Vanilla Salt (3 page)

“Right. Òscar told me. First of all, I’ll show you your room. It’s very simple, but I’m sure you’ll be able to give it a personal touch. Good cooks like to live in pleasant surroundings, and I’m told you’re a very good cook.”

There is a challenge lurking in the final comment. While they were talking at the table, Àlex looked at Annette’s hands, which betrayed the truth: this woman has never cooked. She might have cooked at home, but she’s no professional. A chef can easily spot hands which have cooked, and Annette’s show no signs of war with the stove, or scars of old burns inflicted by the oven, no souvenirs of deep cuts or of fingers martyred by icy water, no flesh made rubbery by handling fatty meat and, most important, he doesn’t see the light movements of a chef’s hands.

“I like a lot cook. I no know Catalan cook. I want learn,” Annette replies, avoiding his gaze.

Àlex sees it all too clearly. She hasn’t got a clue about professional cooking. What’s more, she doesn’t speak Catalan. He’s never worked with a woman and, to make matters worse, this one’s going to be hanging round the restaurant all day long. This whole bloody thing is a nightmare – or, still more alarming, it’s going to end up as a nightmare! Well, there’s no way around it: he has no choice. He has no help in the kitchen, no waiter, no dishwasher and, in fact, no customers. Maybe this inscrutable, freckled redhead Annette has brought a bit of happiness tucked away in her pocket, an idea or two in her suitcase, a kiss of life for the cemetery that Antic Món has now become.

They go upstairs to the bedrooms, Annette leading and Àlex, who has the good manners to offer to carry her case, behind her. What the hell has this woman got in there, a male mannequin? No, a male mannequin is light, and this suitcase weighs more than a Girona bull! He’s about to come out with one of his more oafish remarks, but bites his tongue, surprising himself. What’s going on? Has he gone soft all of a sudden?
Why is he being nice to Annette? He addresses her with the polite
vostè
, carries her bag which weighs a ton and refrains from cussing. Shit, this is no good. This woman will have to get used to him and not the other way round. But this bum, so round, soft and generous, the bum of a proper woman, of a woman who’s slept in feather beds and sleeping bags in tents, who’s familiar with other cultures… this bum climbing the stairs, reminding him somehow of busy beaters whipping up egg white, this bum right before his eyes, so close it’s almost touching his eyelashes and eyebrows, lighting up desire, this bloody bum that’s making him feel so damn flustered.

Annette is shocked into silence when she sees the grotty room. Although, owing to her present circumstances, she’d settle for living in a wardrobe, this hole-with-a-window in which she’ll have to live is hardly reassuring. It needs a thorough clean and a coat of paint. For the time being, she’ll hang up the photos she’s brought from home. She’s also packed half a dozen of her favourite books, which will help to transform this tiny, gloomy dump into a sanctuary for memories of her beloved Quebec.

“Remember, you’re here to cook, and we open the dining room in two hours. I’ll wait for you in the kitchen. I’ve got to go and check the kid in the oven.” Àlex’s hospitality comes to an abrupt end.

Annette needs a moment to get her emotions under control and decides to open up her suitcase and take out a couple of things. It’s a way of giving herself time to digest Àlex’s behaviour. After the few blunt words they’ve exchanged, it’s clear that this relationship’s not going to be easy. Àlex isn’t willing to make it easy but, on the contrary, wants to set off the spark that will ignite the conflagration, after which he can watch her leave. Out the door. Lugging her heavy suitcase.

What Àlex doesn’t quite understand is that Annette literally has nowhere to go, which is a powerful reason for her to put in some time
decorating the unwelcoming room to make it her own, as a kind of declaration of intent. Like the Canadian maple, she wants to put down deep strong roots in Antic Món. Photos and books come out of her suitcase, and also a Mayan rain stick, an album of pressed flowers, a box full of all kinds of spices, a Quechuan mate gourd and a peanut necklace. The most highly prized item of all is placed on the rough-hewn table: the computer with which she can connect up with her friends all round the globe, follow the most interesting food blogs and chat on Facebook. The computer is her window onto the world, and the anonymity afforded by the screen is her way of amusing herself. Hiding behind keyboards and pixels, she is Madame Escargot. She’d love to connect right now, but she has to go down to the kitchen.

