Jacques calculates: the money at his disposal; the interest rate that the banks would agree to; the amount he could ask for from certain investors among his friends. The figures flash past. We should do it, eh? What do you think—shall we go for it? Mauro looks at his father, astonished by what is happening, the two of them standing side by side outside the front door of La Belle Saison, stunned that this idea, first mentioned three weeks earlier, in the kitchen of Mauro’s parents’ house, is now becoming a reality. That evening, in Aulnay, he’d cooked us a dish of cannelloni in cuttlefish ink, stuffed with ricotta, and dwelled on the thought: Now, I’d like to open my own place! We’d patronizingly warned him—It’s tough, you know, running a restaurant, you’re only twenty-four, you should enjoy your youth while you have it—and then Jacques had suddenly appeared and announced: That’s a great idea, Mauro, let’s do it together! At fifty-five, Jacques is energetic, garrulous, passionate about learning new things, and available—having just decided to quit his job as director of a computer science school. He has the time and the desire to create something. He raised his glass in a circle to toast this rush of enthusiasm, and I raised mine, too, looking at Mauro, who folded his napkin without any visible emotion.

Mauro stands outside La Belle Saison. He smiles. In a few days, he and Jacques will return to shake on the deal with the owner, go back into the restaurant, and open a cold, sparkling Anjou or, better yet, that old Château Kefraya from the Beqaa plain that they serve on important occasions. But for now, the young cook watches his father gather information, thinks to himself that this is a feasible project, not some outlandish fantasy, knows that he will have to work from dawn to dusk, and that even with the two of them, it will be a tall order. In the months after this, father and son get on with the serious task of financing the project. The banks are reluctant: the restaurant business is rarely profitable, more often a money pit, and the partnership leading the project does not look solid—all the same, let’s examine it: The cook is young and unknown, he’s worked professionally for less than a year, has no experience as a head chef, no knowledge of the culture of the profession; the father, meanwhile, knows nothing about the business. On top of that, the project requires a certain level of investment at the outset: the place is in decline, and they’ll have to reinvigorate it—and that takes time.