‘You are an only child? I too am an only child!’ Pretty Miss Tamara Polyansky exclaims in a surprised voice, as though being an only child was some sort of miracle to be marvelled at instead of only something moderately rare.
‘Shush, Tamara!’ Olga Zorbatov says, as usual without a hint of good manners. Though for once we are all rather pleased, none of us want Mr Petrov to dry up from a sudden fit of nerves. Anyway, Tamara Polyansky is a ‘Miss Showbiz’ and once she gets started nothing can stop her gabbing on about acrobats and high-wire acts and dashing young men in very tight tights. Oi Vey! I should be so lucky! But this was no time for daydreaming or showbiz talk!
‘I have five sisters,’ Mr Petrov says quietly, ‘and so being a boy and the youngest I was spoiled by them all.’ He laughs and then proceeds with his tale.
Nothing but being a blacksmith was good enough for me. A blacksmith’s living does not depend on the widow-making sea or the unreliable coming of the sturgeon.
Once every ten years this may happen on your particular shore and then there is a killing for the village. But the occasional taking of the caviar, the roe of the sturgeon fish, is only sufficient to keep poor men still poor after they have paid their debts to the caviar buyers, bought new nets, a boat or a donkey engine and repaired the roof of their cottage and put aside a little for a daughter’s dowry.
It is the middle men who grow rich. The caviar merchants and dealers from Moscow and St Petersburg and the dark-eyed men who arrive in the season from Persia. They all wear gold and diamond rings, shiny boots that reach to their fat knees and fine woollen coats that carelessly sweep the ground. Their hands are soft and their tongues oily and they can steal the nose off an honest fisherman’s face without him knowing about it until he tries to sniff.
And so I was apprenticed to a blacksmith, a trade known to be consistent. It was work I was well suited to do, for, while I was big and clumsy on the small fishing boats, I was well suited to the hammer and tongs. I took to the furnace and anvil with alacrity and did not miss the water too much. The blacksmith shop was thankfully situated near the riverbank. I could look out and see the boats returning in the late afternoon and see the ebb and flow of the mother of all rivers and witness the rhythm and the changing of the seasons, and not lose touch with the generations of family who had served and worked the Volga.
You see, we have been fisherfolk since time out of mind, maybe for a thousand years, maybe more. Each year we pray to Saint Peter the Fisherman and ask that he direct the sturgeon to our part of the river, but sturgeon are unpredictable and we are lucky if they should come once in three years. In the meantime we fish for less exotic fare and hope that we might catch enough in our nets to feed our families.
Mr Petrov pauses and smiles, a secret, perhaps even a sentimental smile. ‘If you cut me you will see it is salt water and not blood which runs through my veins.’
Professor Slotinowitz now interrupts. Well, I must say, at least he has the good manners to wait until there is a pause in Mr Petrov’s story. ‘Did you know,’ he says in that know-all voice he uses, ‘that the sturgeon fish is one of the oldest animals on our planet and has existed in much the same form for a hundred million years?’ Sheesh! He expects a busy person should know such rubbish? Then he continues in the same school-teacher manner, ‘Like the cockroach, which has existed for an equally long period with almost no further evolution, it is perfectly adapted for its function and environment.’
‘Since when is a fish and an insect an animal, Professor? A fish is a fish and a cockroach is a lousy bug!’ Mrs Z proclaims.
‘Enough!’ I say, never mind my lack of tact, which, believe me, is a commodity now certainly not called for. ‘Who is telling this story anyway? Mrs Z? Or the professor? Or Mr Petrov here?’ I turn to Mr P. ‘Please continue, so far it is most interesting, although I, for one, have never tasted caviar.’
Mr Petrov smiles at me. ‘Ah, Mrs Moses, then you have not eaten from the table of God himself! A big fish, a mighty sturgeon, grows up to four metres in length not counting the snout, which, by the way, it uses as a tool to scour the sea bed for food. The big fish are known as beluga and give the biggest grains of roe, and each grain is as black as a South Sea pearl. A single tiny grain, no bigger than the head of a match, when placed on the tongue and pressed lightly against the palate will explode in the mouth and the delicate and exotic taste will remain for an hour!’
