by Saygin Ersin
“Where is Kamer?” the cook asked her. She said nothing, so he asked again, “Where is Kamer?”
Again she said nothing, but not because she was hiding anything or trying to think up a lie. Rather, she didn’t seem to know how to tell him the truth. The cook’s trembling hand started sliding from her arm to her neck. Şehandan said in a low whisper, “She’s not here.”
That possibility had never occurred to the cook and he looked at her in confusion.
“She’s not here,” Şehandan repeated. “Kamer never came to Alexandria.”
Then she began to explain.
When the girl’s whispering howl of truth concluded, nothing was left of the cook but a lonely, faded shadow. He felt like the vapor of a potion in an uncorked bottle. His mind and soul were suddenly so empty and his very being was lost in a void so great that if he were to dissolve into the molecules that made up his body and blow away, it would have meant nothing to him.
Şehandan told him:
How Kamer never traveled to Alexandria, because she never left Istanbul.
How it was all a ruse devised by Sirrah.
How Kamer was locked up for days so that the cook would think she had left, how she was beaten and forced to write that farewell letter.
How one of the authors of that farce had been Sirrah, and the other was Master Adem.
That which caused both Sirrah and Master Adem to have sleepless nights was one and the same: the love affair between the cook and Kamer.
Sirrah was certain that her most valuable girl would slip from her grasp all for the sake of a cook because Kamer had screamed the truth in her face, saying she was in love with the cook and would elope with him the first chance she got.
As for Master Adem, he was afraid he would lose his Pasha of Cuisine. He knew that as long as he was enamored of Kamer, the cook would never set out on his journey of learning and thus never become the Pasha of Cuisine, who was the last hope of an old cook who had squandered his life and his talent.
Darıcızade Mahmud Bey had descended upon the House of Pleasure like a savior. The plan was that Sirrah would receive a sizeable payment in exchange for her favorite girl, and the cook would set out on his travels after a few days of mourning. They were both still young, young enough to forget each other and fall in love again. Kamer did not want to go to Alexandria, but that was a trivial detail for Sirrah.
However, Mahmud Bey’s dear old father had put his foot down. He made it clear in no uncertain terms that he would not accept a daughter-in-law who came from the House of Pleasure, especially a dancer. Mahmud Bey apologized to Sirrah again and again, purchasing a dozen girls for his harem from the House of Pleasure to soothe his disappointment and have something to take his mind off Kamer while he was in Alexandria, and then he went back home.
That was when Sirrah devised the ruse. First, she locked Kamer up and told everyone that she would be going off to Alexandria with Mahmud Bey. The only remaining detail was to get Kamer to write the letter, but she resisted. She was beaten for days on end and still refused to write it. Just as Sirrah was about to give up, Master Adem stepped in. “If you don’t write that letter,” he told Kamer, “I will hack him to pieces in his bed tonight! I raised him myself, but that won’t stop me! He is going to become the greatest in the world. I won’t have him throw his life away for a harlot from the House of Pleasure like I did!”
Kamer looked into Master Adem’s eyes.
She looked into his eyes and she was frightened.
She was frightened and she wrote the letter.
That was how the cook discovered the truth he had been seeking, between two market stalls at the bazaar in Alexandria. He did not feel anything, because nothing was left in his life. Kamer was not there, but hidden away inside another unknown. The great secret of his art remained a mystery. And worst of all, Master Adem was gone from his life. And with him, the only place he could return to and call home had disappeared. He was alone again, and every time he ended up alone, he felt that he was in a place that was so much more desolate than the one before. Such a poisonous dejection had taken root within him that even getting angry was an arduous task. Only by thinking of Master Adem could he invoke any real feeling inside himself, and even that wasn’t pure anger; rather, it was mixed with disappointment and smelled terribly of fear, the fear of loneliness, the fear of losing his past, the fear of betrayal.
He spent the next day and the days that followed seeking an answer to the one important question in his mind: what could he do?
