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JoMazelis
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he was jolted awake by a
sudden noise. She knew
how he conducted his
transactions with the
maker of the fabric flowers
with hardly a word passing
between them, how he
was kind to the poor dark-
haired woman and gave
her coffee so that she
might warm herself.
He came out from behind
the counter and lifted the
container of flowers from
the window, holding them
aloft so that she could see
them and acknowledge
that those were the ones
she had wanted.
He went behind the
counter again, as she knew
he would.
‘I have no brown paper,
so will newspaper do?’ he
asked. Amanda nodded,
sensing a lie.
Indeed later, once Amanda
was back in her room,
she looked down into
Monsieur Arbot’s shop
and saw clearly that he did
have a roll of brown paper
and that he used it freely
with his other customers.
But other dramas would
play out first, as while
Monsieur was tying a short
loop of string around the
stems of the bouquet, the
door to the shop opened
and the flower maker
herself entered.
It was the woman’s habit,
Amanda knew, never to
enter the shop when the
florist had customers to
attend to, but here shewas,
hesitant and pale, her lips
a strange unnatural bluish
red, her hair lifeless and
flat (reminding Amanda
of a drowned rat she had
once found by the side of
a flooded sewer).