She doesn’t want to admit it, but she’s thrilled at the idea of writing her small history of food. After spending so long studying the subject, it’s wonderful to have this chance to make good use of her efforts and share her knowledge with others. It looks as if everything’s going well at last, a beautiful time for them.
Àlex is in the kitchen with Eric and, in a fit of rage, has just tipped into the rubbish bin all the “dreadful” culinary efforts of “that little shit”, as he defines the last chef, decorated with all sorts of school certificates, who was sacked yesterday. Annette comes in to make her raspberry crumble, which is to feature on the dessert menu today. What she likes most about this dish is being able to recycle their leftover bread, now crumbled, mixed with butter and sweetened with brown sugar to make a crunchy top for the caramelized raspberries. Even in her earlier life, when she was a rich woman living in Canada, she hated wasting food. Now, when she’s totally broke, she finds it even more terrible to throw away food, so, seeing the bin full of the dismissed chef’s efforts, she almost faints.
She calls Àlex over and berates him. “The same old story!” she exclaims as she criticizes his bad habit of wasting food. Eric watches on in amusement. He loves conflict and hopes the knives will start flying. He’d be in the middle of some mêlée or other all the time if he could, and thinks it’s a shame people usually behave well when it’s so much fun winding them up. Annette sees that he’s enjoying the show and says, “Àlex, we go and have a cup of tea and talk. Eric he will finish to clean the clams.”
“Tea, tea! What kind of poncey thing is this now? Don’t come to me with all this Pu-erh, green tea and healthy infusions bullshit. If Madame likes it, that’s all very well, but it’s not my thing. I don’t drink tea, OK?”
“When you ready, come to table with me. It important and you have what you think good for you. I have tea,” Annette says, completely unperturbed.
If Àlex’s tantrums terrified her before, she’s immune now and even finds them funny. If too many days go by without explosions, she misses them. He doesn’t seem to realize how childish they are, like a kid whistling in the dark, and they add a splash of colour to the otherwise sterile whiteness of the kitchen. Hence, with today’s outburst when she offered him a cup of tea, she’s let him sound off as much as necessary and, to goad him just a little more, she’s made herself a blend he particularly detests – passion fruit and vanilla.
“Pooh! That stink is terrible. Only Indians and Anglo-Saxons – the former dirt-poor and the latter illiterate in all things gastronomic – could drink that shit.”
“You a cliché walk around on two legs, Àlex. No all the Indians of India they poor. On the contrary, everyone know the rajas of India they live like kings.”
“You can count them on the fingers of one hand. The rest live in the direst poverty.”
“Listen, we no can to lose time with stupid conversation. We have very big problem. In few words, we no have money. I know you get scared when you do books, so I give you this summary of our business. In the beginning we survive problems because Carol write good articles about us.”
“Don’t mention that woman’s name. It’s prohibited in this restaurant!” he interrupts.
“OK, I no call this cat a cat, but I continue. In good times we pay your debts and have party with money remaining. After scandal we get less and less money.”
“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this when I already know. Everything will be fine now. Look at the reservation book. We’ve got quite a lot of work.”
“Yes, we maybe can recover, but we have many debts accumulated. The Can Bret man he phone today and tell me he take us to the court if we no pay rent – two months of rent I no can to pay him. He remind me also that you sign him document to sell restaurant and deadline is near now and we must finish this deal or give back him the advance he pay to buy this business. We have problem, a very big problem, and you make it for us, all yourself.”
Àlex huffs and puffs. “Everything’s always my fault. Stop talking so much about problems and looking for guilty parties. Let’s think positively and find solutions.”
“Yes, is what I try to do now, and the only solution I can think is: you sell house already, so you have money. You return advance with interest and invest you in business, or we must to find other solution. We no have more possibilities, no time and no can wait more…”
Àlex stares with glazed eyes at her cup of tea. He is silent.
“You no say something?” Annette’s expression is serious.
“I don’t have the money. I haven’t got a bean.”
“The money of the house?…”
“I don’t have it. I gave it away.”
Now she’s angry. “What is this you say? This is crazy thing. What you do?”
The day after the party, the day Annette had lunch with Carol, Àlex went to Barcelona. He hadn’t been able to visit his son in the Cottolengo convent for some months owing to all the work at the restaurant. He felt guilty, sad and lost. He went directly there. The nuns were overjoyed to see him, as there was a lot of work for him to do, which he set about immediately, unblocking a toilet, fixing a pipe, changing light bulbs and tiling one corner of the kitchen. It had been ages since he had done any work for the nuns. He couldn’t find his son. He wasn’t in his usual room and the question was eating away at him, filling him with a feeling of helplessness until one of the nuns confirmed his fears. Laiex had died some weeks earlier. “This is to be expected,” the nun told him. “People with conditions like this don’t usually survive beyond thirty. Now he is with God.”
Àlex asked for an appointment with the Mother Superior and made an exceptional donation: most of the money he’d got from the sale of his house. He felt enormously happy at being able to contribute something to the community of nuns who had taken in his disabled son, the son he had abandoned. However, despite his generous donation, guilt still gnawed away at him. Money can’t neutralize pain or feelings of meanness, but at least his spirit felt lighter.
