by Sandra Byrd
She looked at me and held my gaze just a little longer than she needed to.
Six
Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.
M.F.K. Fisher
I didn’t have school on Saturday, of course, so I worked the earliest shift at the bakery in the village. I was supposed to make petits fours. Cake! My favorite. And I had a little something else in mind too.
The village bakery didn’t have the varied baking rooms of the bakery in Rambouillet, so I found a cool counter space near the walk-in and began to cut and frost tiny squares of cake. I looked at the clock and discovered that I had some time to play with, so I got out the marzipan and adorned the cakelettes creatively. If Maman didn’t like the decorations on top, I could scrape them off and redo them.
I gazed out the window at the approaching autumn. Monsieur Desfreres told us to take our inspiration from everything around us, that we were not merely artisans, we were artists. I allowed myself to dream.
I thought of Céline and her missing tooth, and created tiny mice out of marzipan. I thought of autumn flowers and fashioned some blood red mums. I sliced thin squares of pound cake and sandwiched them with strawberry preserves, a last good-bye to summer flavors. I cut almond cake and sandwiched it with raspberry crème, delicate and refined. Chocolate cake was dribbled with Grand Marnier, the orange liqueur that originated hundreds of years ago in this very village. I enrobed them in dark chocolate fondant and piped tiny orange pumpkins on top.
After arranging them neatly on long, silver trays, I found Maman. “The petits fours are finished,” I said. “Should you come and look at them before I put them out?”
Maman shrugged, annoyed at being bothered, I think, but knowing she had to check my work. “Un moment,” she said, and I went back to the kitchen to prepare tartes.
I thought again of the season and made baby tarte tatins blushing with cinnamon sugar. Then, daringly, I made faux-pumpkin pies out of some tinned squash I’d found in the market. Très Americaine, I guessed. But they tasted good and looked pretty, and I hoped they would sell.
An hour or two later Maman came to look at my work. She stared at the pan of petits fours for a minute before talking.
“I know they’re a little different,” I explained. “Monsieur Desfreres told us to take our inspiration from nature and life around us”. Better if I could pin it on a Frenchman. “The mice are for Céline and her missing teeth”. I knew Céline would visit later in the day with Maman’s husband, whom everyone called Papa.
Maman took one of the chocolate petits fours with an orange marzipan pumpkin. “Grand Marnier, from the village,” she said as she ate it.
I nodded and said nothing.
She took one of the fake pumpkin pies. “Squash”. I watched her eat it and then brush a crumb from her lips. “Bon, Lexi. These will do fine. Except,” she pointed to the petits fours with mums on them, “not these. In France, mums are only for decorating graves on November first, All Saints Day, the day we remember those who have passed on”.
She wiped her hands on her apron, but she took an extra petits fours and popped it into her mouth, then grinned. Her highest praise, unspoken but eaten. Maman hardly ever ate pastries. “Now on to the chouquettes, ça va?”.
“Ça va,” I agreed, happy she was satisfied.
I got out the ingredients for chouquettes and whipped up a hundred of the typical recipe, then another hundred substituting dark cocoa for some of the flour. I’d already asked Maman if I could try it.
“Okay, all right”. She’d waved me away with her hand. I heard her grumbling that they probably wouldn’t sell as the villagers knew exactly what they liked and chocolate chouquettes were not it, and there was a lot of work to be done around here for real food.
I noticed she ate two or three as they cooled. I hid my smile.
Halfway through the day, Odette came in, just as I was putting out the sweets for the afternoon rush. She looked at the petits fours and sniffed, but said nothing. Then she pointed at the dark chouquettes.
“What are those?” she asked. “Too long in the oven?”
“Mais non,” I said. “Not at all. In fact, I made them with you in mind”.
She set her purse in the back and put on her uniform—embroidered, of course. Then she went to the case and took out one of the chocolate chouquettes. “Hmm”. She ate it and then put one of the plain ones in her mouth. “Not bad”.
“Not bad for a chouquette, you mean?” I asked with an innocent smile.
She looked at me numbly, with no comeback. She knew I meant myself, and not the cookies. Airhead indeed, I thought. Then I went into the back and cleaned up my dishes and Maman’s.
My shift was over just before lunchtime. I took off my apron, wiggled my dead, tired toes inside my shoes, and began the long walk home. Maman had told me I’d need to be in by five the next morning to help with the bread.
That meant no church. I’d been reading through John, though. The gospel of love in the language of love, French.
I walked through the village, but no one waved at me. The grocer smiled when I bought a can of Orangina for the walk home, but carried on a long conversation with the woman who came after me. I should really buy some food, I thought, but I wasn’t up for it.
I had no one to be with, to talk with, except God. Not that I discount You, I said in my head.
I made my way into the cottage and saw the light blinking double-time on the phone. Two messages. I listened to the first. It was Anne!
“I am going to the market this afternoon,” she said. “I’m leaving about noon. Later is when the bargains can be found. If you want to come along, meet me at the entrance to the Rambouillet market about one o’clock. I’ll wait for fifteen minutes, or you can call me on my cell phone”.
