Page 20 of Vianne

At Allée du Pieu, the chocolaterie is still nowhere near completion.

Guy assures me that everything is going according to plan, but Mahmed is unconvinced, and showing signs of anxiety.

He is the one in charge of the company’s finances, while Guy develops the product and the creative side of the business.

It is an arrangement that suits the temperament of both; but I have become aware that Mahmed does not always share Guy’s optimism.

First, the location is not ideal. Allée du Pieu is a back street, off the tourist trail by a mile, and sharing what little space it has with a takeaway, Happy Noodles: a tiny place; a kitchen, two tables, a counter and a stuttering neon sign.

The family live above the shop: a mother, two girls and a grandmother, all of them Hong Kong Chinese.

The girls speak good French, and often work behind the counter at weekends.

The rest of the time the mother works there, while the grandmother works in the kitchen.

The food is cheap and warming, and there are often queues there on a Friday or Saturday night.

But all of this generates cooking smells, and litter, and noise, and empty drums of cooking oil stacked up in the alleyway, and morning deliveries that block the street and cause disruption, all of which Mahmed disapproves.

‘The tourists will come when we’re open,’ says Guy, with the certainty of one who has seen neither numbers nor bills. ‘We’ll come to an arrangement with the Li family. They might even help us attract customers.’

‘I didn’t think rats ate chocolate.’

‘Mahmed. You’re better than that,’ said Guy. ‘Besides, you’ll see. Word will get out. Some of the best-kept secrets in this city are in little streets just like this one.’

Mahmed shakes his head. ‘It’s all very well being an artist,’ he says. ‘But artists end up starving.’

Guy grins from a mask of cacao dust. ‘Then let them eat chocolate,’ he says, and pops a truffle into his mouth. ‘Have a little faith, my friend. Give it six months. I promise you, in a year we’ll be the Chocolate Kings of Marseille.’

Mahmed grins in spite of himself. There’s a warmth in him when he talks to Guy, which comes out in spite of his caution.

‘Kings of the back alleys,’ he says. ‘Kings of the open sewers.’ He shakes his head ruefully.

‘How will we get the kind of customers we want to come all the way to this part of town? Even assuming we’re ready by then—’

‘We’ll be ready,’ Guy tells him. ‘They’ll come.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Just trust me.’

I envy them their friendship. As a child, I never had friends.

But over the past few weeks I have come to count them both as such; Mahmed for his dry sense of humour and his loyalty to Guy; Guy for his flamboyance and his passion for chocolate.

But in spite of Louis’ suspicions, I have no urge to take the relationship further, as if romance might draw a terminal line beneath our emerging friendship.

Louis finds this hard to understand. To him, a woman cannot be friends with a man without some ulterior motive.

There has to be something more, he says; I am an attractive woman.

I try to explain that Guy and Mahmed are an unbreakable unit; bound together by one man’s dream to run a boutique chocolaterie.

‘You ought to come and meet them,’ I say. ‘You’ll understand when you talk to them.’

Up to now, he has always refused. It’s a long walk back, he says, up all those steps from the Vieux Quartier.

Besides, he has a bistrot to run; there’s always something pressing to do.

He doesn’t like meeting new people; he never knows what to say to them.

And besides which, he doesn’t like chocolate; it’s overpriced and sickly stuff, fit only for tourists and grandmothers.

I think back to what Emile said, that day in the garden.

Try getting him to go there, then. Try getting him inside that place.

Why was Emile so sure of this? What was it about Allée du Pieu – or chocolate – that Louis so disliked?

I decided on a different approach. Today, after breakfast, before making lunch, I suggested a walk to the Old Port, to check out the daily markets and pick up some fresh vegetables.

Louis agreed, and on the way back, with my basket of garlic and celery, I guided him towards Allée du Pieu, keeping a flow of merry conversation on the way.

‘I just want to call in quickly somewhere. You don’t mind a detour, do you, Louis?’

The alley was right at the foot of the Butte, and over the fifteen minutes or so that it took us to walk there from the Old Port, conversation between us had waned to a heavy silence.

Perhaps the heat of the sun, I thought, or the little flights of stone steps that led into the Vieux Quartier; the washing-lines of sheets strung between the little cast-iron balconies, or the litter that had accumulated in the gutters and under the grates.

‘So this is your detour,’ he said, as we went down the dozen broken steps that led to the back end of Allée du Pieu. ‘I told you. It’s a shithole. No one can run a business here. People have tried. It never works.’

I had to admit to myself that the alley was not at its best that day.

There must have been a delivery, and the passageway was half blocked by boxes, bags and pallets.

Happy Noodles was open, and there was a strong scent of frying oil, and garlic, roast pork, and spices.

