Five minutes later, I enter the Place des Vosges through the middle of three stone arches beneath a building. The whole square is surrounded by uniform brick and stone buildings, with graying roofs, french doors, and narrow balconies. Nearly twenty soaring trees with kelly-green leaves surround a statue on horseback in the middle of the rectangular park, while four two-level fountains hold up the four grassy corners, inside the frame of the sandy footpaths.
I look around for anyone who matches Alain’s general description, but so far the oldest man I’ve seen—a man walking a little black dog—couldn’t be much older than sixty. I quickly walk the length of the park, staring into the faces of those who pass by, but there is no one here who might be Alain. My heart heavy in my chest, I sigh and walk out the way I came. It is beginning to dawn on me that I might not encounter him, here or anywhere. I fight off a feeling of crushing disappointment—I can’t admit defeat yet.
I wander east to kill a little time before I return to the address Monsieur Berr gave me. I turn a few corners, passing apartment buildings and storefronts, until I find myself on a narrow street filled with people ducking in and out of designer stores. Rue des Rosiers, I read from a street sign. I wander down the street, staring up at a disconcerting mix of ancient-looking butcher shops, bookstores, and synagogues, blended with modern clothing stores.
I come to a stop outside a small storefront marked with the Star of David and the word synagogue, which is apparently the same in French as it is in English. My heart is thudding, and I reach out a shaking hand to touch the outer wall. I wonder how long it’s been here, and whether my grandmother might have worshipped here at some point.
As I stand there, lost in thought about the past, a familiar scent tugs me back to the present. The air smells ever so faintly like the buttery, cinnamon-scented, fig-and-prune-filled Star Pies I bake every day in my own bakery.
I turn, slowly, and find myself facing a deep red storefront with big picture windows overflowing with breads and pastries. A bakery. I blink a few times and, as if drawn forward by an invisible magnet, float across the street and through the doors.
Inside, the store is packed with people. To the right is a long deli case with meats and prepared salads; to the left is a seemingly endless display of bagels, cheesecakes, pies, tarts, and pastries, all with little signs announcing their names in French and their prices in euros.
I’m frozen in place as my eyes roam over the familiar selection. I see the lemon-grape cheesecake that’s one of the North Star’s specialties. There’s a delicate-looking strudel that looks just like the one that always sells out at my bakery; I take a step closer and realize it’s practically identical: it has apples, almonds, raisins, candied orange peel, and cinnamon, just like I use. There’s even a sourdough rye bread like the one I earned top honors with two years ago in the Cape Cod Times’s “Best Breads of the Cape” poll.
And there, in the window, are slices of something they call Ronde des Pavés. I’m accustomed to seeing them baked into little individual pies with star-shaped lattice crusts, but as I bend to look at the slices, the filling is unmistakable. Poppy seeds, almonds, grapes, figs, prunes, and cinnamon sugar. Just like Mamie’s beloved Star Pies.
“Que puis-je pour vous?” There’s a high-pitched French voice behind me, and I turn slowly, as if in a fog.
“Um, I don’t speak French,” I stammer. “I’m sorry.” My heart is still pounding a mile a minute.
The woman, who looks about my age, smiles. “No problem,” she says, switching seamlessly to accented English. “We have a lot of tourists here. What would you like?”
I point shakily to one of the pieces of Ronde des Pavés. She begins to bag it for me, but I reach out to stop her. I realize my hand is trembling when it makes contact with her arm. She looks up in surprise.
“Where do these recipes come from?” I ask her.
She frowns and looks suspicious. “They’re old recipes of my family, madame,” she says. “We do not give them out.”
“No, no, that’s not what I mean,” I say quickly. “It’s just that I have a bakery in the States, in Massachusetts, and I make the same things. All these recipes that I thought were my grandmother’s family recipes . . .”
The suspicion fades from her expression, and she smiles. “Ah. Your grandmother, she is Polish?”
“No, she’s from here. Paris.”
The woman tilts her head to the side. “But her parents are from Poland, no?” She bites her lip. “This bakery, it was opened by my great-grandparents, just after the war. In 1947. They were from Poland. These recipes, they have much influence of Eastern Europe.”