The Discovery of Chocolate (13 page)

I wanted to see the cake rise, to watch the process unfold before my very eyes so that I could fix this moment in time and remember it always. I walked across the room to open the oven door in order to relish the aroma of the chocolate as deeply as I could, to watch the mixture rise up before me. All would be well.

‘Don’t open the door!’ shouted Katharina.

It was too late.

For with these very words the mixture buckled, sagged and collapsed.

‘What have you done?’ said Trude, crossing the room to witness my calamity.

‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s ruined,’ said Katharina, pushing me out of the way, and pulling the tin from the oven.

‘You should have waited. The whole art of baking depends on temperature and patience. Do you know nothing?’

‘No,’ I replied.

No matter how long I lived my life, it seemed that I was destined to remain a man who misunderstood the art of timing.

‘Look at it,’ she cried. ‘It’s a disaster.’

The cake had buckled in the middle and now looked like an elephant’s ear. It was even thinner than when we had first placed it in the oven.

‘We’ll have to start again,’ she concluded.

Edward and Pedro bounded in from the orchard.

The boy looked at me sternly.

‘I want cake.’

‘It’s only good enough for the dog,’ said Katharina.

‘Can it not be remedied?’ I asked with an attempt at optimism. ‘Perhaps we could have a flat cake.’

‘No. It’s useless. We will have to start again. I’ll go to the hens for more eggs.’

Katharina left the room muttering a word, which I did not fully catch, but which must have been ‘imbecile’.

I looked at the sad sight before me.

There is nothing more terrifying than the contempt of children.

‘Try it,’ said Trude.

I ripped a piece and placed it in my mouth. It was warm and leathery.

Trude now tore the cake into pieces, giving some to Edward and some to Pedro, before placing a small morsel in her mouth.

‘It tastes of fish,’ she pronounced.

‘No, it doesn’t,’ I said. ‘It tastes of chocolate and egg, and perhaps a little touch of leather.’

‘Definitely herring,’ she insisted.

‘How can it taste of herring?’ I asked.

But Trude would have nothing to do with me. She threw the remaining portion on the floor, and Pedro began to tear it apart.

‘At least somebody likes it,’ said Katharina, returning to the room with six newly laid eggs.

‘Now, let’s start again. Remove the compote from the stove, and place it on the side to cool.’

I looked at the glutinous orange mixture, so dense and so rich, as if there could not be a sharper or purer concentration of apricots, and put it to one side.

Then I began to whisk the egg whites once more. As I returned to the actions of only an hour ago, and the same activity unfurled before me, it occurred to me that perhaps I would have to continue living until I learned to perform each task correctly. I would have to go on, condemned to repeat myself, again and again, until I had learned such things as never to open an oven door whilst baking. Only then might I be ready to learn about love, desire, memory,
death, and all the other things that keep people awake at night.

I thought once again of my life and its past, unable to believe that this moment in which I now lived was once the unimaginable future, and that soon, all too soon, it would become long ago. And a terrible fear then struck me: the knowledge that I did not know how many lessons I would need to learn, or what tasks I must perform, before my life might right itself and I would begin to see things clearly. I had lost the nature and purpose of my quest, and was now far adrift, like a ship without steerage, rudder or anchor, with only memory to guide me.

I looked again at the quiet concentration of the children around me, at Pedro eating the chocolate cake, at life continuing in all its detail and triviality, and began to wonder how I should live my life, and what purpose would fill my days. Perhaps I would simply have to trust luck and chance, and hope that when I had learned the true nature of my fate I might be allowed to die.

These are the thoughts a man can have whilst cooking.

And so I poured the chocolate mixture into the cake tin, and again the smell of baking welled up before me. And at last, when it seemed that there was not a single space in the room, neither crevice nor corner that was not filled with the aroma of chocolate, we opened the oven door.

The cake had risen before us.

I pulled it from the heat, and placed it on the sideboard to cool next to the apricot compote.

Edward climbed onto a stool.

‘Don’t touch it,’ cried Trude. ‘Come away from there, Edward, and play with your soldiers.’

She pulled out a box of infantry and began to line the Austro-Hungarian army up against the French. Then she took a piece of thread and divided the cake into two halves.

Katharina began to prepare the icing. She placed sugar and water in a large saucepan and brought them to the boil. Then she stirred in the melted chocolate until it began to take on a threaded appearance. She strained the icing into a smaller pan, and poured the mixture onto a marble slab. As the chocolate fell, she asked me to turn and fold it with a palette knife, so that the sauce began to thicken, firm and lighten in colour.

‘This is a vital moment,’ said Katharina. ‘Trude, bring over the torte.’

Her sister turned and let out a sudden scream.

‘Edward!’

We froze in horror.

Edward had climbed back onto the stool and had covered the entire cake in apricot compote. It glistened with a new stickiness in the early evening light.

‘What have you done?’

‘Ape-cot cake,’ he said, licking the palette knife that he had used.

‘Move,’ cried Trude, pulling Edward away. He began to yelp and cry, but he was at his sister’s mercy as she shut him in the next-door room. ‘Play in there and do not come back until we tell you.’

Edward began to wail and bang on the door, but his sisters were adamant. He was banished.

‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ Trude screamed at me.

‘I didn’t see.’

‘What good are you? What good do you do? Is there any point at all in your existence?’ shouted Katharina.

‘Are you not being harsh on your brother?’ I asked quietly.

‘You don’t know anything about children, do you?’ Katharina shrieked.

