The Little Paris Bookshop (29 page)

‘Good-bye, Manon Morello, good-bye,’ whispered Jean Perdu. ‘It was wonderful to have known you.’

The sun sank behind the hills of the Vaucluse, and the sky glowed with molten fire.

Only when the colours had paled and the world had turned to shadow did Perdu drain his glass of
Manon
to the last drop.

It was the second time they had eaten the thirteen desserts together on Christmas Eve, laying three extra places for the dead, for the living and for good fortune in the year to come. Three seats were always left empty at the long table in Luc Basset’s house.

They had listened to the ‘Ritual of the Ashes’, the Occitan prayer of the dead, which Victoria read to them beside the open fire in the kitchen. She had asked to read it on this anniversary, for her mother’s sake and for hers: it was a message from the dead woman to her beloved.

‘Am the bark that carries you to me,’ Vic began in her clear voice. ‘Am salt on your numbed lips, am the aroma and the essence of every food … Am startled dawn and garrulous sundown. Am a dauntless island, fleeing the sea. Am what you find and what slowly releases me. Am the positive boundary of your solitude.’

At these final words Vic started to cry. So did Jean and Catherine, who were holding hands; and Joaquin Albert Perdu and Lirabelle Bernier, occasionally known as Perdu, who were testing out a truce as lovers and companions in Bonnieux. Austere northerners, whom little moved to tears otherwise – certainly not words.

They had grown very fond of Max, their so-called adopted grandson, and of the Basset family, to whom their lives were bound by love, death and grief. For a few days around Christmas, this unusual mix of emotions brought Perdu’s parents together – in bed, at the table and for a shared car journey. Throughout the rest of the year Jean continued to be treated over the telephone to his mother’s moaning about her ex-husband – ‘that social dyslexic’ – and to his father’s jocular complaints about the professor.

Catherine suspected that the old couple’s sniping was their way of warming up before they fell into each other’s passionate arms on Bastille Day, Christmas and, more recently, even Perdu’s birthday.

The elder Perdus and Jean and Catherine spent the period from 23 December to Twelfth Night in Bonnieux. They passed the days between the years with eating, laughing and talking, interspersed with long walks and wine-tasting sessions, female chatter and male silence. Now a new era was drawing near – again.

The late-winter blooming of the peach trees, when the approaching spring decorates the fruit trees along the Rhône with flowers, is the sign of new beginnings in Provence. Max and Vic had chosen this season of white and red blossoms for their wedding. She had made him woo her for twelve months before she would grant him his first kiss – but things had moved fast from then on.

Max’s first children’s book was published soon after:
The Magician in the Garden – A Heroic Book for Children
.

It dumbfounded the critics, upset parents and enthralled children and teenagers, who were amused by how worked up figures of authority were over the book. This was because it urged youngsters to challenge everything that grown-ups reacted to with the words: ‘You mustn’t do that!’

Catherine and Jean had combed Provence for an atelier until they finally found one. The main stumbling block had never been the premises themselves, but rather the fact that she wanted the countryside around to be an exact reflection of her and Jean’s inner landscapes. They eventually found a barn adjoining a charming, slightly rundown Provençal farmhouse between Sault and Mazan, with a lavender field to the right of it, a mountain to the left and an uninterrupted view of vineyards and Mount Ventoux out the front. Behind it lay an orchard for their two cats, Rodin and Némirovsky, to patrol.

‘It’s like coming home,’ Catherine had announced to Jean, as with great satisfaction she paid over the majority of the divorce proceeds she had received from the lawyer.

Her sculptures were almost double human size. It was as though Catherine could detect beings trapped in the stone, as though she could see through the unhewn blocks into their soul, hear their cries and feel their hearts beating. Catherine would then begin to chisel them free.

Not all of her creations were likeable.

Hatred. Suffering. Forbearance. The soul reader.

Hang on!

It really was. From a block the size of a banana crate Catherine had released two hands that were forming a shape. Were these seeking, finding fingers reading, caressing or touching words? To whom did they belong? Were they pulling something out, or reaching in?

If you pressed your face to the stone, you could sense that a concealed, bricked-up wall was opening inside yourself. The entrance … to a room?

