The Ingredients of Love (11 page)

“And he's even going to let you know when Robert Miller comes to Paris,” Bernadette carried on inexorably. “What more do you want, Mademoiselle I'm-never-satisfied?”

Yes, what more did I want?

I wanted to find out more about this Englishman who looked so attractive and wrote such wonderful things, and that was the reason why Bernadette was sitting at the search engine this Monday morning a week after everything had started.

“I'm so glad that you don't have to go in to school on Mondays so that we can get together,” I said, and was flooded with a feeling of gratitude as I watched the look of concentration as she sought out all the Millers in the world for me.

“Hm … hm,” said Bernadette, as she stuck a wisp of blond hair behind her ear and watched the screen, spellbound. “Rats! I've made a typo—No, I didn't mean Niller, but M-i-l-l-e-r!”

“Do you know, I can't really go out in the evenings because I have to go to the restaurant.” I leaned over toward her so that I could make something out on the screen too. “Although … now Claude has gone it's obviously not bad to have something to do in the evenings,” I went on. “These winter evenings can be really lonely.”

“If you want, we could go to the movies this evening,” said Bernadette. “Émile is going to be in so I can get away. Have you heard anything from Claude?” she asked without a pause.

I shook my head, thankful that this time she only said “Claude.”

“I didn't expect anything better of the idiot,” she growled, and wrinkled her forehead. “Unbelievable just to disappear like that.” Then her voice became friendlier. “Do you miss him?”

“Well, yes,” I said, and was a bit surprised myself how much my emotional state had improved since that unhappy day when I'd wandered the streets of Paris. “At night it's strange lying alone in bed.” I thought for a moment. “It's just a bit funny when there's suddenly no one to put an arm around you.”

Bernadette had her great moment of empathy. “Yes, I can imagine it must be,” without immediately adding that there was obviously a difference between having a nice man or an idiot putting his arm around you.

“But who knows what may turn up?” She looked at me and grinned. “In the meanwhile, you've found a wonderful distraction. And here we have him: Robert Miller—twelve million, two hundred thousand entries. So, what do you say?”

“Oh, no!” I looked at the screen in disbelief. “It's not possible!”

Bernadette clicked on a couple of entries at random. “Robert Miller—contemporary art.” A rectangular picture made up of different colored stripes opened up. “Oh, really
very
contemporary!” She closed the page again. “And what have we here? Rob Miller, Rugby Union Player, pooh—sporty, sporty.” She ran the cursor over the page. “Robert Talbot Miller, American agent, spied for the Soviet Union—it won't be him, he's already handed in his feeding pail.” She laughed—the search was obviously turning out to be fun. “Boff!” she now cried. “Robert Miller, two hundred twenty-fourth richest person in the world! Are you sure you don't want to change your mind, Aurélie?”

“We're not going to get anywhere like that,” I said. “You should put in ‘Robert Miller author.'”

“Robert Miller author” only brought up 650,000 entries, which was still quite a challenge.

“Couldn't you find yourself an author with a more unusual name?” said Bernadette, clicking her way through the first page that opened. There was just about everything there—from a man who published books about horse training through a lecturer who'd written something about the English colonies for Oxford University Press, to a really terribly frightening-looking English author who'd produced a book on the Boer War.

Bernadette pointed to the photo. “It can't be him, can it?”

I shook my head violently. “For heaven's sake, no!” I cried.

“This is getting us nowhere,” said Bernadette. “What was the title of the novel again?”

“The Smiles of Women.”

“Good … good … good.” She moved her fingers over the keyboard. “Aha,” she said. “Here we have him: ‘Robert Miller,
The Smiles of Women
!'” She smiled triumphantly, and I held my breath.

“Robert Miller in Éditions Opale … oh crap, all we get is the publisher's Web site … And this … is Amazon, but also only for the French edition … Strange, it should be possible to find the English original somewhere.” She pressed another couple of keys and then shook her head. “Nothing doing,” she said. “All there is is something about Henry Miller,
The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder
—a good book, by the way—but he's definitely not our man.”

She tapped her lips thoughtfully with her index finger. “No reference to an Internet page, no Facebook—Mr. Miller remains a mystery, at least as far as the World Wide Web is concerned. Who knows, perhaps he's so old-fashioned that he rejects all modern technology. Still, it's very curious that I can't find the English version of the book.” She closed her laptop and looked at me.

“I'm afraid I can't help you.”

I leaned back, disappointed. I thought you were supposed to be able to find anything on the Internet these days.

“And what do we do now?” I asked.

“Now we make ourselves a little salad with goat's cheese—or rather,
you
make us a nice
salade au chèvre.
There must be some deeper purpose to having a chef as a friend, don't you think?”

I sighed. “Can't you think of anything else?”

“Yes,” she said. “Why don't you call that Cerberus of a publisher and ask him if Robert Miller has a Web page and why you can't find the original English edition of his novel.” She stood up from her desk and went into the kitchen.

“No, don't phone him,” she called as she opened the door of the fridge. “Send the poor man an e-mail instead.”

“I don't have his e-mail address,” I answered reluctantly, and followed Bernadette into the kitchen. She shut the fridge and thrust an oak-leaf lettuce into my hand.

“My dear, that is really no problem at all.”

I stared sullenly at the lettuce, which wasn't really to blame. Bernadette was right. Of course there was no problem finding the e-mail addresses of uninteresting people like André Chabanais, chief editor at Éditions Opale.

 

Six

“So, you find that strange,” I murmured as I studied yet again the e-mail I'd printed out in the office that afternoon. “My dear Mademoiselle Aurélie, this whole business is more than strange.”

With a sigh I put the e-mail aside and picked up the letter, which by now I knew by heart—I liked it much more than the unsolicited and not very charming inquiry.