I looked at my watch. If I ran, I’d make it to the train on time. I looked at the blinking light, wondering who the second message was from and if it required immediate attention.
I decided to skip it for now. The weekend stretched out long and lonely without company. Anne and the market it was. Jeans and sweater would have to do.
“You came!” Anne said as I reached the market entrance.
“I barely made it,” I admitted. “I’d just gotten home from work”. I checked my watch. It was 1:30, and the market would close soon.
“Have I made you late?” I asked, knowing that much of the best produce may already be gone.
“I kept hoping you’d show up,” she said. “And you did!”
She showed me her woven market basket, a standard for every French woman. Hers had a design on it unique to Normandy, where she was from. “Do you have a basket?” she asked.
I shook my head.
She led me to a vendor at the market entrance and encouraged me to barter for a basket, using up more of her precious time. I bought one of thick, woven straw that looked and smelled like dry wheat and reminded me of the ripe, golden fields of the gorgeous countryside I now called home.
We wandered the market, running our fingers over the taut skin of happy pumpkins, shiny with flesh about to burst. One vendor selected a melon for me, invited me to sniff it, and I did, the sweet honeyed scent of it reminding me of summer breakfasts in Seattle. Knobs of earthy mushrooms sprouted everywhere, and Anne selected a few.
“I have a very small kitchen,” she said, “but I am going to make a pot of mushroom soup tonight”.
“Where do you live?” I asked, realizing I had no idea.
“A small rental studio in Rambouillet,” she said. “I saved money working in the bakery in my small town so I could come to school. No patron is paying my way,” she said, looking at me with gentle envy.
No one had provided a little stone cottage for her, either. I felt ashamed, for a moment, that I had felt such low worth about being “free” labor. Odette had planted that bitter seed, but I’d let it grow.
“Are you lonely?” I asked, and then reali
zed how personal that sounded. “I mean, living by yourself. Like I do”.
She nodded. “But there is an old French proverb, ‘hunger savors every dish.’ I think having to work so hard will make getting a job that much more rewarding. Assuming I get a job when I’m done”.
We walked to the next market, and I chose some pickled green beans from a woman who had obviously canned the slender jade strands at her home. I bought some tiny potatoes, earth still clinging to them, having only birthed them hours before. Anne bought a head of spinach. Some of the vendors were closing down.
On a whim, I walked over to the fish market. “Let’s go over here; it’ll make both of us feel like home,” I said. Seattle and Normandy were both coastal locales, and Anne had told me once, longingly, that she missed the well-salted air of her home.
We examined the large-eyed bass, who stared back at us. I saw, out of the corner of my eye, something that reminded me of home. Salmon! Smoked salmon.
I dug into my purse and bought a pound, expensive but worth it. I loved French food, but longed for a taste of Washington too.
After we shopped, we went to a nearby café and sat down. We each had a glass of white wine, and the waiter brought us a small plate of gougères, cheese puffs. We nibbled and talked.
“Do you think you can get a job here afterward?” I asked. “Do you know where to start?”
Anne nodded. “I’m hopeful, because I have a letter of recommendation from my boss at the bakery I worked at in Normandy. But a lot of the students at the school are already working in a bakery, like you,” she said. “So I don’t know how many places will be open. Some smaller shops, I suppose. But I want a future”.
I nodded. “I understand. I’m hoping there will be a place for me with the Delacroix when I’m done, but I don’t even know if I’ll pass the exhibition well enough to please Monsieur Delacroix. Nor do I know if there will be a place for me if Dominique comes back”.
“What about the bakery in Versailles?” Anne asked. “Surely if they open that, there will be a need for more pastry workers”.
“It’s my only hope,” I said. “But even then, if Dominique is back. I don’t know. And I don’t have a job in Seattle anymore”.
Anne sipped the last of her wine. “All I know is that the small inheritance I got from my grandmother and my savings will run out by January. But I can’t return to Normandy”.
“Why not?”
She hesitated. “My boyfriend was abusif. You understand? And my father too”.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry”. I wondered if I should say more, but decided to keep quiet, knowing this to be a very personal revelation for a French woman. I didn’t want to press.
“Yes. I am sorry as well,” she said, closing the conversation. She stood. “I’d better go and find the cream for my mushroom soup, eh?”
“And I’d better catch the train,” I said. “I work early tomorrow”.
“Oui,” she said. “At the bakery”. There was longing, but no resentment, in her voice.
We kissed cheeks as good French women did, and said au revoir until Monday morning.
I caught the train home, just beating an autumn rain. As I ran up the driveway to my cottage, I saw Céline’s little face pressed against a windowpane in the big house. I waved at her, and she waved back, grinning.
I let myself in and set down my woven market bag, then caught sight of the blinking telephone light out of the corner of my eye. Oh yes! The other message.
“Lexi, it’s Dad”. I shook my head as I listened, clearing it from surprise, and also taking a second to go from the “French” track to the “English” track in my mind. “Call me back right away if you can”.
I looked at my watch. Five o’clock in the evening here, so it was eight in the morning in Seattle. He must have left the message late the night before. I hadn’t talked to him since Paris. What could he want?
My hands shook a little as I dialed, and it only rang twice before Mom picked up.