He had no one to turn to for advice, and he would have even settled for Master Adem’s platitudes. If he continued to chase after Kamer, he would have to leave Alexandria and lose the Master Librarian as well. But if he stayed put and tried to attain the great secret…. He didn’t even know whether he would ultimately become successful, let alone how long it would take.
That day at dawn, as he lay sprawled in a hovel by the city walls, the cook considered his position as those thoughts rushed through his mind. He had spent two nights in the ruin to escape the heat. He was covered in so much dust and dirt that he couldn’t even see the color of his clothes. His shoes were in tatters from running back and forth from the city to the hill. His beard and hair were long and scraggly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in a bed or had a proper meal. When he realized that he could stay in those ruins forever, or until he died of starvation, thirst, sickness, or until someone came and murdered him, he got to his feet. He finally managed to murmur to himself, “I won’t die like this!”
He bought a new set of clothes and something to eat with the last of his money, went to the hammam, and then made his way to the harbor. Finding a ship headed to Istanbul would not be a problem. The real problem was finding a ship that was sailing to Istanbul and also needed a cook.
Thanks to his patience and luck, he managed to find a place for himself on a twenty-six-oar cargo galley headed to Istanbul with its hold full of wheat. According to the captain, the previous cook had gotten fed up with preparing food for all the oarsmen and sailors in the narrow galley of the ship and had disappeared in Alexandria. It didn’t take long for the cook to convince the captain to take him on; all he had to do was work a little magic with some calamari stew that the crew members were trying to cook up.
The cook enjoyed being appreciated, even if it was the appreciation of the crew of a small galley. At the same time, he was experiencing the bittersweet relief of having made a decision. He had decided to leave the Master Librarian and the great secret behind in Alexandria forever so he could find Kamer. He didn’t know what would happen afterwards, and he didn’t care. Even the prospect of spending the rest of his life as a ship’s cook did not bother him much.
Over the next few days he bought provisions for the ship with the captain, organized the kitchen, and bought the rest of the equipment he needed.
Going back to cooking cleared his mind. Once again his thoughts were filled with meats, vegetables, spices, measures, pots, and knives, and he dreamt of the dishes he could make with what they had in the ship’s hold while trying to come up with dishes that the captain and the crew would enjoy. What the cook was actually doing was trying to remember what it was like to follow his calling in life. Along with his own identity, he had forgotten the simplest thing that made him who he was: cooking.
At last the day of departure arrived. The crew gathered at the harbor and loaded the last of the provisions on the galley. They were to set sail before sunset.
The cook had picked up his sharpened knives from the grindery and was returning back to ship, thinking about a recipe for the vermicelli soup he was planning on making that night. When he arrived at the pier, he saw the captain and two officers eating and drinking at a table they had set up in a spot on the quay. As he greeted them, the captain asked, “You bought lots of cheese, didn’t you?”
The captain was extremely fond of cheese and had asked the same question before. The cook was about to reply, “We’ve
cheese of every type, sir, don’t worry” when the captain said with a childish expression of joy on his face, “The old cook used to crush some white cheese, add some basil to it, and roll it into little balls. He added lots of other spices, too. He fried them so that they would be as soft as cotton on the inside and crispy on the outside. Ah, what a scent! I don’t know how to describe it, but it was like eating spring flowers. As if …”
With a somewhat condescending look on his face, the cook was listening to the captain’s pathetic attempt to describe a certain flavor when he suddenly froze.
He had just realized something quite odd. Something he did all the time without knowing he was doing it, like breathing. He knew what the captain was trying to describe. The flavor he wanted to describe had appeared in the cook’s mind as a whispered word. That wasn’t just the case for that particular flavor. Regardless of whether he had tasted it himself, every taste and every smell on earth, and every mixture therein, had a meaningful equivalent in his mind. Those words, which existed as whispers in his mind, usually became nonsensical sounds when he said them aloud, but those words existed as a mysterious language that described flavors. And the words in his mind weren’t only created by the flavors. When he whispered them out loud, a reflection of the corresponding flavor also appeared in his mind. In that way, even if there was no food to be had, a flavor could exist as a purely cognitive taste.
