The ladies eyed everything, giggling like schoolgirls, hesitant, delighting in their collective naughtiness.

“And do you make them all yourself?” asked Cecile, who owns the pharmacy on the main street.

“I should be giving it up for Lent,” commented Caroline, a plump blonde with a fur collar.

“I won’t tell a soul,” I promised. Then, observing the woman in the tartan coat still gazing into the window, “Won’t your friend join us?”

“Oh, she isn’t with us,” replied Joline Drou, a sharp featured woman who works at the local school. She glanced briefly at the square-faced woman at the window. “That’s Josephine Muscat.” There was a kind of pitying contempt in her voice as she pronounced the name. “I doubt she’ll come in.”

As if she had heard, I saw Josephine redden slightly, lowering her head against the breast of her coat. One hand was drawn up against her stomach in an odd, protective gesture. I could see her mouth, perpetually downturned, moving slightly, in the rhythms of prayer or cursing.

I served the ladies – a white box, gold ribbon, two paper cornets, a rose, a pink valentine bow – amidst exclamations and laughter. Outside Josephine Muscat muttered and rocked and dug her large ungainly fists into her stomach. Then, just as I was serving the last customer she raised her head in a kind of defiance and walked in. This last order was a large and rather complicated one. Madame wanted just such a selection, in a round box, with ribbons and flowers and golden hearts and a calling card left blank – at this the ladies turned up their eyes in roguish ecstasy, hihihihil – so that I almost missed the moment. The large hands are surprisingly nimble, rough quick hands reddened with housework. One stays lodged in the pit of the stomach, the other flutters briefly at her side like a gunslinger’s swift draw, and the little silver packet with the rose – marked ten francs – has gone from the shelf and into the pocket of her coat.

Nice work. I pretended not to notice until the ladies had left the shop with their parcels. Josephine, left alone in front of the counter, pretended to examine the display, turned over a couple of boxes with nervous, careful fingers. I closed my eyes. The thoughts she sent me were complex, troubling. A rapid series of images flickered through my mind: smoke, a handful of gleaming trinkets, a bloodied knuckle. Behind it all a jittering undercurrent of worry.

“Madame Muscat, may I help you?” My voice was soft and pleasant. “Or would you just like to look around?”

She muttered something inaudible, turned as if to leave.

“I think I may have something you’ll like.”

I reached under the counter and brought out a silver packet similar to the one I had seen her take, though this one was larger. A white ribbon secured the package, sewn with tiny yellow flowers. She looked at me, her wide unhappy mouth drooping with a kind of panic. I pushed the packet across the counter towards her.

“On the house, Josephine,” I told her gently. “It’s all right. They’re your favourites.”

Josephine Muscat turned and fled.

I know this isn’t my usual day, mon pere but I needed to talk. The bakery opened yesterday. But it isn’t a bakery. When I awoke yesterday morning at six the wrapping was off, the awning and the shutters were in place and the blind was raised in the display window. What was an ordinary, rather drab old house like all the others around it has become a red-and-gold confection on a dazzling white ground. Red geraniums in the window boxes. Crepe-paper garlands twisted around the railings. And above the door a hand-lettered sign in black on oak: