'Pauvres!' said the owner from behind the bar, meaning you poor starving things, a fine Parisian irony twinkling in her tight smile. They polished that off in short order and ordered two more.

She was back in a moment with bowls of milky coffee, a flute - the slimmest loaf with the most crust - cut into rounds, and saucers of white butter and peach jam. 'Two breakfasts, please,' Khristo said to the owner when she came out from behind the bar. Khristo and Aleksandra seated themselves at a small table by the window, shivering as the warm air drove out the chill, inhaling the luxurious morning fog of strong coffee, tobacco smoke and bread. For she was, if only for a moment, some girl they'd once loved.

She was so titi - the classic Parisian street urchin, given to storm - blown passions yet impossibly adorable - towing her coatless lover into a café so early in the rainy morning, so delighted with her own eccentricity yet so vulnerable - blond shag hanging down to her eyes - that every one of them felt obliged to desire her. The workingmen in the cafe acknowledged her entrance with great affection. To top it off, she was smoking a thin, gold Turkish cigarette. She peered out at the world from beneath a yellow straw hat - a 'boater,' with circular crown and flat brim - wore a green wool muffler looped around her neck, and was lost in the immensity of Khristo's sheepskin jacket while he made do with a heavy sweater. Every eye went to Aleksandra as they entered. It meant they had to get dressed all over again and go out in the rain, joining the early workers in the cafe on the corner.

He is a master at creating mood - mood so bewitching that for a moment, you feel as if you're there in Paris, in the dim bistro, way back in the corner booth, sipping your Chateau Margaux. His stories tend to be set in Paris on the eve of World War II. Furst's novels have been likened to works of Graham Green and John le Carre. The scent just whisked me away.įor me, the books of Alan Furst conjure a similar magic. I didn't just recall being in Nice with Nicole for a moment, I was there - I felt viscerally like that 15-year-old kid who was in love for the first time. Years later - I must have been in my early 20s - I stepped into a perfume shop in Boston and smelled that particular scent. I remember what she wore, even the way her hair smelled - like lavender. We spent one full day together, just the two of us, lying on the beach in Nice. When I was 15 years old, I spent part of the summer in France, and I fell in love with girl named Nicole. Jake Halpern is the author, most recently, of the novel Dormia.

Furst night soldiers