The cook realized just then, a few steps from the ship, that he had been doing that for a very long time. That was the biggest secret he had discovered about himself in his entire life. He thought and thought, and then those words spoken by the Lady of Essences echoed in his mind: “Loneliness is what you feel when you miss someone calling out your name.”
Was he certain? Not in the least. Was it worth trying? By all means.
The cook started to run. With every step he prayed that the Master Librarian’s shop would be where he had left it. He hadn’t yet left Alexandria exactly, but the closer he got, the more worried he became.
When he saw the bookshop across the street, he paused and breathed a sigh of relief. After catching his breath, he walked through the door. The footprints he’d left on his previous visit were barely visible. Stepping over them, he walked toward the rear of the shop. The master was behind the large desk, just as he had left him, as motionless as the books on the shelves.
The cook approached the master and, trying to keep his voice from shaking, said, “Teach me the names of flavors.”
There was no need for him to wait for an answer. As soon as he made his request, a sparkle of hope appeared in the Master Librarian’s eyes, which told him everything he needed to know.
As the master slowly got up, his garments made rustling sounds like the pages of a book. He pushed open a door behind him, which was hidden behind some shelves, and stepped through the doorway into the secret depths of the shop. The cook followed behind him. The place was almost pitch dark, save for the weak light given off by oil lamps placed intermittently above the shelves which stretched the length of the two walls of the passageway and seemed to go on forever. There was no darkness at the end of the passageway, nor any light, only shelves and books extending into infinity and the pervading smell of books.
The master asked in his youthful voice, “Have you ever noticed how few names flavors have? Think of the languages you know. Everything has a name: air, wind, rain, snow, colors, sounds. But flavors have so few names: sweet, salty, spicy, sour, bitter, burnt, acrid…. How many others can you list? There are no more than a dozen. That is why people always explain tastes by making half-complete comparisons. They say, for example, ‘This tastes like onions.’ But ‘onion’ is not the name of a flavor, it is only the name of the plant. As the saying goes, ‘Taste begins in the mouth, but has no language.’ Or rather, that’s true for most people in the world. But a Pasha of Cuisine would laugh at such a statement, because he knows that flavors have a language all their own. He has learned that every flavor in the world can be described by its name. That is the greatest talent of the Pasha of Cuisine; it’s why he is a better cook than anyone else. He can understand flavors, and in time he learns how to communicate with them. He makes tastes docile. He raises them up and lowers them down. He toys with them. As he creates new flavors, he learns and discovers new names.”
The Master Librarian suddenly stopped and reached toward the shelf on his left. He took out a thick book bound in green leather and gave it to the cook. “This is for you,” he said.
The book was heavy. When the cook opened its cover, he saw that it was very old. The paper was so worn that it seemed it would disintegrate if he were to touch it. He looked in confusion at the small pictures inked on the page. At the time, he did not know that they were the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt.
As he turned the pages, both the paper and the writing changed. The cook recognized the Greek and Latin letters on a page that was yellowed but in better condition than the others. He kept turning the pages until he found a page he could actually read, one written in the Arabic script, and read the first word he saw in a low voice. The word meant nothing to his ears, but it made a familiar taste appear on his palate. It was the taste of raw dough, properly fermented, ready to be shaped and placed in the oven; a slightly sour, rich smell. The word beneath it was the name of freshly baked bread. It manifested not only in taste and smell, but also with a warm crunchiness. The names went on for pages and pages, and with every word he pronounced, another flavor acquired meaning and became etched in his mind. It was as if the cook was bringing to completion the souls and existence of all the flavors in the world by whispering their names. There were no words to describe the pleasure and joy he felt. If he could have, he would have read the whole book straight through in that narrow hallway until he memorized all the names.
