Chapter Four: To Hear a Flower Speak

Another two weeks passed without incident. Javert continued to fulfill his duty as he had before, the only difference being that he now regarded the mayor with a greater deal of respect…and perhaps a tiny bit of apprehension. Though he did not actively avoid the former convict, he made every attempt to keep any necessary business meetings as short and to the point as possible and kept himself busier than usual to evade any potential social interaction with the man outside of work. On his walks to and from the station, he did not alter his route to bypass the mayor's house, but he never initiated eye contact if they happened to pass one another on the street. If the mayor happened to catch his eye, he quickly doffed his hat and hurried on his way. This worked well for a while, neither man wanting to interfere with the other's life at the risk of putting himself in further danger. It was an unspoken agreement of sorts, an uneasy pact between the two of them that each man would allow his former enemy to carry on with his life at the price of his own freedom. It was a good arrangement—one that almost allowed Javert to forget the atrocity he'd committed and the moral questions that had arisen. The convict who pretended to be the mayor went back to pretending to be the mayor; the dutiful inspector who pretended he knew nothing went back to pretending he knew nothing; and everyone else in the town remained blissfully oblivious, unaware that both men were merely actors playing a part. It was exactly the way that things had always been, and Javert would have been satisfied, if not exactly happy, if it was the way things had remained. After all, he reasoned, he had brought his concerns before the Prefect with what he considered to be ample evidence, and the man had called him a fool; that new evidence had come to light since then only reinforced the truth which he had already presented. Javert had done his duty; if the Prefect hadn't listened to him the first time around, who was to say he'd listen now? Javert took some comfort in this thought, and he might well have eventually convinced himself to forget the whole affair had been anything more than a bad dream if not for one small detail that neither man had counted on—a third party to the agreement…Cosette.

By the beginning of the third week, the effects of Javert's latest personal encounter with the mayor were starting to wear off. He was feeling more like himself again; the uncertainty had passed, replaced by the calm, self-assured confidence of a man who knows his way is right. One flaw in the law that had thus far sustained him in every other situation would not deter him from striving for perfection; Jean Valjean's case was one among millions—a fluke rather than the norm. The law had simply not been prepared to deal with such an odd case of human nature working in reverse—a falling star did not leap back up into the heavens. Surely no one could have seen it coming.

It was in this state of mind which Javert came across a rather odd scene—one that caught him so off guard he had to take a second glance to be sure his eyes weren't deceiving him. It was an early spring morning, the air cool and fresh from the light rain that had fallen the night before which still clung to the damp earth in sparkling drops of dew on every spider web and blade of grass. The sun was well up beyond the horizon, the sky having faded from gray to pink to gold to a stunning shade of blue so bright it almost hurt if one looked at it for very long. Somewhere overhead a lark was calling. But it wasn't the lark in the sky which concerned him.

Cosette was picking flowers, an activity not all that surprising in and of itself until one considered the location—the city cemetery. Hair wreathed in a crown of golden blossoms, she might have been a little sprite, flitting from one flower to the next. Or perhaps a young Persephone, perfectly unaware of Hades waiting to carry her off as she danced out in the field and gathered spring into her arms. There was something perversely beautiful about hearing a child's laughter amid the silent echoes of the grave, something that stirred the ghosts of the past within his mind, a faint flicker of a memory from long ago that he could no longer place. Javert shuddered and drew the greatcoat tighter about his shoulders…but it was not cold.

Valjean was nearby, spreading a blanket on the ground beneath an old oak that was just beginning to show the first green buds of the season, watching her with a wistful sort of smile that told of days gone by. Javert wondered whether he was remembering the family he'd left behind, the children he had stolen for—children who were likely now resting somewhere in shallow graves of their own. The mayor addressed him without turning around.

"It is nice to be young," he said quietly. "To be so innocent, so free…." He shook his head. "Sometimes I envy her."

Javert, unaware at first that he had approached close enough for the mayor to detect his presence, leaned an arm against the wrought iron fence. It still felt strange to address the former prisoner with such candor, but he could not politely excuse himself from the conversation…and if he was being perfectly honest, he was rather curious. He frowned. "What is she doing?"

Valjean turned slightly, looking over his shoulder so that he was partially facing the inspector. He smiled sadly. "Spending time with her mother." He looked away. "She has been asking quite a lot about her lately. I thought it might be good for her to come here."

Before Javert could respond, the girl in question came running over to greet them, her arms full of flowers and her face lit up with a perfect, pearly grin that could have outshone the sun.

"Monsieur Javert!" She dropped the bouquet at her feet, smiling. "Did you come to visit Maman, too?"

Javert almost laughed at the absurdity of the notion but caught himself in time. Thankfully, Cosette didn't wait for him to respond. She turned back to her father, excitedly clasping his hands.

"Oh, Papa! Look at all the beautiful flowers! What a lovely place to rest!"

