Vanilla Salt

by Ada Parellada

  “Not too late,” he lies. “You had a couple of glasses of brandy and then you went upstairs. I cleaned up the kitchen.”

  Carol phones Àlex. She wants to see him one afternoon this week, but not in the restaurant. They decide to meet today, after lunch. Àlex can tell from her tone that this isn’t about a couple of old friends having a drink together.

  They meet in Granollers, in a drab, rather gloomy bar not far from the station. Carol doesn’t mince her words: “You and I have a plan, and that is to bring down Roda el Món, so you can get your restaurant back and get rid of that woman and her partner. Remember? I’ve done my bit, everything I promised. I’ve made sure that the restaurant’s working nicely. I’ve done a good job. Annette’s happy, trusting and optimistic. Do you want to stick to the plan or are you a little lapdog nowadays? That woman’s got to you, hasn’t she?”

  “Whatever makes you say that?” He feigns innocence.

  “The other night you were carrying on like two little lovebirds sitting on a power line. You only need to get dressed up like a knight in the Middle Ages, go down on your knees and ask for her hand in marriage. She’d be thrilled to accept, because she’s got the hots for you. I can just see you both, clasped together forevermore, dancing a waltz in the Palace of Eternal Love.”

  On that long-ago day when Carol got Annette into bed, she’d been in seventh heaven, exultant, a new woman, and had completely discarded any idea of doing anything to hurt her. On the contrary, she was only too pleased to do everything she possibly could to help that cute little freckled girl, who was so malleable and as sweet as maple syrup. If she wanted to get rid of anyone, her target was Àlex. All her ill will was focused on how to put as many kilometres as possible between him and Annette, so that her beloved little redhead could enjoy being the undisputed boss and mistress of her own restaurant. Carol was going to look after her and get her a good chef – and there were plenty of them needing work in this crisis, dying to find a place where they could start flinging saucepans around again. She’d never anticipated any kind of sentimental obstacle in the form of Àlex, but on the contrary believed that his rudeness would completely alienate the delicate Annette.

  In her idyll, Annette would work happily (under Carol’s thumb) all day and Carol would come to her at night. She would find a gentle, compliant Annette, and there was no way she wanted to hear any complaints about Àlex’s latest outburst or use their precious time together for therapy sessions to soothe away all the hassles caused by the testy chef. Her plan was all about placid nights, whispering sweet nothings, caressing Annette’s belly, or wild sessions when Annette would cede to her most outlandish desires, all the lascivious fantasies she’d dreamt up in her eternal nights of solitude.

  That evening, when Annette and Àlex were laughing about their restaurant stories, Carol saw her satiny visions of tangled sheets evaporate into thin air. It was crystal clear: there was chemistry between them and she was devastated at having missed her chance to get Annette for herself. Driving home, she decided to salvage the plot she’d hatched with Àlex. Yes, she would go ahead with it, and her revenge would be twofold, doubly juicy and interesting, with two happy futures destroyed. On the one hand she’d shaft Annette and her dream of the restaurant, and on the other she’d wreck the only good thing left in Àlex’s life: his love for Annette.

  Carol runs through the script. “According to our plan, we have to organize the presentation dinner for the press. The time has come. We need to do it in about two weeks.” She doesn’t miss the two deep creases of worry appearing on Àlex’s forehead. “What, so you don’t want to go through with it?”

  “No… yes… I mean…”

  “You mean you’re backing out, maybe? OK, if we don’t stick to what we agreed, that woman’s going to take over the whole restaurant. Now you’re carrying on like a couple of pimply teenagers, but as soon as she tires of you – and you can be sure she will, sooner or later – she’ll send you packing. No one can put up with you!” Carol’s determined that Àlex isn’t going to bail out now.

  “I know. I’m just thinking about all the things that can go wrong. We’ve got to consider every detail, even the most unlikely problems. Perhaps we’re rushing things, doing the press dinner so soon after the opening.”

  Àlex is hoping to gain time by postponing the press party, so he can think about how to get out of this mess. Of course, there’s no way he’ll do anything to harm Annette, but he’s got to find a way of foiling Carol’s malevolent intentions. Right now nothing occurs to him. Fighting against Carol is a dangerous business. She always goes for the jugular.

