From the day it had opened, just after the turn of the century, the café had been known as Le Rossignol. Proprietors and patrons had come and gone, but the name remained unchanged, painted in big old-fashioned letters on the little awning over the door.
"Why Le Rossignol?" Louis had asked once; but there was nobody left who knew.
Louis was only working there as a favour to a friend. He'd known Pierre since childhood; they had drifted apart as they grew up, but when Pierre had moved his family back to Paris and taken over the café, the old friendship had resumed, as naturally as if it had never fallen away. So when an emergency appendectomy forced Pierre's wife to take extended bed rest, it was only natural for him to turn to Louis for help in keeping the kitchen running; and Louis, who had just walked away from his last job, was only too happy to oblige.
At least, he was until he saw the kitchen.
"It's a bit small," Pierre admitted. "But if it makes you feel better, the wine cellar is a lot bigger. And there's a kitchen garden." He pointed towards the tiny courtyard outside the back door of the kitchen.
"Three window boxes with herbs in them and an old sink planted full of nasturtiums doesn't count as a garden," said Louis. But he never even thought of backing out. Pierre needed his help. So he squared his shoulders, and set to work.
He spent two days getting the little kitchen reorganised to his satisfaction, but needed a little longer to adjust his cooking style. The haute cuisine which had been required at the Hotel Marmont-Jouet wouldn't do here. Pierre's customers liked their meals simple and substantial. They expected a carbonnade de boeuf on Monday, andouillettes on Thursday, and as far as some of them were concerned, the world would end if they couldn't finish with a large serving of Josette's apple strudel, made to a recipe she'd inherited from a German grandmother.
Louis had no trouble mastering that; he'd started out as a pastry chef.
If the regular menu was a little uninspired, at least he could stretch his wings on the special of the day. The customers soon began to take an interest in the intriguing aromas which filtered from the tiny kitchen; and, in the true spirit of epicurean adventure which exists in almost every born Parisian, most of them couldn't resist.
"Monsieur Stéphane will have the octopus." Milly, the little dark-eyed waitress, bustled into the kitchen, dodging around young Rémi who had stayed home from school to help out in the family emergency. "But le bon vieux Claude says the pot-au-feu has been good enough for him ever since he came to Paris, and he doesn't see why he should try something new at his age."
"Peasant!" muttered Louis, as he hovered over a huge pot from which arose the steamy essence of fennel, garlic, and orange peel.
"And Mademoiselle Anne has just come in," added Milly.
"I know, I know. One bowl of vegetable soup, à l'instant."
"No," said Milly. "She wants to try the bourride. She says she used to have it often, and she would like to taste it again. And that's more than she has said in the whole of the last year."
Louis chuckled, as he threw some butter into a pan for the croûtons. Milly always had to know everything about everyone, and it irked her that Mademoiselle Anne kept herself so very much to herself.
By the time he'd plated the soup, Milly was busy flirting with a nice young man from the railway office, while Pierre was deep in conversation with le bon vieux Claude; from the way Pierre was waving his hands around, they were probably discussing the election results. There was no point in standing on one's dignity as chef de cuisine; this wasn't that kind of establishment anyway. Louis went out and served Mademoiselle Anne himself.
"Hold on a minute, LeBeau." Hogan interrupted the story at this point. "What did you call the stuff?"
"Bourride. It's a kind of fish soup, with garlic," said LeBeau. "The recipe comes from Languedoc, in the south. I worked with a chef once who came from Montpellier, and I learned to make it from him."
"So it's a southern thing. Do they eat it much in the north?"
"Not a lot. Some restaurants have it." LeBeau's forehead wrinkled. "Why are you asking about that, mon Colonel?"
Hogan took another sip of wine, and grimaced. "This stuff isn't improving any. I'm just trying to get the full picture, LeBeau. There are a few inconsistencies I'd like to iron out before I speak to her. For instance, how does a greengrocer's daughter from Beauvais know this fish soup enough to get all nostalgic for it?"
"Maybe she went to the Midi on vacation. But she's not a greengrocer's daughter."
"According to London, that's just what she is," said Hogan. "Which doesn't square with what you know about her. How did you find out her father was a magistrate?"
"She told me herself. But that was later," replied LeBeau.
"All right, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Go on from where you were. That was the first time you actually spoke to her, right?"
"Oui." LeBeau's glass was empty, and he reached for the bottle. "And to be honest, I wasn't really interested at first. She wasn't my type."
...although she was quite pretty, and very chic, with her little black suit, and her hair cut close around her face. But Louis had never much cared for redheads. Besides, her demeanour was distinctly chilly; she barely glanced up from her newspaper at his approach.
"Bon appétit," he said, as he placed the soup bowl and accompanying dish of aïoli before her.
"Merci." She waited until he had retreated before she tasted the soup. Watching from the kitchen door, Louis couldn't tell from her profile whether she was enjoying her meal; but she didn't leave so much as a teaspoonful.
On her next visit, she went back to her usual routine, and ordered potage aux légumes. But a few days later, Louis's lentilles de Puy à la provençale overcame her resistance. From then on it became a kind of game for Louis, trying to guess what she'd be tempted by, identifying which part of the culinary atlas held the most charm; and from studying her as a customer to studying her as a woman was such a natural progression that he didn't even realise how fast his interest was evolving, from the purely professional to something rather more personal.
"She looks tired, don't you think?" he remarked to Milly one day.
"She looks cross," replied Milly. "That's nothing new." She went off to dally with her friend from the railway office, while Louis got out the mortar and pestle, and started pounding basil and garlic into a paste, the final touch for today's soupe au pistou.
By now Louis believed himself completely in tune with Mademoiselle Anne's taste; she certainly had a yearning for the flavours of the south. If it made extra work for Louis, if he had to trawl through recipe books, interrogate friends from Languedoc and Provence, and ransack the markets for the freshest produce and seafood from the south, he was quite prepared to do so.
But today, even as he worked for her, he kept turning over in his mind the reason for Mademoiselle Anne's dispirited air. That was what it was: not tired, nor cross, but disheartened, just as if the warmth of the summer's day had somehow passed her by. It wasn't just today, either; it suddenly struck him that she almost always looked a little sad.
The thought tugged at Louis's own spirits, until he had an idea. "Rémi," he said, "go out into the garden, and get some nasturtiums."
Rémi glanced at him, smirked as only a young Parisian can, and strolled off on his errand.
An unfamiliar diffidence hung around Louis, as he emerged from the kitchen a few minutes later, bringing her his latest offering: a bowl of soup, sweetly aromatic with basil, accompanied by a slice of pain de campagne with grilled goat's cheese; and the sunshine of yellow and orange nasturtiums, arranged in an old mustard pot.
Perhaps Louis hadn't yet admitted to himself what was going on in his heart; but apart from the girl herself, every other person in the café had a pretty good idea, and a slight hush fell as he approached her table. Milly glanced over her shoulder, bright-eyed with curiosity; Pierre leaned casually on the bar as he watched; Rémi peeped out from the kitchen; and the regular customers exchanged smiles. But Louis, seeing the faint blush which rose to Anne's cheek, and the slightest hint of a smile on her lips as she brushed her fingers over the bright petals, didn't really care what anyone else was thinking.
LeBeau's monologue came to a stop. For a minute or so, he sat silent, his eyes dark with the bitterness of remembering. Hogan didn't say a word. He knew how painful memory could be.
Finally, LeBeau said, "Is there any more of that wine?"
"You must have a death wish," said Hogan. But he produced another bottle from the floor at his feet.
"You know something, mon Colonel?" LeBeau shifted to a more comfortable position. "After everything was over, I tried to believe that it was all an act, that she never really cared about me. It was easier that way. But that day, that was real, and I could never convince myself it wasn't. That day, and one other."
"And when was that?" asked Hogan, filling both glasses.
LeBeau sighed softly. "The day she told me about her father."
Notes:
The French legislative elections in April and May, 1936, resulted in the Popular Front (a coalition of left-wing parties) forming government.
Andouillettes are a type of sausage, generally made with pork intestines.
Pistou: a paste of basil, garlic and olive oil. Similar to the Italian pesto but without pine nuts or parmesan (although some modern recipes include grated cheese).