The kid’s been slowly browning in the oven for the past hour and a half. The most important part is the marinating process, with garlic, onion and mustard, which took all last night. Then it is condemned to solitary confinement in the oven, where all the aromas blend together. Àlex watches over it adoringly. Seeing how the colour keeps changing reconciles him with the world. The kid perfectly expresses his idea of the way things should work. There are certain determining factors: kid, oven, time. And an evident result: beautifully browned kid. If everything was so wonderfully reasonable, so empirically simple and logical, life would be comprehensible and he’d learn to love it. But things don’t work like that. Even if he invests the necessary factors, his milieu is hostile and consequences are unpredictable.

Àlex is so absorbed by the kid that he doesn’t hear Annette silently entering into the kitchen.

Àlex jumps. “Shit a brick! You scared the wits out of me,” he yells.

“Sorry, Senyor Àlex.”

“And don’t bloody call me senyor. Just call me Àlex,” he grumbles.

Then he bursts out laughing. What the fuck is she wearing? What a sight she looks! What the hell does she think she’s doing dressed like that?

Annette’s wearing her cooking apron, the one she wears at home. It’s patchwork with frills. She looks like a country singer disguised as one of the Tatin sisters. He’s never seen a woman in such a ridiculous get-up.

“Er, excuse me, this thing you’re wearing… is it some kind of traditional dress in your country? Hang on a minute, I’m going to get my shepherd’s pouch, clogs, sash and red cap and we’ll dance the
sardana
while you sing country. This is a joke, right? You don’t really think you’re going to cook like that, do you? For Christ’s sake, this is a high-class kitchen!”

Annette hasn’t understood much of the tirade, but Àlex’s face says it all. It seems he doesn’t like the apron she’s brought from home. He throws a white chef’s apron at her saying, “Go back to your room, take off that gaudy rag and come back in jeans and a clean T-shirt if you’ve got nothing better. I’ll lend you my chef’s gear, and as soon as you can you’ll have to buy your own.”

“Sorry, Senyor Àlex, clothes no important. Important is work. I want work. I no take out apron.” She is very dignified.

Now she’s done it. This is intolerable! Àlex is incensed. “Listen, who do you think you bloody are? I’m the boss in this kitchen! You get it? You will dress, cook and eat as I tell you. Go back to your room and get changed immediately.”

“No,” she replies firmly. “Cook, yes, je suis agree. Eat, aussi. Dress what like me.”

Luckily the phone rings and saves the day. Àlex looks daggers at Annette and leaves the kitchen to put a stop to the infernal, nerve-jangling racket. This woman’s really pushing her luck. When he’s answered the phone he’ll give her a good earful, tell her a few home truths. There’s nothing to stop him kicking her out right now. But something does stop
him. He won’t stand for Annette’s defiance, but then again he really likes the grit she’s shown with her answer. There’s no explanation for it, it’s not rational, but the woman’s got something that makes him feel small, like a little pea next to a watermelon. It’s not the tits or the bum, no, not that. It’s the sweet smile, the eyes, blue, sincere, but also slightly disturbing, as if they’re hiding something. A mystery.

He hangs up and goes back to the kitchen. He hears a voice singing “So long, it was so long ago. But I’ve still got the blues for you.” A lovely voice, singing to the kid.

Delighted and bemused, Àlex watches her from the doorway, knowing she can’t see him. He does that too. He also sings to the kid. Discovering that he’s not the only lunatic who sings to food is comforting, and so too is knowing that he’s got the other lunatic from the opposite side of the planet right here next to him.

“Kid have soul of blues,” Annette explains when she realizes that Àlex is watching her.

“More like Aragonese jota, I’d say.” His snigger punctures the little bubble of tenderness that has formed in the kitchen. “Come on, woman, that’s enough nonsense. We’ve got to open up right now and we’re really behind today. Do you know how to make cream-of-asparagus soup? Here’s a bunch. I don’t use cream. I make it with vegetable broth and cream cheese. It’s possible we won’t have many customers for lunch, but tonight we’ve got the Antic Món Gourmet Club. Some important people are coming. Have a look at the menu. It’s there, printed out on the table.”

They’ve only had one customer for lunch, a travelling salesman who’s turned up at Antic Món because Can Bret is full up and he doesn’t have time to wait for a table. Without even looking at the menu, he’s asked for a good salad with tomato and red pepper, steak with potatoes and vanilla ice cream.

