with cream cheese, olives stuffed with anchovies and slices of toast covered

with chopped tomatoes, was uninspiring.

‘They are Italian delicacies called bruschetta,’ Claire told him, gazing deeply

into Bruno’s eyes. She was pretty enough although over-talkative, but Bruno had

a firm rule about never playing on one’s own doorstep. Juliette Binoche could

have taken a job at the Mairie and Bruno would have restrained himself. But he

knew that his reticence did not stop Claire and her mother, not to mention a few

other mothers in St Denis, from referring to him as the town’s most eligible

bachelor. At just forty he thought he might have ceased being the object of this

speculation, but no. The game of ‘catching’ Bruno had become one of the town’s

little rituals, a subject for gossip among the women and amusement among the

married men, who saw Bruno as the valiant but ultimately doomed quarry of the

huntresses. They teased him about it, but they approved of the discretion he

brought to his private life and the polite skills with which he frustrated the

town’s mothers and maintained his freedom.

‘Delicious,’ said Bruno, limiting himself to an olive. ‘Well done, Claire. All

that planning really paid off.’

‘Oh, Bruno,’ she said, ‘do you really think so?’

‘Of course. The Mayor’s wife looks hungry,’ he said, scooping a glass of

champagne from Fat Jeanne as she swept by. ‘Perhaps you should start with her.’

He steered Claire off to the window where the Mayor stood with his wife, and was

suddenly aware of a tall and brooding presence at his shoulder.

‘Well, Bruno,’ boomed Montsouris, his loud voice more suited to bellowing fiery

speeches to a crowd of striking workers, ‘you have made the people’s victory

into a celebration of the British crown. Is that what you meant to do?’

‘Bonjour, Yves,’ grinned Bruno. ‘Don’t give me that people’s victory crap. You

and all the other Communists would be speaking German if it wasn’t for the

British and American armies.’

‘Shame on you,’ said Montsouris. ‘Even the British would be speaking German if

it wasn’t for Stalin and the Red Army.’

‘Yes, and if they’d had their way, we’d all be speaking Russian today and you’d

be the Mayor.’

‘Commissar, if you please,’ replied Montsouris. Bruno knew that Montsouris was

only a Communist because he was a cheminot, a railway worker, and the CGT labour

union had those jobs sewn up for Party members. Other than his Party card and

his campaigning before each election, most of Montsouris’s political views were

decidedly conservative. Sometimes Bruno wondered who Montsouris really voted for

once he was away from his noisily radical wife and safe in the privacy of the

voting booth.

‘Messieurs-Dames, ŕ table, if you please,’ called the Mayor, adding, ‘before the

soup gets warm.’

Monsieur Jackson gave a hearty English laugh, but stopped when he realised

nobody else was amused. Sylvie took his arm and guided him to his place. Bruno

found himself sitting beside the priest, and bowed his head as Father Sentout

delivered a brief grace. Bruno often found himself next to the priest on such

occasions. As he turned his attention to the chilled vichyssoise, he wondered if

Sentout would ask his usual question. He didn’t have to wait long.

‘Why does the Mayor never want me to say a small prayer at these public events

like Victory Day?’

‘It is a Republican celebration, Father,’ Bruno explained, for perhaps the

fourteenth time. ‘You know the law of 1905, separation of church and state.’

‘But most of those brave boys were good Catholics and they fell doing God’s work

and went to heaven.’

‘I hope you are right, Father,’ Bruno said kindly, ‘but look on the bright side.

At least you get invited to the lunch, and you get to bless the meal. Most

mayors would not even allow that.’

‘Ah yes, the Mayor’s feast is a welcome treat after the purgatory that my

housekeeper inflicts upon me. But she is a pious soul and does her best.’

Bruno, who had once been invited to a magnificent dinner at the priest’s house

in honour of some visiting church dignitary, raised his eyebrows silently, and

then watched with satisfaction as Fat Jeanne whipped away his soup plate and

replaced it with a healthy slice of foie gras and some of her own onion

marmalade. To accompany it, Claire served him with a small glass of golden

Monbazillac that he knew came from the vineyard of the Mayor’s cousin. Toasts

were raised, the boy bugler was singled out for praise, and the champagne and

Monbazillac began their magic work of making a rather staid occasion convivial.

After the dry white Bergerac that came with the trout and a well-chosen 2001

Pecharmant with the lamb, it became a thoroughly jolly luncheon.

‘Is that Arab fellow a Muslim, do you know?’ asked Father Sentout, with a

deceptively casual air, waving his wine glass in Karim’s direction.

‘I never asked him,’ said Bruno, wondering what the priest was up to. ‘If he is,

he’s not very religious. He doesn’t pray to Mecca and he’ll cross himself before

a big game, so he’s probably a Christian. Besides, he was born here. He’s as

French as you or I.’