Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
‘Bonjour, Madame Moreau,’ I said, startling her.
‘Bonjour, édith,’ she replied.
I thought she looked a little tired this morning, so I offered to make her a coffee before we opened.
This really took her by surprise and even though she turned me down, I felt something alter between us.
I quietly went about my work, and opened the door for Manu when he arrived.
The rain was pouring down and I really felt for him, having to get on that scooter and deliver bread.
He wrapped a small tarpaulin over the boxes and zoomed off without much ado.
‘He’s a good lad, isn’t he?’ I said to Madame Moreau. ‘Il est bien,’ I repeated.
‘Il travaille bien, oui,’ she agreed, giving very little away.
‘Il habite près d’ici?’ I pressed on, trying to find out if he lived in the area or who his family were and, perhaps, how he ended up working here.
‘En haut.’ She lifted her head briefly, signalling above our heads.
‘He lives with you?’ I said, unable to hide my incredulity. Thanks to this little faux pas, I was back to receiving grunts and hand signals that I should get on with my work. And with that the first few customers of the morning came in and there was no further time to think about it.
Working with freshly baked goods all day brought back so many of the wonderful childhood memories that I had stored away for a long time.
When my father gave up his position as pastry chef, he turned our kitchen at home into a playground for his artistic expression.
My mother and I were often treated to light and airy profiteroles, oozing with cream and smothered in chocolate, or dark chocolate tortes with roasted hazelnut crusts.
My favourites were the cakes, and at his side I became quite proficient myself and made a mean spicy carrot cake.
He would always say that you could tell a lot about a baker by his choice of ingredients.
Needless to say, I was intrigued to meet the master baker who’d reinvigorated my appetite with his delicious breads and sinfully good pastries.
Yet he remained shrouded in mystery, hidden in the Moreaus’ basement.
In an effort to become better acquainted with his produce, at least, I spent my lunch time doing a little taste test in the café.
I told Madame Moreau that I wished to become more familiar with the different kinds of bread and she just shrugged indifference.
Having the place to myself, I set my phone up to play some of the Django Reinhardt music that Johnny had recommended.
As soon as the guitar began to play, I instantly fell in love with gypsy jazz and found myself swaying along to the rhythm as I began picking out breads to try.
Leaving aside the well-known baguettes and traditional pain de campagne and pain complet (white and brown), I gathered the more unusual-looking breads into my arms and found myself salivating with the scent of fresh, crusty bread.
So I sat down at a little table by the window and, using a breadboard and knife, I cut into the first round of bread, labelled ‘pain au levain’, which I determined from its tangy flavour to be sourdough.
I remembered my father making a sourdough starter at home, and leaving it to ferment overnight.
I used to love watching it transform and come to life.
‘See the bubbles, Edie?’ he used to say. ‘That means wild yeast from the air and the flour itself have started making themselves a home in your starter. They will eat the sugars in the flour and increase the acidity of the mixture, preventing other “bad” microbes from growing.’
It was like a culinary science experiment.
Once the sourdough became frothy and fermented, it was ready to use.
My mother insisted he keep his ‘experiments’ in the utility room because of the pungent smell.
He would then bake a loaf of delicious bread (which went a long way towards making up for the stink) but hold back a portion of the sourdough, ‘feed’ it with flour and water, and keep the process going.
He said some bakers would have kept a sourdough ‘mother’ going for more than a hundred years.
I used to think it was a bit strange at the time, growing bacteria to make bread, but tasting this light and airy loaf in the bakery made me truly appreciate this time-honoured tradition.
I also wondered how old the Moreaus’ sourdough was and who had made the starter in the first place.
Next, I tried a round pain aux raisins, which I knew to be raisin bread.
I instinctively tapped on the base of the loaf, hearing a wonderfully deep echo that sounded the guarantee of a thick, dark crust. The crunchy bread was tantalisingly good and the sweet, swollen raisins gave it an extra dimension.