Mr Petrov is warming up again and I hope everyone now has the good manners not to continue interrupting. Though that is some fat hope with this lot of meshuggeners.
‘The smaller fish are perhaps not so exotic but still precious and are of two sizes, the ossetra and then the smaller sevruga. The roe of these two smaller fish varies in colour from the light grey colour of the Tsar’s battleships to an opaque tangerine. It is smaller in size and not so robust in flavour, but still a wonderful delicacy,’ Mr Petrov explains and then pauses for just a moment. But a moment is all that’s needed for Olga Zorbatov to wedge her way back into the conversation.
‘My husband the chef,’ she casts a baleful eye in the direction of the professor, ‘who, I might remind a certain person who calls fishes and bugs animals, was also a professor, would bring half a kilo of the finest beluga home from the Grande Rex Hotel in a silver bowl filled with crushed ice. I’d chop a large onion nice and fine, mince two hard-boiled eggs and make several dozen tiny blini pancakes for our midnight rooftop supper. Then, watching the stars, we would dollop the beluga caviar onto the tiny pancakes as though it was cheap as duck’s liver pâté, and then eat it all in one delicious ten-minute sitting!’
‘A professor of star signs and chicken soup for the sick, if I remember correctly,’ Professor Slotinowitz observes gratuitously to the moon.
There are several sniggers and I see that Mr Mendelsohn has covered his mouth with four slim fingers. I am quick to put a stop to any potential hilarity, as the last thing we want is a conniption from Olga Zorbatov. ‘Now, now, enough already!’ I admonish. ‘You two must stop this bickering or Mr Petrov will not finish his story.
I glance over to Mr P to give him his cue to continue and see that the big, strong man, with hands that could throttle a bear, is crying. A bright tear runs slowly down both of his cheeks. He is by no means a handsome man, as too many flying sparks and iron pellets have burnt into the flesh of his face, which is now a permanent ruddy colour and rough as coarse sandpaper. But his tears give him the vulnerable look of a small boy who is very sad.
He looks over at Olga Z and slowly shakes his head. ‘Athumbnail of beluga placed on one of your tiny pancakes is a sufficient and elegant beginning to a banquet. Caviar of such nobility, to be appreciated for its exquisite taste, should be treated with the greatest respect and used in the same manner as a miser hordes a pinch of golddust.’ Mr Petrov slaps his big hand against his brow in a gesture of disbelief and then says in a slow measured tone, ‘Mrs Z, to “dollop” such a brilliant creation is to shit in the mouth of God!’
Mr Petrov becomes aware of the presence of his spontaneous tears and quickly knuckles the wetness from his eyes. ‘Excuse me, I am ashamed of myself,’ he sniffs and tries to explain. ‘You see, the tasting of caviar means a great deal to me. It is the reason I am here, the first of my village people to flee from Mother Russia in a thousand years.’
He looks up at the night sky and sniffs again and then he looks back at us, ‘You must all be thinking: What does a blacksmith know of caviar? You would ordinarily be right, herring pie maybe, but not beluga caviar. No village fortunate enough to catch a big sturgeon fish would waste a single grain of its caviar on a humble fisherman, let alone allow a blacksmith near its precious beluga. Besides, it is not unfair to say, with his tongue singed from daily proximity to the foundry furnace, a blacksmith would have considerable trouble telling borscht from a plate of chicken soup.’
Mr Petrov stops to think for a moment and for once there is complete silence from all of us, and only the sudden crackle
of a twig on the fire is heard. Then he clears his throat:
The very best of beluga caviar carries with it the word ‘malassol’, which is a fancy term but means only that it is lightly salted. A woman may add a pinch of salt to a dish she is preparing, then stir and taste. If it is not salted enough she will add more until she is satisfied. If too salty she will add a little water. But with the best caviar it is different. The beluga can only be salted once, and if the salting is not correct the whole batch is spoiled. You see, the process by which the best Volga caviar is salted is an instinct and a great gift. The Salt is a prince among the river fishermen and his gift is so rare that the old women light a candle in every village church on every day of the year. And with it a prayer is offered to Saint Peter, the patron saint of fishermen, that the Salt lives to be a hundred years and that God’s most precious gift, a ‘beluga tongue’, will be with him until the day he dies and goes straight to paradise, no stopping at the gate, no questions asked.
