The Ingredients of Love (28 page)

“Yours faithfully, Robert Miller.” I whispered the closing words of the letter softly to myself as I hastily opened the book and stared at the dedication.
To Aurélie Bredin with very best wishes from Robert Miller.
Robert Miller had signed his name twice. But the signature on the dedication was totally different from the one on the letter. I turned the envelope over—the little yellow Post-it note from André Chabanais was still sticking to it—and groaned. It was André who had written Miller's letter, and I'd had the wool pulled over my eyes the whole time!

In a daze, I sat down on the bed. I thought of how André with his brown eyes had looked at me so ingenuously the evening before in the restaurant. “I'm so sorry, Aurélie.” I was suddenly filled with icy rage. This man had exploited my trusting nature, he'd had fun leading me around by the nose, he'd played his games with me to get me into bed, and I'd fallen for it.

I looked out of the window where the sun was still shining on the courtyard, but the lovely picture of a happy morning was destroyed.

André Chabanais had deceived me just as Claude had deceived me, but I wasn't going to let myself be deceived ever again, no way! I clenched my hands into fists and took short breaths in and out.

“So, my love, the whole day is ours.”

André had come into the room wrapped in a big dark gray bath towel and his brown hair was dripping water.

I stared at the floor.

“Aurélie?” He came nearer, stood in front of me, and put his hands on my shoulders. “My goodness, your face is terribly pale. Do you feel all right?”

I took his hands off my shoulders and stood up slowly.

“No,” I said, my voice trembling. “I don't feel all right. I don't feel all right at all.”

He looked at me in confusion. “What's wrong? Aurélie … my love … can I do anything for you?” He stroked a wisp of hair away from my face.

I brushed his hand away. “Yes,” I said threateningly. “Never touch me again, do you hear, never ever again!” He stepped back in shock.

“But Aurélie, what's wrong?” he cried.

I felt a wave of anger rising within me. “What's wrong?” I asked dangerously softly. “You want to know what's wrong?”

I went over to where I'd dropped the photo, picked it up in a single movement, and held it out to him.

“That's wrong!” I screamed, and rushed over to the bedside table. “And that's wrong too!” I grabbed the forged letter and threw it at André's feet.

I saw his face turning red.

“Aurélie … please … Aurélie,” he stammered.

“What?” I shrieked. “Are you going to trot out yet more lies? Don't you think you've done enough?” I picked up Robert Miller's book and would gladly have beaten him around the head with it. “The only thing that makes sense in this whole tissue of lies is this book. And you, André, chief editor at Éditions Opale, you're the last man for me. You're even worse than Claude. At least he had a reason for deceiving me, but you … you … you had fun doing it…”

“No, Aurélie, it wasn't like
that
at all … please…” he said despairingly.

“Yes,” I said. “It was indeed. You opened my letter instead of forwarding it. You delivered a forged letter to me, and then you were probably laughing yourself silly in La Coupole when I refused to tell you anything about the letter. All very cleverly contrived. My compliments!” I took a step toward him and looked at him with utter contempt. “In my whole life I've never met another person who so hypocritically feeds off the misfortune of others.” I saw him flinch. “There's just one thing you need to explain—it really does interest me to know how you managed it. Who was it that rang the restaurant yesterday evening? Who?”

“It really was Adam Goldberg. He's a friend of mine,” he said.

“Oh, he's a friend, is he? Well, that's just great. How many other friends like that have you got, eh? How many of them are laughing now at this silly naive little girl,
hein,
would you mind telling me?” I was getting more and more enraged.

André raised his hands in a defensive gesture, then lowered them again quickly as his towel slipped. “No one's laughing at you, Aurélie. Please don't think badly of me … Yes, I know I've
lied
to you, I've lied to you
a lot,
but … there was no other way, you
must
believe that! I … I was in a terrible predicament. Please! I can explain it all to you…”

I cut him short. “Do you know what, André Chabanais? I can do without your explanations. From the very beginning you didn't want me to meet Robert Miller, you always got in the way and made a nuisance of yourself, but then … then you had a far better idea, didn't you?” I shook my head. “How could anyone think up such a deceitful plan?”

