Mistification

by Kaaron Warren

  "In some secret cults, babies are cooked the same way," Marvo said. "Do you think they feel pain?" He wondered whether Andra had something to do with the child he sensed in his future. He knew not everyone loved and sought to protect children. He wanted to know what type she was. She held her stomach, feeling sick.

  "You can't do that to a child," she said. "You cannot eat the flesh of a child, unless you want to die within the number of years it lived. The remains of the toad should be heated again, then finely powdered. The toads can thus be taken as medicine."

  "And you cook seafood in the same way?" asked Marvo.

  Andra realised his ignorance about cooking.

  She gathered a table of ingredients.

  "This is fresh asparagus. This sea salt. Here, dry mustard, black pepper, fresh lemon. This is peanut oil, this is pure olive oil. Virgin. Free range eggs. The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans regarded the egg as an emblem of the universe, as the work of God. As a precaution, make a hole in the bottom of the eggshell before throwing it away. This stops witches from using it to wreck ships. By floating the shell they wreck the ship."

  "A hole in the shell would seem to signify a hole in the ship," said Marvo. "I thought they would like holes in the eggs."

  "They have to put them in themselves or it doesn't work," Andra said. "Would you like to know your future?" she asked.

  She took another egg and perforated the small end with a pin. Then she let three drops of albumen to fall into a basin of water.

  "There, you see?" she said, pointing at the shapes. She made her voice light. "There's you, and me, and a child." She laughed.

  "What else?" said Marvo. "Anything else you see?"

  "Not in this bowl. Perhaps next time we'll get another clue."

  "I don't like clues. I like knowledge and truth. I want to know the future." At that moment, Marvo realised he did. That this was what he needed to know.

  "I can't really tell you, Marvo. Shall we cook? Take a sufficiency of fresh asparagus. With a sharp knife slice the hard ends off the asparagus." Andra demonstrated by running the knife gently along his arm. The hairs fell to the floor in a soft shower.

  "Bring a pot of water to the boil. The water must be fresh and cold. Add a liberal shake of salt." Andra shook so liberally she spilt. Marvo licked up the salt like a cow in the desert. "Drop the asparagus into bubbling water. Do not cover.

  "Now, cook for five minutes."

  Andra made Marvo kiss her while they were waiting. He licked the salt from her.

  "Once you can pierce the stem smoothly with a poultry pin, remove the asparagus with a slotted spoon and without delay rinse under cold water. Why?"

  "To cool it off?"

  "No, Marvo. To stop the cooking and to hold the green colour. Drain well. Spread onto a clean (that is unused) tea towel to dry."

  "Finished," said Marvo.

  "No. We have a lemon mayonnaise to serve with the vegetable. In a clean white china bowl, whisk three egg yolks with a quarter of a teaspoon of dry mustard – the powdered variety; a dash of salt, a grind of pepper, two tablespoons of lemon juice. One whole lemon perhaps. Do not let it go to waste. In our case we can heat the lemon for ten seconds in the microwave; astonishingly, this releases the juices of the lemon so a frail squeeze produces all we need.

  "Mix these. With an egg beater – handheld please, beat in a cup and a half of this pure olive oil. Do not save money and buy cheap oil; it will destroy any dish you create.

  "Beat the oil drop by drop at first. The mayonnaise will thicken. Then increase the oil flow.

  "Add the grated rind from the lemon we squeezed. The jug has boiled for a mug of coffee. Add a tablespoon of boiling water to the mayonnaise.

  "Now, my mayonnaise is perfection. Yours is not. Yours has separated – see how the oil floats, an entity alone? Take another bowl. Break one egg yolk into the bowl, beat it well. Add your mayonnaise mixture to the egg, drop by drop by drop.

  "Now, you have mayonnaise. You can use the egg whites to top a pie."

  She placed her finger in Marvo's mouth.

  "Very good," he said.

  They ate the first lesson.

  "Now, Marvo, you must understand that good food takes time. It takes good ingredients and a gentle touch. It takes magic."

  Marvo knew how to cook asparagus with lemon mayonnaise. He felt ready for something heartier.

  He scrabbled beside the stove for the chocolate he hid there and they shared that as Andra spoke.

  "Bouillabaisse. The renowned French soup. The meal of families, lovers and patrons. A soup beggars dream of.

  "To begin, we need our sea creatures."

  A trip to the fish market early yielded this catch. Marvo's nose was still filled with the deep sea smell of the place. He had only smelt fish frying before.

  "Here is ocean perch, John Dory and rock flathead. Onions, celery, leek, fennel. Tomato paste, parsley, garlic. Basil could also be used, but never sniff it. Sniffing basil can invite a scorpion into the brain.

  "Red tomatoes, saffron, fresh thyme, cloves, bay leaves. An orange. Cayenne pepper. Raw sugar. Good white wine, blue swimmer crabs. Moreton Bay bugs. Mussels and prawns, green and large. Fresh crusty bread, Grand Marnier in a bottle. These, plus water, are all we need for now."

  Marvo stared at the food, hunger beating his belly at the thought.

