The Ingredients of Love (5 page)

I closed my eyes for a minute and thought about whether I had ever seen this face before, this boyish, disarming smile. But no matter how long I searched through the drawers of my memory—I couldn't find that face.

The author's name said nothing to me either: Robert Miller.

I didn't know any Robert Miller—I didn't actually know any Englishmen at all, apart from the English tourists who occasionally wandered into my restaurant, and that British exchange student from my school days who came from Wales and—with his red hair and masses of freckles—looked just like Flipper the dolphin's sidekick.

I studied the short biography of the author carefully.

Robert Miller had worked as an engineer for a big English car manufacturer until he wrote his first novel—
The Smiles of Women.
He loved old cars, Paris, and French food, and lived with his Yorkshire terrier, Rocky, in a cottage near London.

“Who are you, Robert Miller?” I asked under my breath, and my gaze returned to the man on the park bench. “Who are you? And how do you know me?”

And suddenly an idea began buzzing around my head, and I found it more and more attractive.

I wanted to get to know this author, who had not only restored my will to live in my darkest hour, but also seemed to be linked with me in some mysterious way. I'd write to him. I'd thank him. And then I'd invite him to a really magical evening in my restaurant and find out what this novel was all about.

I sat up and aimed my index finger at the chest of Robert Miller, who at this moment was probably walking his little dog somewhere in the Cotswolds.

“Mr. Miller—I'll be seeing you!”

Mr. Miller smiled at me, and strangely enough I didn't doubt for one moment that I would succeed in tracking down my new (and only) favorite writer.

Little did I know that this author shunned the glare of publicity like the plague.

 

Two

“What do you mean, this author shuns the glare of publicity like the plague?” Monsieur Monsignac had jumped up. His massive belly quivered with agitation and the members of the editors' meeting sank down lower in their seats as the thunder of his voice grew ever louder.

“We've sold almost fifty thousand copies of that bloody book. This guy Miller is just about to jump onto the bestseller lists.
Le Figaro
wants to do a big feature about him.” Monsignac calmed down for a moment, looked dreamily upward, and drew a gigantic headline in the air with his right hand.

“Title:
An Englishman in Paris.
Éditions Opale's surprise best seller.” Then he slapped the table with such a crash that Madame Petit, who was taking the minutes, dropped her pencil in fright. “And you sit there and try to tell me in all seriousness that this man isn't capable of shifting his English ass to Paris for just one day? Tell me it's not true, André, tell me it's not!”

I saw his red face, his bright eyes darting bolts of lightning. There was no doubt about it: Jean-Paul Monsignac, publisher and owner of Éditions Opale, was going to have a heart attack any second.

And it was my fault.

“Monsieur Monsignac, calm down, please.” I wrung my hands. “Believe me, I'm doing everything I can. But Monsieur Miller is an Englishman, after all. You know—
my home is my castle.
He lives in seclusion in his cottage, just tinkering with his cars most of the time—he's not at all used to dealing with the press and doesn't like to be the focus of attention. I mean, that's … that's what makes him so likeable…”

I could see that I was talking to save my life. Why hadn't I just said that Robert Miller was traveling around the world for a year and didn't have his iPhone with him?

“Tsk, tsk! Stop blathering, André! Just make sure that the Englishman gets on a train, zooms under the Channel, and answers a few questions and signs a few books over here. That's the least we can expect. After all, this guy was”—he picked up the book, glanced at the back cover, and then dropped it back on the table in front of him—“a motor mechanic—no, even an
engineer
—before he wrote his novel. He must occasionally have come into contact with the human race then. Or is he autistic?”

Gabrielle Mercier, one of the two editors, giggled behind her hand: I could have strangled the silly cow.

“Of course he's not autistic,” I quickly replied. “It's just that he's a bit, hmm, a bit averse to human company.”

“So is
every
intelligent human being. The more I see of men, the better I like my dog. Who said that? Well? Does anyone know?” Monsieur Monsignac looked expectantly around the table. Even now, he couldn't resist showing off his education. He'd been at the École Normale Supérieure, the Parisian elite school, and he never let a day go by in our publishing company without quoting some important philosopher or writer.

