Claire, her eyes tight shut against the handkerchief which smelled exactly as he did—of chocolate and tobacco—felt as distracted as she had ever been in her entire life.
“Only then can you truly appreciate it.”
She felt his breath briefly on her neck, then he left. Then, the next second, she felt something at her lips prodding and pushing them aside—the spoon of the ladle.
“Take it,” said Thierry, and she opened her mouth a little wider as he tipped in a large mouthful of just melted chocolate, warmed to creaminess, the same temperature as her body, filling her mouth. It was absolutely extraordinarily sensual and good. She was conscious, even as she tasted it, that he was, for once, silent, his eyes on her, watching her.
At last it was gone, and she felt her tongue round her lips, looking for more. Now his voice was lower, all mischief gone.
“You like?”
“Yes,” she said.
Sami had come over from Algeria, I learned, at the age of six on a scholarship from a kindly great-uncle who had done well in France. He was considered the most promising and the only boy in his family and had been sent to good schools—he had seen his parents only once a year from that time forward and expected to go on to a good university. Instead, he had spent all his time pouring over fashion magazines and choosing clothes. It had been, he said, with commendable understatement for someone so flamboyant, a difficult time for everyone.
But he had finally worked his own way through fashion college and had made it alone ever since, poorer, he said, than Job, renting this tiny eyrie so he didn’t have to commute too far and taking all his exercise, he explained, getting up and down the seven flights of stairs, something I was to learn myself only too quickly. He worked late in the evenings, but I was not to worry, as he was very difficult to wake in the mornings, a fact I discovered to be true as he snored loud enough to shake the entire flat.
That first morning was freezing. My alarm woke me in my little white cell, and I was completely disoriented at first. Although I was exhausted—I’d fallen asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow—I felt a sudden jolt of excitement. I was here! In Paris! Alone! From the other side of the sitting room came a deep and resonant snoring that wouldn’t have allowed me to fall asleep again even if I’d wanted to. I jumped up, had a bath (there wasn’t much hot water in the tiny half-tub; I hoped it would heat up again before Sami woke up), then looked at my map of Paris—I should be right around the corner and had been ordered to present myself there at 5:30 a.m., which was clearly ridiculous and possibly just a first-day test, I told myself. It was still dark outside. I didn’t know how to work the odd stovetop coffee pot Sami had left on top of the cooker and didn’t want to start making noise before I’d been there five minutes, so I cleaned my teeth quickly, added an extra sweater, and made my way down the pitch-black stairwell, trying to make it from light switch to light switch. To my utter horror, I accidentally pressed the first floor bell again, and ran out like a wet cat before the voice started up.
- - -
63 rue Chanoinesse, the address of the shop, was a large white building, similar to the one I was staying in, though not quite so scruffy. Within two streets, the boulevards had widened slightly. There was a beautiful square leading to a church and smart shops and cafés under striped awnings. The sun was just starting to creep over the horizon, and people were up and about; little trucks going to markets and restaurants full of leeks and flower bulbs and lobsters; bundled-up quiet people making their way to cleaning jobs; bus drivers, yawning and stretching in their warmly lit cabs. Silent bicycles squeaked past me. On every corner was a bakery, casting a pool of light forward; the smell of warm bread was intoxicating, but alas, even they weren’t open yet. I felt like a child with my nose pressed against the window, my stomach completely hollow. I hadn’t had the energy to sort out dinner the night before and had ended up foraging old sandwiches in my luggage.
After a couple of wrong turns, suddenly there it was in front of me. I saw it right away, then smelled it a moment later. Le Chapeau Chocolat de Thierry Girard was written on the brown-painted walls in pale rose-colored script; it wasn’t blaring, shouting out about the shop. It was a gentle note that they were there, almost easy to overlook and more impressive for that in its confidence. Outside stood a young man smoking a cigarette. As I watched, another, larger man came up to him and gesticulated at him, and as if in response, the younger man threw his cigarette into the gutter. I wasn’t fluent enough to divine whether the older man was telling him off about his smoking or he just moved his arms a lot. They turned to go when I stepped onto the cobbles tentatively and caught their attention.
“Uh, bonjour?” I said. I wondered which of them was the famous Thierry Girard. It couldn’t be the young one, surely.
The two men stared at me. Then they looked at each other, and the younger one clasped his hand to his forehead. I didn’t need much French to know what that meant. That meant “I have completely forgotten that you were coming today” in every language in the world.
“J’arrive…d’Angleterre”—I’ve come from England, I stuttered.
“Oui oui oui oui,” said the little one, looking furious with himself. The larger one let loose a stream of invective at the younger one, which the younger one totally ignored. He had wild, romping, curly, black gypsy hair, a huge nose, and an intense expression and was looking longingly at his discarded cigarette.
Finally, his expressive face seemed to decide something.
“WELCOME,” he said loudly in English. “Benoît, voici…”
He pointed his arm toward me, clearly without a clue as to what I was called. This was beginning to feel like something of a theme.
“I’m Anna…Anna Trent,” I said.
The larger man looked mutinous. He had the build of a rugby player, solid and wide.
“AnNA Tron,” he said crossly. “Bonjour, madame.”
And he turned and stomped into the shop. The younger one didn’t seem to see anything strange or rude about this at all. In fact, he smiled cheerfully.
“He doesn’t say much,” he said. He glanced back toward the shop. “I believe that may be it for today.”
“Vous êtes…Thierry?”—are you Thierry? I asked tentatively. At this he laughed, revealing very white teeth.