“Mom!” I said, and became a little girl again at heart as I heard her voice. “How are you?”
“The better question, young lady, is how are you ?” Mom said, teasingly. “So busy you can’t call more often?”
“Oh, Mom, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been really busy at work and school. And it’s expensive!”
“I know,” she said. “I’m glad you’re having a good time. I miss you”.
“I miss you too, Mom,” I said. “I got a call from Dad”.
“Yes”. She lowered her voice, which sounded muffled, as if she was cupping the phone in her hand. “He’s got an idea. He’s very excited. I hope you can make it work, Lexi”.
An idea?
“Oh, here he is now!” Mom said rather loudly and cheerfully. “I’ll talk with you soon, honey”.
I heard her fumble the phone over to Dad.
“Lexi? How are ya, honey?” Dad said.
“I’m good, Dad, how are you?”
“Fine, fine. All settled into the new house, and now the rains have started, you know?”
“I do, Dad”.
“I’ll bet you’re wondering why I called”.
“I’m always glad to hear from you, Dad,” I answered, hoping he’d get to the point soon.
“Well, here’s the thing. Do you remember Bob? From the recruiting station in Seattle?”
“Your friend from the navy? Yes, I do”.
“Well, he put me onto this last minute travel Web site, where you buy available seats on planes that are flying soon. You know, remainders”.
“I’ve heard of that,” I said, putting the salmon into the fridge while we talked.
“So I was thinking, maybe I could get on a plane next Thursday and be there by Friday. We could spend the weekend together, and I could go back next Sunday afternoon. You know, just to check on my girl. Make sure they’re treating you right”.
“Next Friday?” I squeaked. “As in six days from now?”
“Well, yes. They are last minute deals,” he said, sounding hurt. “And next month it’ll be Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. But I don’t have to come”.
I didn’t think he really understood that I had school and a job here, and not a job with weekends off. I wanted to see him; it would be great to have a guest. But I didn’t want to look sporadic at school or irresponsible at work.
“Um, I can try to work it out”. I tried to sound hopeful and enthusiastic. “I don’t get out of school until noon on Friday”.
“I was in the military for years, honey. I can take a train from the airport and meet you. Or rent a car”.
“Sure, Dad. You know, I live in a pretty small village. There’s not a lot to do”.
“I’m not coming to do. I’m coming to visit and make sure you’re okay,” he said.
Still, I felt there was something else behind his sudden desire to visit me.
“Do you want to sightsee in Paris?” I asked.
“Nah, Paris isn’t for me,” he said. “But I was wondering … well, you said you had a friend from Normandy and that it wasn’t too far away. I thought, you know, maybe if you had the time, we could visit the beaches where the troops landed on D-Day”.
He tried hard to not betray it, but I could hear the boyish eagerness in his voice. He was a lifelong marine and a military history buff. He’d made my dream come true by buying my plane ticket to France. Somehow I had to help make his dream come true too.
“Sure, Dad. E-mail the details to me, and we’ll figure it out”. Would Maman even let me take some days off? Well, why not? I hadn’t done so since I’d been here. It had to be okay.
“Dad,” I said. “There’s one thing I’d like you to bring me. Mom can help you find it”.
I told him, though I know he was confused by the request. That was okay. I knew what I was doing.
I woke up early the next morning and got dressed. Then I sat at my kitchen table and opened my Bible.
Alone, I sang praise songs—quietly, so a
s not to freak out Maman if she happened to hear through the open windows. I could imagine her eyebrows waggling over the American singing to herself, unaccompanied.
I prayed and read John 7 and 8. I grinned. Another food analogy.
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink”.
I prayed out loud, conversationally, as I got ready for work. “So, Lord, is it because I’ve never really let myself get parched, always able to satisfy myself with the good gifts You’d given me, that I haven’t had a thirst for You?”
It occurred to me that, in that way, I was much more French than I thought. I included God when it was convenient or cultural.
I heard nothing back as I put on my uniform and slipped on my shoes, but I didn’t mind. On the way out, I wrote the proverb Anne had shared with me on my chalkboard.
Hunger savors
every dish.
I got to work just on time, and Maman was already there.
“I got a phone call this morning. One of the bread bakers has quit—pouf!—just like that. So I will take over the bread, and you will make the sables and the mousse au chocolat for me in the pastry area. Philippe will send someone over from Rambouillet if we need them, but he’s short-staffed since Patricia has gone off like some crazy teenager chasing a boy”.
I grinned at the description, but inside, I was worried. If everyone was short-staffed, how could I leave for three days? And yet, I had to ask for the time off today so Maman would have warning.
I made the mousse au chocolat and shook cocoa powder over each one. No one asked me to help with the bread, which was fine. I was inexperienced and, honestly, not truly gifted in that area. I hoped my brioche turned out all right at Rambouillet. I wondered if Philippe would say anything about it.
I wondered if I’d see him today.
I spent the day on my own, keeping everything clean and taking care of a small cookie order. Near noon, the end of my shift since the bakery closed early on Sundays, I approached Maman. She seemed to have everything under control, so maybe this would be a good time.