Several drums of used cooking oil stood at the back of the takeaway, ready to be disposed of.

And next to the disused print shop, there was Xocolatl: with its cardboard sign, and blank windows, and peeling paintwork, and the litter of empty boxes, cacao dust, building materials left in a heap outside the boarded-up window. Louis looked at it all in silence.

Finally he said: ‘This is the place? Your chocolate shop?’

I said: ‘It’s a work in progress. Come inside and look around.’

I think perhaps I still believed that I could make him see what I saw.

The magic hidden behind the mundane. The romance and the mystery.

We went in through the back door, and found Guy in the storeroom, checking a delivery, which had arrived from Columbia.

Sold as top-grade, hand-peeled beans, Guy had discovered that these had been heat-treated, and were therefore unsuitable for his process.

As a result, he barely noticed when Mahmed ushered us inside, but launched into a tirade of abuse at the inferior product, as well as against the dealer himself, who according to Guy, deserved the treatment Aztecs gave to their captured enemies.

‘That bandit. Call these Grade A beans? This is shit. Expensive shit. Fucking exorbitant , useless shit!’ He crushed a handful of the beans, releasing a powerful scent of cacao and a great deal of powdery dust, which fell from his fist onto the floor.

‘What am I meant to do with this? Use it as fertilizer?’

Mahmed cleared his throat. ‘Guy.’

Guy turned mid-sentence, and saw the three of us standing there.

His Hawaiian shirt – a garish print of pineapples and hula girls – was half-unbuttoned, and his hair was a shock of porcupine spikes.

He looked both demented and hilarious. ‘You see what this crazy job does to me?’ he said, holding out cacao-stained hands.

‘I used to be reasonably civilized. Now I’m planning murder.

Or would, if Columbia wasn’t halfway across the planet.

Now all I can hope for is some kind of long-distance voodoo. ’

‘Voodoo?’ Louis looked blank.

I put my hand on his arm. He looked off-balance and out of place, looking at the stained and half-painted walls of the shop as if to find meaning there.

I said; ‘Louis, this is Guy. My friend. And here’s Mahmed, his partner—’

‘In crime. And you must be Louis Martin,’ said Guy. ‘Vianne’s told us all about you.’

Louis said nothing for a while, but took in the jumble of boxes and sacks, the pulverized cacao beans on the floor, the patches of smoke shooting up the walls. ‘I used to know this place,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look like it’s improved.’

‘Give it time,’ said Guy. ‘It needs work. But when we have our grand opening, it’s going to be something special. People are going to know our name. Let me show you the conching room. It’s where the magic happens.’

‘Magic?’ said Louis.

‘Oh yes.’ Guy grinned. ‘Chocolate is ancient magic. Brought from the sky by the Mayan gods as a gift to humanity. Valued higher than gold, and used in the most occult of rituals. Stolen by the conquistadors; it brought down two popes, divided the Church; crossed to every continent. And now it’s here.

Right here in Marseille, working its magic on everything. ’

Louis made a hard sound in his throat. ‘ Heh . Well, thanks for the offer. But I have a bistrot to open tonight, and it’s a long climb up the Butte.’

‘But Louis, you haven’t seen—’ I said.

‘I’ve seen enough,’ said Louis in a voice that was very nearly a growl. ‘You brought me here. I’ve seen it. I don’t need to see any more. And now we need to get back home. Things to get ready for tonight.’

We made the return climb in silence. Louis, it seems, does not like my friends.

He does not like their neighbourhood. He especially dislikes Allée du Pieu; I see it in his colours, although I cannot discover what it is that he so despises.

And Guy’s talk of magic – of rituals – makes him deeply uncomfortable, although he has no love for the Church, or feelings of superstition.

‘How do you know Allée du Pieu?’ I said at last, as we arrived home. ‘How did you know the chocolate shop?’

‘It wasn’t a chocolate shop then,’ he said.

‘What was it?’

‘Some kind of backstreet herbalist. There was a fire. It gutted the place. Should have burnt it to the ground.’

His sullenness did not abate as we planned the next day’s menu.

None of my suggestions seemed to be to his liking.

Not cassoulet , a winter dish, too rich for these late-summer days.

Not salad again, the regulars need something more than rabbit food.

Not mussels – out of season now that September has begun; or mackerel – the last lot I bought had been nothing but bones.

We finally agreed on soupe au pistou with a side of garlic bread, and an apple bourdon for dessert.

‘Be sure to choose the right apples,’ said Louis. ‘ Reine de Reinette , or Golden . Anything else will turn to mush as soon as the pastry starts cooking. And take more care with the pate brisée : last time it was overcooked.’