by Nan Lyons
Line the inside of the shell with heavy aluminum foil. Press the prongs of a fork through the foil and dough repeatedly, an Inch apart each time, covering the bottom. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
WHITE-CHOCOLATE MOUSSE
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
4 ounces white chocolate, chopped
1 cup whipping cream
Beat eggs until blended. Stir in sugar, then lemon juice. Cook in the top of a double boiler, stirring occasionally until thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and stir in white chocolate until melted. Set aside to cool, stirring occasionally. Whip cream to firm peaks, cover and chill until needed. Fold cooled lemon mixture into whipped cream. Reserve 1/3 of the mixture and spread the rest evenly Into the prebaked shell. Chill for 1 hour.
FINISH
1 pint strawberries
1 pint blueberries
1/2 pint raspberries
1/2 pint red currants
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon fruit pectin
4 ounces white chocolate
1 cup whipping cream
Wash the berries separately by submerging them in cold water. Drain and dry on separate towels. Alternate rings of raspberries and strawberries from the center of the tart out, leaving a ring of mousse visible between each ring of berries. The final outer ring of the tart should be about 2 inches wide. Fill with blueberries. Put the remaining 1/3 of the mousse mixture into a pastry bag and pipe over existing mousse rings to make them level with berry rings. Cover and chill until ready to serve.
Crush the currants in a blender or food processor. Combine in a stainless steel saucepan the currants, sugar, and water. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Cook until sauce coats the back of a spoon, about 15 minutes. Stir in pectin, remove from heat, and strain, discarding the skins. Set aside to cool.
Cut chocolate into small pieces and place in the top of a double boiler, covering top with plastic wrap. In the bottom of a double boiler, heat water to a simmer. Turn off heat and place pan with chocolate on top. Let stand until chocolate is almost melted. Remove plastic and stir with a metal spoon until completely melted. Spread evenly, 1/8 inch thick, over a piece of parchment or wax paper. Set aside to harden. Using a small star cutter, cut 24 stars. Place 12 evenly around the outer ring of blueberries on the tart.
Cut tart into 12 servings, each containing a star. Whip cream to firm peaks. Center servings on individual plates, pour currant sauce on the side, and pipe a whipped-cream rosette next to each serving. Finish with another white-chocolate star against rosette.
ALEC GORDON stood up and waved at Miss Beauchamp as she entered the domed salon at the Ritz in London. His former secretary, the woman he had married by proxy in order to protect the van Golk fortune, the only person other than Enstein who knew that his death had been staged, was meeting him for tea. Meeting Alec Gordon. A friend of van Golk’s. If he could fool her, he could fool anyone.
Beauchamp (pronounced Beechum) was a riot of beige. Everything about her was colorless, from her tan fedora to her sensible shoes. She was one of those women who looked fifty the first day of kindergarten.
Alec stood up nervously and extended his hand. “Miss Beauchamp?”
Her grip was tight. She stared intently at him. “What news?”
Alec smiled. “Won’t you sit down?”
Beauchamp nodded. She pulled her chair close and spoke in a hush. “Is he all right? I’m so worried. He won’t take my calls. He doesn’t answer my letters. The last time I heard from him was nearly a year ago.” She burst into tears. “A three-word telex.”
Alec nodded. “ ‘Send more caviar.’ ”
She gasped. “How is he?”
“Quite fit, actually.”
“If only I could be certain. Can you help me? I must see him.”
“Of course.”
Beauchamp’s mouth dropped open. “ ‘Of course’? When?”
“Right now.”
She put a hand to her breast. “He’s here? In London?”
“Yes.”
Beauchamp whispered, “He escaped?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Where is he?”
“Here.”
Beauchamp moved her lips, barely making a sound. “Here? At the Ritz?”
Alec leaned forward and took her hand. “Here. At this table.”
Beauchamp paused to process what she had heard, then pulled back and sat straight up in her seat. She narrowed her eyes. “Mr. Gordon, what is it you’re up to?”
