The Ingredients of Love (12 page)

I stubbed out my cigarette, threw the butt into the wastepaper basket, and put the letter and its envelope into my briefcase.

As I was finally leaving the office after that eventful day, the Filipino cleaners who tidied the offices and took away the garbage were already coming in, laughing and chattering.

“Oooh, Missyu Zabanais, oways wokking sooo hahd!” they called cheerfully, nodding sympathetically. I nodded too, though absentmindedly rather than happily. High time to go home. It was cold but not raining as I walked down the Rue Bonaparte, wondering why it was that Mademoiselle Bredin had actually been fleeing the police. She didn't exactly look like the kind of person who'd steal T-shirts from Monoprix. And what did “in a way” mean in this context? Had the owner of Le Temps des Cerises committed tax fraud? Or was the policeman from whom she'd fled into the bookshop where she, thankfully, had found my book perhaps her ex, a brutal flatfoot whom she'd had a terrible row with and who was now stalking her?

However, I didn't ask myself the most important question until I was putting in the entry code that opened the door into the building in the Rue des Beaux-Arts where my apartment was.

How did you go about winning the heart of a woman who had got it into her head that she wanted to get to know a man she admired and whom she thought herself linked to by fate? A man who—how ironic fate is—didn't actually exist. The genie you could never get rid of, called up by two inventive sorcerer's apprentices who thought themselves very smart and worked in the business of selling dreams.

If I'd read this story in a novel, I would have found it highly amusing. If you yourself have to play the comic hero in the story, it's no longer quite so funny.

I pushed open the apartment door and switched on the light. What I needed was a stroke of genius, but unfortunately none was forthcoming. But I knew one thing for certain: Robert Miller, that perfect English gentleman who wrote so brilliantly and funnily, would never have dinner with Aurélie Bredin. Perhaps, however, if I got it right, that much nicer Frenchman André Chabanais with his rented apartment in the Rue des Beaux-Arts would.

A few minutes later that nice Frenchman was listening to his voice mail, including a reproachful message from his mother asking him if he'd finally pick up the phone.

“André? I know very well that you're in,
mon petit chou,
why don't you pick up the phone? Are you coming for lunch on Sunday? You could think about your poor old mother occasionally, I'm so bored, I can't spend all my time reading books,” she said querulously, and I reached for the cigarette packet in my jacket pocket once again.

Then Adam's voice came on.

“Hi, Andy, it's me! So, everything okay? My brother's just gone to a Dental Congress in Sant'Angelo and won't be back until Sunday evening. Ha ha ha, they live the life of Riley, these dentists, don't they?”

He was laughing unconcernedly, and I wondered if he was aware that time was running out. Didn't his brother have a cell phone? Were there no telephones in this Sant'Angelo (wherever the hell that was)? What was going on?

“I thought it would probably be better to call Sam when he gets back and has less to think about,” Adam immediately came in with the explanation. “Anyway, I'll call again when I've talked to Sam. Over the weekend we'll be with friends in Brighton, but you can get me on my mobile, as always.”

I said, “Yes, yes, fine, on your mobile as always,” and lit the next cigarette.

“Take care, then—and André?”

I raised my head.

“Don't get your knickers in a twist, my friend. We'll definitely get Sam to Paris.”

I nodded my acquiescence and went into the kitchen to see what was in the fridge. The result wasn't too bad. I found a bag of fresh green beans, which I boiled a short time in salt water, and grilled myself a big steak to go with it: very rare, in the English fashion, of course.

When I'd eaten, I sat down at the round table in the living room with a sheet of paper and worked on my strategic ideas for the case of Aurélie Bredin
=
A.B. Two hours later, this is what I had down on paper:

1. Robert Miller ignores the letter and
doesn't
answer.
A.B. will probably turn first to her contact at the publishers to find out what's happened to the author. André Chabanais
=
A.C. tells her that the author doesn't want to know and gives no further information.
A.B. runs into a brick wall and at some stage loses interest
she also has no more interest in A.C. as a possible go-between.

2. Robert Miller answers the letter, but A.C. offers his help
thus endearing himself to A.B. However, A.B.'s thoughts are set in the wrong direction, that is toward the author not the editor. Can he ultimately help her? No, because Robert Miller doesn't exist.
A.C. needs to gain time to show A.B. what a nice guy he is. (And what a fool the Englishman really is—but only incidentally!)

3. Robert Miller writes a nice but rather vague letter back.
The flame is kept alive. The author refers to his wonderful editor (A.C.) and hopes that he may be in Paris in the near future, but doesn't know if a meeting will be possible because he has so many appointments.

4. A.C. arranges something. Asks A.B. if she'd like to turn up at a meeting he has with Miller (for dinner?).
She would,
and
is grateful. Of course, the author never appears, apparently canceling at the last moment.
A.B. is peeved with the author. A.C. tells her that he is unfortunately always so unreliable.
A.B. and A.C. spend a wonderful evening together and A.B. realizes that she very much prefers the likeable editor to the complicated author.