Strangely enough, Monsieur Monsignac's memory functioned in a very selective way. While it retained the names of great literary figures, thinkers, and Goncourt Prize winners with ease, it had great difficulty where light literature was concerned. Either he forgot the author's name immediately, and then it was “that man” or “that Englishman” or “that
Da Vinci Code
writer,” or he indulged in ridiculous contortions like Lars Stiegsson (Stieg Larsson), Nicolai Bark (Nicholas Sparks), or Steffen Lark (Stephen Clarke).

“I'm not all that frightfully keen on American authors, but why don't we actually have a Steffen Lark on our list?” he had bellowed at the meeting two years before. “An American in Paris—that still seems to go down well, even today!”

I was responsible for our English-language books, and I had warily made him aware of the fact that Steffen Lark was an
Englishman,
who was actually called
Stephen Clarke
and wrote very successful humorous books about France.

“Funny books about Paris. By an Englishman. Well, well,” Monsieur Monsignac had said, shaking his big head. “Stop trying to lecture me, André, and bring me someone like this Clarke instead. What do I pay you for? Are you a truffle hound or not?”

A few months later, I produced the manuscript of a certain Robert Miller from my briefcase. In terms of wit and wealth of ideas it was right up there with its popular predecessor. It all worked out: The book sold extremely well, and I was now paying the price. What's that great saying? Pride comes before a fall. And in the case of Robert Miller I found myself in free fall, so to speak.

The only reason that Jean-Paul Monsignac had finally retained the name of his new bestselling author (“What's that Englishman called—Meller?”) was that he had a famous namesake (“No, Monsieur Monsignac, not Meller—
Miller
!”), who had already received the stamp of literary approval (“Miller? Is he related to
Henry
Miller in some way?”).

While those round the table were still wondering if the quotation was from Hobbes or not, I suddenly thought that Monsignac, with all his terrible quirks, was still the best and most human publisher I'd met in all my fifteen years in the publishing business. I found it difficult to lie to him, but the way things were looking I had no choice.

“And what if we just give Robert Miller the questions from
Le Figaro
in writing and then pass his answers on to the press? The way we did with that Korean publisher. That worked very well.” It was a last pathetic attempt to ward off the impending disaster—and of course, it failed to convince him.

“No, no, no! I don't like that at all!” Monsignac raised his hands defensively.

“Out of the question—that way we'd lose all spontaneity,” interjected Michelle Auteuil, with a disapproving look over her black Chanel glasses. Michelle had been bending my ear for weeks now to get something done about “this charming Englishman.” So far I'd been deaf to her entreaties. But now she had one of the most important papers on her side, and—what was much worse—my boss.

Michelle does our press relations, wears nothing but black or white, and I hate her for her apodictic remarks.

She sits there in her immaculate white blouse and black suit and says things like “That won't do
at all,
” whenever you go to her with an idea that you think is great because you still somehow believe in the good in people who—just like that—get enthusiastic about a book. “There's no literary editor in the world who seriously reads historical novels anymore, André—just forget it!” Or she says: “A book launch for an
unknown
female author—and one who writes
short stories
to boot? Puh-lease, André! Who is that going to bring in out of the rain? Has she at least been nominated for the Prix? No?” Then she sighs, rolls her blue eyes, and fiddles impatiently with the little silver ballpoint that she always seems to have in her hand. “You really have
no
idea what press relations are like today, do you? We need names, names, names. At least try and find a celebrity to write the foreword.”

And before you can say anything else, her phone rings again and she's gushing effusively over one of those TV or journalist guys in leather jackets who “seriously” don't read historical novels anymore and think themselves even cooler because a long-legged beauty with smooth black hair is joking with them.

That all went through my mind as Michelle Auteuil now sat before me like freshly fallen snow and waited for a reaction.

I cleared my throat. “Spontaneity,” I repeated, trying to win time. “That's precisely our problem.” I looked meaningfully around the table.

Michelle remained expressionless. She was definitely not the kind of woman whose reserve can be broken down by rhetorical maneuvers.

