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1

With André-Philippe still not yet arrived it was left to me to inform Gaston that it would not be a formal evening of dining for the private party, that Monsieur Saupin had not even planned for entrées to be served. Gaston, although just the sous, has a temper worthy of a kitchen master; he cursed and flung a pot to the floor. (A true chef would never treat a pot in this manner, it would be an apostate act.) He shouted in a most theatrical way that he was under the impression that this was still a restaurant with a duty to prepare food, and that this food was meant to be consumed, and not to do so was akin to a criminal act, a sin of omission. "These people, these exhibitionists," he said, pronouncing his words with deliberation and tender hatred, as though overcooking an egg for an enemy, "do they not eat? Do they not breathe? They should be told to go to a burlesque house. For all I care, they can show their wares in the brothels." Gaston is, to be kind, a difficult man, but he plays an integral part in the operation of the kitchen and as the maitre d'hôtel it is my duty to forge his personality with every other one into a collective work of art. Something of true, if only transient, beauty. Didier has acknowledged this talent of mine, hailing me as 'maestro' on several occasions when the elements of our little orchestra require a firmer-than-usual hand. On this occasion I nod solicitously at Gaston, and with a practiced look of shared concern on my face I back out through the kitchen doors.

2

Under the circumstances, Monsieur Saupin wishes to have the restaurant continue in as much of a habitual way as possible. It is the busiest time of the year and to close down even a part of the restaurant is madness, but Monsieur Saupin has been taken by the idea and cannot be moved. He told me that la groupe Lumière will be seated in a large room off the Grand Salon. This area is ideal for private parties as it can be cordoned off from other parts of the restaurant and it even has its own wrought-iron stairway, useful for those patrons who do not wish to make their attendance a matter of public note. The large room off the Grande Salon has also been chosen because its huge dormers are shuttered and it is here that the light can be most easily blocked. The need for discretion - the shuttered hall, the disclaiming of any collation, the possibility of boots clambering up back stairways - has aroused interest, and some concern, in all employed at Le Grand that the activities to occur here are, to say the least, potentially unsavoury. The staff are proud to attend to, indeed, to cultivate the individual tastes of our patrons, and while we and they implicitly trust Monsieur Saupin not to bring the restaurant into disrepute, I had to admit to le gerant that they are upset that no meal will be served, as the evenings before Jour de l'an are amongst our busiest and the gratuities bestowed are very much in keeping with the generous spirit of the festive week. No one can imagine gratuities being dispensed in a darkened room, from patrons who have not been fed. Monsieur Saupin flushed when I raised this point during our review of the dinner menu for the other patrons. He took a moment to collect himself - during which I feared for my position for it could be considered that I was overstepping the bounds of propriety - before saying that arrangements had been made and anyone serving this party would be more than adequately rewarded.

3

It is late morning before I can relax; my first rest since daybreak. The café is nearly empty save for the party at table 14 lingering over their long-emptied cups, given over to that feeling of having stayed in each other's company for too long yet not knowing quite how to disperse. The waiters glare professionally at them from a safe distance. I do not mind these stragglers though, nor do I mind the waiters' disdain for them, because it occurs to me that all of this seems perfectly logical for this time of the morning. Once I would have said that such a moment was supposed to appear this way, that it was intended, but Didier has convinced me that saying such things is old-fashioned. He has taken it upon himself to educate me in the ways of the great philosophers, like our countryman, Henri Bergson, a name I did not recognize two months ago but whose work Didier swears will change my life, despite my assertion that I need no such changes. Nonetheless, Didier has given me his copy of Bergson's work. I am flattered by his thinking that I have an appreciation for such things - my experience comes not from the lycée but from the daily placations of the hungriest of Parisian intellectual society - but Didier tells me that this work is being read by men like me, even carried about in the coat-pockets of stewards and clerks, read by fire and furnace light. Didier gets rather animated when he speaks like this and I try not to show embarrassment at being herded in with the mechanics and clerks. The book is interesting though, the parts of it I can make out, full of words like tension and psychology and German words that I refuse to even understand. So let me rephrase, á la Bergson, that this is not the way the café was intended to look at this moment, but rather, this is the way a café appears to me, at half-eleven, halfway between Christmas and the end of the year. Flakes of pastry. The smell of coffee. Almonds. The chill of winter held at bay. I breathe it in, all of it, a wide world of sensation. No intention, only sensation. I have a moment to exhale before Didier asks me about what he perceives as the unusual smell of les moules and whether or not I can locate an extra hundred chairs for la groupe Lumière.

