Hunting and Gathering (57 page)

Franck left early because he was on his way to bury his life as a Frenchman with some co-workers.

 
When Camille finally managed to get up, Philibert walked with her to the street.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like me to call a taxi?”

“No, thanks. I feel like walking.”

“Okay. Have a nice walk, then.

 
“Camille?”

“Yes?”

She turned around.

“Tomorrow afternoon. Five fifteen, Gare du Nord.”

“You'll be there?”

He shook his head.

“I'm afraid not. I'm working.

 
“Camille?”

She turned around again.

“You. Go there for me. Please.”

105

“CAME to wave your handkerchief?”

“Yes.”

“That's nice of you.”

“How many of us here?”

“Of what?”

“Girls who've come to wave our hankies and smear lipstick all over you?”

“Just look around.”

“Only me!”

“Yeah, looks that way . . .” He made a face. “Times are hard. Fortunately, English girls are hot. Well, that's what I've heard, anyway.”

“You going to teach them to French kiss?”

“Among other things. Come with me to the platform?”

“Yes.”

 
Franck looked at the clock.

“Right. You've got five minutes to get it together and say one six-word sentence. That's doable, no? Go on,” he teased, with false joviality. “If six is too much, I'd settle for three. But the right ones, okay? Shit! I didn't punch my ticket. Well?”

Silence.

“Never mind. I guess I'll stay a frog.”

 
He put his big bag on his shoulder and turned his back to her.

He ran to catch up with the ticket collector.

She saw him take his ticket and wave to her.

 
And the Eurostar slipped between her fingers.

And she began to cry, silly girl that she was.

And all you could see was a little gray dot in the distance.

 
Her cell rang.

“It's me.”

“I know. It tells me on the screen.”

“I'm sure you're in the middle of a hyperromantic film, there. I'm sure you're all alone on the platform, like in a film, crying for your lost love in a cloud of white smoke . . .”

Her own smile brought tears to her eyes.

“Not—not at all,” she managed to say, “I—I was just leaving the station, actually.”

 
“Liar,” said a voice behind her.

 
She fell into his arms and held him so so so tight.

Until she felt her skin snap.

 
She was crying.

 
All the valves opened and she blew her nose against his shirt, cried some more, letting go of twenty-seven years of solitude, of sorrow, of nasty blows to the head, crying for the cuddles she never had, her mother's madness, the paramedics on their knees on the wall-to-wall carpet, her father's absent gazes, the shit she went through, all those years without any respite, ever, the cold, the pleasure of hunger, the wrong paths taken, the self-imposed betrayals, and always that vertigo, the vertigo at the edge of the abyss and of the bottle. And the doubt, her body always in hiding, and the taste of ether and the fear of never being good enough. And Paulette too. The sweet reality of Paulette, pulverized in five and a half seconds.

 
Franck closed his jacket round Camille and put his chin on her head.

“There . . . there,” he murmured softly, not knowing if he wanted to say, There, keep crying, or, There, dry your tears.

 
It was up to her.

 
Her hair was tickling him, he was covered in snot and he was insanely happy.

Insanely happy.

He smiled. For the first time in his life, he was in the right place at the right time.

He rubbed his chin across her scalp.

“C'mon, sweetheart. Don't worry, we'll make it. We won't do any better than anyone else but we won't do any worse, either. We'll make it, you hear? We'll make it. We've got nothing to lose, since we have nothing to begin with. C'mon. Let's go.”

EPILOGUE

“FUCK, I don't believe it! I don't believe it,” he moaned, to hide his happiness. “All he talks about is Philou, the jerk! And the service this, and the service that . . . Yeah, sure! It's not hard for Philou, he's got good manners tattooed on his blood! And the welcome, and the décor and Fauque's drawings and blah blah blah . . . And what about the cuisine, huh? Nobody gives a damn about my cuisine?”

Suzy snatched the paper from his hands.

“ ‘A genuinely heartwarming bistro' blah blah blah, ‘where young chef Franck Lestafier arouses our taste buds and indulges us with a host of delights by reinventing a livelier, lighter, brighter style of home cooking, ' blah blah blah . . . ‘In a word, it's the joy of Sunday lunch every day of the week without your old aunts and no Monday on the horizon' . . . What the—what are they talking about? Stock prices or roast chicken?”