“This guy Miller is by no means as humorous and quick-witted in conversation as you might think,” I continued. “And he is—like most writers—not very spontaneous either. After all, he's not one of those…” I couldn't resist the dig and darted a glance toward Michelle. “… TV celebrities who chatter on day and night but need a ghostwriter to help them with the books they write.”

Michelle's blue eyes narrowed.

“I'm not interested!” Jean-Paul Monsignac's patience was finally exhausted. He waved Miller's book around in the air, and I thought it was quite possible that he would throw it at me any second. “Don't be childish, André. Get that Englishman over to Paris for me! I want a great interview in
Le Figaro
with lots of photos, period!”

My stomach churned painfully.

“And if he says no?”

Monsignac looked hard at me and remained silent for a few seconds. Then, with all the joviality of a hangman, he said:

“Then you'd better make sure that he says yes.”

I nodded apprehensively.

“After all, you're the only one of us who knows this Miller, aren't you?”

I nodded again.

“But if you don't think you're up to getting him here,
I
could talk to the Englishman. Or perhaps …
Madame Auteuil
?”

This time I didn't nod.

“No, no, that wouldn't be a good idea, absolutely not,” I replied quickly, and felt the trap closing around me. “Miller is really a bit awkward, you know—not unpleasant, he's more like Patrick Süskind, not easy to get hold of, but we … we'll cope. I'll get in touch with his agent today.”

I put my hand to my beard and stroked my chin with finger and thumb, hoping that no one would notice how I was panicking.

“Bon,”
declared Monsignac, and leaned back in his seat. “Patrick Süskind—I like that!” He smiled benevolently. “Admittedly, his writing is not as intelligent as Süskind's, but on the other hand, he's better-looking, isn't he, Madame Auteuil?”

Michelle smiled maliciously. “He is indeed! Much better-looking. At last we've got an author we can present to the press without any worries. I've been saying that for weeks. And if our esteemed colleague manages to get around to sharing his wonderful author with us, there's nothing more to stop us.”

She snapped open her thick black Filofax. “What do you think of a lunch with the press in the brasserie at the Lutetia?”

Monsignac grimaced, but said nothing. I don't think anyone but me knew that he wasn't very keen on the Lutetia because of its inglorious past. “That old Nazi dump,” he had once said to me when we'd been invited to a publisher's reception in the old grand hotel. “Did you know that Hitler had his headquarters there?”

“Then we'll take our author on a shopping trip around Paris and its Christmas decorations,” Michelle continued. “That will make a nice rounded story, and we can also finally take a few reasonable photos.” She waved her silver pen busily and leafed through her diary. “Shall we look at the beginning of December? That would give the book a bit more of a push—for the Christmas trade.”

I went through the rest of that afternoon's meeting in an impenetrable mist. I only had three weeks left, and I didn't have a plan. From far away I heard Jean-Paul Monsignac's voice. He made in-your-face criticisms, laughed out loud, flirted a bit with Mademoiselle Mirabeau, the pretty new editorial assistant. He inspired his troops—not for nothing were these meetings in Éditions Opale very popular and entertaining.

Yet that afternoon I had only one thought: I must call Adam Goldberg! He was the only one who could help me.

I made an effort to look at whoever was speaking and prayed that the meeting would end quickly. They discussed the dates of various events and went through the sales figures for October. Book projects were presented, and met with rejection (“Who on earth would want to read that?”), incomprehension (“What do the others think?”), or acceptance (“Great! We'll make her the new Anna Gavalda!”) from Monsignac. Then, as the afternoon gradually drew toward its end a violent argument flared up: Should we offer the so far unknown author—owner of a Venetian ice-cream parlor—of a thriller that his sharp-nosed American agent praised to the heights as “a masculine Donna Leon” an advance for which any normal human being could buy himself a small palazzo? Monsignac put an end to the discussion by getting Madame Mercier to give him the manuscript and stuffing it into his old brown leather briefcase. “That's enough argument, we'll carry on tomorrow. Just let me take a look at it.”