  “You’re the one who’s rushing, and you’re heading straight for the ditch of despair, because once you’re bled dry, without a cent in your pocket, she’ll kick you out.” Carol is full of contempt. “Now listen, I’ve got the whole thing sussed. Just before the party you’ll give an interview to Dia i Nit. Everyone reads it. I’ve got them to promise the whole centrefold. In this interview you have to tell them you have differences with your boss, complain that she’s buying material of questionable quality and adulterating whatever she can in order to boost profits. They’ll have the exclusive when you tell them you’re leaving Roda el Món on the very day of the party. You’ll even tell them that you’ve refused to cook, but you’ll be there, because Annette has forced you to stay so the press won’t know anything till the official announcement that you’re going. You’ll say that you’ve decided to take the opportunity of the interview to make the whole thing public. They’ll be ecstatic to have a scoop at Dia i Nit and you’ll make the headlines. At the party I’ll spread the word among my colleagues, confidentially and off the record, about Annette’s fraudulent practice. Nothing makes journalists happier than getting a sniff at dirty washing. I’ll do it towards the end of the evening, when they’ve all eaten… the food that’s been tampered with.”

  “Carol, it’s all very well planned, but it’s very dangerous thing to poison a bunch of journalists. What if somebody gets really sick? Can’t we think up some alternative?”

  “Don’t worry! I’ve been doing my homework and have discovered a very mild poison that only causes diarrhoea and headache. Nobody will end up in hospital, but they’ll all feel terrible, and that means they’ll go looking for the common denominator: Roda el Món. You’ll be safe, because the cause of the food poisoning will be the additives Annette uses to save money. And you won’t have cooked the food, which you’ll have told the Dia i Nit beforehand. The next day, all the newspapers will be full of the fact that so many journalists have been poisoned. The restaurant will be closed down and then you’ll get it back and start all over again. It’s a safe, simple, watertight plan.”

  “Yes, it is,” he reluctantly admits.

  Àlex drives back feeling unhappy and alarmed. He doesn’t know how to stymie Carol’s plan, but there’s no way she’s going to get away with it. He worries and worries and worries. She’s in control, and if she wants to wipe them out she certainly will. Even if he doesn’t say he’s leaving, and even if he doesn’t give the journalists a good attack of the runs by putting poison in the pot, it doesn’t matter. When Carol finds out he’s disobeyed her orders, she’ll be enraged and will rip them to pieces in her articles. Not only in the newspapers, but on the Internet as well.

  She has a horde of followers who have blind faith in her. She can make and break trends and tastes. An angry Carol is more dangerous than a large lobster which is about to be dropped into a pot of boiling water, senses certain death and breaks the elastic bands binding its claws. His brain’s gone completely haywire and he feels trapped, tied hand and foot, a prisoner of his decisions. If only he could wipe from the calendar that day when, angry with Annette, he hatched the plot. But there’s no going back now.

  Driving back to Roda el Món, he seeks distraction by listening to Cesária Évora, humming along with her even though he doesn’t understand what she’s singing. Yet her silky voice is so relaxing.

&nb
sp; He gets back to the restaurant shortly before it opens for dinner. As usual, Annette’s running around, checking tables, putting the finishing touches on a cake and answering the phone. She’s so graceful. Watching her, Àlex thinks, “She’s the life and soul of the restaurant.” As he walks past her, he murmurs, “As long as we’re together no one can bring us down,” but Annette doesn’t hear him. Still running, she flashes him a smile – a balm for Àlex.

  It isn’t a great night. They make mistakes at a few tables and one customer complains that his bream is dry. Àlex is withdrawn and doesn’t respond to Annette’s orders, so she ends up jittery and yelling. She has to dole out a lot of free liqueurs today to compensate for their errors.

  “Àlex, we must to speak,” she says when the last customer leaves.

  “If you’re going to tick me off, leave it till tomorrow, will you? I’m not in the mood.”

  “I little bit tick off you. Tonight is disaster. What go wrong?”

  “I’m hungry!” Àlex tries to act unconcerned.