“I believe I’m up to tea.”
Alec had won. His heartbeat was extremely rapid, but he had learned through years of Enstein’s probing and his own revelations that no one could see into his heart. The nearsightedness of human perception was shocking. The only person in the world who had loved Achille van Golk could not recognize him at arm’s length. Not that he hadn’t wanted to fool her, not that he was surprised he had, but deep down, where the ghost of Achille still haunted him, he was disappointed.
“We’re ready to order,” he said, raising his hand and stopping the waiter. “Where do you get your smoked salmon these days?”
The young waiter looked up and smiled. “I beg your pardon?”
“Norway? Scotland? What part of the North Atlantic?”
“I don’t know, sir. But it’s very good. Everyone likes it.”
“What reassuring news. But I still wish to know where it comes from.”
The waiter was flustered. “From the kitchen, sir?”
Beauchamp stood up and pointed a finger at Alec. “What is this game you’re playing?”
Alec turned to the waiter. “Madam is about to faint. Bring some water.”
“Still water, sir, or sparkling?” the waiter asked nervously.
“Definitely still,” Alec said as Beauchamp began to tremble.
“If you’re a reporter, you’ll get nothing out of me!” she shouted.
“Evian or Malvern?” the waiter whispered.
“For God’s sake, not Malvern!” Alec snapped. “The only person who drinks that slop is the Queen.”
The waiter hesitated. “With lemon, sir?”
“No.”
“Ice?”
“And just what is the point of bottled water with ice?”
“I don’t know, sir!” He raced over to the bar.
Beauchamp clenched a handkerchief between her teeth to keep from screaming. “How did you get my name?”
“It was scratched on the pyramid at Giza. For a Good Time, Call Beauchamp.”
“Are you having a good time?” she sobbed. “Oh, please. Tell me about him. How does he look? Is he getting enough to eat? Tell me something. Tell me anything.”
“I am Achille.”
Beauchamp closed her eyes and slid to the floor.
TWO HOURS LATER, in Alec’s corner suite overlooking Green Park, after having heard the Achille-Alec story twice, Beauchamp sat on the bed, staring blankly at her sensible shoes. “And what if I won’t?”
“Why in the world would you refuse? I thought you loved me.”
“I loved Achille van Golk. I married Achille van Golk, not you.”
“Achille was a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound homicidal maniac.”
Beauchamp began to cry again. “I know. What have you done with him?”
“He no longer exists. Achille was a devil that I have cast out. All that remains is his memory. I am finally free of his psychotic emotions and his self-destructive tendencies.”
She sobbed loudly. “His rapier wit. His exuberance. His thirst for perfection at any cost. That uncontrollable Rabelaisian appetite. Gone. All gone.” She was suddenly defiant. “Do you really believe it’s possible? Can one simply pick a new personality off the shelf as one does a box of breakfast cereal? Yesterday you were Mr. van Golk. Today you are
Mr. Muesli.”
“Hardly. It took five years. A psychiatrist, two physical therapists, a dietician, a plastic surgeon, a speech therapist, a nutritionist . . .”
“And now you wish me to become Mrs. Muesli?”
“No. Mrs. Alec Gordon.”
“Do you love me?”
“Beauchamp, do not count the ways. I am marrying you for my money.”
“Love’s plaything.” She shrugged. There was no use fighting. “But there are medical tests . . . various applications.”
Alec sat next to her. “The insurance agent last week?”
“Yet another setup?”
“Beauchamp, I have always taken care of you.”
“Achille van Golk has always taken care of me.”
“You shall continue to be a rich woman. Since you have no family and friends, you and your budgie, Henry the Fourth — ”
She sniffed. “Poor Henry died.”
“Oh, I am sorry. Did you get another?”
She nodded. “Henry the Fourth, Part Two.”
“You and Henry will be taken care of for all your days. I’ve already given you my flat on Curzon Street, and you are due a substantial pension from the magazine.”
“I do not intend to stop working at Lucullus.”