  "Two of us need to share each fish. We cut the fins from our fish and put them aside. Using the same newly sharpened knife, we remove the heads.

  "These we put aside also. Waste is avoided where possible. Everything may be used. Cut the fish into quarters. Pour two tablespoons of oil – but don't measure, pour until it feels right – into a large pot. This size is good. A pot that reaches your elbow when you touch the bottom.

  "You have two onions, finely chopped. One half stick of celery. One whole leek. One base of fennel. All chopped finely, so that the pieces cling to your fingertips like flakes of ice.

  "Fry these vegetables for the duration of a pop song. Stir them, though. Don't dance about the room forgetting their existence.

  "Tomato paste is one commercial product so fine that to make it yourself would be foolish. One tablespoon to the vegetables and another song.

  "Add a handful of parsley, chopped to a dust. Your handful is good – mine is too small.

  "Parsley, now, can be very confusing. It comes from 'petrosilium' – sounds like a fossil fuel. It's very nice in soup, and on top of pasta. Yet it gets nasty quickly, if you leave it in a plastic bag. It can be used as an antidote to poison; though which poison is uncertain. Yet it can poison your life if you transplant it. Parsley brings bad luck in that circumstance. Parsley, when eaten in large quantities and before the condition sets in, can prevent baldness. However parsley, kept in a glass, can weaken that glass. The Greeks used it to plant on graves, because it stayed green so long. Kept those corpses' breath fresh too."

  Marvo longed to chop and chop again. He loved repetition.

  "These are the paradoxes of parsley," Andra said. "Six cloves of garlic, ends chopped off with a cleaver, crushed with the flat of the cleaver, skins easily removed. Into the pot.

  "Four tomatoes, a cross cut in their base, placed for thirty seconds only in boiling water then removed, will peel easily of their skin. Remove the seeds also, then chop coarsely and add to the pot.

  "Fennel seed, a different flavour to the fresh fennel. Half a teaspoon should be added.

  "A full packet of saffron strands. A great expense but the coloured, fake variety will destroy the dish. Put in the whole packet, saving a few strands for another dish. Toss it in recklessly and feel happy to be so extravagant. Saffron comes from the flower saffron. Each strand is the stigma of a flower. So you see how precious it is.

  "A sprig of fresh thyme. A clove. Half a bay leaf, into the pot.

  "Take an orange and a peeler. Carefully strip the peel into thin strings; once in this form it becomes zest. This into the pot. You can buy a special peeler for this purpose
; I find it wasteful to buy a utensil which performs only one service.

  "A pinch of cayenne pepper. A teaspoon of raw sugar. A dash of salt, a grind of pepper, and finally, the saved fish heads should join the pot. Stir it all. Tip it, falling and rolling so that all mixes and loves. Open a good bottle of white wine. Add most of it; five hundred millilitres. Enough left for a glass each. We will drink that as the mixture boils, once we have added enough water to cover the heads."

  Marvo and Andra sipped their wine. Marvo ensured the glasses did not empty. By the time half an hour had passed, his head was light and he felt the mist lifting from his eyes. As they moved back to the kitchen, in a suburb close by a mother drowned her baby and ran away. Further away, five suicides and a fatal car accident as the mist cleared.

  "Strain the liquid and discard the vegetable solids. Set heads aside with fins. We now have the stock. Here we have a miniature aquarium. Sea World. Two blue swimmer crabs. Two Moreton Bay bugs. Happy creatures. Immerse them in another large pot, cover with water, and slowly bring to the boil. Like frogs, they feel no pain as they die this way."

  Marvo remembered something since the last lesson. He said, "But perhaps they do. After all, frogs feel the change in temperature as we would." Marvo asked her to kill the creatures first.

  "Cut each creature in half. We have to remove the lungs and the stomach sacs. Place these with the fins and the heads.

  "Wash the creature halves in very salty water to remove any sandiness.

  "Scrub four mussels with a brush, slice away their hairy beards. Rinse also the four green king prawns. Do not peel the prawns; their cases are important to the flavour.

  "We need another pot. The one used to kill the crabs and bugs will be fine.

  "Place the mussels at the base. Cover with the prawns. Then the bugs. Then the crabs. Then the fish. Then the hot stock, strained of body parts and debris. Cover the pot. It must come to the boil and simmer for ten minutes, at which time it will be ready."

  Andra took five bowls in preparation.

  "The soup goes into two. The seafood and fish into the serving bowl. An empty bowl by each of us to take the debris from the seafood and fish. Also, a small plate for our crusty bread and our sauce Rouille."

  "How do you make crusty bread? And the sauce?"

  "Bread we will save for another lesson. The sauce is created by grinding to breadcrumbs a five-centimetre piece of French loaf, a segment from the loaf we are serving is best. Into the base of a pan throw one egg yolk, four garlic cloves, prepared as in earlier in the lesson. Saffron strands again, a pinch. The pilfered ones from the packet earlier. The breadcrumbs. Six tablespoons of the stock boiling on the stove, a pinch of salt, a dash of pepper. Process to a smooth paste. We have learnt this process already; slowly add six tablespoons of our good olive oil. It will thicken, and we will serve it with the rest of the loaf, our bowls of soup and our bowl of creatures."