  “Something happen with you and me as well. I very nervous, because today boss at Can Bret he visit me.”

  “What! That shithead? The initials of his restaurant’s name apply to him. CB: Cunning Bastard.”

  “He want for to buy Roda el Món and he pay five times more than I – well Òscar – pay.”

  “Bloody hell, that’s a lot of money. What do you want to do?” Àlex is swamped by all the powerful emotions that have ripped through him today and he’s in no condition for thinking clearly.

  Annette’s been distracted all evening, which is why she’s made so many mistakes. She’s not sure what to do about the offer made by the owner of Can Bret. It’s very tempting and has to be considered, even if they’re happy about the success of Roda el Món, which has been achieved by a mixture of emotional investment and gigantic effort. They’ve put everything they’ve got into it and want to lay solid foundations but, more than anything else, they must be pragmatic. This money would let them embark on a new project and not necessarily a restaurant. There are lots of things you can do in life, or so Annette believes.

  Àlex is different. He thinks there’s nothing else for him to do with his life. This is his home and things are looking up, so it would be a pity not to make the most of this auspicious moment.

  They talk at length. Annette gets a pencil and paper and starts doing the sums, with columns of pros and cons and lists of professional opportunities. She prattles on while Àlex tunes in and out. He’s doing his columns and lists, without writing them down, as the ideas themselves are enough.

  In the pro-sale column, he puts the money they’ll get, which represents freedom from the servitude of running a restaurant, the long hours and the constantly clinging anxiety of the immediacy of the work. It would mean the end of interminable chores and everyday hassles. He’d be able to visit his son more often, but the greatest advantage is that closing down Roda el Món would free him from Carol’s stranglehold.

  Yet there’s one disadvantage that outweighs all the benefits put together. Selling Roda el Món would mean the end of his relationship with Annette, no longer seeing her every morning or being able to watch her incessant movement, or hear her cheerful voice and innocent shouts that some plate or other is missing, or check the freckles on her face every day in case he has to inform her that one has fallen off in the shower…

  Taking all the arguments for and against into account, Àlex realizes that he can’t stand the idea of having to live without Annette’s hyperactive presence and indescribable fragrance.

  “Well, Annette, I think we need pebrots.”

  “Peppers? We have peppers.” Annette’s Catalan has improved a lot, but she still doesn’t understand the meaning of a lot of idioms: hi hem de posar pebrots, for example.

  “No, no, this isn’t a recipe,” he explains. “If a Catalan says we need to have peppers, it means having big testicles, or being brave. Right now we need peppers. We should hang on to Roda el Món. We’ll manage somehow.”

  Àlex takes her hand. Annette turns it round so she can grasp his tightly and, looking into his eyes, says triumphantly, “We put all the peppers in Roda el Món. Tomorrow we start. I cook stuffed peppers!” Then she can’t stop giggling.

  Àlex makes a face at the prospect of having to eat peppers, so Annette is quick to give him one of her History of Food lectures. The confusion between pepper and capsicum goes back to Columbus who, when he tasted a dry red pepper, was reminded of black pepper. Pleased to be able to take a spice to the Spanish King and Queen at last, he gave it the same name, pepper. Unlike the other products coming from the New World, the dried and ground red pepper was soon accepted in Spain, since it could be used like black pepper, but was much cheaper, because it was easy to grow in Spanish soil while black pepper, which had originally been imported from India thanks to Àlexander the Great, had to be shipped in from far away.

  However, it wasn’t just the question of price that made the new red pepper so popular. It had a wide range of uses. It was a good preservative, so food could be kept longer. As spicy and hot as black pepper, or even more so, it gave intensity of flavour and special zest to many dishes. The Spanish people were soon addicted, and all sorts of sausages and traditional recipes took on new taste and colour. How could a Spaniard survive without chorizo? What would escabetx be like? Soused fish without red pepper? Impossible. And what about the Catalan romesco sauce without the small round red bell pepper known as the nyora?

  Àlex listens attentively, gazing at her with delight and stroking the hand lying in his.

  “Tomorrow, when you’ve finished stuffing the peppers, do you want to listen to some music?”

