me, my intelligence – which is far in excess of that of my flock – serving only to heighten the weakness, the cheapness of the vessel God has chosen to serve. Is this my destiny? I dreamed of greater things, of sacrifices, of martyrdoms. Instead I fritter away time in anxieties which are unworthy of me, unworthy of you.
My sin is that of pettiness, mon pere. For this reason God is silent in His house. I know it, but I do not know how to cure the ill. I have increased the austerity of my Lenten fast, choosing to continue even on the days when a relaxation is permitted. Today, for instance, I poured my Sunday libation onto the hydrangeas and felt a definite lifting of the spirit. For now water and coffee will be the only accompaniment to my meals, the coffee to be taken black and sugarless to enhance the bitter taste. Today I had a carrot salad with olives – roots and berries in the wilderness. True, I feel a little light-headed now, but the sensation is not unpleasant. I feel a prick of guilt at the thought that even my deprivation gives me pleasure, and I resolve to place myself in the path of temptation. I shall stand for five minutes at the window of the r6tisserie, watching the chickens on the spit. If Arnauld taunts me, so much the better. In any case, he should be closed for Lent.
As for Vianne Rocher… I have hardly thought of her these past few days. I walk past her shop with my face averted. She has prospered in spite of the season and the disapproval of the right-thinking elements of Lansquenet, but this I attribute to the novelty of such a shop. That will wear off. Our parishioners have little enough money already for their everyday needs without subsidizing a place more suited to the big cities.
La Celeste Praline. Even the name is a calculated insult. I shall take the bus to Agen, to the housing rental agency, and complain. She should never have been allowed to take the lease in the first place. The central location of the shop ensures a kind of prosperity, encourages temptation. The bishop should be informed. Perhaps he may be able to exercise the influence I do not possess. I shall write to him today.
I see her sometimes in the street. She wears a yellow raincoat with green daisies, a child’s garment but for its length, slightly indecent on a grown woman. Her hair remains uncovered even in the rain, gleaming sleekly as a seal’s pelt. She wrings it out like a long rope as she reaches the awning. There are often people waiting under that awning, sheltering from the interminable rain and watching the window display. She has installed an electric fire now, close enough to the counter to provide comfort though not close enough to damage her wares, and with the stools, the glass cloches filled with cakes and pies, the silver jugs of chocolate on the hob, the place looks more like a cafe than a shop. I often see ten or more people in there on some days; some standing, some leaning against the padded counter and talking. On Sunday and Wednesday afternoons the smell of baking fills the damp air and she leans in the doorway, floury to the elbows, throwing out pert remarks at the passers-by.
I am amazed at how many people she now knows by name – it was six months before I knew all of my flock – and she always seems ready with a question or a comment about their lives, their problems. Poitou’s arthritis. Lambert’s soldier son. Narcisse and his prize orchids. She even knows the name of Duplessis’s dog. Oh, she is wily. Impossible to fail to notice her. One must respond or seem churlish. Even I – even I must smile and nod though inside i am seething. Her daughter follows her lead, running wild in Les Marauds with a gang of older girls and boys. Eight or nine years old, most of them, and they treat her with affection, like a little sister, like a mascot. They are always together, running, shouting, making their arms into bomber planes and shooting each other, chanting, catcalling. Jean Drou is among them, in spite of his mother’s concern. Once or twice she has tried to forbid him, but he grows more rebellious every day, climbing out of his bedroom window when she shuts him in.
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But I have more serious concerns, mon pere, than the misbehaviour of a few unruly brats. Passing by Les Marauds before Mass today I saw, moored at the side of the Tannes, a houseboat of the type you and I both know well. A wretched thing, green-painted but peeling miserably, a tin chimney spouting black and noxious fumes, a corrugated roof, like the roofs of the cardboard shacks in Marseille’s bidonvilles. You and I know what this means. What it will bring about. The first of spring’s dandelions poking their heads from out of the sodden turf of the roadside. Every year they try it, coming upriver from the cities and the shanty-towns or worse, further afield from Algeria and Morocco. Looking for work. Looking for a place to settle, to breed… I preached a sermon against them this morning, but I know that in spite of this some of my parishioners – Narcisse amongst them – will make them welcome in defiance of me.
They are vagrants. They have no respect and no values. They are the river-gypsies, spreaders of disease, thieves, liars, murderers when they can get away with it. Let them stay and they will spoil everything we have worked for, pere. All our education. Their children will run with ours until everything we have done for them is ruined. They will steal our children’s minds away. Teach them hatred and disrespect for the Church. Teach them laziness and avoidance of responsibility. Teach them crime and the pleasures of drugs. Have they already forgotten what happened that summer? Are they fool enough to believe the same thing will not happen again?
I went to the houseboat this afternoon. Two more had already joined it, one red and one black. The rain had stopped and there was a line of washing strung between the two new arrivals, upon which children’s clothes hung limply. On the deck of the black boat a man sat with his back to me, fishing.
Long red hair tied with scrap of cloth, bare arms tattooed to the shoulder in henna. I stood watching the boats, marvelling at their wretchedness, their defiant poverty. What good are these people doing themselves? We are a prosperous country. A European power. There should be jobs for these people, useful jobs, good housing. Why do they then choose to live like this, in idleness and misery? Are they so lazy? The red haired man on the deck of the black boat forked a protective sign at me and returned to his fishing.
“You can’t stay here,” I called across the water. “This is private property. You must move on.”
Laughter and jeering from the boats. I felt an angry throbbing at my temples, but remained calm.
“You can talk to me,” I called again. “I am a priest. We can perhaps find a solution.”
Several faces had appeared at the windows and doorways of the three boats. I saw four children, a young woman with a baby and three or four older people, swathed in the grey no-colour which characterizes these people, their faces sharp and suspicious. I saw that they turned to Red Hair for their cue. I addressed him.
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“Hey, you!”
His posture was all attentiveness and ironic deference.
“Why don’t you come over here and talk? I can explain better if I’m not shouting at you across half the river,” I told him.
“Explain away,” he said.
He spoke with such a thick Marseille accent I could hardly make out his words. “I can hear you fine.” His people on the other boats nudged each other and sniggered. I waited patiently for silence.