When I was twenty-five, the Salt, on whom all the villages depended, died. He was very old, more than one hundred and seventeen years, and known the length and breadth of the great Volga River, which you may not know stretches 3,600 kilometres before it reaches the Caspian Sea. It was claimed that he was discovered to have the beluga tongue at the age of eighteen and for ninety-nine years it had never failed him, and not a single batch of beluga caviar was ever spoiled in the twenty villages strung along the eighty kilometres of river he worked. Village children like myself grew up thinking of him as only next to God and the Tsar in ranking and, because we had not met the other two gentlemen personally, perhaps more important.
At the news of his death all the village priests made a pilgrimage to the bishop’s cathedral in the capital city while we all rushed into the village churches to pray that God would grant us the miracle of another beluga tongue. The bishop explained to the priests the method they should use to find another Salt.
The caviar buyers from Moscow, St Petersburg and Persia were invited to the convocation and informed that they must supply one hundred kilograms of the finest unsalted beluga caviar. This was in itself a king’s ransom and the dealers argued and pleaded with the holy bishop to make it one hundred lots of one hundred grams instead. But the bishop held his ground and showed the greedy middlemen that the correct amount was stipulated in the five-hundred-year-old tome, The Book of River Rights, which was the final authority on how the Salt must be chosen. Finally, after much wringing of hands and crying poor, they agreed to make the supply of unsalted beluga caviar available.
The ancient method of finding a beluga tongue was quite simple. A hundred unmarried men must be picked at random and each given a kilogram of the finest beluga caviar. From this fortune in fish eggs each man must pick a single tiny egg and place it, as the Salt has always done, on his tongue. Then he has to roll it around his palate and when it ‘explodes’ determine the exact amount of salt needed in the finest Volga beluga set out in front of him. If he gets it wrong he will have spoiled a fortune in the best beluga caviar, and will forever be known in his village as a ‘rotten egg’ and, no matter how great his skill, he will never again be included in a fishing boat that hunts the sturgeon. Of course, if he gets it right, and is discovered to have a beluga tongue, his fortune is made and he will be a rich and honoured man until the day he dies and this hopefully at a very ripe old age.
‘Excuse me, Mr Petrov.’ It is Anya Mendelsohn (she is not married to her violinist, but what’s in a name?) who speaks quietly, then waits for further permission. We are all very much surprised, as she has never interrupted a story before. Anya holds her baby to her breast as Mr P nods in her direction. ‘Excuse me, please,’ she repeats, ‘but what does a man know of salting a fish dish? Surely this is women’s work!’ She waves a dismissive hand. ‘A fish egg is a fish egg, roe is roe, salt is salt, taste is taste, so tell me, please already, what’s so special about this beluga fish egg that a good female cook cannot judge its salt?’
Anya’s question makes sense and all the women look towards Mr Petrov, who has now suddenly turned an even more furious crimson colour and his whole body has begun to shake. ‘It… it… c-c-cannot be done by a woman,’ he stammers.
‘And why not?’ Mrs Z demands imperiously, one eye half closed, the opposite eyebrow arched.
‘I… I… c-c-cannot explain,’ Mr Petrov stammers again and it is obvious that he is mortified by Anya’s question.
‘But why not?’ Anya asks in a most reasonable voice. ‘A woman is trained from childhood in these things, her palate is accustomed to tasting for salt and herbs and the absence or presence of the right quantity of all sorts of subtle flavours and secret ingredients.’
‘Yes, like mushrooms!’ Mrs Z says, ever the tactful one.
Mr Petrov is now even more visibly disturbed and bites his lower lip so that I think at any moment it will start to bleed. The perspiration is running down his brow and his hands shake even more than before. ‘Her blood, her m-m-m-monthly blood,’ he blurts out at last. ‘It… is… her blood which will spoil the caviar for the whole season!’
There is a collective gasp and it is now our turn for embarrassment. We have forced poor Mr Petrov into an impossible confession.