“Aurélie, I fell in love with you—and that's the truth,” he said.

“No!” I yelled. “That's not the way to treat any woman you love.” I took his clothes from the chair and threw them in his face. “Here,” I said. “Just get dressed and go!”

He picked up his clothes and looked at me unhappily. “Please give me a chance, Aurélie.” He took a tentative step toward me and tried to put his arm around me. I turned away and folded my arms.

“Yesterday … that … was the loveliest thing that's ever happened to me…” he said in a cajoling tone.

I felt the tears welling up in my eyes.
“C'est fini!”
I blurted angrily. “It's over! It's over before it really began. And that's good. Because I don't want to live with a liar!”

“I didn't really lie,” he said.

“How can you not
really
lie? That's ludicrous!” I replied. He'd obviously thought up a new strategy.

André moved to stand in front of me in his gray terry-cloth bath towel.

“I'm Robert Miller,” he said.

I burst out laughing, and even in my own ears my voice sounded shrill. Then I looked him up and down from head to foot before saying, “How dumb do you think I actually am?
You're
Robert Miller? I've heard a lot of things in my time, but this takes the cake. It's getting more absurd by the minute.” I put my hands on my hips. “Tough luck for you, but I've seen Robert Miller, the
real
Robert Miller, at the reading! I've read his interview in
Le Figaro
. But
you're
Robert Miller, of course you are!” My voice cracked. “Do you know what you are, André Chabanais? You're just
laughable
! You can't hold a candle to Miller—and that's the truth. And now just go! I don't want to hear any more, you're just making everything worse!”

“But you must understand—Robert Miller
isn't
Robert Miller!” he cried. “That was … that was … a dentist!”

“Get out!” I screamed, and put my hands over my ears. “Get out of my life, André Chabanais, I hate you!”

When André had left the apartment without another word and with a very red face, I collapsed sobbing on the bed. An hour before I had been the happiest person in Paris, an hour before I had thought that I was standing at the beginning of something absolutely wonderful—and now there had been a totally catastrophic turn of events.

I saw the two full coffee cups on my bedside table and broke out in tears once more. Was it my fate always to be lied to? Did my happiness always have to end with a lie?

I stared out into the courtyard. I had a full supply of men who lied to me. I sighed deeply. A long, dreary life opened before me. If things went on that way, I'd end up a bitter old woman taking walks around cemeteries and planting flowers on graves. Only I wouldn't be as cheerful as Mrs. Dinsmore.

Suddenly I saw us all again, sitting in La Coupole on Mrs. Dinsmore's birthday, and heard her saying, “My child, he is definitely the right one for you.”

I threw myself headlong onto the pillow and sobbed on. One unhappy thought gave rise to another, and I was forced to remember that it would soon be Christmas. It would be the most miserable Christmas of my life. The finger on the little clock on my bedside table clicked forward, and I suddenly felt very old.

Sometime or other I got up and took the cups into the kitchen. I brushed against the notes on my wall of thoughts and a thought fluttered to the ground.

Sorrow is a land where it rains and rains and yet nothing grows,
was what it said. That was incontrovertibly correct. No tears of mine would undo what had happened. I took the little note and stuck it carefully back on the wall.

And then I called Jacquie and told him that an attempt had been made on my heart and that I'd go to the seaside with him for the Christmas holidays.

 

Sixteen

When a tentative knock came at the door and Mademoiselle Mirabeau came in, I was sitting as I had done for almost all of the last few days, bent over my desk with my head in my hands.

Since my inglorious retreat from Aurélie Bredin's apartment I was dumbfounded. I had staggered back home, I'd stood in front of the bathroom mirror and berated myself as the total idiot who had messed everything up. I'd drunk too much in the evenings and hardly slept at night. I'd repeatedly tried to call Aurélie, but her home telephone was permanently switched to the answering machine and at the restaurant the phone was picked up by another woman who informed me robotically that Mademoiselle Bredin had no desire to speak to me.

