It was less than three miles from the Gare Montparnasse to the Gare d’Austerlitz. Ten minutes in a taxi, but Maclean was hungry again.
“I must have lunch. Perhaps I have an ulcer? Why shouldn’t I have a fucking ulcer? Don’t I deserve an ulcer? I think I’ve earned an ulcer.”
Burgess really didn’t mind. Montparnasse was littered with good restaurants, and if his memory of Moscow served him well, he would not be the one to deny Maclean his last decent meal. He even encouraged him to ask for a pudding and coffee.
“You’ve never been to Russia before, have you?”
“Of course I bloody haven’t.”
“Then have two of everything, and read the menu as though it were a novel. Think of each dish as a character. An unforgettable character, like Natasha in War and Peace. Or Becky Sharp. Or, better still, Julien Sorel. A model for us all. You’ll need a storehouse of menu memories to get by in Moscow. Lay in some mental foie gras, a whopping great dish of beef bourguignon, a couple of soufflés, lay down a few cases of decent claret … a bottle or two of Armagnac … all in some dusty corner of the mind.”
Maclean tucked into soupe à l’oignon, jarret de porc, and tarte au chocolat avec crème anglaise … with a bottle of Burgundy … and three cups of coffee. Burgess ordered just the soup, pushed it away half-finished, and smoked half a dozen cigarettes with no hint of impatience. As far as he was concerned, they could sit there forever. Lunch in Paris. There was nowhere he wanted to be. Who knew … sit there long enough and his appetite might return? And if the sun broke through they might hop from one pavement café to another—the moveable feast.