The Ingredients of Love (16 page)

*   *   *

I cried all the way home. Bernadette sat beside me in the taxi, held me tight in her arms, and handed me one tissue after another.

“And do you know what the worst thing is?” I sobbed as Bernadette later sat down beside me on the bed holding out a mug of hot milk with honey. “That red coat … we'd recently seen it together in a shop window in the Rue du Bac, and I said I'd like it for my birthday.”

It was the betrayal that hurt most. The lies. I counted off the months on my fingers and came to the conclusion that Claude had been deceiving me for half a year at least. Damn it, he'd looked so happy standing there with his Mongolian princess, who was pressing her hand to her little stomach.

We'd waited till they both took their seats by the window and then we'd gone out very quickly. But Claude would not have seen me anyway. He only had eyes for his little Snow White.

“Oh, Aurélie, I'm so sorry. And you were just starting to get over it. And now that! It's like a bad novel!”

“He shouldn't have given her that coat. It's … it's so heartless.” I gave Bernadette a hurt look. “That woman stands there in
my
coat and is so … so happy! And my birthday's coming soon and I'm all alone and the coat has gone. It's so unfair!”

Bernadette stroked my hair gently. “Now, take a sip of your milk,” she said. “Of course it's not fair. And bad. Such things really shouldn't happen, but things don't always go according to plan. And anyway, it's not really about Claude, is it?”

I shook my head and sipped my milk. Bernadette was right, this wasn't about Claude at all, but about something that ultimately always touches our souls: the love for someone we all long for, to whom we reach out our hands our whole life long, to touch them and hold them.

Bernadette looked thoughtful. “You know that I never thought much of Claude,” she said. “But perhaps he did actually find the only woman for him. Perhaps he'd wanted to tell you for some time and was just waiting for the right moment, which of course never comes. And then your father dies, which made it all the more difficult, and he didn't want to leave you in that situation.” She pursed her lips as she always did when she was thinking. “It could have been like that.”

“But the coat,” I insisted.

“Yes, the coat: that's unforgivable,” she said. “We'll have to think of something.” She bent over me and gave me a kiss. “Now, try and get some sleep, it's very late.” She jabbed my duvet with her finger. “And you're not alone, d'you hear? Someone is always watching over you, even if it's only your old friend Bernadette.”

I listened to her steps echoing slowly away into the distance. She had such a firm, reliable tread.

“Good night, Aurélie!” she shouted once more, and the floorboards in the front hall creaked. Then she put out the light and I heard the door closing quietly.

“Good night, Bernadette,” I whispered. “I'm glad that you're there.”

*   *   *

I don't know if it was because of the hot milk and honey, but I slept surprisingly well that night. When I woke up, the sun was shining into my bedroom for the first time in days. I stood up and opened the curtains. There was a clear blue sky over Paris—or at least the little rectangular patch that I could see from my balcony between the courtyard walls.

You never see more than a tiny segment, I thought as I prepared my breakfast. I would really have liked to see the whole thing.

The evening before, when I'd seen Claude with his pregnant girlfriend and the sight pierced me to the heart, I'd thought I was seeing the whole truth. But it was only
my
truth, my view of things. Claude's truth was different. And the woman in the red coat had another truth altogether.

Was it possible to understand the true depths of any other human being? What moved them, what drove them, what they really dreamed of?

I put the dishes in the sink and ran water over them.

Claude had lied to me, but perhaps I had let myself be lied to. I'd never asked. Sometimes you live better with a lie than with the truth.

Claude and I had never really spoken about the future. He'd never said to me, “I'd like to have a child with you.” And I'd never said it either. We had kept each other company along a stretch of the road. There had been lovely moments, and some that were not lovely at all. And it was senseless to expect fairness in matters of the heart.

Love was what it was. No more and no less.

I dried my hands. Then I went to the bureau in the hall and opened the drawer. I took the photo of me and Claude out and looked at it once more. “I wish you happiness,” I said, and then I took the picture and put it in the old cigar box where I keep my memories.

Before I left the house to do my shopping in the market and at the butcher's, I went over to the bedroom and stuck a new note on my wall of thought.

About love, when it's over.

Love, when it's over, is always sad.

It's rarely generous.

The one who leaves has a bad conscience.

The one who's left licks their wounds.

Breaking up hurts almost more than separation.

But at the end everyone is what they always were.

And sometimes a song remains, a sheet of paper with two hearts,

The tender reminder of a summer day.

 

Eight

When the call came I was in the process of making a groveling apology to a very upset Mademoiselle Mirabeau.

During the meeting I'd already noticed that the normally so charming assistant editor would not deign to grant me a single look. And even when I really got under way and described a book in such witty terms that even the snooty Michelle Auteuil almost fell off her chair laughing, the lovely blonde didn't react at all. All my attempts to get her to talk as I walked along the hall with her after the meeting failed. She said “Yes” and “No” and I couldn't get anything else out of her.

“Come into my office for a moment, please,” I said as we reached the main office.

She nodded and followed me in silence.

“Please.” I pointed to one of the chairs beside the little round conference table. “Take a seat.”

Mademoiselle Mirabeau sat down like an affronted duchess. She folded her arms, crossed her legs, and I couldn't help noticing the sheer light silk stockings she was wearing under her short skirt.

“Now,” I said jovially. “What's bugging you? Come on, tell me what's the matter.”

“Nothing,” she said, and studied the floor as if there was something really fascinating to be discovered there.

It was worse than I'd feared. When women insisted that it was “nothing,” then they were really mad.

“Hm,” I said. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes,” she said. She had obviously decided to speak to me only in one-word sentences.

“D'you know what, Mademoiselle Mirabeau?”

“No.”

“I don't believe a word of it.”

Florence Mirabeau just glanced at me before returning her attention to the floorboards.

“Come on, Mademoiselle Mirabeau, don't be so cruel. Tell old André Chabanais why you're so upset, otherwise I won't be able to sleep tonight.”

I noticed that she was suppressing a smile.

“You're not that old,” she retorted. “And if you can't sleep, it serves you right.” She pulled at her skirt and I waited. “You said I shouldn't look so sheepish,” she finally blurted.

“I said that to you? But that's … monstrous,” I said.

“You did so.” She looked at me for the first time. “You really went for me yesterday when you were on the phone. And I was only trying to bring you that report. You'd said it was urgent and I spent the whole weekend reading and I called off my date specially and I did it all as quickly as I could. And that was all the thanks I got!” That incandescent speech had given her red cheeks. “You really snapped at me.”

Now that she said it, I remembered only too well that agitated telephone conversation with Adam Goldberg, which Mademoiselle Mirabeau had unluckily burst in on.

“
Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu,
I'm sorry.” I looked at the little mimosa sitting in front of me with a reproachful expression. “I'm
really
sorry,” I repeated emphatically. “I didn't really mean to get at you, you know, it's just that I was so worked up…”

“Even so,” she said.

“No, no.” I raised both hands. “That's not meant to be an excuse. I promise to improve. Really. Will you forgive me?”

I looked ruefully at her. She lowered her eyes and the corners of her mouth twitched as she jiggled her shapely leg.

“As an apology, I'll offer you…”—I leaned over thoughtfully in her direction—“a raspberry tart. How about it? Would you permit me to invite you to a raspberry tart in the Ladurée tomorrow lunchtime?”

She smiled. “You're in luck,” she said. “I absolutely adore raspberry tarts.”

“Can I take it from that that you're not mad at me anymore?”

“Yes, you can.” Florence Mirabeau stood up. “Then I'll go and get the report,” she said in a conciliatory tone.

“Yes, do that!” I said. “Wonderful! I can hardly wait!” I stood up to accompany her to the door.

