Book: Chocolate. Page 1

Maman? - She knows I don't sleep. - You're not gonna die, right?
I laughed quietly in the dark, and answered with affection in his voice:
- Everyone dies eventually.
But you still long to die? - she insists. - You will live many, many years, right?
- I would hope.

I don't know how to comfort him, but I think he does not need my words of comfort. He just wants to speak. Not wanting to offend his mount stamps, I said nothing.

His eyes are the same indeterminate hue, as the sky in rainy weather. When he laughs, they flicker sparks insidious.

She desperately, furiously fought back with all I could to give her support and consolation.

- But what are his favourite treats, you'll never guess... Because he loves nothing.
- It's hard to believe. Each person anything loves.
- Well, maybe only what he takes from others.

It just so happens that in small towns like lansce the tone for the whole society often sets one person - schoolteacher, cafe owner or a priest. This man is the core of the mechanism, rotating the course of life. Like a spring in a clock, driving wheels, which twist other wheels, forced to knock the hammers and move the arrow. If the spring come off or break, the clock stops.

He can't stand human stupidity.... in fact, the whole human race, because each of us have our stupid habits and preferences, from which we not in forces to refuse.

We were infected, impregnated with distrust, fed by pride, - the last refuge of the rogue.

Somehow we always think that we will die in his own bed, surrounded by loved ones. Funny. Because it is often something unexpected happens and you suddenly realize that life is over, and in a panic trying to dash away from death, although in fact barely move my hands and feet, and the sun, swaying like a pendulum, inexorably descends on you, you tried to sneak out from under him.

Participation does not always bring relief, sometimes it's better to cry it out.

Wandering, we are registered in hotels under different names. We go through life, not leaving traces, not casting shadows. Like ghosts.

- The death must meet, as a holiday, ' she said. - How birthday. I want to take off like a rocket when the time will have come, and crumble in a cloud of stars under the admiring "ahhh!"

I know people are born savages. I can hope is for a drop of affection, the appearance of obedience. Deep in the wildness is raw, untamed, unpredictable.

There is something magical in the process of converting chocolate raw materials in the delicious "fool's gold", exciting the imagination of the layman. Maybe even my mother would appreciate my work. While working, I breathe deeply and not thinking about anything. Windows wide open, we walk the draughts. The kitchen would have been cold if not for the heat rising from the copper furnaces and vats, if not for a pair of hot melting chocolate. But her intoxicating, a heady mixture of smells of chocolate, vanilla, hot boilers and cinnamon tart rustic spirit of America, a sharp resinous aroma of tropical forests. So I now travel. Like the Aztecs in their sacred rituals. Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia. The Court Of Montezuma. Cortez and Columbus. Food of the gods, bubbling and foaming in the ritual bowls. The bitter elixir of life.