4

André-Philippe arrives at two, having spent his morning at the markets. He has a list of deliveries, all of which will arrive before five when he will set to work. He is unhappy, but not in the spattering, maudit way that Gaston is; rather, he is melancholic over the state of fish and fowl from which he has had to make selections. Our André-Philippe is a true artist, and on days when he has been asked to paint from a palate of greys, he suffers, and we share in it with him. His moods find their way into his food. The béchamel will have a lingering broadness tonight. The patrons suffer gloriously with him; his passion is accepted as a measure of his artistry, the kitchen his Gethsemane.

5

The Lumière party begins to arrive at two o'clock. They have an entourage the size of which I have only seen accompanying visiting dignitaries or our more beloved stage performers. For some reason the Lumière brothers refer to the young men in their group as 'engineers'. Four of these so-called engineers carry a large wooden crate with great care through the main hall and up to my station. Behind them another member of the group saunters in: a tall man with a metal bar hooked at the end like a shepherd's staff hanging from the crook of his arm. He sniffs at the surroundings as though he were a general surveying the dimensions of a battlefield. For a moment I cannot tell if he is with the other engineers and I prepare to ask if I can assist him, but at that moment he smiles and claps another of the engineers on the back. The metal staff is handed to another, perhaps a subordinate, and they proceed past me, following Didier to the large room off the Grand Salon. Their long-coats are filthy, hemmed with the discolouration of sweat and oil, and seeing them enter rouses in me the urge to bar their entrance further, for what is the maitre d'hôtel if not the protector, the benevolent despot of his realm? But then I remember the words of Monsieur Saupin, that there will be a rich reward for all of us, for the reputation of the café itself, once the evening is over. I must trust him. The Lumière brothers leave after an hour, their smiling faces tell me that they are satisfied with the preparations. They stand on the steps outside the café for several moments, as though studying the afternoon sky. It is the colour of dishwater, greyer than that, of flatware in a sink of water. It is a haze that promises snow.

6

The Lumière brothers return at half-six amid considerable excitement. Didier, who is from Lyon and who has relatives working in the Lumière factory there, whispers to me as Louis and Auguste pass us. Louis is the younger but the more formidable of the two. Didier tells me that he invented a photographic process while still in his teens that turned his parent's Lyon studio into a flourishing industrial concern. It is said that what the world knows of France is known through the plates of les Frères Lumière. Auguste limps somewhat, but still has a commanding presence in his own right.

7

As my attentions were fully focused on my duties elsewhere in the restaurant I had not been able to supervise the seating of patrons in the large room off the Grand Salon. It appeared that there was a group loitering around the large entrance doorway and I at first assumed that the doorway had not yet been opened. It was then, remembering the importance placed on this occasion by Monsieur Saupin, that I ventured over to see if I could be of assistance. The doors, however, had been opened and those at the entrance had been there because the room had already been fully occupied.

8

It is unnatural to see the room so dark, even on a late afternoon in winter. I cannot see how many have come to this gathering but assume there are a hundred souls in the room, which is as dark as a cavern, as cold as a cave. A light flickers on the far wall and for a moment I assume that Didier or someone else has started a fire in the fireplace. It is not a fire.

9

It is as though a wave passes through us, as though we are standing on a pier and are swept away. I see the movement of heads, a set of hands flies up, people turn to run and in a moment I am outside the door, sprawling under patrons who exclaim to God that this cannot be happening. I lift myself to my feet and re-enter the room, pushing past onlookers, because I am the maitre d'hôtel and until Monsieur Saupin arrives I am responsible for whatever is provoking this mayhem.

10

It is women. Spectral women. Forms that hover and move, stepping out of a door that opens. Yes, from that darkness these women emerge. Cheers erupts from the crowd and a man at the front of the room walks up to these moving women, placing his hand on the courtyard dust that they walk upon, as though wishing to touch them. C'est fou, he knows it as well as I do, but he cannot bring his hand down. He runs his hand over the courtyard floor and seems surprised to find a wall there. He pats the wall tenderly and then thumps it as if angered that it will not yield the touch of these simple women, angered that it is still just a wall. He turns to the crowd, stupefied. More cheers. Uproar. Then the light is on him and he is in covered in the courtyard dust, the hems of skirts brushing over his face, his face, which we can still plainly see. I can see him through the movement of these women and then I think that these are certainly ghosts and that I must avert my eyes to save my eternal soul, but I cannot look away.