‘Everybody has an inner room where demons lurk. Only when we open it and face up to it are we free,’ said Catherine.

Jean Perdu looked after her in Provence and in Paris, when the two of them stayed in his old flat in Rue Montagnard. He made sure that Catherine ate and slept well, got together with her girlfriends and cast off her cobwebs of dreams in the morning.

They made love often, with the same concentrated languidness. He knew every inch of her, every perfect and imperfect spot. He stroked and caressed each of those imperfections until her body believed that for him she was the most beautiful woman alive.

When he wasn’t working part-time at the bookshop in Banon, Perdu went hunting. While Catherine was in Paris or sculpting alone on the farm, giving courses, selling art, filing, sanding and correcting, he went prospecting for the world’s most exciting books – in school libraries, concealed among the bequests of gnarled old teachers and blathering fruit growers, in forgotten Aladdin’s caves, and unfurnished homemade bunkers dating from the Cold War.

Perdu had launched his trade in unique books with a facsimile of Sanary’s handwritten manuscript, which had come into his possession by a roundabout route. Samy had insisted that her pseudonym must remain a secret.

With the help of Claudine Gulliver, the auctioneer’s registrar from the fifth floor at 27 Rue Montagnard, Perdu soon found a wealthy collector for this singular work. However, it was Perdu’s subjecting the man to an emotional test before he would sell him the book that had established his reputation as an eccentric book lover, whom even a substantial sum could not persuade to sell to the wrong person. Sometimes dozens of collectors would come clamouring for a book, but Perdu would select the person who struck him as that volume’s ideal friend, lover or patient; the money was secondary.

Perdu travelled from Istanbul to Stockholm, and from Lisbon to Hong Kong, unearthing the most precious, most intelligent and most dangerous books – as well as special ones for bedtime reading.

 

 

Often, as right now, Jean Perdu sits in the farmhouse’s summer kitchen, eyes closed, plucking rosemary and lavender flowers, breathing in this most profoundly Provençal fragrance, and writing his
Great Encyclopedia of Small Emotions: A Guide for Booksellers, Lovers and Other Literary Pharmacists
.

He is making an entry under K: ‘Kitchen solace – the feeling that a delicious meal is simmering on the kitchen stove, misting up the windows, and that at any moment your lover will sit down to dinner with you and, between mouthfuls, gaze happily into your eyes. (Also known as living.)’

The cuisine of Provence is as diverse as its scenery: fish by the coast, vegetables in the countryside, and in the mountains lamb and a variety of staple dishes containing pulses. One region’s cooking is influenced by olive oil, another’s is based on wine, and pasta dishes are common along the Italian border. East kisses West in Marseilles with hints of mint, saffron and cumin, and the Vaucluse is a paradise for truffle and confectionery lovers.

Yet many ingredients unite the culinary traditions of the Rhône valley and the Côte d’Azur: thick, flavoursome olive oil; garlic; many varieties of tomato, some sun-dried, for salads, sauces, soups, tarts, pizzas, fillings and so on; goat’s cheese from Banon and fresh herbs. Provençal cooks never add more than three of these to their roasts and other dishes, but they use sage or lavender, thyme or rosemary, fennel or winter savoury in large quantities.

The following recipes are typical of the region, and their fragrances and colours have marked its history.

This is related to ratatouille but is supplemented with aubergine and enhanced with a basil and tomato sauce. It is generally made with finely chopped vegetables of one colour. The taste of this Provençal vegetable dish depends on the quality and intensity of the ingredients. The vegetables must be ‘sun-kissed’; large, flavourless, watery tomatoes will leave the dish tasting bland. The aromas of the fresh herbs are equally essential.
 

Serves 6
 

3 red peppers

3–6 spicy, fruity tomatoes (or one tin of chopped tomatoes)

2 firm aubergines

olive oil

2 large onions

2 small, tasty courgettes

Salt and pepper

Garlic clove, chopped

Fresh thyme

Rosemary (optional)

Bay leaves (optional)

500 grams ripe, sweet-and-spicy tomatoes

3 tablespoons mild olive oil

A liberal sprinkling of thyme and basil