Things were beginning to get complicated, and yet I couldn't help being surprised that one and the same person was capable of writing such different letters. I leaned back in my old leather chair, lit a cigarette, and dropped the book of matches from the Deux Magots on the coffee table.

I'd already tried to give up smoking several times—the last time had been after the book fair, when most of the stress seemed to be over and my life was returning to its pleasantly calm routine.

Carmencita, a hot-blooded young woman responsible for Portuguese licenses who had already been smoldering at me with her dark eyes during our meetings for three years, had this time invited me to dinner and then back to her hotel. The next morning I'd had to make it clear to her that my requirement for women to whom I could give necklaces was already fulfilled. When Carmencita finally left in a huff (not without extracting from me a promise to invite her to dinner next year), I thought that the greatest challenge for the rest of the year would be dealing with all the manuscripts I had requested in a fit of book-fair euphoria.

But since last Tuesday the little blue packs with the health-hazardous fire sticks had once more become my constant companions.

I smoked the first five cigarettes during the period when Adam failed to call me back. When he did finally call on the Thursday, I put the cigarettes in the top drawer of my desk and vowed to forget their existence. Then, as if falling from the sky, that girl with green eyes landed outside my office in the evening and my feelings were in a state of confusion I'd never experienced before. I found myself living in a dream that was simultaneously a nightmare. I had to shake off the obstinate Mademoiselle Bredin before she found out the truth about Robert Miller, and yet the thing I wanted most of all was to see the woman with the ravishing smile again.

After Mademoiselle Bredin disappeared at the end of the lobby I lit a cigarette. Then I rushed into the main office, where Madame Petit ruled by day, and rummaged through my green plastic in-tray until I found a long white envelope addressed to “The Author Robert Miller.” I stuck my head hastily round the door and listened—making sure that Mademoiselle wasn't returning to find me opening her mail—and then I hurriedly tore the handwritten letter open without using a paper knife: the letter that had by now been in every part of my apartment and had been read over and over again.

Paris, November 2008

Dear Robert Miller!

You kept me awake all last night, and I'd like to say thank you! I have just read your book
The Smiles of Women
. Read? I
devoured
the book, which is so wonderful and which fell into my hands by pure chance only yesterday evening (as I was, in a way, fleeing the police) in a little Parisian bookstore. What I mean is that I was not looking for your book. My great passion is cooking, not reading. Normally. But your book blew me away, inspired me, made me laugh, and is at the same time so light and full of wisdom. In a word: Your book made me happy on a day when I was more unhappy than I had ever been (a broken heart, world weariness) and the fact that I found your book (or did your book find me?) at precisely that moment seems to me to have been destined by fate.

That may perhaps seem strange to you, but as soon as I'd read the very first sentence I sensed that this book was going to have a very special meaning for me. I don't believe in coincidences.

Dear Monsieur Miller, before you think you're dealing with a madwoman, you ought to know a couple of things.

Le Temps des Cerises, which appears in your book so often and which you describe so affectionately, is my restaurant. And your Sophie—that's me. At least, the similarity is striking, and when you look at the photograph I'm enclosing you'll understand what I mean. Admittedly, I don't know how these things all fit together, but I naturally wonder if we have met without my being able to remember it. You are a successful English author, I am a French chef with a relatively unknown restaurant in Paris—how can our paths have crossed?

You can perhaps imagine that all these “coincidences,” which somehow just can't be coincidences, are bothering me.

I'm writing to you in the hope that you have an explanation for me. Unfortunately I don't have your address and can only reach you by going through your publisher. I would regard it as an honor to be able to invite the man who writes books like that and to whom I owe so much to a meal—prepared by me—in Le Temps des Cerises.

As I can see from your biography (and your novel), you love Paris, and I think that you must often come here. It would be so lovely if we could get to know each other personally. And perhaps many of my puzzles could then be solved.

I can imagine that, since your book appeared, you must receive many enthusiastic letters, and it is also clear to me that you do not have the time to answer every single one of your readers. But I am not “every” reader, you must believe me. For me
The Smiles of Women
has been a very special, in fact fateful, book. And it is with a combination of deep gratitude, great admiration, and curious impatience that I send you this letter. I would be extremely delighted to receive an answer from you, and my greatest desire is that you will accept my invitation to dinner in Le Temps des Cerises.

With the very best of wishes,

Yours,

Aurélie Bredin

 

PS: This is the first time I've ever written to an author. And it is not my usual custom to invite strange men to dinner, but I am sure that my letter will be safe in the hands of an English gentleman, as I assume you to be.

After reading this letter for the first time, I fell back into Madame Petit's office chair and smoked another cigarette.

I must admit that if I had been Robert Miller I would have felt I was the luckiest man alive. I wouldn't have wasted a second before replying to this letter, which was so much more than a normal love letter. Oh, I would have so gladly accepted the beautiful cook's invitation to a very private
dîner à deux
in her restaurant (the invitation sounded most tempting) and perhaps to other things as well (which in my imagination seemed even more tempting).

But stupidly enough I was just André Chabanais, a middle-of-the-road, run-of-the-mill chief editor pretending to be Robert Miller. That great, amusing, and yet deep-thinking author who wrote himself into the hearts of unhappy women.

I drew on my cigarette and studied the photo that Aurélie Bredin had enclosed with her letter very closely. In it she was wearing that green dress (obviously one of her favorites), her hair fell over her shoulders, and she was smiling lovingly into the camera.

Once more her smile was not for me. When the photo had been taken she had been smiling at someone, probably the guy who had later hurt her (broken heart, world weariness). And as she put the photo in the letter she had done it as a way of smiling at Robert Miller. If she had known that it would be me (and not her English gentleman) who would later secrete her picture in his wallet, she would not have smiled so delightfully, I was sure of that.