After a large glass of milk, I gluttonously moved on to a wholesome pain aux noix, a walnut bread made with wholewheat flour.
In France, the walnut was the king of the nuts, so they simply referred to this loaf as nut bread, as if walnut was the only nut worth eating.
With just the right balance of acidity and crunchy walnuts that were almost whole (meaning they must have been added after the kneading process), this bread was my favourite.
It was moist and slightly darker in colour than the others, and I could have happily gorged on the entire loaf.
Of course I ate them all smothered with butter, like a true Irishwoman.
By the time I got to the pain bis, a rye bread, I was completely stuffed and full of respect for our reclusive baker.
I wasn’t an expert or anything, but from the flavours and textures of the breads, my suspicions that they were baked in a wood-burning oven were confirmed.
I pushed back my chair and looked towards the rear of the shop.
There was a swinging door that led to a small room with a sink and a small worktop for preparing tartines or sandwiches and a little electric chauffe grille for toasting.
Without consciously making a plan, I got up and strolled over towards the back, fixing things and wiping counters as I passed.
I looked back out onto the street, which was quiet at this time of day, and listened for any sound of Madame Moreau upstairs.
I could just about hear her little television, probably some kind of afternoon quiz show.
Satisfied that I would not be disturbed, I snuck into the kitchenette.
I had seen a tiny door there before, just beside the miniature fridge, but had simply assumed it was a cupboard, such was the size.
It was painted a pale eggshell blue-grey colour, with two panels of frosted glass obscuring what I now realised must be the basement just beyond.
Madame Moreau, being small in stature, would have easily fitted through, but I would have to crouch.
I gently turned the little glass knob, but to my disappointment, it was locked.
I just stood there looking at it, willing it to open.
Then inspiration struck, and I quickly swung the door of the kitchenette open again.
The unisex toilet was just on the other side of the kitchenette and although I wasn’t sure what access could be gained from the loo, it was worth a try.
The loo was quite posh as it goes, with some kind of vintage wallpaper, repeating scenes of the well-to-do taking part in various outdoor pursuits.
The taps were gold-plated, as was the mirror, and it felt at once both homely and chic.
To my delight, I spotted a grille plate on the floor behind the sink that looked down into the basement.
An old iron thing, I lifted it easily with my pen and for the first time I had a partial view of the baker’s domain.
It was incredibly authentic and I realised that things must have changed very little since Monsieur Moreau’s time.
The walls were simply exposed bricks and the floor plain concrete, and everything was dusted with a fine layer of flour.
No wonder the bread tasted so good, I mused, they were probably using age-old recipes and baking them in the wood-fired oven.
I could just see the side of it from my rather awkward vantage point, but I didn’t even need to – I could smell the rich scent of burnt wood.
I could just make out the bags of flour stacked against the wall – marked ‘Farine’ – and tall wooden shelves holding antique moulds and sheet pans, slightly warped from the intense heat of the ovens.
The only thing missing was the baker himself, but I assumed he must have finished for the day, as he would have started baking at 4am.
My knees were hurting from the tiled floor and I was about to heave myself up when a voice startled me.
‘Eh, ?a va, édith?’ asked Manu, clearly bewildered by my behaviour.
‘Oh, Manu, I didn’t see you there,’ I replied a little flustered.
‘I, eh, just lost my earring,’ I bluffed.
‘J’ai perdu my earring,’ I repeated, laughing at my own stupidity and sliding the grate back into place with my foot.
He nodded, but I knew he wasn’t convinced.
I just had time to tidy up after my little taster session when Madame Moreau reappeared, unceremoniously turning off the music.
She seemed irritated, which was nothing new, but something about the music had affected her.
There was no chance to question her, as it was time to open again and I needed to go and freshen myself up.
Climbing the stairs, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that Manu and Madame Moreau’s inimical facade was an attempt to hide something.
But what? Were they really doing something illegal down there?
It hardly seemed likely. But I could tell from their strange behaviour that something was going on and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.
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