Vanilla Salt

  Annette can hardly breathe. Does she have to take on this fat man’s son on top of everything else? It’s too much! When she tells Àlex he’ll throw a fit… no, a Greek tragedy at the very least!

  “Yes, we do that.” She agrees without further ado. “But when we finish to pay debt we no have more obligation for your son.” She wants to make it clear that she has no intention of keeping this millstone round her neck and that she’s agreeing to the deal out of pure necessity.

  “Very well. But remember that there are two conditions. First, you can’t kick him out, which means you agree to have him for a whole year, which will cover all the instalments. Second, he must never, under any circumstances, get wind of this conversation, not as much as a whisper. Is that clear? And there’s one other last condition, which is that you have to keep me informed about his behaviour and his cooking skills. If he doesn’t turn up at work one day, for whatever reason, you have to tell me. Ah, and tell Àlex he has to be very strict.”

  The meeting comes to an end and Annette isn’t sure whether she’s won or lost. Maybe asset-freezing would have been preferable. But, for the time being, the reality is they’re going to have to cope with a wayward kid.

  She comes into Roda el Món calling, “Hi Àlex, where are you?”

  “I’m cooking. This morning I thought, ‘Damn it, bloody hell, I actually like cooking,’ so here you have me. A change is as good as a holiday, eh? What about you?”

  “You make many jokes lately, no? I come for to tell you that tomorrow a new boy he start work in kitchen,” she says quickly.

  “So you asked me about this? Sorry, I don’t recall when.” He pretends to be angry.

  “I have no time for to consult but there no choice. You no ask me why. We must give job to boy. That is that. No problem for money. He very cheap. It necessity. I no meet this boy, but think he good person. He come here for to work and we must to teach him and control him.”

  “What a mystery! OK, you’re the boss, as I’ve said many times. I would have preferred to choose the kitchen hand myself, which is the least I can ask, but it doesn’t matter. The main thing is I’ll have an extra pair of hands, and that will be a very good thing. I suppose you know what you’re doing.”

  After turning down the offer of the Can Bret owner, they’re working like navvies in Roda el Món. Àlex is doing his very best now, and instead of disappearing to rest every afternoon he cooks as if his life depended on it. The tasting menu – “Food for peanuts,” he jokes – is excellent and the number of fans is growing fast. The ten-euro lunchtime menu is famous throughout the region. All the tables are taken every day and today they’ve done two sittings.

  Annette’s been cooking this afternoon. She has to make some cakes and also wants to make biber dolması, the famous Turkish stuffed peppers.

  She’ll use some beautiful, fresh medium-sized green peppers brought by Albert, the organic-vegetable supplier. She cuts off the stalks, cleans them inside to get rid of the seeds. She fries a couple of onions, adds some pine nuts and a good handful of rice, covers it with hot broth and lets the rice take it in as it cooks nice and slowly. She chops up some fresh herbs – dill, mint and parsley – which she sprinkles over the rice, after which she adds a pinch of cinnamon and a few drops of lemon juice. When the rice is cooked and has absorbed all the aromas of the herbs and spices she fills the peppers, which she then places neatly in a casserole dish and covers with water and white wine. She makes a paste out of crushed almonds and a couple of dry biscuits and adds that to the sauce. The whole thing is then simmered until the peppers are cooked and the sauce has thickened. They’ll be on tonight’s menu. Today, too, they have plenty of customers and the reservation book is practically jumping around on the desk.

  The lone diner has come back again tonight, working slowly and thoughtfully through the menu. When Annette serves him, he asks her a few questions about the food or the cooking, and also about her professional background: where she learnt to cook, if she’s cooked any of the dishes herself, how long she’s been living in Catalonia, and so on. Annette is flattered and answers trustingly. When she goes into the kitchen to get this customer’s order, she tells Àlex. “The peppers are for this man at the Table 2. He come many times and always put me questions. He seem very interested in restaurant and how we make the food. This man have a lot of curiosity. He look at everything in restaurant and watch me working. You think he a Michelin inspector?”

  “I fear he’s more interested in your buttocks than in what comes out of this kitchen on a plate,” Àlex laughs.

  “Now you be serious. You think Michelin guide check our work?”

  “Hmm. It’s strange, because, as far as I know, you have to ask them to come. I don’t think they send their inspector unless you ask first. And you haven’t asked. Listen, my advice is that you ignore the whole thing, even if he does turn out to be a Michelin man, because being in the guide isn’t much use if you don’t have a star. If you do have one, then you become a slave to their rules and regulations and way of doing things. Of course a Michelin star attracts customers from everywhere and the town would be very proud of having a starred restaurant in the guide. All the same, it’s better to do things your own way and not have to end up following their instructions. It seems counterintuitive, eh?”

  “Yes, totally. If customers come from far and people in town they are proud for have a restaurant with star, where is problem?”

