Today’s sky is a weak imitation of blue. She slips in the back door, a line cook at the brasserie in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, well-known for duck, well-known for drifters and dreamers, lovers long gone and those newly found. The man at the bar will lie his way into any woman’s good graces but that’s not her problem today, even though they talk about him in back in many languages.   Duck perfectly rendered, apricots tender and jam-like as they let go of summer to tantalize with their scent before the lunch rush, haricots verts amandine butter-basted, and if she has a few extra minutes, help the pastry chef with crème brȗlée.   Curtains sweep open to her childhood cooking with maman before the postcard— dashed off in pencil—au revoir my child, be strong, love well, you will always be in my heart. She grabs a small glass of almost-going-bad Bordeaux and a bummed-off-a-bad-boy cigarette, takes a quick break outside, torn between the touching young words of that postcard, and the yelling going on in the kitchen.   She wears drab clothes one could call military castoffs, and clogs, the footwear of all kitchen personnel. She walks the streets of the city before her shift,...