Chef

by Jaspreet Singh

  First published in Great Britain 2010

  First published by Véhicule Press, Montréal, in 2008

  Copyright © Jaspreet Singh 2008 and 2010

  This electronic edition published 2010 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, time periods, events and situations are not exact.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise

  make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means

  (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise),

  without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised

  act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  Bloomsbury Publishing London New York Berlin

  Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978-1-40880-935-8

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  They make a desolation and call it peace.

  Galgacus, 84 AD

  The cold is eating into the center of my brain.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part Two

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part Three

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Part Four

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Afterwards

  Acknowledgements

  A Note on the Author

  One

  1

  For a long time now I have stayed away from certain people.

  I was late getting to the station and almost missed the Express because of the American President. His motorcade was passing the Red Fort, not far from the railway terminal. The President is visiting India to sign the nuclear deal. He is staying at the Hotel Taj and the chefs at the hotel have invented a new kebab in his honor. All this in today’s paper. Rarely does one see the photo of a kebab on the front page. It made my mouth water.

  Not far from me, a little girl is sitting on the aisle seat. A peach glows in her hand. Moments ago she asked her mother, What do we miss the most when we die? And I almost responded. But her mother put a thick finger on her lips: Shh, children should not talk about death, and she looked at me for a brief second, apologetically. Food, I almost said to the girl. We miss peaches, strawberries, delicacies like Sandhurst curry, kebab pasanda and rogan josh. The dead do not eat marzipan. The smell of bakeries torments them day and night.

  Something about this exchange between mother and daughter has upset me. I look out the window. The train is cutting through villages. I don’t even know their names. But the swaying yellow mustard fields and the growing darkness fills me with disquiet about the time I resigned from the army. I find myself asking the same question over and over again. Why did I allow my life to take a wrong turn?

  Fourteen years ago I used to work as chef at the General’s residence in Kashmir. I remember the fruit orchard by the kitchen window. For five straight years I cooked for him in that kitchen, then suddenly handed in my resignation and moved to Delhi. I never married. I cook for my mother. Now after a span of fourteen years I am returning to Kashmir.

  It is not that in all these years I was not tempted to return. The temptation was at times intense, especially when I heard about the quake and the rubble it left behind. But the earth shook mostly on the enemy side. During my five years of service I was confined to the Indian side – the more beautiful side.

  The beauty is still embedded in my brain. It is the kind that cannot be shared with others. Most important things in our lives, like recipes, cannot be shared. They remain within us with a dash of this and a whiff of that and trouble our bones.

  The tumor is in your brain, said the specialist. (Last week exactly at three o’clock my CAT scan results came back to the clinic. The dark scan looked quite something inside that box of bright light.) His finger pointed towards an area which resembled a patch of snow, and next to it was a horrifying shape like the dark rings of a tree. Three months to a year maximum, he said. Suddenly I felt very weak and dizzy. My voice disintegrated. The world around me started withering.

  I walked the crowded street back home. Cutting through my own cloud, stepping through the fog. My mother greeted me at the door. She knew. My mother already knew. She (who cooked every meal for me when I was young) knew what I did not know myself. She handed me a letter, and slowly walked to her bed.

  The letter was postmarked Kashmir. After fourteen years General Sahib finally mailed the letter, and that thin piece of paper delighted me and brought tears to my eyes. His daughter is getting married. In hurriedly scribbled lines he requested me to be the chef for the wedding banquet.

  I read the letter a second time, sitting at the kitchen table. My answer was obviously going to be a no. I was not even planning to respond. I felt dizzy. But in the evening while preparing soup I changed my mind. I make all big decisions while cooking. Mother is bedridden most of the time and I served as usual in her room at eight in the evening. I did not reveal the trouble brewing in my brain. During dinner I simply read her the General’s letter.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘You want to go?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘It is impossible to say no.’

  Dear Kip, Several times in the past I thought of writing to you, but I did not. You know me well, my whole life in the army has been geared to eliminate what is from a practical stand point non-essential.

  My daughter (whom you last saw as a child) is getting married, and she is the one who forced me to write this letter. I have heard that your mother is sick, but this is a very important event in our life, and we would like you to be the chef at the wedding. I do not want some new duffer to spoil it.