  “There are two problems. First, the people from a long way away come for a ‘taste’, but only once and you never see them again. Second, the locals will put you up on a pedestal, by which I mean when they’re talking to people from other places, they’ll boast about the importance of their town because it’s got a Visigoth or Romanesque church, or a square with a crumbling stone arcade, some caves from the year dot, plus a restaurant with whatever number of Michelin stars. But they never set foot in the restaurant, just like they never gaze at the stained glass in the church windows or venture into the caves. They have to walk under the arcade when they go to buy bread, but if it weren’t for practical reasons they wouldn’t go there either. Michelin stars actually frighten people away. The sensation of elitism and starchiness puts them off… and they can’t afford it anyway. Bloody hell! The peppers. With all this talk, they’ve almost gone dry!”

  After they’ve closed up for the night, there’s one serving of peppers left over. Annette invites Àlex to try them. Although he tries not to give away anything with his expression, as he still resists praising her cooking, he likes the peppers a lot and Annette can see it. This makes her so happy that she tells Àlex that this dish is reserved for special occasions in Turkey, weddings for example. Things seem to be going well at last. She pours two glasses of wine from a bottle that some customers haven’t finished and asks sweetly, “Can we go to your room and listen to music?”

  “We have to get to sleep early today. Tomorrow’s very important for us.”

  “Yes, the presentation to press and the new helper he start also, you remember? It is important day, so good for us we relax a little bit.”

  “You make things happen to suit you… and you make me go head over heels.”

  “Go your head to hills?”

  “You still have a lot to learn, baby,” Àlex says, playing the role of a movie heart-throb.

  They pick up the glasses of wine, plus another two half-finished bottles, and take the stairs two at a time in some kind of unspoken hurry to get to Àlex’s room.

  Àlex gets flustered trying to choose the right kind of music. Annette helps, more interested in putting on any old CD to hurry things along than expressing any clear musical preference. As they’re standing side by side at the shelf of CDs, their bodies touch and Àlex feels as if he’s on fire. He has already decided that tonight’s the night. He wants to see her moving, touch her skin, feel her red hair against his chest, tangle his fingers in its curls, make drawings out of her freckles and find a moistly welcoming heaven between her
legs.

  They settle for a CD of Mayte Martín. Annette’s never heard her before and is soon bewitched by the voice and the boleros that transport her to some indefinably safe place. She has already decided that tonight’s the night, after too many imaginative sessions of spiriting him into her room at midnight, just as she’s dropping off to sleep, conjuring up his rough hands, the castigated chef’s hands that neatly tie up a rolled roast, delicately break off rosemary leaves, deftly chop vegetables and confidently shake the frying pan in which mushrooms are cooking. She wants the heaven of feeling Àlex’s hand between her legs.

  They drink their wine in silence, turn towards each other, still in silence, and kiss. It’s a furious, wet, shameless kiss. Àlex undresses her, impatiently unbuttoning her white shirt to touch her breasts at last. Annette throws herself into his arms. They’ve contained this desire for so long, working so hard to hide it that it can only explode. They would have liked to make love slowly, enjoying every moment, letting the heat rise until almost melting their flesh, but they fuck urgently, trying to absorb one another.

  It’s taken no more than three minutes and they’re both panting, not satisfied but certainly burnt, like puff pastry cooked in a too hot oven: the high temperature won’t let the pastry rise so the layers can separate to acquire the crunchy texture that melts in your mouth. They sit on the bed, drenched in sweat. Annette covers herself with the crumpled sheet.

  “You owe me one,” Àlex says all of a sudden.

  “We make now more love?”

  “No, I’m fine, though I wouldn’t say no to a second helping either,” he jokes, imitating a customer being offered another ration. “You owe me an explanation. I want to know who I’m taking into my bed. I don’t know the first thing about you except that you’re from Quebec and your name. Ah yes, and you’ve got the most delicious vagina. But that’s not what I want to talk about now.”

  Annette understands. She owes him an explanation, so she tells him her life story without sparing the details.

  She’s the only child of well-off parents. Her father was the director of a very profitable company specializing in fattening farm animals, mainly cows. She was sent to the best schools for young ladies in Canada, and her childhood could come under the “Very Happy” heading.

  The young Annette grew up and met a handsome, studious, well-mannered and very ambitious American boy from a good middle-class family. Her parents were enchanted with him, as he met every requirement they’d decided on when they were raising their daughter. They lost no time in marrying her off to the brilliant young man. They had a lavish wedding and her parents bought them a flat, with everything they could possibly want, in Chicago, where Annette’s new husband worked as an executive in a multinational.

  Annette Chaubel, now Mrs Annette Wilson, acquired dual citizenship. They decided not to have children straight away, because she was interested in too many things and didn’t want to spend all day wiping snotty little noses. She enrolled for a degree in anthropology, which she loved and kept her busy. At night, she didn’t miss a single art show, or new play, or performance of experimental music. Her husband worked long hours, climbing up through the ranks in a career full of successes and recognition from his bosses. He got home late, very tired and tense after a whole day spent wheeling and dealing. At the weekend they had dinners with friends and occasionally escaped to New York, where she took lots of photos, another of her passions. They lived very comfortably and were much better off than most couples their age.