“Nothing could be further from my mind. I shall require references from you. For Alec Gordon.”
“So. I am to give you your past and your future.”
“Yes.”
“In return for my lonely old age.”
“Beauchamp, you were lonely as a child. You were lonely as an adult. You have had a lonely middle age. I am offering you warmth in winter, food, dignity, and hand-embroidered linen.”
“Where will you go?”
“To America.”
“Of course.”
Alec stood up and offered her his hand. “The vicar is in the next room. My plane leaves in two hours.”
“I boarded the number 31 bus as Mrs. van Golk, and I am to go home as Mrs. Gordon.”
“Beauchamp, I am hardly a savage. I hired a car and planned to drop you off on my way to the airport. Or, since the suite is already paid for, you may spend your wedding night here. Take an extra day or two. What does it matter?”
She began to cry again. “You will fool everyone, you know. It’s quite a clever disguise. There is barely anything of Achille left.”
“I shall tell the vicar we are ready.”
Beauchamp grabbed his hand. “No! We are not ready yet!”
“I have been very generous.”
“With everything but yourself.”
“Beauchamp!”
“I shall have been twice married and still a virgin.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“Did the plastic surgeons touch your lips?”
“No.”
“I thought not.” She pulled him close. “Kiss me. I shall close my eyes and remember you just as you were.”
Alec hesitated. But after all, he too could close his eyes. He glanced at his watch. He was determined to make that plane. He leaned over and kissed her.
“Achille,” she whispered.
Natasha, he thought.
LUCULLUS
95 Curzon Street
London WCI 45G9
To Whom It May Concern:
It gives me great pleasure to introduce Mr. Alec Gordon.
For the past six years, Mr. Gordon has been employed by this magazine as Executive Assistant to both the late A. van Golk and his successor, Ms. B. Fairchild. We regret his decision to resign in order to return to his native country, the United States of America.
Mr. Gordon was responsible for maintaining Mr. van Golk’s impeccable standards of culinary reportage during the calamitous period after the latter’s unexpected departure. It is a tribute to Mr. Gordon that he performed this task seamlessly. Indeed, his words, and deeds, flowed with such piercing accuracy that it was impossible to identify where Mr. van Golk left off and Mr. Gordon began.
How we shall miss Alec Gordon! He is a modem Brillat-Savarin, and the entire food world is indebted to his break-through investigations into the renaissance of root vegetables, the origins of gluttony, and the synergy between Yorkshire pudding and the Battle of Hastings.
We wish him well in applying his unique talents to the great chefs of America.
Respectfully yours,
M. E. Beauchamp
MAXIMILIAN (MILLIE) OGDEN winced as he watched the black-kimonoed Japanese waitress with a painted white face and painted black lips tear the head from a live prawn. She held its writhing body between the perfectly parallel thumb and forefinger of one hand while she picked off each leg. Then, as the prawn went into spasms, she placed it on a sizzling hot rock, using two long chopsticks to hold down the convulsing corpse. Millie turned in horror to his hostess, Mrs. Nakamura, seated on the hard wooden bench next to him.
Areiko Nakamura had appeared at Fuji Food headquarters immediately after her husband’s funeral and taken his seat as head of the board. No one had dared risk offending her by calling for a vote. She was at least fifty, possibly sixty, and still dazzlingly sensual, with the promise of erotic pleasures offered by women in Shunga prints. Catching Millie’s glance, she enunciated carefully through blood-red lips, “Ishiyaki.”
“Ishiyaki,” he repeated, wondering whether it had something to do with the prawns or whether she was coming on to him.
“Ishiyaki means shrimp on stone.”
“Some presentation. How the hell did Martha Stewart miss this one?”
Mrs. Nakamura began to smile and instinctively put a hand over her mouth. She cleared her throat and, as she continued laughing, removed her hand in a bold gesture of liberation. “I buy her books. I believe they are published by Random House.” Mrs. Nakamura opened her mouth wide to show her perfectly capped teeth.