‘What are we going to do?’ wailed Trude. ‘There’s no time to make another cake. Father will be down from his rest at any minute, and Mother will be hysterical.’

‘Could we not cover the apricot with chocolate?’ I suggested.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘We have no choice,’ I continued, ‘and if we allow the apricot to settle, then apply the chocolate … look …’

‘Don’t touch it …’ Katharina shrieked again.

‘No, allow me,’ I insisted, placing the two halves of the cake together.

‘Stop it,’ said Trude, desperately.

‘No,’ I cried. ‘I will not.’

I refused to follow the orders of children and began to smooth even more apricot compote over the surface of the cake.

‘If we make this light and even …’ I said, as calmly and as authoritatively as I could.

‘Rather than sticky and messy …’ Trude broke in.

‘If we make this light and even,’ I repeated, ‘then we have a chance of success. Katharina, please continue stirring the chocolate until it is even thicker …’ I ordered. ‘The apricot will keep the sponge moist. It needs to be exactly the right consistency.’

Katharina looked at me sceptically.

‘I hope you know what you are doing.’

‘Madame,’ I said, ‘I may have only the fortune of the desperate to guide me, but if there is one thing in the world about which I know it is chocolate. For this dark liquid is the most perfect partner for all foods, and, employed in the correct manner, there is virtually no edible substance with which it cannot be eaten or drunk. I have only recently tested its taste with raspberries; there is no reason why it may not be equally effective with apricot. Now please let me pour the mixture onto the cake.’

The warm chocolate now met the glistening apricot, and I smoothed the thick dark coating across the surface.

‘Father will never have tasted such a torte,’ said Katharina, ‘and it might be too much for Mother’s nerves.’

Her sister looked out into the hall, as if either parent could reappear at any moment, and explained: ‘You see, she is driven mad by his snoring.’

‘I am sure your father will be intrigued. I am only sorry that your mother may suffer.’

‘She is always anxious.’

‘Has she not seen a doctor?’ I asked, still smoothing the chocolate. Things seemed calmer now.

‘The doctors say there is no cure for her anxiety. They give her salts and tell her to avoid excitement. Father eats for comfort, but the more he eats the less she does so.’

‘And yet they love each other,’ I said.

The children were silent. I was not sure that they should have been speaking so openly about their parents, but it seemed that in this house every role had been reversed.

‘I am sorry for them both,’ I said firmly.

At this moment Franz appeared on the stairs.

‘My wife sends her apologies,’ he called. ‘She is unhappy with too much excitement and finds the children tiring. We will be dining in the city tonight, at one of my hotels. I hope you will join us.’

‘I shall be honoured.’

Then he stopped to observe the chaos of the kitchen.

‘Now, children, what have you been doing?’

‘This man has made a cake,’ said Katharina tartly.

‘It is something by way of experiment,’ I explained. ‘The children have been most helpful.’

‘It’s very dark. And thicker than usual, it seems,’ Franz observed.

He was clearly suspicious.

‘Let me cut a piece for you, Father,’ said Katharina.

‘Very well, I will try it.’

The silver knife cut deep into the thick chocolate surface, and Katharina eased it slowly through the apricot and the sponge. After a second cut the slice was free.

Trude brought out some cream, and placed a plate in front of her father.

‘What has happened to this torte?’ exclaimed Herr Sacher. ‘It seems so moist.’

As the cake entered his mouth a delectable melange of sensation must have spread across his palate, for a feeling of utter pleasure and surprise seemed to engulf him. It was as if he suddenly understood the meaning of the word bliss. He had never tasted such a cake before, the softness of the sponge, the viscosity of the apricot, and the crispness of the chocolate combining to create a sublime sonata of gastronomic delight.

He placed the fork down on the table, made as if to speak, but then thought better of it.

He could not do so.

To speak now would only delay further pleasure.

He scooped up another mouthful, and repeated the experience.

Only after he had taken five mouthfuls in silence could he consider the possibility of speech.

He leaned back in his chair, and brought a handkerchief to his perspiring forehead.

‘This is quite magnificent,’ he exclaimed at last. ‘Apricot and chocolate. I never thought to combine them.’

Then he rose from the chair and beamed at his daughters.

‘We must all try this torte. Katharina, cut more slices. Trude, fetch your mother. Edward! Where is Edward?’

The door was opened to reveal a red-eyed boy behind it.

‘I did it, Father, and I accept my punishment.’

‘Did what?’

‘Put the apricot on the cake.’

‘Did you, my boy?’

‘I’m sorry.’

He looked small, vulnerable and defeated.

‘No … no … no. It can’t have been you,’ his father was saying. ‘It must have been Diego.’

Edward looked amazed. He could not understand how he could escape punishment.

Katharina glowered at me and said nothing, as if testing my honesty.

‘It is true,’ I admitted. Your son applied the apricot.’

Edward gaped at me in fear and hatred, as if I had betrayed him.

‘What has he done now?’ exclaimed his mother as she entered the room. ‘What has been happening in my kitchen. Will no one leave me in peace?’

‘Taste this, my darling,’ her husband urged. ‘The most extraordinary creation. We must take it to the hotel tonight and show it to the chef.’

Bertha took the warm and moist cake up into her pursed dry mouth. At once her expression changed, moving from suspicion to pleasure, as the rich delights of this accidental creation insinuated themselves into her very being.

‘Sir,’ she said, her mouth still full of cake and cream, ‘this is indeed a most remarkable invention.’