Paris Noir Read Online Free Page B

climbing into the overloaded van. He was probably feeling remorseful at that moment: He hated material problems. The inconvenience of moving was going to destabilize him for a long time.
    I went back to my Greek salad dressing; I added some lemon and a pinch of ground oregano. I tasted it. Not bad. I entered the recipe, list of ingredients, and all the numbered steps into the computer. I named that banal escarole-tomato-feta-black olives salad G reek Summer Salad . As with everything else, a new title is enough to make an old recipe sound fresh.
    Looking out the window, I saw that the cobblestones in the courtyard were less dark, the day brighter than during the previous weeks. Spring was on its way. I felt a kind of exhilaration, suddenly convinced that freedom and spring could be a beautiful wedding celebration if I wanted.
    I had not decided to call Jérôme. I’m fine, thanks! Despite what Luc says, I’m polite, especially with my clients, and Jérôme happened to be my main one: I created most of the recipes for his magazine, Foodgourmet . Swamped as usual, more than usual even, he was negotiating the sale of a Chinese edition of his magazine to a publishing conglomerate in Shanghai, and given that he was capable of selling his soul cut up in little pieces to decorate key chains, he was going berserk. One billion three hundred million potential clients. Even a thousandth of that godsend would have been a fortune.
    I knew right away he was asking for a favor. It took me longer to understand what kind: For the last three days, he had been playing guide to a Chinese man. Devotedly, and for a good reason: He was the cousin of the guy he was dealing with in Shanghai! But now, honestly, it’s too much. Could youpossibly take charge of this burden until 9 p.m. tonight in Orlywhen the cumbersome character flies off to Milan? He gave me one of his I’ll make it up to you, the future of the company is atstake, or, I’m so overwhelmed by work, I’ll pay you the equivalentof three recipes , you can’t say no . I said no, I couldn’t say no.
    Besides, taking a Chinese tourist around the capital wasn’t worse than tinkering with recipes from photographs: If you used your imagination this could pass as a tomato, that as a Béarnaise sauce, and the whole thing as a slice of calf’s head. Because that was exactly what my job had become: I looked at totally lame pictures of totally lame dishes and concocted plausible recipes from them. To tell the truth, you ended up losing your appetite, even me, and I do love to eat.
    Without this new turn of events, I would have e-mailed him my autopsy of a salad and stayed home; so I printed my page without any qualms, all excited to go out and look spring straight in the eye.
    I saw him right away as I was stepping into the offices of Food-gourmet. What a shock! My Chinese guy stood out against a lovely light and the greenery cascading down the slopes of the Parc de Belleville. In the background, misty Paris bowed down before such beauty, golden skin and turned-up lips, a true piece of China to which amber tea would have given the color of brown sugar. This is when I knew I should have taken my pills. I was losing it. And yet I wasn’t really attracted to Asian men. Too smooth, not sexy at all. There was a kind of eunuch quality about them, I thought, although I had never checked the facts. I probably associated them with the servants in the imperial court of China, castrated so His Highness wouldn’t have rivals under his roof. In short, I had no use for Chinese men. No, it was hoodlums who gave me my thrill: hairy hunks who fill out their shirtsleeves, display shoulders broad enough for two, thick arms and large, rugged hands, surly men who wheedle you into the underbrush with their tenor voices … But on that day, all of my prejudices evaporated. I would have needed heavy medication to restore my judgment which had quickly gone down the drain.
    All melted, my legs like cotton, my heart