‘As a Jew I can understand this,’ I say hurriedly. ‘In our law a woman is considered unclean when it comes that time of the month for her. She is forbidden to prepare food for her husband and must take a bath in the mikvah at the completion of her cycle. Your Volga River fishermen would make good Jews and also, believe you me, a nice plate of gefilte fish would be most welcome.’ I look around and can see that everyone is grateful for this explanation and Mrs Moses, who is of course me, is granted top marks for tact and diplomacy! Then I say, ‘Please continue, Mr Petrov, tell us how you look for this person who will have a beluga tongue, which we now understand can’t be a female for what you already explained are very good and sound reasons.’ I smile and in a cheerful voice say, ‘If this caviar is as nice as you say, there must be a great many volunteers among the young men, I think, not so?’
I say all this except for the last sentence in rapid fire so it will come out too quickly for any of us to think too much about the big embarrassment we have caused. But still quickly enough to get us back on track and to act like Anya’s question didn’t happen, not at all and, if it did, is already forgotten and not ever to be mentioned again, if you know what I mean?
Mr Petrov is by no means a stupid man and he gives me a grateful look. ‘No, no, no volunteers, Mrs Moses! The selection of one hundred men must be hand-picked by God. The priest in every village, all twenty, must choose five unmarried men by a very special method. In each village the Holy Father will select a tree or a rock or a point on the riverbank, or any object his prayers have pointed out to him in a vision. He will then go to that object and sprinkle it with holy water and anoint it with precious oils. This must be done at the dead of night when the village is asleep. Then the first five unmarried men in every village to pass this tree or rock or fishing boat or holy point which has been decided upon by God through his holy servant will be those chosen to salt the beluga.
‘But what if all should fail?’ Mr Mendelsohn the violinist asks.
‘Ah, that is the miracle! It has never been known to fail, there is always a new beluga tongue who comes to light. Saint Peter the Fisherman has never deserted us.’ Mr Petrov stops and absently scratches the tip of his nose with his forefinger. ‘Except once, when the holy saint of all the world’s fishermen picked the village blacksmith to be the new beluga tongue.’
‘You!’ we all chorus. ‘You were the one chosen!’
Mr Petrov nods sadly, then continues his story.
In our village the priest chose to sprinkle the holy water on the anvil and then to anoint it with oil. The blacksmith’s shop is on the edge of the village and is almost on the banks of the river, and the fishermen, who rise at dawn to go to their boats, are forced to pass it. Besides, the anvil, which is used
for the shoeing of horses and mules, stands outside the blacksmith’s shop in a most convenient position, close to the path leading down to where the boats are. So, by accident, because I too rise early to fire the furnace, I was included in the first five men to pass the anvil and was picked with four young fishermen friends to represent our village.
On a prescribed day we travelled to the bishop’s cathedral in the capital fifty kilometres away. When we arrived we were each given a small wooden disc with a loop of leather strung through it and told to hang it around our neck. On each disc was a number, which also appeared painted carefully on the side of a pure white porcelain bowl that, after being washed in holy water, was handed to us wrapped in new muslin cloth. We entered the cathedral and were made to sit cross-legged in rows on the marble floor and were then shown how to spread the muslin cloth in front of us and place the numbered bowl exactly at its centre. Beside it a priest placed a small bowl of white Siberian salt, and a pair of tiny pinewood tweezers wrapped in new cheesecloth so that they could not be contaminated before being used. The bishop gave thanks to God and to Saint Peter the Fisherman and said Holy Mass, and each of the candidates received the wine and the host from the bishop’s own hand. Then all were required to drink from a silver chalice of water to rinse out their mouths before spitting the water into a basin held by a novitiate. After this ritual was completed, the cathedral doors were locked, and into each bowl was measured exactly one kilo of precious beluga caviar. This kilogram of finest unsalted beluga was more valuable on the markets of the European cities than all the money each of us might earn in a lifetime. In just a few minutes all but one kilogram would be spoiled forever, ninety-nine kilograms of the food God created to be eaten in heaven would be destroyed by the addition of too much or too little salt. We waited for a final blessing from the bishop and then the salting of the beluga began.
The Family Frying Pan Page 8