  You are the man for this emergency. I want to see you and I am tired and have much to talk over and plan with you. This wedding feast is perhaps my last battle and I would like for us to win it. I am sure you will not disappoint me.

  Yours affectionately,

  Lt. General Ashwini Kumar (Retired), VrC, AVSM, PVSM.

  Former GOC-in-C, Northern Command.

  The General’s daughter used to call me ‘Kip-Ing’ (instead of Kirpal Singh). Since then ‘Kip’ has stuck. In the army everyone has a second name. General Sahib’s nickname was ‘Red’, but it was rarely mentioned in his presence.

  ‘How many days will you spend there?’ Mother asked.

  ‘Seven,’ I said. ‘Seven or eight days. I must go, Mother. The neighbor will take care of you. Eating someone else’s food
will do you good.’

  Mother did not finish the dal soup. Her frail head rested on two white pillows and she held my arm as if we were not going to see each other again.

  I urged her to take the yellow tablets and capsules. She agreed only after I raised my voice. I rarely raise my voice in the presence of Mother. Something inside me was definitely changing.

  It was then I showed her the wedding card:

  Rubiya Kumar

  weds

  Shahid Lone

  ‘So the General’s daughter has decided to marry a Muslim?’ she asked.

  ‘Not just a Muslim,’ I added, ‘but one from the other side of the border.’

  Let me put this straight. Sahib is not prejudiced against the Muslims. There were Muslim soldiers in our regiment, and he never once discriminated against any of them to my knowledge. But, of course, General Sahib is not pleased with the wedding. I have read the letter twice, and I sense his hands must have been shaking when he held the pen. Sahib gave his youth to our nation to keep the Pakistanis away, he fought two wars, and now his own daughter is marrying one of them. Did so many soldiers lose their lives for one big nothing?

  This train is moving slower than a mountain mule. The engine is old, I know. It resembles me in many ways. But the railway-wallahs insist on calling it an Express. I readjust my glasses, and my gaze drifts from one fuzzy face to another. They will last longer than me – the ears and eyes and noses of other people. Faint scent of pickles fills the compartment. Loud and hazy conversations. Flies have started hovering over the little girl’s peach.

  Once I prepare the perfect wedding banquet, General Sahib will refer me to top specialists in the military hospital, and they will start treatment right away. I have a high regard for military doctors. For my mother’s sake, I must live a little longer. I don’t know why I raised my voice in her presence. She needs me more than ever. I must live a little bit longer.

  Perhaps it was simply the selfish wish to live just a little bit longer that made me change my mind.

  But things must sort out first. Before I begin work for the wedding I want the General to sort out things between us. For the last fourteen years every day I expected a letter from him. And now the wait is over, the letter is in my pocket. I had expected the letter to be heavy, to carry the entire weight of our past, but he offered me nothing. No explanation. I want him to sort out things between us. Not pretend as if there had been a simple misunderstanding.

  I still remember the day I had arrived in Kashmir the first time. The mountains and lakes were covered with thick fog. I was nineteen. And I had bought a second-class ticket on this very train. For some reason I remember the train moved faster then.

  2

  I must have fallen asleep. I am woken up by a tap on my shoulder. ‘Is this bag yours, is this one yours?’ Two police-wallahs in our compartment. ‘Yes, that one is mine,’ says the civilian man occupying the aisle seat, the girl no longer there. One police-wallah sticks labels on already identified luggage. ‘And the brown suitcase on the rack belongs to my missus,’ the man says.

  ‘Whose is this big trunk?’

  ‘Mine,’ I say.

  ‘You don’t look like a commissioned officer.’

  ‘It used to belong to a general.’

  ‘Show me your ID card.’

  ‘I forgot my card.’

  ‘What is the name of the general?’

  ‘He is retired now.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘He is the new Governor of Kashmir.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘General Kumar.’

  The police-wallahs look at me with contempt. They have rifles slung around their necks. The younger one turns on his flashlight.

  ‘What things are there inside?’

  I do not respond. I take pity on their contemptible tasks.

  ‘Open it.’

  One of them transfers the heavy trunk to the aisle, and I hand him the key. He is rough-handling the bottles, and he does not read the labels. His face resembles the face of people who don’t take responsibility for their actions.

