The following day, he attended the meeting. Afterwards, he ordered a taxi and drove to the airport where he got on a plane and flew out of the once divided city back to his life in Prague.

CHAPTER 23

Paris, today

THE CELEBRATION LUNCH AT THE MAISON DE GRASSE WAS every bit as sybaritic and sophisticated as May wanted. Observing her reactions Laure was reminded that to take a delight in the luxurious was sane and pleasurable.

‘It’s so beautiful,’ said May, on viewing the room where the lunch was to be held. ‘So beautiful… that it hurts.’

The flowers – lilies, orange blossom and hydrangeas – had been flown in from the south of France. An arch of them had been constructed over the entrance to the dining room. Elsewhere, they were massed on the tables and in every nook and cranny. The effect was extraordinary and their scent intoxicating.

The tables were exquisite, each one a dream in white lawn, silver and flowers. Beside each setting was a bottle of Maison de Grasse’s most expensive perfume and a nosegay of herbs, including rosemary. ‘For remembrance,’ Laure informed May.

‘Well, that’s what you’re about, isn’t it?’ she replied.

Laure’s audience, as she got to her feet after a lunch of wild salmon and red-currant Vacherin, was inclined to be kind. It was the kindness that stemmed from fabulous dining, champagne and the magic of white Burgundy.

‘This is a very important occasion,’ she began. ‘In fact, it is quite a day when two sides of our culture come together. The one that does and makes…’ she made a graceful obeisance to the Maison de Grasse top table, ‘and the one that preserves.’ She gestured towards the table around which were seated Nic, May, Simon, the lawyers and the trustees.

She was used to public speaking and generally it held no perils. But this was a moment for which she had plotted and worked, and she was close to betraying her emotions. ‘Like many of you, I suspect, museums exert a fascination. As a child, I set up a button museum. Buttons being the only things which I could lay my hands on. I charged my long-suffering family sixpence to visit it. I learnt then that people love looking at objects, especially if the guiding curation behind their display gives an explanation and a coherence and connection. Who could fail to respond, one way or another, to the paintings on a cake tin that show the yearnings of a trapped housewife? Or, the picture of the grave up a Spanish mountainside which bears the inscription: “You promised not to take any risks”. What is special to the Museum of Broken Promises is the explanations. In most museums it is the experts that supply the information. In ours, it is you, the public, who do so. Our museum gives a voice to the people in a way that few other institutions provide.’