The Baker's Secret(48)

“Nasty.” Emma recoiled. “Uglier than spiders.”

“They’re delicious, believe me.”

She wrapped each of the lobsters in cloth, placing them in her cart, and returning with one third of a baguette. “Do I come later for more fish?”

“I owe you so much.” Yves took the bread in both hands. “I will return only when I have caught something.”



When Emma brought the first of the ocean spiders to Odette, the buxom woman clapped her hands together. “Excellent, excellent. A perfect way to celebrate.”

Emma stood in the doorway of the café, which was deserted in that hour between late lunches and early dinners. “What on this battered world can there possibly be to celebrate?”

“The fall of Rome.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The soldiers were blabbering about it at the noon meal. The Allies have taken Rome. Mark this day, the fifth of June. The Fascists are in retreat.”

Emma lowered herself into a chair. “Rome.”

“You see? The Allies have retaken the capital of an occupied nation. When the soldiers were discussing it, all doom and disaster, that was more delicious than a banquet.”

“Odette.” Emma dug a thumbnail into the tabletop. “How long did it take?”

“From Sicily to Rome? Two years, I believe.”

“Do you think we can survive that long?”

Odette nodded. “Easily.”

“Easily,” Emma echoed, and they both laughed. But when they finished, their silence was long.

Odette took a bottle of Calvados from the shelf and poured them each a small glass. Lowering herself into the other chair at Emma’s table, she folded her pudgy fingers. “You know what this means,” she said. “We are next. They have to come here now.”

Emma shook her head. “They will never come.”

“Oh, you.” Odette threw back her drink in one gulp.

“Too many people use hope to hide their misery.”

“That is the pessimism of the fortunate.”

Emma interrupted her swallow of Calvados. “Excuse me?”

“You, for example, have Mémé out there in the wagon, happily fidgeting while you sit here. That is all you require to get out of bed in the morning. You are needed, as simple as that. But those of us with no family, no such luck, we go for the cheap stuff. We settle for having a sip of hope.”

“Tell me again how fortunate I am, please.” Emma spoke through gritted teeth. “Uncle Ezra dead, my father gone, my innocent Philippe taken who knows where. Oh, lucky me.”

Odette stood, taking the lobster into the kitchen. “Be as grouchy as you like. I am going to celebrate.”

Emma considered her empty glass. Apparently her supply of retorts was drained, too. Hearing pans banging, she called out. “How does one cook those ugly things?”

“Many methods,” Odette answered from the kitchen doorway. “But for once the best way is also the easiest: boil twelve minutes, perhaps with a diced onion.”

“What should I do with the other one? Who would eat such a thing?”

Odette scanned the ceiling as if counting something up there. “The Argent couple, I suppose,” she announced at last.

“I thought you disliked them.”

The café owner shrugged. “Not them. Their money. But the woman must be near her time. She’ll need meat to nurse.”



Three mansions stood apart on the hillcrest, the land sloping away in broad lawns to the bluff, then steep to the sea below. Two of the buildings wore crowns of thorns, wires strung in all directions, trucks and half-tracks parked on the grass, giant flags curling and snapping from the balconies, a bustle of officers in and out like hornets from a nest.

The third one, between the others, sat dark and quiet, a great face of stone and ornate windows, its sole sign of habitation a thread of smoke spiraling into a June sky that was as gray and lumpy as the underside of an abandoned mattress.

Emma leaned back against her shoulder harnesses, to prevent the wagon from gaining momentum and careening off the bluff. Mémé hummed to herself in the back, wagging her feet back and forth in large shoes with their patchwork of repairs.

But there was Monkey Boy, oddly enough, prancing outside one of the command posts like a caprice, until a soldier turned and spoke, at which the lad bolted like a colt.

Emma slowed to observe. There was something about the boy’s manner, something more than the usual oddness. He turned sideways and began a skipping circuit of the mansion, sidestep, sidestep, from the seaside terrace to the bluff.

For a moment it appeared as though he would go all the way off. The guard called out, and Monkey Boy turned at the edge and smiled. He reached into his bag and produced an apple, which he held toward the soldier at arm’s length.

The guard spoke again, and Monkey Boy returned to the terrace in the same sidestep fashion, tossing his head side to side like a rag doll. Reaching the soldier, he offered him the apple.

By then Emma had pulled up to the third mansion, but her suspicions were fully aroused. Placing a block behind one wheel to keep the wagon from rolling, she moved toward Mémé but scrutinized the boy. She knew the local apples were cultivated for Calvados brandy, making them far too tart to eat.