  ‘What is all this?’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ The middle-aged woman sitting close by comes to my rescue. ‘This is heeng and that one is cinnamon . . . cardamom, coriander, cloves, fenugreek, crushed pomegranate, poppy seeds, rose petals, curry leaves, nutmeg and mace.’

  ‘Why so many spices?’ asks the first police-wallah.

  ‘Are you a woman?’ asks the second.

  Chuckles from the two of them. ‘Carrying an entire kitchen on the train?’

  ‘The only reason we will let you go is because your trunk is not a real coffin,’ one of them says from the other end of the bogie, making eye contact with me, staring.

  They chuckle louder after making that odd remark, and leave.

  Then silence. Only the sound of the train.

  Outside I see India passing by. I readjust my glasses. It is raining mildly, and I am glad it is raining because India looks beautiful in the rain. Rain hides the melancholy of this land, ugliness as well. Rain helps me forget my own self. I see a face reflected in the window. Who is that man with spots of gray in his hair? What have I become? But certain things never change. I have the face of someone who is always planning serious work, someone who does not know how to take time off. Now even that will be snatched away from me.

  None of my fellow passengers understood the police-wallahs when they said, ‘The only reason we have let you go is because your trunk is not a real coffin.’ Our country is a country with a short memory. They don’t remember the coffin scam which took place in the army during the war with Pakistan and cost the General his promotion. Because of the scam he could not become the chief of army staff. He was innocent really. Officers below him, jealous of Sahib’s abilities, screwed him. Sahib did not get the respect he deserved. There is no way I am going to explain to the civilians the coffin scam. Even if I tried they would not understand.

  The middle-aged woman is surveying me, looking at me from the corners of her eyes. She is eager to ask me thousands of questions. Her face resembles a plate of samosas left overnight in rain. The man sitting across the aisle just said he is proud of the Indian army. After the police-wallahs left, he asked me, ‘What did you do in the army, sir?’

  ‘I kept the top brass healthy and cheerful.’

  ‘What is it exactly you did, sir?’

  ‘I was the General’s chef for five years.’

  ‘Oh, you were a cook,’ he said and controlled his smile. His wife could not control herself. She looked up from the glossy magazine, laughed. The middle-aged woman could not control her laughter either. Civilians.

  Then suddenly as if to break silence, he asked: ‘Have you ever won a woman’s heart with your cooking, sir?’

  I did not reply.

  ‘But you must have?’

  ‘There are no women in the army,’ I said.

  ‘But sir. Women fall for men in the army. You, sir, had the biggest weapon in your hand. Cooking. Did you ever make someone fall in love, sir?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I am looking for a chai-wallah. Did you hear a vendor selling tea?’

  ‘Oh, we have tea in our thermos. Please pour some for sir.’

  ‘No, no, thank you very much.’

  I turned to the window and the conversation stopped. The view outside the window was far more interesting.

  3

  India is passing through the night. Night, just like rain, hides the ugliness of a place so well. We are running behind the backs of houses. Thousands of tiny lights have been turned on inside them. Towns pass by, and villages. I remember my first journey to Kashmir on this train. It was a very hot day, and despite that, passengers were drinking tea, and the whole compartment smelled of a wedding. Girls in beautiful saris and salwar-kameezes sat not far from me; some of them spoke hardly any English. Their skins had the shine of ripe fruits. How shy I was then. How much I yearned to talk to them, but I pretended that I was not i
nterested. I had picked up the paper the man in the corner seat had discarded, and hid my face behind the news. I would stealthily peek at the girls and when one or two returned my gaze I would hide once again behind words. One time my eyes locked with the eyes of an oval-faced girl, and this created an awkward moment. She started whispering, and then suddenly an exclamation was followed by loud laughter, and I felt they were all laughing at me, and I hid again behind the paper. How I yearned to talk to them, and how I desired for them to leave me alone in the carriage because I could not endure so many of them, and I wanted them to carry on with their usual business without bothering me, and when they disembarked at a strange platform how alone I had felt in that near-empty carriage. I had missed my chance. A beautiful opportunity had presented itself, but I had spoiled it. Partly to deal with loneliness and partly to deal with the absence of girls I began reading the paper. Several times I read the article which had shielded me from the beauties. It was accompanied by a large photograph of the body of a soldier.