Page 11 of Vianne

Like so many staples in the long history of humanity, chocolate is a thing that goes through many complex stages.

Over the next couple of hours or so, I saw the dried beans become something else: saw them roasted, winnowed and ground; peered into the conching machine that mixes the liquor continuously and at a constant temperature, until it is smooth and even.

I even drizzled chocolate into the ceramic moulds, which, cooling, would transform it into the kind of chocolate I knew.

There is a kind of magic, says Guy, to this transformation.

He talks about it in a way that reminds me of my mother, and more recently, of Margot.

Not that my mother ever cared for cooking or ingredients.

But she understood the process of changing base things into gold.

She understood magic, if magic means the transformation of the mundane into something extraordinary.

And she understood the power of dreams, and narratives, and stories.

Like her, Guy is filled with stories about his favourite ingredient.

Finally, by the time I left, my head was ringing like a church tower.

Don Juan and Montezuma. Queen Catherine and Ixcacao.

Popes and priests and strange old gods with pointed heads and bloody hands.

Temples ten times older than Rome. Golden urns, still bearing the dregs of bitter water from long ago, brewed with spices and served when France was still just a scatter of fiefdoms, bound together by forest and hills.

Food of the gods , they called, it, Theobroma Cacao , and prized it more than common gold, and served the chocolate kings of old in cups of abalone and turtle shell.

How my childhood self would have loved the stories that he told me; stories that leaped and flashed in his eyes like pennies in a fountain.

I fell in love a little that day – even though I could already see that nothing could happen between us – and even now, looking back, I feel the warmth of his passion, his smile a shining light along the way.

By the time I got back to La Bonne Mère, Louis was home from the cemetery. He glanced out from the kitchen, where he was making pastry.

‘Where were you?’

‘I was with a friend.’

‘The same friend as the other day?’

I nodded, sensing displeasure.

‘You need to watch yourself,’ he said. ‘A girl alone – a pregnant girl. You need to be on your guard. This is a city that eats girls like you.’

I wondered whether he understood that I had always been on my guard. I wondered if he understood that there were no other girls like me. I also wondered if he was always so brittle and disapproving when he had been to see Marguerite.

I dropped my bag onto the countertop and looked into the basin. ‘What’s that?’

‘ Pate brisée ,’ said Louis. ‘For tomorrow’s tarte Tatin .’

‘Will you let me help?’

He sighed. ‘You can slice the apples. Use the smallest paring knife. And don’t slice them too thinly. Otherwise they’ll turn to mush.’

I nodded. ‘Thank you, Louis.’

‘And wash your hands first. What have you been doing?’

I looked down at my cacao-stained hands.

‘My friend makes chocolate,’ I said. ‘He was showing me his shop.’ In fact, I realized now that Guy hadn’t shown me the shop at all: simply a series of dingy back rooms, in which the stages of winnowing, grinding, conching and tempering arose like islands from the sea.

I still had very little idea of what the shop itself was like, although despite Mahmed’s pessimism, Guy had assured me that it was progressing nicely.

The grand opening had already been planned for 4 December, the Festival of Sainte Barbe, which marks the start of Christmas in Marseille.

Louis looked, if possible, even more disapproving. ‘What did you say this man’s name was?’ he said.

‘Guy.’ I suddenly realized that Guy hadn’t told me his surname. ‘Guy, er—’ I reached for the card with the address of the chocolaterie. ‘Guy Lacarrière,’ I told him. ‘He works with his business partner, Mahmed.’

I’ve learnt that Louis has a repertoire of small and disapproving sounds. ‘ Heh ,’ he said. ‘Don’t know the name. Where is it?’

I gave him the street name. ‘Allée du Pieu.’

‘I know it,’ he said. ‘It’s a shithole. No one’s going to buy chocolate there.’

I shrugged. ‘I hope they will,’ I said, and went back to my apples.