  Some years after they’d embarked on this upscale life in Chicago, Annette’s father fell ill and died a few months later. He had employed good managers, but without the director’s supervision serious problems began to appear. Although she had neither the slightest wish nor desire to do so, Annette felt obliged to take over. Her husband left his well-paid job and they moved to Quebec to run the company.

  Annette went back to her maiden name, Chaubel, and her husband slowly took over the whole management of the business, as he believed that the old system was outdated. He introduced new production systems and aggressive sales-and-marketing strategies that were very different from her father’s clear, simple business style. Annette took no interest in the new management plan. She was very busy meeting her friends for afternoon tea, helping an NGO that was building houses in Mali, working with an amateur theatre group of some renown in Quebec and attending all the classical-music concerts at the Opera House.

  It was around this time that she started getting interested in cooking and food anthropology, so she enrolled for a master’s degree in anthropology at the prestigious University of Quebec. She was busy all day long, although she also managed to find time to go to her father’s old business ATLANTIC VIANDES, mainly because there were always a lot of documents and cheques to sign, a result of the express wish of her father before he died that Annette keep the company in her name and not give power of attorney to anyone, not even her husband. She was the CEO, and nobody else could sign on the company’s behalf. This power was to be her downfall. She trusted her husband so much and was always so busy with classes, meetings, the NGO, concerts, theatre, food and everything else, that she never took the time to check what she was signing. Indeed, in all honesty she now admits that she wouldn’t have understood it anyway.

  She and her husband were growing further and further apart. He was very busy and she had a lot of interests, so many that she didn’t notice that he had quite a collection of lovers. As far as she was concerned, it was fine that he was so busy and keeping well out of her life. Moreover, he liked all the trappings of being a rich man. He travelled with his lovers to the most exotic places, took them out to dinner at good restaurants and had a marvellous flat for his trysts. He coveted wealth with ever greater avidity, obsessed in his quest to squeeze bigger profits from the company. He’d cooked up several different strategies, some of which were quite bizarre, until he came to the conclusion that the best way to make quick, juicy profits was to speed up the process of fattening the animals. He put his plan into action, resorting to fraudulent ways of puffing up the poor calves, giving them large doses of clenbuterol, a magical drug that quickly produced impressively bulky animals, which were heavy not in meat or fat, but fluids and chemical substances. The overdose he administered caused acute food poisoning in consumers. When the crime was revealed, all fingers pointed at Annette as the guilty party. After all, she’d signed the contracts and ordered the purchase of massive quantities of clenbuterol… unaware of what she was doing. She hit the headlines.

  Annette Chaubel, owner and director of ATLANTIC VIANDES, has been charged with fraud after being held solely responsible for authorizing the use of the outlawed drug clenbuterol for fattening animals, causing ten deaths and widespread food poisoning affecting hundreds of people throughout Canada.

  Before the case came to court, she became a fugitive, using her married name of Wilson and eventually moving as far away as possible from Canada. At first she hid out with some friends in Iowa, but she couldn’t stay with them indefinitely, since she feared they might get mixed up in the scandal. And she wasn’t the only one who thought so, as her friends started dropping hints about the risks they were taking by harbouring her. Wounded by their insinuations, Annette began to think about where to go. The United States was too close. She had to put a great distance between herself and Canada, so she decided on Europe and, while still unsure about exactly where, she “bumped into” Òscar online, and after that a whole series of coincidences led her to Bigues i Riells.

  “Now I here. You see I become delinquent but no know it. A totally broked fugitive and my husband – yes, he still my husband – he live like king in United States because he steal company money when he see the problems that they arriving.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Àlex can’t think of anything else to say. “We’re two tormented souls, with two strange and complex stories and we’ve met up here in this corner of the world. We’ll have our work cut out to fix things
.”

  “We no so special. You no must think you different. All people have story but no want think about it. You no have interest for know my story until you put me in the bed. We all us alone people who share this world.”

  “Well, I want to be more interested. Come on, what about the second course?”

  It’s very early. The sun’s hardly up and Annette’s already at work in the kitchen. She’s slept very little and is agitated and happy all at once. Last night she opened two bottles that had been languishing for too long in the cellar, made love with Àlex and finally told him her story. She feels light and floaty with relief, but today isn’t the best day to get carried away with memories or drifting about like a teenager, sighing like la dame aux camélias. It’s a very important day, crucial for the future of the restaurant.

  Àlex comes downstairs, looking very spruce. He’s whistling, and seems happy. They wish one another good morning, as if nothing has happened between them. They don’t have a moment to sit down, have a cup of tea and talk about what they shared just a few hours ago. There’s a lot of work to do before the members of the press turn up for the gala presentation of Roda el Món. Nobody will be absent, because they all know Àlex and, furthermore, Carol has weighed in by phoning up the big names. Everyone’s quite excited.

  Outwardly, Àlex is happy, but a terrible uneasiness is gnawing at his entrails, and this has nothing to do with all the delightful moments of his marvellous night with Annette. They made love again after she gave him her stark but complete account of her previous life, because he wanted her to understand that she had his total support and that he’d do everything within his power never to let her down.