11

Blackness. Silence for a moment and then tumult. Shouts for Louis and Auguste to explain themselves. The lamps are lighted. The relief of the gas flame and the familiar shadows it casts. The largest shadow cast is that of Louis who stands at the front, arms in the air to silence the uproar. For a moment I feel that all this is beyond my abilities to control. Where is Didier? I look for him as Louis clears his throat. I pray that he will clear the room. A broad smile crosses his face. Mesdames et Messieurs! Encore, La Sortie des Usines Lumières!

12

Hats are thrown into the air, their shadows like bats in momentary flight.

13

A large projected photograph, a grey square on the wall, in it another wall is seen, this with a set of doors. At the right edge of the picture there is the most miraculous thing, movement of leaves, waving so, so like a tree that I look for the continuation of its branches in the darkness that borders it, and when I cannot see it I feel a despair and exhilaration that I only remember from childhood.

14

The doors swing open to gasps and applause. From the darkness the women move again, turning to the right and left. One of the women looks at me and I turn my eyes to the ground, embarrassed to see a peasant woman dressed such as this, caught unawares.

15

I cannot stay. I glance around to see all in the room are held rapt. Didier has reappeared, beside me, tears on his cheeks. I cannot stay. I turn to him and he brushes them away. I miss Lyon, he says, not taking his eyes off the screen.

16

The sixth time it is as though we were listening to a familiar piece of music. The ghosts are no longer threatening but now enchant us. We watch their graceful movements, uncommon for peasant women, and sigh as it ends.

17

The engineers work furiously on the machine, the cinématographe, as Louis Lumière calls it, trying to bring other images from it. There is silence as Lumière stands at the front of the hall, Et maintenant, L'Arrivée d'un Train en Gare de la Ciotat! I have no idea what he means.

18

I cannot breathe. The frantic movement of limbs obscures my view of the train that speeds towards us, hurtling through this wall to destroy the café and consume everyone inside. I am knocked off my feet but I see it, now from the side, as though we had been bodily thrown off the tracks. I can feel the steam, sense the impending impact but nothing happens. The wall is black again and the train is gone, its burst of steam now a cloud somewhere else.

19

A comedy. A horse trotting. A world apart from anything we know. There is a world where we thought there was nothing. I want to say this to Didier but he is gone, pushing among the crowds thronging les Lumières, wishing to shake their hands, hoisting them high and carrying them on shoulders. "It is not real," a man behind me says out loud but to no one in particular, as though trying to convince himself of the proposition.

20

André-Philippe stands near the doorway, transfixed by the images that continue to fill up the far wall. As if to break the spell cast on me, I force myself to tell him that we must return to the dining room and kitchen. He looks at me vacantly, as though not knowing who I am.

21

The Grande Salon is full of people and kitchen staff straining to perceive the cause of this sensation. It is an effort to get through them but once I do I see the tables, abandoned food and glasses half-full, candles burning as though nothing had occurred. Aside from Gaston sitting at the back door smoking, the kitchen is empty, not a soul to witness pots still on the boil and the smell of meals imminently becoming cinders. It has been abandoned as though to an invading army.

22

Eventually the cinématographe is packed away and the Lumière brothers leave to a thunderous ovation. The diners return, stunned and perplexed, to their seats. They lift their utensils to address food that simply sits on the plate. A pall is cast. I can feel it as well. Even my clothes feel strange - ill-fitting, tight and loose at the same time - and while I am not in any way tired I am anxious to finish this evening's work. The kitchen is in disarray, Didier and André-Philippe are nowhere to be found. But Gaston remains steadfast in the kitchen, his contempt for the activities this evening well matched by his poor eyesight and so he has not been in the least tempted by the spectacle, not witnessed anything extraordinary tonight except his promotion amidst the mutiny of his confreres. He rages at the remaining kitchen staff who have drifted back to their stations, announcing to them through his hectoring the arrival of a new regime, a new age. Everything is different, even Gaston: he is now a happy man in this echoing kitchen. I check my watch. Monsieur Saupin will arrive soon. I don't know what to tell him.