He didn’t give the whole lot to the nuns. The small amount that remained would have been enough to get the restaurant going again or set up the flavoured-salts business.
“When, believing that I was the one who poisoned the journalists, you threw me out of Roda el Món, I felt very hurt, extremely hurt and alone, dreadfully alone. I had nowhere to go and my life didn’t make sense. I loved you and you didn’t believe in my innocence. I could have spent the first night in a hotel, rented a flat with the bit of money I had left and then looked for a job. But I was totally destroyed. Having to spend the night alone in a hotel room would have done me in. In fact, I didn’t want to live. I went into a bar and stayed there till they kicked me out at closing time, dead drunk. I went to sleep in a doorway, and the next morning the concierge yelled at me and made me leave. I spent all day wandering around the streets of Barcelona, literally without a roof over my head until I ended up in the Raval.”
This story goes back to earlier times. After Laura left him alone with Laiex, Àlex began hating women and became a hardened misogynist. He hated his mother, hated Laura, hated anything to do with the female sex and promised himself that he would never again have any dealings with any woman, neither in his personal nor in his professional life. He gave himself body and soul to cooking. But he was still a man and his craving for sex made life unbearable.
One Monday, some eighteen years earlier, after spending the whole day working at Cottolengo, he was walking around the city and had a few drinks to wind down afterwards. He ended up in the Raval, where he saw a young prostitute soliciting men on the street. She reminded him of a daisy, a childlike, white and delicate flower. He went over to her, paid the trifle she asked for in advance and went upstairs with her to the room she rented by the hour, a bare, dirty, dark space. Àlex didn’t speak to her, but roughly undressed her, entered her and brutally fucked her till he came.
“Darling, please, my love, be gentle with me, ple
ase,” she begged in a strong Brazilian accent. He filled her mouth with his penis and obliged her to swallow his semen until she almost choked. Then, in a primitive, animal rage he began to beat her, shouting, “Fucking whore, pig, bloody bitch.”
Cowering in a corner of the grotty room, the terrified woman sobbed. Mute with fear, she couldn’t say a word. Seeing her so defenceless, Àlex kicked her hard in the back. He closed the door, leaving her alone, naked and crying, curled up on the dirty floor.
On the way back to the restaurant, Àlex had been about to drive off the road. He wanted to die, crushed by twisted metal, in the River Tenes. He had to pull over and stop the car, and he immediately threw up all the hatred he’d accumulated over so many years. He felt relieved, totally vile and disgusted with himself.
He had to wait a whole week before he could return to Barcelona, enduring seven days of being almost asphyxiated by remorse. Finally Monday came around and he drove into the city centre, obsessed with finding the Brazilian prostitute. When he approached her she shrank away, looking around for help. She went pale and, just as she was about to start running, Àlex grabbed her arm. She screamed and shook her head, but he showed her a handful of notes and said, “This is for you, princess. Let’s go to a bar and talk.” She couldn’t resist the temptation of the money he was offering and, since he’d suggested an open space, surrounded by other people, where he’d have problems if he attacked her again, she agreed to go with him.
She asked for a Fanta and they started talking, although it ended up being a kind of interrogation in which she hardly dared to speak, except for timid answers to his questions. Her name was Gladys and she’d arrived quite recently from Brazil, where, as the second of twelve brothers and sisters, her chances of bettering herself were less than remote. She had a baby son, whom she’d left with her parents. She wanted to study and become a nurse, but at present she was hard put to get enough to eat every day. The night he attacked her, she’d been in Barcelona for just two weeks and had only begun working as a prostitute a few days earlier. She was nineteen years old when he invited her to a Fanta in the bar.
After that Àlex went to see her every Monday. He always paid her double the agreed rate, saying, “Half of that is for food and the other half is for your nursing studies. Save it.”
Their relationship had little in common with the typical whore-client encounter. Àlex treated Gladys like his girlfriend, his sweetheart, his friend. Of course they had sex, and a lot of it, but they also talked and freely exchanged confidences. Monday was a delightful day. Until early afternoon Àlex busied himself with all sorts of jobs to help the nuns at Cottolengo, which he left happy and satisfied at having been able to see his son and do something for the nuns. Gladys was waiting for him towards evening, with the sweet, chocolatey, delicious, firm breasts he’d been dreaming about. He loved listening to her melodious voice, rich with the music she’d learnt on the streets. They talked and talked and Àlex slept naked in a bed which Gladys rented by the hour, in the disgusting room, in dirty sheets in which at least a dozen men had wallowed.
“The day you threw me out, the day when I wanted to die, after wandering round the streets not knowing where to go or what to do, I went to see Gladys, who took me in. Life is full of surprises! I was taken in by a whore! A few months earlier she’d been able to rent a tiny flat two doors away from where she worked, so now she could live alone and was at last spared the farts of the old pros in the house where she’d had to share a room because she couldn’t afford anything better. What with the rent and having to buy food, Gladys didn’t have enough to pay the fees for her nursing studies, the only course that didn’t require a certificate in primary education. I felt indebted to her, so I gave her the rest of the money from the sale of the house and the advance. Now you know everything,” Àlex concludes. “If you want to get something back, you’ll have to take on a whore and several nuns. I wouldn’t advise it.”
