Chapter 4: On Tea

"I'm just stepping out to the market," said Madame. "Peter said the cableman should be by at around 3:35, so be on the lookout for him, Toulouse."

"Don't know why he's bothering with it," said her husband, from the chaise. "Just twelve-hundred channels of 'Latvian Idol' and other garbage. How we can afford all this after the renovations, I don't know."

"He did say we had the money," said Madame, uncertainly. Monsieur grumbled. "I'll be back soon, then."

"Get some fresh cream, too!" he shouted after her. He settled back upon the chaise and stretched luxuriously. A soft spring breeze soughed through the open window. After a few moments, he reached out with one languorous arm and selected a specially modified poker from the stand by the hearth. Eyes closed, he manoeuvred it over his head, and used its rubber beak to poke at a small switch on an oaken box. The radio clicked. A young punk screamed a discordant techno-gothic number in his ear. Frowning, Monsieur Trousseau steered the poker 15 degrees due east, pulled the trigger mechanism, and closed the poker's jaws around a knob. A few rotations later, and a misty-eyed violinist began a slow, sad waltz through his imagination.

Outside, a foot creaked on a loose floorboard. He didn't notice.

A bell dinged. Monsieur Trousseau rolled off the chaise longue and trundled to the kitchen. Moments later, he returned, pushing a small TV tray (with one squeaky wheel) laid out for afternoon tea. He checked the egg timer, nodded, and placed it in his pocket. He lifted the lid on the teapot and took an exploratory sniff.

Paradise!

He twisted open the jar of marmalade, and spread some on two lightly toasted pieces of bread cut into quarters. Humming along with the melody, he grasped the pot, and slowly poured out a cup of heaven, making sure he didn't spill or miss a drop. He sat back, grasped the cup with reverence, raised it, took a long sniff, and then tipped it back for one, tiny, sip.

As he floated up to Elysium on the drink's heavenly body, a chill wind crept in from the window and tickled the back of his neck, dashing him back to Earth. Grousing, he rolled off the chaise longue and slammed it shut. As he turned back to his liquid ambrosia, he noticed the door was open. Scolding his wife for not locking it behind her, he marched over to it.

A tiny, waif-like Oriental girl was peeking around the doorframe. She started as he approached.

"Why, hello there," said Monsieur.

She looked up at him, her sad brown eyes lost in a forest of black hair.

His heart skipped a beat. The violinist floated away, leaving silence.

On the edge of his awareness came rustling noises from Miss Bouquet's apartment. Slowly, he leaned back to get a better look at her.

"And who are you, then, young lady?" he asked.

"Who…am I?" said the girl, her voice tinged with fear and confusion. There was a brief silence, broken by a distant gasp of realization.

"Yes, your name, dear." Monsieur Trousseau gave her a reassuring smile. She started slightly at his tea-stained dental work.

"I…I…" she said, her eyes glazing over slightly.

"Go on…" Running footsteps, boots squeaking around a corner…

"I am…N —"

"Kirika! Her name's Kirika!" said Mireille, practically falling through the doorway as she skid to a halt. "She's Kirika Yuumura and she an exchange student from Japan and she's staying with me for a while and that's all!"

"Oh," said Monsieur, who'd jumped a good foot when she appeared. "Thank you, Miss Bouquet. Are you all right? You look a bit winded."

"It's nothing, it's nothing," she said, with a weak smile. "Just, ah, remembered something important, that's all. I thought you'd followed me in, Kirika," she said, aside to her.

"I was," she replied in a near whisper, "but there was this music, and this wonderful smell, and…"

"Darjeeling tea, imported straight from the mountains of India, and served with but a single twist from a fresh lemon," said Monsieur, savouring the words as he spoke them. "Brewed for exactly four minutes twenty-eight seconds in fresh spring water. Your ticket to paradise on a lazy springtime afternoon." He grinned, a twinkle in his eye. "Care to try some?"

"Eh? Eto, ah, that is, I mean…"

"Come, come!" he cried, draping an arm around her shoulder. "Plenty for the both of us!"

"Ah!? Um, er, M-Mireille?"

"Relax," said the woman, encouragingly. "He's harmless. It'll take me a few minutes to look over those blueprints anyway. Go on."

"Thank you for your blessing, Miss Bouquet," purred Monsieur.

"Don't keep her too long," she replied, as he gently bulldozed his guest into the living room.

"Please, sit, sit! Sit and be welcome! Ah, not there, not there," he said, as the girl floated over to the easy-chair by the window. He fussed around for a bit, then wheeled an overstuffed ottoman with an ugly slipcover next to the tray. Kirika approached the stool, cautiously, and gave the old man a wary look.

He nodded, encouragingly.

She sat on it as if it were a spiked soap bubble.

He bustled out of the room. He returned with cup, spoon, and saucer, and laid each before her with all the grace and ceremony of an evening mass. As an unseen hand plucked strange sounds from a harpsichord over the radio, Monsieur Trousseau served the tea, and set down the pot with a flourish.

"We don't get very many guests around here," he said, "and even fewer with the refined sense of smell needed to appreciate the aroma of a fine tea."

"Sir?" said Kirika.

"Mm?"

"Who are you?"

Monsieur Trousseau gawked at her, then roared with laughter. "That's right," he chuckled, "I never did actually say, did I?"

Kirika, paralysed with fear, shook her head.

"Please forgive me, mademoiselle," he said, wiping tears from his eyes, "I'm just so used to everyone around here knowing my name already…I am Toulouse Trousseau, original owner and retired operator of this, Le Château Sans Secrets, est. 1949. And you are my honoured guest, here to share in the wonders of tea with me on this beautiful spring afternoon. Now, please, drink up!"