Àlex has offered neither response nor explanation, but has simply thrown the menu at him saying he hasn’t got anything the man’s asked for: no tomato, no peppers, no potato and no vanilla ice cream. He must choose from the dishes that he, the chef, cooks for the Antic Món menu.

The salesman, hungrier than when he came in, runs off as if pursued by a thousand demons after paying a hefty sum for eggs scrambled with black chanterelles, turbot with pickled radishes and honey-and-cardamom
semifreddo
. The poor chap hasn’t understood a word on the menu. He’ll never set foot in Antic Món again. A sandwich by the roadside is much better, the gentleman thinks.

“We have to stay back to cook this afternoon. The Gourmet Club people are finicky and we’ve got to come up with something to surprise them. They’ve been coming once a month for the past five years.”

“A lot persons?” Annette asks, feigning interest.

“At first there were plenty of people, up to twenty at times. Not so many recently. Everyone gets tired of everything, and the woman in charge, the one who invented the club, Pilar, is always busy, so she doesn’t send out the information about their meetings until the last minute. Ten would be the maximum now, even on a good day. I’d like to take over the publicity side, since it’s in my interests more than anyone’s that they continue to like my cooking, but the fact is I’m hopeless when it comes to emails… Come on. That’s enough chitchat. We’ve got to get the tuna marinating and make the peach mousse.”

The gourmet dinner is spectacular. They’ve made six dishes, all of them technically complex, with harmonious flavours and intense aromas. The crowning achievement is a kind of tartare made from tuna which has previously been marinated with lime juice, ginger and pink pepper. It’s a shame that only three people turned up for
the gathering and one of them, who wasn’t feeling well, asked for boiled rice.

“No much gastronomique persons in dinner,” Annette observes, trying to suppress a yawn. She doesn’t want Àlex to see that she’s so tired she can hardly keep her eyes open, and that she’s not terribly interested in the state of health of the Gourmet Club.

“No, not many. Well, three three-toed tree toads, to be precise.”

“Toads? Where toads?”

“Forget it. It’s a tongue twister. I mean only three people have come, but the thing is, the economic crisis in this country is doing a lot of damage and people aren’t really in a festive mood.”

“Many toads this night they go Can Bret,” Annette replies.

Ouch! She couldn’t be more hurtful. But it’s true. They’ve had a lot of custom at Can Bret tonight, so the crisis is a shabby excuse that no one’s going to buy. He doesn’t know how to deal with this situation. He’s cut back in every area of the restaurant’s costs and he cooks well, bloody hell, he cooks extremely well, and everyone, especially the food buffs, tell him so. He’s not very nice to people, that’s true, and never has been. It’s precisely one of the reasons why he became a chef, so he could work in intimate communion with the stove without needing to have much truck with people. It’s his food that should speak for him, something everyone can understand. Àlex has the soul of an artist, but believes it would be too pedantic even to think about what that means. As far as he’s concerned, it’s the audience that makes the artist, the people who know how to value and consume the work. Only idiots go round saying they’re “artists”. He’s foul-tempered, bitter, a man who’s lost his bearings – plus a few more defects – but nobody can say he’s an idiot.

However, even if he’d like everyone to understand his work, he has to accept the evidence that he’s an artist for niche tastes, judging by the few people who come to eat at Antic Món. A restaurant can’t keep going
on niche tastes and it’s not just a question of economic sustainability. You have to work with fresh food and, if you can’t use it, everything, the cooking, the staff and the whole atmosphere, starts smelling stale. An empty restaurant stinks of decay.

Frank always says, “A good restaurant is a full restaurant.”

Frank Gabo is the fish supplier. Well, he’s the delivery man. He brings the freshest fish, the most succulent turbots, the finest prawns, the loveliest, most transparent squid… which Àlex is going to cook right now, even though it’s almost midnight. He’s been cooking all day long, without a break, and he’s hardly had time to sit down, either for lunch or dinner. He’s exhausted, but those squid are going to soothe away all his despair and dark thoughts. Actually, he doesn’t need calamari stew, so who’s going to eat it? Moreover, these squid are too delicate to be stewed. They’re ideal for grilling or tossing in the pan with a few vegetables. That’s what he had in mind when he chose the daintiest ones. But his spirit’s begging for a stew. He needs a couple of hours to think, get his thoughts in order, find a way out of this situation, work out whom he’s let into his space in the form of this woman, confront the present and dream up a rosier future. So tonight he’s going to make stewed calamari.