  13

  VANILLA SALT

  The gourmet never forgets the name of the deceased. Moreover, he makes express mention of it while eating, whether it’s artichoke or boar, and remembers other murders and previous devourings because the pleasure of eating tends to go together with the memory of past feasts.

  MANUEL VÁZQUEZ MONTALBÁN

  Someone knocks at the door of Roda el Món. It’s the postman with a registered letter. Annette opens it warily.

  This type of letter always makes her feel uneasy. She reads it fast. It’s giving notice of a freezing order unless they immediately pay off their large debt with the fish supplier.

  Annette phones the director of the company and asks for an appointment in order to renegotiate the terms of repayment. Yes, they’ll see her today. She doesn’t waste a moment and rushes to the company offices, which are located on an industrial estate. The building isn’t very big and the letters MARTÍNEZ BROTHERS are overly large by comparison. However, everything looks quite austere until she reaches the director’s office, which is ostentatiously plush and in very doubtful taste. A collection of Buddhas occupies one of the shelves behind a desk carved out of a genuine ebony tree trunk. It must have cost a fortune. She is greeted by a very fat man with a round beer belly struggling to escape from the grip of his tight white shirt. The straining buttons look as if they’re going to fly off in all directions like birdshot. He’s not wearing a jacket or tie and the top two buttons of the shirt are undone, displaying a thicket of chest hair. He’s the antithesis of elegance. Gold rings bite into sausage fingers. He looks like the biggest Buddha of all, although without showing the slightest sign of wishing to follow any religious and spiritual teachings. There are all sorts of mementos from Burma and Thailand in the office. Trying to break the ice, Annette asks what regions of the two countries he’s visited and also about his devotion to Gautama Buddha.

  “I’ve never been to Burma. But I’ve been to Thailand. The women there are real beauties. A lot of fun too!” He winks. “I got the collection of Buddhas from my decorator, because I wanted a nice office and he says ethnic’s in fashion. I don’t know about these things, but I listened to that pansy and, as you see, it turned out well, didn’t it?” Mister Self-Made Man in person!”

  “Lovely, yes, ver
y lovely,” Annette mocks, and then, not wanting to beat about the bush any longer, continues. “Thank you for the appointment. I come for to find way of pay debt and no have freezing order.”

  “You’ve had this debt for months now and I’ve been very patient. I called Àlex on many occasions and he never picked up the phone or answered my messages. The freezing injunction is already underway and can only be revoked if you pay before the end of this month.”

  “I no have money for to pay you all now, but can to pay instalment every month. I spoke with bank and I get promissory note so we finish debt in eight months,” Annette offers, ignoring his account of the situation.

  “Well, that’s difficult, because the freezing order can only be revoked if you pay back the whole sum.”

  The fish boss is finding it difficult to have a serious conversation with Annette. He’s not used to negotiating with women, and still less with such a strong-willed female. The ones he employs to clean fish are uneducated, loud and always joking. He treats them with a mixture of paternalism and despotism, constantly checking on them and considering them inferior beings, like all women. This redhead, he thinks, is quite different. She’s cultured, expresses herself well and, most shocking of all, looks him in the eye. He can’t handle this direct gaze so, copying a scene he once saw in some American film, swings his chair round to face away from Annette, joins his hands to form a triangle and seems to be praying to Buddha.

  Two long minutes of silence ensue as he wonders what to say and how to deal with this situation. He stares at a studio portrait of himself and his family of three children and a peroxide-blonde wife with prodigious breasts. Then the solution occurs to him.

  “One of my sons is a layabout. He doesn’t want to study or work in the company and I don’t like him hanging around in the street all the time, because he’s going to fall in with bad company. He’s very young, just sixteen. He might like working in a restaurant kitchen, because being a chef is all the rage now. They say girls are dying to go out with a potential Ferran Adrià! I’d be much happier if he was working and learning a trade. If you take him on I’ll advance the money right now to settle the debt plus interest and you’ll pay me back in the form of my son’s wages each month as instalments. You understand? That way it won’t cost you anything to take on my boy. The main thing, and I stress this, is that he mustn’t know anything about our agreement. If he finds out that his dad’s behind this he’ll go berserk. It’s the only solution that occurs to me.”