She took a hesitant sip.

"Ah, Miss Yuumura," he said, shaking his head, "I see you have much to learn yet." She gave him a blank stare. "Your style! So quick and dirty. Tea, my dear, is an art, and the true beauty of art lies not in its matter, but in its appreciation."

"See, first, you study the tea." He examined his cup at arms-length. "Study its colour, its tint, the way the light filters through it, whether it is cloudy or not, how far up the rim of the cup it rides. See? Amber: like the light of the setting sun on the surface of the Ganges. Next, savour its aroma." He sniffed luxuriously. "Can you smell it? That scent of morning mist on mountaintops, of distant gardens and fields of exotic flowers?" He breathed in the steam. "And now, only now, do we take a taste. Slowly, with both hands, we tip back the cup, and sip." He mimed the act. "Feel the texture of the liquor. Savour its body. Roll it over your tongue. Then, at last, swallow. Let its warmth snake down inside you, and carry you away to better times." He took a drink.

"That's…a lot to remember," said Kirika.

"Oh ho ho, don't worry about all that. It takes years to master, and you've got plenty ahead of you yet. Just try and enjoy it, eh?"

"I do," she said, drinking. "It's very good," she said, her face perfectly expressionless.

Monsieur Trousseau smiled at her strangely, and cleared his throat. "I remember my very first taste of Darjeeling: nineteen-forty-four, in an old, draft-ridden farmhouse on the outskirts of Bayeux. It was the middle of the night, a cool summer eve. The night sky was clear for the first time in weeks. Quiet, too. There we were, Javier, Philippe, Robert, and I, huddled around the crystal set. None of us could sleep. Tomorrow was the big day, what we had spent four months training for. I remember I was so nervous, my hands, they shook like leaves when I was checking the wires, and let me tell you," he said, chuckling, "that made the others plenty nervous too!"

"We reviewed the plans, checked our gear, checked it again, then again…and then finally there was nothing to do but wait. There was no way we could sleep…not even for Javier, and he slept through an air raid once. So there was Philippe off in the corner of the loft, there, with his book of poems, reading by moonlight, Robert with him, looking over his maps, and Javier, with his rosary, and me, by the window, scared out of my wits. I was on guard. There I was, but sixteen years old, peeping out of a knothole over the fields, ears tense. Every cricket was a rifle bolt, every shadow a patrol. "

He took a draw on his cup. "After what felt like hours, Robert folded up his maps, put them away, and motioned us all in close. Anyway, he says, in that soft English accent of his (he was OSS, y'know), 'Lads, I know you're all nervous, and that's okay. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but I know tonight's a special night. So, I, ah, I've got something for all of you that I've been saving up.' And he brings this old, shrivelled little bag of tea out of his pocket. He must have had it there for months. So we fired up a little kerosene lantern, brought out an old tin pot, and had a brew-up." He sighed.

"Was it like this?" asked Kirika, hesitantly.

"Oh, no, it was awful stuff," said Monsieur, softly, his mind ages away. "Cold, and we forgot to clean the pot first. But that didn't matter. I was young, alive, and among friends, sharing a drink under the stars. I didn't even finish the cup. I just sat there with it, in my cold hands, and looked at it." He stared off into the past. "There it was: a smooth, round pool, its ripples glittering in the moonlight. The sounds of the night, even my own breath, faded away, as I floated through its cool, dark depths, going down, down, down. There was…comfort…there. No painful past, no terrifying tomorrow."

"No past…no future…" she whispered, as her face looked back at her from the cup.

"There was only…now. The peace of the now."

"'The peace of the now…'"

"And that was enough." He closed his eyes.

"Those men…" said Kirika.

"Hm?" Monsieur awoke from the past.

"The men in your story…what happened to them?"

Slowly, and with an apparent reluctance, he drifted back to the present. "They, were, ah, killed the next day," he said.

"Oh."

The old clock ticked on.

Monsieur cleared his throat. "So, ah, where does it take you, Miss Yuumura?"

She blinked at him in non-comprehension.

"Every cup is a window to the past, my dear. Where does yours lead, mm?"

"My…past?" The word carried with it all the sorrows of the world, and she sagged under its weight. "I…I have nothing to look back on…no memories…"

The unseen harpsichord strummed slowly to a halt. A hand, gnarled and calloused with age, brushed against her fingers like a springtime branch, startling her.

"Do not worry, my dear," said Monsieur. "The past begins now. If you have no happy times to remember, they will surely come in the days ahead. But why are you so sad?" he asked. "It's only tea."

Kirika looked up at that old, wrinkled face, full of concern, with its squinty eyes and tea stained teeth. "I…"

A knock at the door, and a blonde poked around it. "Kirika?" said Mireille. "I'm about ready over here."

"So soon? But we haven't even got to the marmalade yet!" said Monsieur, as Kirika quickly finished off her cup.

"Perhaps another time, Monsieur Trousseau. I hope you two enjoyed yourselves?"

"She is an angel on Earth, and this home is blessed to have her," he said magnanimously.

"I guess you did!"

As Kirika was halfway through the door, she remembered something. "Thank you very much for the tea," she said, bowing. "I enjoyed it."

"Anytime, my dear," he replied.

The door clicked shut. On the radio, a tired announcer tried to decipher his notes on Schubert. Monsieur Trousseau raised his cup, thought better of it, and set it down. His eyes drifted over to a dusty picture frame on the mantle, then to the door.

"Remarkable," he said.