Madame Proust and the Kosher Kitchen - Couverture souple

Sophie needed some stones, but could not think where she might find any in the midst of the city. She wasn’t looking for a great boulder, but neither would she be satisfied with the few scrapings of gravel she could surreptitiously remove from the tiny, urbanized garden that jutted but a metre onto the pavement in front of the ground-floor flat in the building three doors down from her own. Wondering where she could get more sizable specimens, she remembered now with fondness and regret the tin bucket of pebbles and seashells that the child had kept in her bedroom for many years, souvenirs of their holidays that the little one had gathered on the beach and then refused to part with when it came time to get on the train and return home. And Sophie recalled too their regular walks in the nearby woods where there must surely be some stray rocks lying about beneath the trees. But the child was older and far away now, the tin bucket long since discarded. The family had not taken a trip to the Norman coast since the war began, and although the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne was but ten minutes on foot from the apartment, Sophie was increasingly cautious about venturing any further than the baker’s shop at the corner and did not want to risk an extra outing on top of today’s mission. She would just have to rely on finding stones at her destination.

She noted with relief that Philippe had also gone out earlier that morning, so that she did not need to explain her own departure. Communication was increasingly strained between them and she lacked the energy to think of a lie that might cover her as she pulled open the apartment’s heavy oak door. As long as the child was still with them, they had been united in their plans and resolute in their execution. Their daughter was to find safety, even if it cost Sophie and Philippe their life savings. But once word had got back, nine long weeks after the night they had parted, that her group had made it through the checkpoint at Hendaye and safely crossed into Spain, then their focus dissolved and their unity fractured.

At first, Philippe had sought Sophie’s permission before he sold anything. From the start they had agreed that the silverware, their wedding gift from her mother, each piece so delicately etched with a tracery of vines, was sacrosanct, and then they had agonized together over what was more dispensable. But now she realized what he took only when she noticed it missing. Sitting reading in the salon, she would look up to the marble mantel to check the time and find that the gilded clock with figures of wood nymphs holding up its white-and-black face was not there. Reaching into the china cupboard for a plate onto which she could arrange a meagre meal of boiled potatoes and white beans, she would sense that it seemed less crowded than before and realize that the Sèvres was gone.

These losses were unspoken and Philippe no longer told her of his plans, but she knew that he was probably visiting another dealer that morning. These days that was the only reason he had to leave the apartment. When they first imposed the quotas and he lost his practice, he was out every day, hurrying down to the Cité on the Métro because Maître Richelieu gave him work clerking in his office. But Philippe could no longer take the risk of the daily trip any more than his former colleague could take the risk of hiring him. He spent his days reading the newspaper and sorting uselessly through his old files. Suspended between their former life and some uncertain future, they seemed for the moment to have abandoned time. Increasingly, Sophie longed for something to disrupt this condition and had begun to think that when a knock came on the door, it would be nothing but a relief.

She just had this last task to complete. She belted her drab-coloured trench coat firmly around her–she would need its strong, deep pockets to carry any stones she did find–and slipped quietly onto the landing. She peered over the wrought-iron banisters down four floors to the hallway, checking that Mme. Delisle was not about, sweeping the carpet or polishing the brass newel posts. The hall was empty for the moment and Sophie walked swiftly but silently downstairs. She moved without sound down the last flight, glided across the empty hallway like a ghost, and stepped out into the street.

She walked towards the Métro quickly, attempting to set a pace that was rapid enough to suggest legitimate business but not so hurried as to hint at flight. The day was pleasant, still hot although it was now mid-October, and despite herself, she warmed to the light on her face. From La Muette, the stop where she had safely and thoughtlessly boarded a train so many times before, she took the Métro eastward, keeping her head down so as not to catch anyone’s eye, anxiously scanning not the faces of the other passengers but their equally revealing footwear. She was fearfully looking for the well-polished leather boots that would belong to either a gendarme or a German officer, but she saw none and forty minutes later arrived without incident at her stop, Père Lachaise.

This is the most famous cemetery in Paris. As she entered the gates, Sophie heard herself saying these words in her head like some sort of tour guide, and she realized that she was talking to her daughter. This is the most famous cemetery in Paris, she continued as she started up one of the beaten dirt paths, home to Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, and Marcel Proust. Look, dear, there is the grave of Alfred de Musset, there with the little willow tree. He’s the man our street is named for, a great writer. Privately, she had always thought the tree was ridiculous. The poet had requested that he be buried beneath a willow, and instead of finding some suitable riverbank, his family had put him in Père Lachaise and planted this pathetic specimen above the grave. But Sophie would not share this criticism with her daughter.

This is where France’s great artists are laid to rest, she would continue, the writer Alphonse Daudet is here, so are the painters Géricault and Delacroix, the playwright Beaumarchais, the poetess Anna de Noailles, and Georges Bizet, the composer who created Carmen. This is where the Faubourg Saint-Germain comes to a bitter end. That monument holds the bones of the de Guiches. The de Brancovans are here somewhere, the Rothschilds, all the great families. There’s the Comte de Montesquiou, a famous dandy in his day. And look, that’s the grave of Félix Faure, president of the Republic. Died in his mistress’s arms at the height of the Dreyfus affair. Not that you would tell such a thing to a girl not yet twelve, any more than you could explain how the English writer Oscar Wilde came to be buried in Paris, exiled and disgraced.

As she spotted the Faure monument, Sophie also noticed a rough patch of clear ground beyond it, where there was space for some future grave. She approached and started kicking through dried leaves and half-dead grass with the toe of her shoe. Soon she found what she was looking for, a round pebble about double the size of a one-franc coin. By dint of more kicking, she amassed half a dozen such stones, putting them in her pockets, before moving up the hill towards the top of the cemetery.
From the Hardcover edition.

Marie Prévost is a contemporary Canadian who sets off for Paris to research Proust and escape a failed romance. Sarah Bensimon is a young Parisian Jew who marries into an orthodox family and takes refuge in her kitchen, recreating a kosher version of classic French cuisine. The third woman is madame Jeanne Proust herself, fragments of whose 'diaries' are recreated with impeccably researched detail - as she worries about Marcel, his late-night habits, his diet and his unsuitable friends.

All these strands are brought poignantly together - the new world and the old, the Seine and the St Lawrence, mothers and sons, outsiders and insiders - in this intelligent and beautifully judged debut novel.