“You don't have to exaggerate, Monsieur Chabanais. I'm just doing my job.”

“And let me tell you something, Mademoiselle Mirabeau, you do your job extremely well.”

“Oh,” she said. “Thank you. It's nice of you to say that. Monsieur Chabanais, I…” She blushed again and stood hesitantly by the door as if she had something else to say.

“Yes?” I asked.

And then the telephone rang. I didn't want to be rude again, and so I stood still instead of shoving Florence Mirabeau out of the room and throwing myself at the desk.

After the third ring Mademoiselle Mirabeau said, “Do go and pick it up, perhaps it's important.”

She smiled and disappeared through the door. Pity: Now I'd probably never find out what it was she had been going to say. But Florence Mirabeau had been right about one thing …

That call
was
important.

I recognized the voice at once. I would have recognized it among a thousand other voices. As she had the first time, she sounded a little breathless, like someone who had just run up a flight of stairs.

“Is that Monsieur André Chabanais?” she asked.

“It is,” I replied, and leaned back in my seat with a broad grin. The fish had bitten.

Aurélie Bredin was enthusiastic about my offer to help her to meet Robert Miller “by chance,” and questions one to three of her rather caustic e-mail to the
unfriendly
editor at Éditions Opale seemed to have been forgotten for the moment.

“What a fantastic idea!” she said.

I also found my idea fantastic, but I obviously kept that to myself. “Well, it's not all that fantastic but … it's not bad,” I said.

“This is really incredibly nice of you, Monsieur Chabanais,” Aurélie Bredin continued, and I basked in my sudden importance as a go-between.

“
Il n'y a pas de quoi.
You're welcome,” I said. “I'm just glad to be of service.”

She said nothing for a moment.

“And I thought you were a grumpy old editor who kept everyone away from his author,” she said apologetically. “I hope you'll forgive me.”

Triumph, triumph! This was obviously the day for apologies.

Admittedly, I wasn't being offered raspberry tart, but I have to admit I'm not that keen on it. Aurélie Bredin's feelings of remorse tasted immeasurably sweeter.

“But my dear Mademoiselle Bredin, I couldn't possibly hold anything against you even if I wanted to. After all, I haven't exactly shown myself from my best side. Let us forget the whole unfortunate beginning and concentrate on our little plan.” I rolled up to my desk on my office chair and opened my diary.

Two minutes later the matter had been arranged. Aurélie Bredin would turn up at half past seven on Friday evening in La Coupole, where I'd reserved a table in my name, and we'd have a drink together. At about eight Robert Miller (with whom I ostensibly had an appointment to discuss his new book) would also arrive, and there'd be plenty of opportunity to get to know one another.

I'd dithered a moment over the choice of restaurant.

A small intimate restaurant with cozy, red plush seats like Le Belier would obviously have been more suitable for my real purposes than the famous Coupole
—
that big, lively brasserie that was full every evening. But on the other hand it would have seemed a bit strange to be meeting an English author in a place that seemed to have been made just for lovers.

La Coupole was innocuous, and since the author was never going to turn up I thought I'd have a better chance of continuing the evening in the company of the capricious Mademoiselle Bredin if the restaurant was not too romantic.

“In La Coupole?” she asked, and I could hear immediately that her enthusiasm was not unbounded. “Do you really want to go to that tourist trap?”

“Miller suggested it,” I said. “He has something to do in Montparnasse beforehand, and anyway he loves La Coupole.” (I would also have preferred Le Temps des Cerises, but I obviously couldn't say that.)

“He loves La Coupole?” Her irritation was audible.

“Yes, well, he is English,” I said. “He thinks La Coupole is great. He says that that brasserie always makes him … cheerful because it is so lively and bright.”

“Aha,” was all that Mademoiselle Bredin had to say to that.

“He's also a great fan of the
fabuleux curry d'agneau des Indes
,” I added, finding that I sounded most convincing.