Though she did not quite understand how her mother could be both awake in heaven and sleeping in the grave, she trusted her Papa, and if he said it was true, then she believed him. In her mind, she imagined Fantine singing with the angels among the clouds each day and coming back to earth to sleep in the moonlit field by night. The idea was enchanting, if not exactly accurate, and Valjean—for Cosette's sake—had not the heart to correct her impression.

Javert, on the other hand, had a more realistic view of things. What Cosette had called "a lovely place to rest" was actually little more than a patch of field overgrown with weeds. Fantine had been buried in a pauper's grave, outside the main gate that separated the holy ones from those who had died in disgrace—the prostitutes, the criminals, the suicides, the undesirables too poor to afford to be buried anywhere else. Some had headstones that were little more than a large rock; some had no headstones at all. Even in death, they were segregated by class. There was only one thing lower than a sinner, and that was a gypsy. Being half Roma himself, Javert sometimes wondered whether he'd be given a Christian burial at all.

"I can't wait for Maman to see all of the flowers I got for her!" Cosette's voice interrupted his thoughts. She looked from Valjean to Javert. "Do you think she'll like them?"

Javert didn't know which troubled him more—that Cosette seemed to think her mother was now some sort of magical, invisible being who visited in the night and accepted offerings like those left for Pére Noël, or the fact that Valjean allowed her to believe in such folly. Though he was becoming slightly more open to the possibility of God (and really, he was beginning to be rather annoyed with said Deity for troubling him with unanswerable questions yet again), such superstitious nonsense seemed a bit far-fetched even for the deeply religious mayor. Were there such things as angels? Perhaps. Javert did not know. Did they behave as Cosette seemed to think? Most assuredly not.

"I'm certain she'll love them, Cosette," Valjean answered for him.

Cosette beamed.

"Oh!" she said suddenly. "I almost forgot!" She picked up a small handful of flowers—mostly weeds with a few odd daisies mixed in—out of the heap she'd dropped at her feet and handed them to her father. "These are for you, Papa."

Valjean kissed her cheek fondly. "Thank you, Cosette."

She blushed, then snatched up another handful and turned to Javert. "And these are for you."

Javert stared down at the tiny fistful of weeds that had been thrust into his face—a wiry clump of purple asters, a sprig of white wood anemone, a smattering of ruby red poppies...and in the center a single yellow daffodil. In her little eight year-old mind, it was an innocent enough gift, but to a man who had been raised by a gypsy fortuneteller, the flowers held a much deeper meaning. In his mother's culture, everything had been symbolic, everything had been sacred—from the stars in the heavens to the flowers springing up out of the ground beneath his feet. Everything held meaning. If one listened closely, the earth itself spoke. Javert, of course, had never really put much stock into any of his mother's superstitions, but the language of the flowers had been useful. He wasn't quite as fluent as his mother, but he had learned a lot by watching her. It was the safest and easiest way she'd had to correspond with her supposed husband, sending secret messages in a code that only he could understand—a pressed piece of foliage slipped between blank pages folded like a note that, if confiscated, would tell no one her of her secrets or her plans. It had been years since he'd used the language, but seeing the flowers before him now, all of his knowledge came rushing back. The first three were easy enough to decipher; asters were a symbol of love while anemone and poppies signified death—both understandable interpretations given that the arrangement she'd plucked the flowers from had been originally intended for her mother's grave. But the other flower…. It was the only one like it in the entire bouquet, and yet, she had picked up and offered it to him.

His hand nearly trembled as he reached out to touch the golden velvet petals. Daffodils symbolized rebirth…new beginnings….

"Forgiveness," he breathed.

Javert shook his head. He was being foolish. There was nothing he needed to be forgiven of, and even if there was, Cosette certainly wouldn't have known about it. To her, it was just a handful of flowers. He pulled his hand away without accepting the bouquet.

"I…I should be going."

Cosette frowned. "Don't you want to take your flowers with you?"

He started to simply walk away but inexplicably found that he felt he owed her an explanation. "I have nowhere to put them," he argued practically.

"Yes you do! You can put them in your pocket!" She reached a slender little arm through the bars of the fence and tucked one end of the bouquet into a side pocket of his greatcoat. She smiled, satisfied. "See? It fits perfectly!"

Javert conceded. "So it does…."

"Then maybe when you get home you can use them to decorate the table or something."

"Mmmh."

Valjean couldn't suppress a slight grin at the thought of Montreuil's most terrifying inspector decorating his kitchen with flowers.

Javert noticed it and glared daggers.

"Well, Monsieur le Maire," he said with a hint of warning and cynical disdain, "I really should be returning home. Good day to you, monsieur." He tipped his hat, then, in a slightly softer tone of voice, added, "Mademoiselle Cosette."

A moment later, and he was headed back down the street that led to his apartment. It was a rather lengthy walk, and though the sun was now high in the sky, the air was still cool. He kept his hands jammed down into his pockets, fingering the daffodil all the way home.