On one occasion a man picked up (I think it was that boorish chef) and bellowed down the phone that if I didn't stop harassing Mademoiselle Aurélie he would personally come round to the publishing house and would take great pleasure in punching me in the face.

I'd sent an e-mail to Aurélie three times, and then I got a brief answer saying that I could save myself the trouble of sending any further e-mails, as she'd delete them unread.

In those last days before Christmas I was as desperate as a man could be. It looked as if I'd irrevocably lost Aurélie: I didn't even have her photo, and the last glance she had given me had been so full of contempt that I felt shivers down my spine every time I thought about it.

“Monsieur Chabanais?”

I raised my head wearily and looked toward Mademoiselle Mirabeau.

“I'm going to get a sandwich—shall I bring something for you?” she asked.

“No, I'm not hungry,” I said.

Florence Mirabeau approached carefully. “Monsieur Chabanais?”

“Yes, what is it?”

She looked at me with her little mimosa face.

“You look terrible, Monsieur Chabanais,” she said, hastily adding: “Please forgive me for saying that. Go on, eat a sandwich … just to please me.”

I sighed heavily. “All right, all right,” I said.

“Chicken, ham, or tuna?”

“Whatever. Just bring me anything you like.”

Half an hour later she came in with a tuna baguette and a freshly pressed
jus d'orange
and silently put them both down on my desk.

“Are you coming to the Christmas party this evening?” she asked.

It was Friday, next Tuesday would be Christmas Eve, and Éditions Opale was going to be shut from next week until the New Year. In recent years it had become the custom for all of us in the publishing house to go to the Brasserie Lipp on the evening of our last day at work to celebrate the ending of the year in an appropriate fashion. It was always a very jolly occasion with lots of food, laughter, and chatter. I didn't feel up to so much merriment.

I shook my head. “I'm sorry, I'm not coming.”

“Oh,” she said. “Is it because of your mother? She broke her leg, didn't she?”

“No, no,” I answered. Why should I lie? I'd lied so much in the past few weeks that I'd lost all desire to do so anymore.

Maman had already been at home in Neuilly for five days, was able to hobble through the house quite nimbly on her crutches planning
le réveillon,
our Christmas feast.

“Her broken leg is getting better,” I said.

“But … what is it then?” Mademoiselle Mirabeau wanted to know.

I looked at her. “I've made an enormous mistake,” I said, and laid my hand on my chest. “And now … what can I say … I believe my heart is broken.” I attempted to smile, but I don't think it really sounded like my best joke ever.

“Oh,” said Mademoiselle Mirabeau. I felt the warm wave of her sympathy spreading through the room. And then she said something that kept on going round in my head long after she'd shut the door quietly behind her.

“When you realize you've made a mistake, you should put it right as quickly as possible.”

*   *   *

It wasn't very often that the publisher himself appeared in the offices of his workers, but if he did, you could be sure that it was something really important. An hour after Florence Mirabeau had been with me, Jean-Paul Monsignac pulled open my office door and fell into the chair in front of my desk with a crash.

He looked at me piercingly with his blue eyes. Then he said: “What does this mean, André … I've just heard that you're not coming to the Christmas party this evening?”

I squirmed uncomfortably in my chair. “Er … no,” I said.

“May one know why?” Monsignac regarded the Christmas party at Lipp's as sacrosanct, and he expected to see all the members of his little flock there.

“Well, I … I simply don't feel up to it, to be honest,” I said.

“My dear André, I'm not stupid. I mean, anyone with eyes in his head can see that you can't be feeling too good. You don't come to the editorial meeting, cry off without giving any reason at eleven o'clock, then turn up here the next day looking like death and hardly ever emerge from your lair anymore. What's wrong? This is not the André I know.” Monsignac eyed me thoughtfully.