“Oh,” I said. “Oh. Well, it’s not worse,” I added lamely.
Stable was, hmm. I didn’t really like the sound of it. I’d learned that in the hospital. Critical was the worst. Critical was not good criticism. It was very bad indeed. Recovering was the ideal state of affairs, really. Stable just meant the same as yesterday. Which, in Thierry’s case, meant life hanging in the balance. I didn’t like it at all.
“Hmm,” was all Alice said. Then she handed me her phone. “Take this,” she said. “It’s ringing off the hook and I don’t want to deal with it right now.”
I had no idea what she expected me to do with it. I was tempted to throw it in the Seine, but instead I set it to vibrate and put it in my apron pocket, where it started vibrating absolutely nonstop. I ignored it.
Alice pulled up the last shutter and turned to face us.
“Now. The shop will continue as before.”
Frédéric raised up his hands.
“Madame, it is just not possible. An orchestra cannot play without its conductor. A kitchen cannot function without its chef. We will be selling substandard goods.”
Alice went pale.
“It is his wish,” she said. Frédéric and Benoît exchanged a disbelieving look so obvious she couldn’t possibly have missed it. She bit her lip furiously.
“Anna, can you conch chocolate?”
Frédéric and Benoît glared at me, but I was too scared of Alice not to answer her. It was a mistake that was to prove fatal.
“Uhm, well, yes, I can have a shot, but…”
“Fine. You shall do it.”
Benoît made a sharp intake of breath. “But I think we should wait until…”
“Rubbish. Anyone who doesn’t want to work here can go home right away. If you think this isn’t want Thierry would want, you can take it up with him, but there may not be a job waiting for you at the end of it. I am the co-owner of this establishment. Don’t think I am soft like Thierry.”
None of us thought that.
“I would get rid of the lot of you at a moment’s notice if I thought it would keep the shop open and our business alive. In a second. So don’t push me.”
We all stared at the ground.
“In you go. Open up. Behave as normal. Anna will flavor. Don’t mess it up. I am now going to be extraordinarily busy, and I do not want to have to worry about you on top of everything else.”
And with that, she tossed the keys to Benoît, turned on her heels, and clipped off down the alleyway before I had the chance to remind her that I still had her mobile phone.
- - -
Not a word was spoken as we entered the dimly lit shop and passed through to the back. The dim lighting flickered then came on. Benoît set the coffee machine, but only made two cups, one for him and one for Frédéric. I cleared my throat.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
Frédéric looked at me. “If we don’t stand together, we are nothing,” he said crossly.
“I know, I know,” I said. “But I think…I think she might be right. I think Thierry would want the shop to continue rather than us all just going off on holiday or something.”
Benoît muttered something totally unfathomable.
“I mean, we can have a shot,” I added.
“And lose our reputation forever? This is what you British do not understand about the French. You think you must work, work, work, work, and open on Sundays and make mothers and fathers with families work in supermarkets at three o’clock in the morning and make people leave their homes and their churches and their families and go shop on Sundays.”
“Their shops are open on Sundays?” said Benoît in surprise.
“Yes! They make people work on Sundays! And through lunchtimes! But for what? For rubbish from China? For cheap clothes sewed by poor women in Malaysia? For why? So you can go more often to KFC and get full of fried chicken? You would rather have six bars of bad, bad chocolate than one bar of good chocolate. Why? Why are six bad things better than one good thing? I don’t understand. We are not the same, you and I.”
“I know that,” I said, feeling suddenly near to tears. “I know all that. But I still think we should at least try. Try to make something good, with as much love and care as Thierry would do.”
Frédéric and Benoît stared at me.
“Plus,” I said. “I don’t think we have much choice.”
- - -
In the end I decided on mint, surely the simplest of flavors. Frédéric and Benoît drank their coffee and watched me blankly as I scrubbed and cleaned all the vats, got my hammer, swept the floor, then started gathering ingredients.
“I’m going to do everything myself?” I asked at one point, red-faced and sweating from the effort, getting crosser and hotter and more resentful with every minute that passed.
“It’s your choice,” said Frédéric, which made me very cross. Benoît, however, surprised me; he stood up, went outside, and had a cigarette. When he came back, he was carrying all the butter and fresh cream. I nearly burst into tears. After that, Frédéric did bits and pieces too, but very off-handedly, as if he needed to keep reminding us that he was only here under duress. There wouldn’t be as much time to spare because we couldn’t leave the chocolate to set; it would need to be flash-cooled. This was chocolate-making on the hoof. I smashed and crashed things about, sweated and cried a bit at one stage, when I couldn’t get the conch.
It was lumpy and bumpy and messy, but it was in the fridge.
Finally, at about eleven o’clock, half an hour after the shop had been due to open, the first piece of chocolate emerged from its molds.
The three of us regarded it carefully. I cut it gently with a knife. The consistency seemed all right—not perfect, a little fudgy maybe.
“Well, here goes nothing,” I said in English to the men, who were pretending not to be that interested. I closed my eyes and ate it.
- - -
Well. Nobody threw up. I’ve had worse. Once, for example, some off milk powder got into the mix at Kidinsborough and we had to throw away forty thousand pounds. We were all made to taste it as a way of quality control to try to ensure it never happened again. It wasn’t as bad as that.
But here was what it wasn’t: it wasn’t heaven. It wasn’t the lightly whipped, melting, astonishing delight that Thierry’s chocolate was.