Her bony white fingers gripped the swoop of the teapot’s handle. “One lump or two?”

“Two lumps, and milk, please.”

The widow handed me my cup, poured her own, and for several awkward moments we sat in silence, the only sound in the room the grating of our silver spoons as we both wordlessly stirred our tea.

“They are still unclear as to what happened? He didn’t leave a note? One didn’t show up later?”

“No,” Madame Verdun said bitterly. “A will, yes, executed a few years ago, but no suicide note. Maybe he took his life. Maybe he didn’t. We will probably never know for certain.”

I pursed my lips. Madame Verdun’s old-fashioned way of talking always sounded to me like a deliberate attempt to let Paul’s friends know that she was of “better” stock than her self-made husband.

“But I think I know why Paul died.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yes. The inspectors of Gault Millau and Le Guide Michelin killed him. They have blood on their hands. . . . If the police rule Paul’s death a suicide, and I am denied the payment of his life insurance policy, then I will sue the guides for every penny. I am consulting with my lawyer now.”

“I am sorry. I don’t understand.”

Madame Verdun stared at me—blankly—before placing her cup and saucer atop a coaster, next to a coffee table book on Etruscan gardens. She leaned forward and rubbed the coffee table with the palm of her hand, as if she had just located a wet spot.

“Well, Chef,” she finally said, “you seem to be the only one of Paul’s friends who doesn’t know the next edition of Le Guide was going to reduce Paul to two stars. The day before he died he received a call from a reporter at Le Figaro, asking for comment. There were rumors, of course, but the reporter confirmed our worst fears: Monsieur Barthot, the Michelin guide’s directeur général, personally approved his inspectors’ decision. So it was this completely unwarranted and capricious act by Barthot and his committee that directly or indirectly led to Paul’s death. Of this I am sure. He was powerless to fight their judgment, of course, and you should have seen him these last few weeks, since Gault Millau reduced him to fifteen points. He was gutted. Utterly without hope. And you know, the restaurant’s occupancy rate immediately fell when the new Gault Millau rating became public. . . . When I think about it, I just become so angry. But just you watch. I will teach Gault Millau and that Barthot fellow a lesson or two. I hold them personally responsible for Paul’s death.”

“I did not know. I am so very sorry.”

The room was again filled with our silence.

But Madame Verdun’s arched, finely penciled eyebrows, and the plaintive look on her face, suggested she wanted me to say something more, so I nervously added, “Of course, the critics were entirely wrong. No question. If I can be of help in this matter, please let me know. You know how much I admired Paul. . . .”

“Oh, how kind of you. Yes. Let me think. . . . We are assembling testimonials from his peers. Part of the complaint’s preamble.”

But it was clear, in the curvature of her lips, that my two-star status was not quite of sufficient elevation for such an important task, and that she really had in mind some other assignment. “But I am not sure that would be the best use of your talents,” she finally said.

I looked at my watch. If I left within the next ten minutes, I would hit rush hour but could still be back at the restaurant for the evening’s sitting.

“Madame Verdun, I believe you asked me here for a specific reason, no? Please speak freely. We are friends and you must know I want to be of service to Paul in any way that I can.”

“I did ask you here for a reason, Chef. How insightful of you.”

“Please ask.”

“We are going to have a memorial service for my late husband.”

“Of course.”

“It is Paul’s wish. He left specific instructions in his will, which states he wants a hundred friends for dinner after his passing. He even had the funds set aside in a special account for this memorial meal. You must know Paul was always a little odd, and ‘friends,’ well, we must interpret this word liberally. The list of guests attached to his will is really just a Who’s Who of French haute cuisine, with all the top-rated chefs, gourmand clients, and critics invited to send him off, even though he couldn’t stand most of them. . . . Honestly, such an odd request.”

The mask slipped and Anna Verdun was suddenly overcome by the tragedy of her husband’s death. She had to stop talking altogether for a few moments.

“Tell me, Chef, would you invite all your enemies to your memorial service? I simply don’t understand it. It must be a kind of showing off from beyond the grave, but I don’t know. I just don’t know. Truth be told, I never really understood my husband. Not in life. Not in death.”

It was the first and only time I caught a glimpse of what lay behind the woman’s frigid veneer, and the perplexed look on her face, the pain of her incomprehension, touched me deeply, and I instinctively reached over the coffee table to pat her hand.

She did not like this, not at all, for she promptly pulled her hand back, startled by the physical contact, and then covered up her embarrassment by looking for a tissue up her sleeve.

“But these were Paul’s final wishes, so I will honor them.”

She dabbed at the corners of her eyes, blew her nose, and then reinserted the tissue back up her chiffon sleeve. “Now, in all these specific instructions for the memorial, Paul wants, I quote, ‘the most talented chef in all France to send me home.’ ”

She looked at me. I looked at her.

“Yes?”

“Well, apparently he thought that was you. I am, if I may be frank, not quite sure why he was so taken by you—you have only two stars, no? But he did once say to me that you and he were the only genuine articles in all France. When I asked him what he meant, he said something to the effect that you two were the only chefs in France who really understood food, and only you two could possibly save French cooking from itself.”

A much-overblown and ridiculous remark, of course, so typical of Paul, but his widow smiled tremulously, and this time, against her better judgment, reached across the table to touch my hand.

“Hassan—may I call you that?—would you oversee Paul’s memorial dinner? Would you do this for me? It would be such a relief to know the dinner is in your capable hands. Of course, you mustn’t be in the kitchen yourself—you must be out front with the rest of us—but it would be merveilleux if you could oversee the menu, as Paul would have wanted. Is this too much to ask?”

“Not at all. I would be honored, Anna. Consider it done.”

“How kind of you. I am so relieved. Imagine, dinner for one hundred gourmands. What a burden to impose on a widow. I am simply in no state to organize such a thing.”

We stood and hugged each other stiffly, and I again expressed my condolences before moving, as quickly as I could without appearing rude, toward the front door.

“I will let you know the date of the memorial,” she called out.

I scuttled across the gravel to my battered Peugeot, but she kept on talking from the doorstep as I searched for my keys.

“Paul really had affection only for you, Hassan. He once told me that you and he were ‘made from the same ingredients.’ I thought that a rather clever turn of phrase for a chef. I think, when he looked at you, he saw his younger self. . . .”

I slammed the car door shut, awkwardly held up a hand in a final farewell, and then sped off with such force I think I sprayed her with bits of gravel. But in the stop-go drive back to Paris—through the back roads of Normandy, through the banlieue suburbs of Paris, along the périphérique, and then down through the string of lights of the city center—I could only think about Paul, consciously or not, taking his own life.