Page 14 of Vianne

On Sundays I have the day to myself as Louis goes to the cemetery. I tend to use this time to see Guy and Mahmed at Allée du Pieu, where, over the past few days, they have been teaching me more about chocolate.

As I have learnt since I came to Marseille, everything has a story.

Every recipe has a kind of transformation inside it.

First come the roasted cacao beans, like so many moth cocoons awaiting rebirth.

Next, the removal of the skin, and the separation of the two halves of the bean from the tiny connecting piece that Guy calls the embryo.

This has to be done by hand, he says; that’s why the process takes so long.

That embryo is what makes raw cacao taste so bitter.

That’s why the finished chocolate will be richer and more complex.

This is a job that Mahmed hates, and as he frequently points out, the end result is entirely disproportionate to the amount of time and effort expended.

But Guy is quixotic. He insists. To him, the process is everything.

He tells me this as he shows me the next stage: the cracking and crushing and winnowing of the beans to make cacao nibs.

He has a small machine for this, about the size of an oven, which delivers the nibs at the end of a steel funnel.

Next comes the grinding and conching; a lengthy, deliberate process which allows the cocoa butter to melt and break down into a smooth paste.

At this point, Guy adds the sugar, milk powder and extra cocoa butter to the paste, then allows the chocolate to cool and set; then leaves it to rest for a couple of weeks to allow the flavours to deepen.

This is couverture chocolate, he says. It isn’t ready to use yet, though: first, it must be tempered, to bring it from its dull, friable consistency to a smooth shine and a good, sharp snap.

Some chocolatiers use machines for this, but Guy, of course, likes to do it by hand, in the kitchen, using a big copper pan and a sugar thermometer.

It all seems rather daunting at first; but no more than Louis’ terrible mouli .

Guy promises to teach me. And the lovely summer days sail by in cooking, and in laughter, and the wind is steady from the south, and everything is simple.

Be careful , says my mother’s voice in my mind. Beware of this feeling of permanence. Our kind do not put down roots. We do not follow recipes. There is a reason for this, ’Viane. Or have you forgotten that, too?

I push my mother’s warning back into the box of Tarot cards.

Let her stay there, I tell myself. That voice is just the part of me that feels afraid of happiness.

But that was your fear, Maman, not mine.

These doubts are just the fragments of the little girl I used to be.

I am re-inventing myself, writing my own story; changing my name to fit the course that I have chosen for myself.

The old woman called me Vianne Rocher . Not Rochas, but Rocher , like the chocolate.

This seems meaningful, somehow. As if that village on the Ba?se and the chocolaterie on Allée du Pieu might both be part of my future.

And before I settle anywhere, I need to learn how be Vianne.

How to live my own life instead of the one she chose for me.