  They very much enjoyed eating the second lesson. Andra slowly desiccated the fins, the heads, the lungs and the stomachs. By morning, all were nicely dried. She ground them with a mortar and pestle, tipped the granules into a jar and placed it beside many others.

  She had a lot of interesting things there. Some she took easily; others she had to fight for. She worked as hairdresser and beautician on a cruise ship once, and on board were many old sailors. She cut hair and cut nails, beautified the ugly. She did her greatest business during a storm; the crew were superstitious. They were scared to break tradition, and they would never quite believe it was safe to have their hair cut or their nails pared without the buffer of the storm to protect them. She had a suitcase full of hair and nails when she left. She had to throw her clothes overboard.

  "Are you ready for dessert?" Andra asked. "Something light, I think. Take two navel oranges and peel them – sharp knife. No white pith should remain. Slice them into two glass dishes. Pour a splash or more of Grand Marnier over each, sprinkle a little sugar as well, then we'll place them, covered, into the fridge.

  "To make caramel, we place a cup of sugar and a tablespoon of water into a heavy-based, small saucepan.

  "We turn the heat to low, and do not stir after sugar is dissolved.

  "Cook until the sugar is caramel coloured, then pour over the uncovered oranges. Recover and return for chilling."

  Marvo had given her the glass bowls. He had picked them up from a home he worked in. He couldn't help himself.

  Marvo now had a new magic. A powerful new magic.7

  They were ready to prepare a meal for the theatre manager, his wife and their other guests.

  Marvo concentrated so hard on cooking the meal he let the mist drop. He didn't cook seriously again after that. It was too distracting; too dangerous. They made:

  Marvo and Andra's Dinner

  To begin:

  A light and luscious kumara soufflé, puffed to perfection and served with creamy tarragon sauce

  And then:

  Our special veal and chestnut stew

  And to finish:

  Quince tart – sweet and tart. With coffee.8

  He spent hours shopping for the ingredients, a full day preparing the meal. He picked the rosemary he needed from his own garden, where it grew by the metre. He grew it to show he was righteous. He grew it for a joke. He ignored the siren sounds which wailed all day; did not watch the news or listen to Andra as she described the day of accidents, murder and suicide. When he awoke the next day, when the mist was back, he felt as if he had been out of his body all day, that someone else had done the shopping and the cooking.

  The theatre manager and his wife arrived early. "I thought you said 6.30," the man said, but everybody knew he was lying. He was so eager to be there. His wife was much taller than him, a dramatic woman who wanted to be an actress but was too lazy. She looked like one, with bright red hair and bright red lips, and a big laugh throwing her hair back and shaking her shoulders.

  The American diplomat and his wife arrived next. They brought Californian wine and Swiss chocolate. The wife gave Andra a fond embrace, grabbed her face and squeezed. "You gonna be interesting tonight again? I bet you are!"

  The conversation was honest and sharp from the beginning. Andra's bus friend did not believe in immigration or men cooking, "They have no instinct", or fat women. The hall owner's wife didn't agree, and while the food was perfect, the dinner party was far from a success. Near the end, the theatre manager discovered they had been talking to another promoter, and it made him very angry. He talked a lot about how weak they were, how he held them up, how he could report them for the things they did on stage. His wife took him by the face and kissed him to shut him up.

  Marvo was too depressed to help clean up. He went straight to bed and called for Andra to come to him.

  They did not see the theatre manager again. Later, the man would see Marvo on TV.

  "Taught him everything he knows," he would say. Then he would weep, because the mist had never been thick enough for him, and Marvo would never know the sacrifice the theatre manager had made, letting Marvo go when his heart was breaking.

  For their first show in the new theatre, Marvo used birds in his show one last time, thanks to Andra's influence. She felt about birds the way he felt about spiders, though her victory was not as strong, because he had no feelings for birds to change.

  "Who here likes birds?" Marvo asked. It was a young audience; none of the males sniggered. None said, "Only the ones who fuck." Most cheered, raised their hands, remembering other magicians and their magic doves. They remembered the doves vanishing, reappearing in flames. They remembered touching the birds, feeling their greasy feathers. They shouted, "We love birds." Three boys, sitting together, hated birds, flowers, girls. They hated perfume on their mothers and the colour of lipstick. They hated everything except the ball they kicked around, their football team, the cigarettes they were learning to smoke. They jeered as Marvo talked, tried to put him off his story, called him teacher, the worst insult they could think of.


  Marvo filled their mouths with birdseed. One of them began to cry, so Marvo quietened him. But he did it too well. The mist enveloped, and the child disappeared. Marvo thought nothing more of it until the end of the show.

  "Not all birds are good. Some birds are better shot than others. The raven, the crow and the swallow mean misfortune and death." These birds began to fly about the room, their wings flapping in the silence Marvo left. "The raven because it is known to seek death; it will follow an army on its marches, awaiting the fall of the bodies. It knows better than a human that the point of war is death.