Читать книгу Five Quarters of the Orange / Пять четвертинок апельсина онлайн

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I stiffened.

“It’s all right. I haven’t told anyone, have I?”

Silence. The truth stretched between us like a string of chewing gum.

“Have I?”

I shook my head. “No. You haven’t.”

“Well, then.” He took a step toward me. “You never would take help when you needed it, not even in the old days.” Pause. “You haven’t changed that much, Framboise.”

Funny. I thought I had.

“When did you guess?” I asked at last.

He shrugged.

“Didn’t take long,” he said laconically. “Probably the first time I tasted that kouign amann of your mother’s. Or maybe it was the pike. Never could forget a good recipe, could I?”

And he smiled again beneath his drooping mustache, an expression that was both sweet and kind and unutterably sad at the same time.

“It must have been hard,” he commented.

The stinging at my eyes was almost unbearable now. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

He nodded. “I’m not a talker,” he said simply.

He sat down then to eat his fricassée, stopping occasionally to look at me and smile, and after a while I sat down next to him-after all, we were alone in the place-and poured myself a glass of Gros-Plant. We sat in silence for a time. After a few minutes I laid my head down on the tabletop and wept quietly. The only sounds were my weeping and those of Paul’s cutlery as he ate reflectively, not looking at me, not reacting. But I knew his silence was kind.