Bitter & Sweet: a Short Story
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Bitter & Sweet: a short story
J.P. Choquette
ISBN: 9781310849183
Copyright 2014 J.P. Choquette
Bitter & Sweet
*A Short Story*
When René Gervais opened his shop at 35 Rue des Moines, on the outskirts of Montréal, he knew something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Instead of the familiar, palpable scent of buttery croissants, sugar icing and the vague remains of espresso, René smelled only burnt wires and a heavy, pungent odor like wet dog.
His eyes closed momentarily before he stepped through the open doorway. Behind his lids he could see the patisserie as it should be; as it had been for the past twenty-three years. Large, old fashioned display cases forming a “U” in the center of the space. Café tables dressed in vintage cloths with coordinating cream-colored chairs. Unfussy brass chandeliers hanging from the pressed tin ceiling.
But when he finally opened his eyes he saw none of that. Or rather, all of it, but as though through a kaleidoscope; broken chairs, overturned tables, a jumble of cords from the telephone and cash register and industrial coolers smoldering in twisted piles. Soggy tortes had melted, pooling in sticky rivers. Croissants by the dozen crushed to powder; floury, buttery dust over the floor and marble countertop. The white china René had brought with him from France, broken and jagged like shark teeth.
But it was the creation he’d completed yesterday that nearly moved the small Frenchman to tears. He walked toward it in slow motion, feet narrowly missing the tangle of hot, smelly wires. Behind the shattered glass cases where René sat in the long afternoons on a wood stool, stood what was left of his masterpiece.
For weeks now, ever since the woman who changed his life had first entered his shop, René had been working feverishly on the tower of frosting flowers. His attempts at creating anything resembling a rose or daisy had been a complete failure in the beginning. He was a baker, a pastry chef, but one who’d never included so much as a vine or petal on any of his patisseries. "Foolishness," Papa had told him. "Worry about the flavors, the texture of the dough. Don't waste precious time with les belles bagatelles." Worthless trifles.
René had nodded his head; as a boy he'd been so eager to please. He'd listened to every word Papa had said; watching the master's hands dip into the dough then effortlessly dust flour onto the board, kneading, shaping, forming, moving. Always moving. Until they became spotted and weak, fingers stiff and hard-knuckled with arthritis.
By then René had taken over the bakery. His own hands flew between flour and kneading boards; his own fists forming the yeasty mounds into loaves which came out of the industrial ovens long and crackling and crusty. The loaves weren't the only thing in the bakery that had developed a hard shell. René himself had become an image of his father; a hard worker, a perfectionist, but as bitter inside as a chunk of unsweetened chocolate.
Once René had visited the national cake decorating show just outside of Paris. So much beauty and talent! Still it wasn't for him, he reminded himself again and again. He'd ridden back home on the cheapest train seat possible, annoyed by the other passengers and their talking and joking. The sharp flicking of their newspapers and the scent of processed dinners and hot, nearly-burnt coffee. The railway called this supper? Dessert? His old dog, Rolf, had eaten better than this just lying under the bakery table, patiently waiting for odd bits of pastry and fillings to fall.
No, it was no use for René. Trying to learn the art of glaçage at this late date. There was no reason. His patisserie was successful, financially secure, anyway, and that's all he'd wanted from life. To follow in Papa's footsteps, make a living with his hands. The townsfolk liked him well enough, or at least they liked his food enough to make allowances for him. The angry little Frenchman. That's what they called him and he knew it. Well? What did it matter? He was short. He was French. And most days something did make him angry.
That annoyance, though, had begun to wear away when the woman who he thought of as simply La Belle Mademoiselle, had first entered his shop. She looked like she belonged on a cake herself; perfectly dressed and groomed, dainty and beautiful, like a small, tasteful rose.
He had stammered that first day waiting on her. She'd ordered an éclair and a cup of espresso and had marveled at the taste while seated on a high stool that looked into the work area. The counter would not have been his idea: René wanted very much to do his work in peace and quiet. But the patisserie required interaction with his customers, so much to his chagrin, he made small talk as the locals ate their crisp bakery treats and sipped their overly sweetened, watered down cups of coffee. Not La Belle Mademoiselle, though. She sighed over her éclair, taking delicate nibbles and thoughtful sips of her espresso, which René noted, she drank dark and rich.
"How is it that you came to this line of work?" The woman had asked, carefully gathering crumbs from her pastry back onto the small, white saucer. Asked by a local, René's answer would have been brusque and to the point. At times, though it made him sheepish to think of it, he feigned not being able to speak English, just so that the tourists would buy their goods and move on. But La Belle Mademoiselle looked at him so inquisitively, so hopefully, that he'd replied.
"It was my Papa's business," he said, motioning a flour-coated hand around the room. "I never want to do nothing else." He tried to make his pronunciations clear but his thick accent betrayed him. "Nothing" came out sounding like, "nutting." The woman hadn't laughed though, or even smiled. She'd just looked at him with her dark, chocolate colored eyes and nodded her head once.
And that's how it started. Each day she came back to the shop, sampling a different pastry but always ordering the same small cup of strong espresso. She asked many questions, and seemed to give weight and value to René's responses. Once they were talking about his years growing up in Paris, a group of rowdy teenagers on their way to a football practice or soccer game or some such foolishness interrupted them. The youngsters brought coarse laughter and jostling into the bakery, and used words like, "bro," and "dude," and other expressions which confused René. He noticed La Belle Mademoiselle watch the young people carefully, as though she were studying them for an upcoming test. In fact, it was that way with everyone, every customer, every stray dog walking past the shop. All seemed to fascinate her.
René resented their loudness and the rude way they pushed into his shop, into his sunny afternoons spent with the woman whose name he did not know. This is my time, he thought. And he wanted to tell them to get out, to go to the local donut shop or fast food restaurant, but he remained quiet, filling their orders and praying that they'd eat on their way to wherever it was they were going.
It was that same anger, magnified by a hundred, that René felt now, standing in his shattered bakery, looking at the cases he so carefully cleaned and dusted each day, broken beyond repair, René felt an anger unlike any he'd ever known. It crawled up from his belly, uncurling in his chest as it crept upward. It painted his cheeks red and throbbed in his forehead until he couldn't see straight. And when he saw that last act of depravity, the flowers and vines and tiny, pebble-sized pinecones he'd worked so hard to create from thick, unwieldy frosting crushed and ground underfoot, something inside of René snapped. Broke so hard and fast that he could almost hear it reverberating in his brain, the shock waves shivering down his spine.
"Hello?" A woman's voice called into the shop and René whirled around. A small, dark woman stood at the threshold of the bakery, her eyes widening and then a tiny, birdlike hand clamping over her mouth. La Belle Mademoiselle. She made no sound, but tears filled her eyes as she surveyed the broken cases, took in the scent of smoke and burning heat and the baker standing near his breadboard.
"Oh my God, Mr. Gervais. I'm so very sorry."
A pause.
Then, "Who did this?"
The woman walked forward, a few delicate steps before her open toed heels came near a small flour avalanche. René watched her approach the way he would an unusual butterfly or a unicorn. Fascinated, but tongue tied. Though today his fascination and pleasure in seeing her were marred with something dark and ugly. Rage made a bitter taste in his mouth and he longed to spit it out, to unleash it.
Instead, he said quietly, "I do not know, mademoiselle."
"Madame," the woman corrected gently. "Madame Juliette Smith."
René wasn't sure which shocked him more: the