“What you tell me is very typical with you. I can imagine this. I really sorry for death of your son. You no tell me this before. But I remember the day you come back after party you chop many onions and close you inside you. I understand this as clear sign that you guilty for the poison, but you silent because Laiex die. I make big mistake.”
“I didn’t tell you because you didn’t ask me what was wrong.”
“We no start argument round and round same track now, because it no lead us nowhere. We have this situation of no have money and problem of debts. We have scenario: we must pay rent and loan of Òscar. If we no return advance pay for business, plus fine, we no have restaurant in two weeks. We must make decision. We go and speak with bank for credit or—”
“We’ll sell the restaurant.” Àlex is categorical.
“But, Àlex, this your life, and now it my life also.”
“Our life isn’t in this restaurant.” He’s categorical.
“But… you cooking. You love this most.”
“What I love most is you and I don’t want to lose you. We can do lots of things together. We have plenty of experience, ideas, energy, dreams and time. Let’s not blow this chance by getting into debt up to our ears, fretting our lives away in one small corner of the planet when we have a whole world to discover.”
Caught up in their conversation, they haven’t been watching the clock. It’s late and they have less than an hour before they open. They have tables reserved and Àlex hasn’t had time to cook all the dishes featuring on the lunchtime menu. He dashes into the kitchen to throw together whatever he can to save the situation.
He looks around and is dumbstruck. While he was talking with Annette, Eric has done the cooking. It’s not exactly what Àlex had in mind, but he’s done a good job. All by himself, with the few ingredients he’s found in the fridge, the scraps of culinary knowledge he’s managed to pick up from Àlex and the arrogance of youth and inexperience, he’s produced six dishes. Àlex is pleasantly surprised. The kid’s got talent. He’s acquitted himself very well.
Annette and Graça get the dining room ready. They’re expecting quite a few people today. Annette’s troubled, upset by her conversation with Àlex and saddened by the prospect of selling Roda el Món. She barely speaks. The Can Bret people are only concerned about making money and couldn’t care less about good cooking, culinary culture, gastronomic sensibility and fine products. When they look at a customer, they only see the bulge of his wallet. She imagines what they’ll do to Roda el Món. They’ll wreck the place, reduce the kitchen to half its size so they can cram in more tables, change the format of the menus, smothering them in plastic so they’ll last for ever, send back the fine wines so they can offer cheap ones with a high markup, and sack Graça because she’s black. Annette can’t bear the awful reality of what will happen in less than two weeks if they sell to the Can Bret people.
She grabs the phone and calls Eric’s father, the fish supplier, to ask for an appointment. He immediately agrees, since he fears that this must be about his son’s less than satisfactory behaviour, although he’s had the impression for a while now that the lad has stopped hanging round with those pothead friends of his. He tells her to come later this afternoon.
Annette takes the bus to the industrial estate and Eric’s dad is punctual in receiving her. It’s clear from the sweat pearling on his forehead that he’s worried. Annette reassures him.
“Please you no worry about your son. Eric he work very well and he even like his job. He prepare today all the menu, himself alone. We are happy with him. His attitude also change, and now he not so aggressive but more tolerant. It hard for him to control the impulses of young person, but he try.”
Eric’s father is greatly relieved. This is the best news he’s had since he signed the deal with the biggest hotel chain in the country. If his business is booming and his kid’s not getting up his nose, he’s the luckiest man on earth. As long as his wife lets him go to see the young ladies in Thailand a couple of times a year then life’s a bed of roses.
&nbs
p; “I’m very happy to hear that. In fact, he’s a good lad, and I can say it even if he is my own son,” he boasts. “He just had to find a job that interests him. I really had a great idea when I had to decide what to do about your debt. Sometimes I surprise myself with the things that occur to me,” he says, glancing in the enormous mirror covering a good part of one of the walls in his office and rearranging the remaining few strands of hair across his bald dome.
“Yes, he is very good boy, and true also that he like cooking. But your son he would not be fine in any restaurant. The good principles in Roda el Món, the workmates, the freedom Àlex give him to create new dishes, the discipline in timetable… all these things important for your son so he can to work well.” She employs all her shrewdness to save the business. “There are many different kinds of restaurants and most too big or impersonal or not enough disciplined… some are incredible. Depending on kind of cooking you need lot of serenity and many skills to deal with the tension. It very important for Eric to have good training before he try other restaurants.”
“But why are you telling me all this? Do you want to sack him? Remember, this is impossible, because you signed a contract that is very clear about this. You can’t sack my son.” His tone is now threatening.
“No, no, for Heaven sake! No, I no want to sack Eric. We love him like he is our son.” She looks at the ceiling, trying to hide the fact that she’s lying, although it’s true that they’ve grown quite fond of Eric.
“So what’s all this about then? Why are you telling me it would be better if he didn’t leave Roda el Món?”
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