 
“No, it's closed,” Franck shouted to the people who were looking around the curtain. “Oh, well, then, yes, come on . . . Come in, there should be enough for everyone. Vincent, can you call off your fucking dog or I'll stick him in the freezer!”

“Rochechouart, heel!” ordered Philibert.

“Barbès, not Rochechouart.”

“I prefer Rochechouart. Don't I, Rochechouart? Come and see your old uncle Philou, and you shall have a big lovely bone.”

Suzy laughed.

Suzy still laughed all the time, even now.

“Ah, there you are! Terrific, you took off your sunglasses for once.” She simpered.

Even if he hadn't managed to win over the young one yet, as far as Fauque Senior was concerned, it was in the bag. Camille's mother was always impeccably behaved around Franck, and looked at him with the damp eyes of someone purring on Prozac.

 
“Mom, I'd like to introduce Agnès, a friend . . . Peter, her husband, and their little boy Valentin.”

She preferred to say “a friend” rather than “my sister.”

No point risking a maelstrom when no one could care less . . . And besides she really had become her friend, so . . .

 
“Ah! Finally! Here come Mamadou and Co.!” shouted Franck. “Did you bring me what I asked, Mamadou?”

“Oh, I did, and I beg you please be extra careful, it's very spicy . . .”

“Thanks, this is great, why don't you come give me a hand back here.”

“I'm coming. Sissi, watch out for that dog!”

“It's okay, he's friendly,” said Franck.

“You mind your own. Don't mess with my child rearing. So? Where're you making up the food? It's so small in here!”

“Well, of course, you're taking up all the room!”

“Oh . . . that's the old lady I met at your place, no?” she asked, pointing to the print on the wall.

“Hey, hands off. That's my own private black magic.”

 
Mathilde Kessler was vamping Vincent and his friend while Pierre furtively stole a menu. Camille was deep in the
Chronicle of the Victual,
a journal from 1767 where she was finding inspiration for some extraordinary dishes to draw . . . It was magnificent. And, uh, where could she find the originals?

 
Franck was firing on all cylinders, he'd been in the kitchen since dawn. For once everyone was here.

“C'mon, quick, take your seats, it'll get cold! Hot! Mind your backs, it's hot!”

He put a big stew pot down in the middle of the table and went back for a ladle.

 
Philou filled the glasses. Perfect, as always.

Without him, success would not have come so quickly. He had a marvelous gift for making people feel at ease: he could always come up with a compliment, a topic of conversation, a droll expression, a touch of oh-so-French
coquetterie.
And he greeted all the locals with a hug. All distant cousins.

 
When it was up to him to be maître d', he could see himself in the role, could speak clearly and could always find the right words.

And as the food critic had stated so baldly in his article, he was the “soul” of this chic little eatery.

 
“Come on, come on,” grumbled Franck, “pass me your plates.”

Just then Camille, who had spent the last hour coddling Valentin, playing peekaboo with her napkin, suddenly blurted, “Oh, Franck, I want one just like this . . .”

 
Franck finished serving Mathilde, and sighed . . . Shit, I really have to do everything around here. He put the ladle back in the dish, untied his apron, placed it over the back of his chair, took the baby, put it back in its mother's arms, lifted up the woman he loved, held her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes or a half carcass of beef, groaned, she's put on weight, this little thing . . . opened the door, walked across the square, went into the hotel across the street, shook hands with Vishayan, his concierge buddy whom he fed between faxes, thanked him and marched on up the stairs with a smile.

 
We were all in love with her, could feel our hearts take flight
On our bicycles . . .

 
La, la, la . . . May not seem like much
But here it comes again
That little tune
It had disappeared
And the pavement of my street
Felt hard beneath my feet . . .

 
Street urchins and marquises
Off we go, my lovely

 
La, la, la . . . Take heart and
Sing along
This little tune . . .

 
Three little notes of music
Have closed up shop
Lost in memories . . .
Had enough of their rampage
And now they've turned the page
And off they go to sleep . . .