Pointing at the book in the cook’s hand, the Master Librarian said, “The Names of Flavors. The first Pashas of Cuisine in the world wrote down the names of flavors in this book. Time passed. Flavors merged into one another: they changed, were transformed, and became other flavors. They took on new names and new meanings. The Pashas of Cuisine who came before you added each new name they discovered to those pages. Now it’s your turn to add a few names of your own.”
“Can I keep it?” the cook asked hopefully.
“Yes, for now,” the master said. “And don’t worry about returning it. When the time comes, the book will find its way back to me.”
As the cook was searching for the right words to describe his gratitude, the master pulled out another book from the opposite shelf. “Take this, too,” he said with a meaningful look. “You’ll need it.”
The cook opened the worn black cover which had nothing written on it, and looked at a few pages. A mischievous smile tugged at his lips. The master was right. The book, which contained recipes from previous Pashas of Cuisine, would be very useful to him, very useful indeed.
Before he left, he looked at the master’s deeply wrinkled face and sparkling honey-colored eyes one last time, knowing that he would never see him, or his shop, again for the rest of his life. Pressing the books to his chest, he bowed and thanked him.
“You who will add life to the lives of flavors,” the Master Librarian said. “May your path be clear and pure!”
The cook noticed a hint of warning in those parting words, as well as the fire of excitement that was slowly beginning to burn within him. He now had a great power, and he knew he had to use that power to overcome every obstacle that he might come across during the adventure he was about to undertake. He knew it would be no trouble at all to keep his path clear, but to keep it pure, he would have to be as careful as humanly possible.
He left the bookshop and dashed back to the pier, brushing aside the captain’s confused looks and curious questions with a few expertly crafted lies. That evening, the ship set sail for Istanbul.
The cook spent the first few days making rather ordinary dishes that were easy to prepare so he could spend the rest
of his time shut up in the galley, reading the books.
At the end of the third day, he made a few dishes based on the recipes from the book for the captain and his officers, and what ensued surprised him. He already knew that flavors could affect people’s emotions. Whispering the name of a flavor made it more intense, but how a flavor affected an individual depended on the person’s past and their state of mind. For example, the deck officer, who was known for being a gentle-natured person, attempted to strike up a mutiny after eating a plate of the cook’s borani. But the word that the cook whispered as he made poached eggs in boiling water had an almost uniform effect on the entire crew. Everyone felt more energized, particularly the oarsmen, and despite the strong wind blowing over the bow of the ship, they traveled twice the distance they normally would have.
Whispering the names of flavors was like rolling dice. The cook realized that only with time and practice could he gain complete power over their names and effects. He would try and he would fail, but finally he would manage to isolate those flavors which had the same effect on almost everyone, just like the Pashas of Cuisine before him had done. That was why the second book the master had given him was so important. The recipes on those pages contained combinations of flavors shaped by the pashas’ experiences, and their effects were universal. Those who came before him had written in great detail about which tastes were to be combined, which names whispered, and which flavors brought to the forefront, and they had forged a path that began with absolute tastes and ended in absolute emotional responses. It sounded fairly easy, but the mechanism they discovered was in fact exceedingly complex. Rice, for example, had a basic taste and a basic name. But when it was steamed with oil and salt, its taste and name changed, and therefore the emotions it represented also changed. When it came to entire dishes, matters got even more complicated. A plate of stuffed vine leaves, for example, was not solely vine leaves or stuffing or mint or onion. It wasn’t any of those things in isolation but all of them at once. That was where the Pasha of Cuisine’s talent came into play. Just as a conductor wields power over all sections of an orchestra and introduces subtle changes according to the audience’s mood without interfering with the basics of the music, a Pasha of Cuisine had to adjust the intensity of the basic tastes in a dish while still maintaining its overall flavor.