“You’ve read Martha Stewart?”
“She is funnier than Erma Bombeck.” A pause. “McGraw-Hill, I believe.”
Millie, vice president of American Good Foods, was in Tokyo. Specifically, he was in the $450-a-head Shumegawa restaurant, on the tenth floor of a greenish building across from the Sony building — the exact translation of the address given to his driver. Shumegawa, like the Sony building, was basically a samurai compound. One entered through a low doorway that led to a narrow, dark, pebbled passageway studded with rings cut from trees. The sounds heard along the shadowy path were those of water dripping into a small pond filled with bearded black fish, the grunts of shoeless businessmen drinking premium Scotch in their private bamboo dining rooms, and the whine of an ancient koto as headless prawns danced on hot rocks.
The waitress speared the ishiyaki with wooden skewers, tucked them into maple leaves, bowed, and backed out of the room. Mrs. Nakamura picked up her leaf and bit into the prawn. “Aaaah!”
Millie looked around. At four hundred and fifty bucks, they could give you a piece of lemon or a little tartar sauce. Where the hell was Mrs. Paul when you needed her? “You eat it plain?”
Mrs. Nakamura picked up Millie’s leaf-wrapped prawn and held it to his mouth. “Ocean and land. What more do you want?”
He bit into the naked prawn while staring at her surgically rounded eyes. “A little ketchup?”
Mrs. Nakamura smiled and opened her purse. She took out a solid gold Dunhill cigarette case. Millie reached for his lighter and held the flame close. While inhaling, she ran her finger across the enamel. “Dupont. The Regency series?”
“It was a gift.”
“Only life is a gift, Ogden-san. The rest is shopping.” She held the lighter close to read the inscription. “Who is Natasha?”
“My ex-wife.”
“How ex?”
“About as ex as she can get.”
She reached for his tie. “Hermès?”
“Who else?”
Mrs. Nakamura pulled gently on the tie, bringing him close. She kissed Millie on the lips, inhaled deeply, and whispered, “Monsieur Givenchy?”
She let go, took a deep puff on her cigarette, and blew smoke into his face. “Gauloise.”
Millie coughed. “The best.” He cleared his throat. “I can’t tell you how honored I am that you would see me, considering your husband’s recent death.”
Mrs. Nakamura glanced at her oyster Rolex. “Why don’t we cut the shit? My husband was a short fat pig.”
Before Millie could think of anything to say, the waitress reappeared with a large platter of tiny deep-fried fish with big black eyes. “Well, well, and what’s this?” he asked, desperate to change the subject.
Mrs. Nakamura picked up a whitebait by the tail and dropped it into her mouth. “Southern-fried sperm,” she said.
Millie sat back. “My favorite.”
Smiling, she held a whitebait to Millie’s mouth. “You don’t want to insult the cook.”
“They’re not cooks, they’re executioners.”
She began to laugh again. A low, guttural, lewd laugh. “You are very amusing, for an American.”
Millie bit into the whitebait and swallowed it. He didn’t like being amusing for an American. He had too much at stake. Eight months of work on the Fuji Food deal when the fax came that the short fat pig had dropped dead before signing the papers. Millie’s plan to refinance AGF was dependent upon the Fuji contract. He had a cargo plane full of deep-fried Pretzel People, chocolate bran muffins, and Space Tacos waiting to be flown to Tokyo, unloaded, and replaced with the frozen TV sushi dinners that he had convinced AGF would capture the U.S. market faster than salsa.
“Mrs. Nakamura . . .”
“Not that tone, Odgen-san. It is most unattractive, even for a hairy white man.”
“I’m not all that hairy.” Millie was in his middle forties, tall, clean-shaven, with a large aquiline nose and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. His Cary Grant hair, he called it.
She took his hand as though it were an intensely intimate act. “I have recalculated the distribution figures based upon my buying a fleet of planes.”
He pulled his hand back. “Are you kidding? Why would you buy your own planes?”
“Kazuo and my father were pilots during the war.”