Once she prevented the door from slamming, however, Emma noticed that Uncle Ezra did not throw away the cutting board or the cast-iron pan. He oiled the former, buttered the latter, and went about his business.
Next he taught her how to sharpen a knife, though of course she wrecked the blade, ruining its temper and making it brittle. But later her knives cut well. He showed Emma how to measure, but of course the quantities were unacceptably wrong because liquids cling to the sides of cups, and solids sort themselves out smaller with a little shaking. Yet the croissants turned out flaky and the cookies tasted sweet.
He would ask for a pan, any pan, hurry up, then criticize whichever one she handed him as too small or too large. Yet he used it nonetheless. He would open the oven door, insist that she must have neglected to clean it the day before because it was still filthy, then slide popover tins onto the oven rack anyway.
For months Philippe spent a portion of every afternoon listening as Emma recounted that day’s insults. After attending with his customary patience, he would grab her hand and pull her into a hedgerow to steal kisses. Always Emma protested; always she allowed him to prevail.
Gradually, however, she noticed a result from Uncle Ezra’s caustic tone: once he had chastised her for a mistake, she never made it again. Popovers, for example, always went into a cold oven; preheating prevented them from filling with air. Right or wrong, name-calling and scorn were his ways of teaching. She began to pay closer attention, observing his methods, eavesdropping on every criticism he gave the boys. They bent under the withering weather, delivered in a daily downpour, but Emma at the sink would stop the running water, silence the blender, pause the giant mixer so that she did not miss a word.
Some days after work, the Goat would be standing at the corner, picking at something or arranging his clothes. Emma turned in the opposite direction although it meant a longer route home. Or, if Philippe had come for her that day, she would seize his arm and walk especially close as they passed on the sidewalk. Philippe would say hello to Didier but Emma held her tongue. Her sweetheart smelled of motor oil and she of soap. The Goat wore an atmosphere of filth.
In Emma’s third year at the bakery, Albin’s father fell from a hayloft and broke his leg. Despite six years of investment in apprenticeship, Albin seized on the excuse to return to the family farm. Six months later, David dropped a twenty-kilo bag of flour, which made a small cloud when it burst. As Uncle Ezra delivered his predictable berating—the boy was a buffoon and an idiot and a true horse’s ass—David removed his apron in a sort of slow motion. He hung it on the hook in back with similar ponderousness.
“Where are you going?” Uncle Ezra cried. “We have unfinished work today. The mayor has requested a napoleon.”
David left without bothering to prevent the door from slamming.
The baker stood with hands on his hips, fuming. Emma, having interrupted her scrubbing in order to hear the lecture, stared into the soapy water. Uncle Ezra worked his lower lip back and forth as though he were chewing it. Beside an oven that held three cheesecakes, a timer ticked away. The two of them were alone for the first time.
“He was lazy,” Emma said at last. “I watched him drop a bit of eggshell into a cake batter, and not bother to spoon it out.”
“What? When?”
“Yesterday. I removed it when he was in the cooler.” She pulled the plug from the drain, which choked loudly as it emptied, and continued, “Albin sneezed with his mouth open.”
“What? Disgusting.”
She shrugged. “I always replaced the recipe he did it in front of.”
“How long have you been helping them?”
Emma stared into the gleaming sink. “Since I began here.”
“Damn it,” Uncle Ezra said, punching his fist into his other palm. It was the first time Emma had heard a man swear, and she blushed. “And now I suppose you will be leaving soon too?”
For Emma, the moment was fragrant with opportunity. She scanned the shop, pies cooling in the front window while rolls and loaves and one unsold breakfast croissant sat in the display case. David’s broken bag had not yet been swept up, which could only be done after saving as much unspilled flour as possible. Normally, that would have been her duty.
Meanwhile on the main counter there stood the mayor’s unfinished napoleon—also known as thousand-leaf cake because of its many thin layers of alternating puff pastry and pastry cream, a test of any baker’s patience—and all that remained was to frost the top. Uncle Ezra had been preparing to do exactly that when he paused to rain invective upon David: the frosting sleeve was already filled, a medium gauge nozzle at its tip, a bowl of melted chocolate alongside for dripping a design onto the frosted top.
The baker remained with hands on hips, his question hanging in the air. Emma wiped hands on her apron, strode to the counter, picked up the frosting sleeve, and turning it gently clockwise, began to wring a stream of white confection out the nozzle in exact sympathy with the pace of her movement around the cake.
Uncle Ezra came to stand beside her, watching. She could hear him breathing. When she pinched three fingers together to dip in the chocolate, he opened his mouth to speak, but as she drizzled the dark brown in a rosette on the frosting, hovering the bowl near in her free hand so no errant drip would mar the white, he said not a word. When the napoleon was completed, she drew the back of a knife across her design, an X in three directions to give it flair. Uncle Ezra sniffed and crossed his arms.
“Yes? Did I do something wrong?”
He chewed on his lower lip a moment before answering. “Two years.”
“Two years until what, sir?”
“Until you become my competition.”
Chapter 3
From that day forward they were equals, the grouchy baker and his apprentice of sixteen, seventeen, and more. Production increased. The shop’s reputation grew. People traveled from Caen, from Bayeux, from Honfleur, saying they had heard of this cake or that pie, this bread or that pastry.