That evening Cuneo, sporting a flowery apron and matching oven gloves, brought in their meal.
‘Gentlemen, a variation on the ratatouille so demeaned by the tourist industry: bohémienne de legumes,’ Salvatore explained, setting down the dish on the makeshift table out on deck. The dish turned out to be finely diced roasted red vegetables, seasoned with a generous pinch of thyme, pressed into a mould, then skilfully turned out onto a plate and drizzled with the finest olive oil. It was accompanied by lamb cutlets, which Cuneo had passed three times over the open flame, and a snow-white, melt-in-the-mouth garlic flan.
Something strange happened when Perdu took his first bite. Images seemed to explode inside his head.
‘This is unbelievable, Salvatore. You cook the way Marcel Pagnol writes.’
‘Ah, Pagnol. A good man. He knew that you can only really see with your tongue. And your nose and your stomach,’ said Cuneo with an appreciative sigh. Then, between two mouthfuls, he added, ‘Capitano Perduto, I’m a firm believer that you have to taste a country’s soul to understand it and to grasp its people. And by soul I mean what grows there, what its people see and smell and touch every day, what travels through them and shapes them from the inside out.’
‘Like pasta shapes the Italians?’ Max asked as he chewed.
‘Watch what you say, Massimo. Pasta makes women bellissima!’ said Cuneo, enthusiastically tracing a voluptuous female figure in the air with his hands.
They ate and they laughed. The sun went down to their right, the moon came up to their left; they were enfolded in the luxurious scent of the harbour flowers. The cats explored the surrounding area, and later they kept the men company from their vantage point on top of an overturned book crate.
Jean Perdu was overcome by an unfamiliar sense of tranquillity.
Can eating heal you?
With every bite of food steeped in the herbs and oils of Provence he seemed to absorb a little more of the land that lay ahead; it was as if he were eating the surrounding countryside. Already he could taste the wild banks of the Loire, covered in forests and vineyards.
He slept peacefully that night. Kafka and Lindgren watched over his sleep, the tomcat stretched out by the door, Lindgren by his shoulder. Occasionally Jean would feel paws patting his cheek, as if to check that he was still alive.
The next morning they decided to stay a little longer in Briare. It was a popular base and meeting point, and the houseboating season had begun. New canal boats arrived almost every hour, bringing potential book buyers.
Max offered to share his few remaining clothes with Jean, who had set out with only the shirt, grey trousers, jacket and jumper he was wearing. For the time being, clothing was not high on their list of essential purchases.
Perdu found himself wearing jeans and a faded shirt for the first time in what felt like centuries. He barely recognised the man he glimpsed in the mirror. The three-day beard, the slight tan he had caught at the wheel, the airy clothes … He no longer looked so uptight or older than his years, though not exactly much younger either.
Max had started to draw an ironic pencil moustache on his upper lip and combed his hair back to cultivate a gleaming, black pirate ponytail. Every morning he practised kung fu and tai chi out on the rear deck in only a light pair of trousers. At lunchtime and in the evening he read aloud to Cuneo while the latter prepared the meals. Cuneo would often request stories by women authors.
‘Women tell you more about the world. Men only tell you about themselves.’
They were now keeping the Literary Apothecary open late into the night. The days were getting warmer.
Children from the nearby villages and the other boats would hang out for hours in Lulu’s belly, reading the adventures of Harry Potter, Kalle Blomquist, the Famous Five and the Warrior Cats, or Greg’s diary. Perdu frequently had to suppress a smile at the sight of Max sitting on the floor in the middle of a circle of children, his long legs folded and a book on his lap. His reading aloud was constantly improving, and his stories were more like radio plays. Perdu suspected that these small children, listening with eyes wide and in rapt concentration, would one day grow up to need reading, with its accompanying sense of wonder and the feeling of having a film running inside your head, as much as they needed air to breathe.
He sold books by weight to anyone under fourteen: two kilos for ten euros.
‘Aren’t we running at a loss?’ asked Max.
Perdu shrugged his shoulders. ‘Financially speaking, yes. But it’s well known that reading makes people impudent, and tomorrow’s world is going to need some people who aren’t shy to speak their minds, don’t you think?’
Giggling teenagers would crowd into the erotica corner and then fall suspiciously silent. Perdu made sure to approach noisily so that they had time to pry their lips from each other’s and hide their flushed faces behind a harmless book.