La Cucina

by Lily Prior

  Express delivery was most unusual. Why would normal delivery not do? As the letter lay on the counter all morning awaiting my arrival, all customers were called upon to speculate and comment on it.

  Quinto Cavallo, the goldsmith, had taken the liberty of examining the postmark, but it was smudged and gave no clue. The handwriting was equally anonymous. Quinto was able to cite the example of his brother’s friend’s neighbor’s acquaintance in Agrigento who had received a similar letter that bore very bad news, the worst news possible, but no one believed him.

  The hairdresser, Bernardino Capelli, from the Corso Ruggero, was intent on steaming it open, but this Nonna Frolla would not permit; she drew the line at actually opening her tenants’ letters.

  All lay in wait for me. When I finally appeared around the corner of the Via Bologna, Fredo the butcher’s boy ran in to alert those in the store.

  “Nonna Frolla, she’s coming, the whore’s coming down the street.”

  “That’s enough, boy,” Nonna rebuked him with a slap to the cheek. “You keep quiet.”

  Nonna smoothed her hair and skirts in anticipation of trouble. The customers in the store suddenly became animated and started to talk like characters on a stage when the curtains open. To their collective disappointment I walked straight past the store, nose in the air, without even looking in.

  Nonna Frolla whisked up the letter from the counter and gave chase. She was surprisingly nimble for a woman of 111.

  “Rosa, Rosa,” she called, puffing gently. The pug puffed louder, trying to keep up.

  I looked around.

  “Rosa, what has happened to you? Where are your clothes? You look as though you have been the victim of an attack. Where have you been, dear? I’ve been so worried about you.”

  “I’m fine, Nonna, there really is no need for you to worry about me.”

  “Been with that gentleman, I suppose?”

  I chose to ignore the question.

  “I am in a hurry, Nonna, do you want anything in particular?”

  “As a matter of fact I do,” snapped Nonna Frolla, her tone of fake concern evaporating. “I haven’t the time to chase around after my tenants when there’s nothing particular. Staying out all night in the company of strange men, bringing a bad name to my house, upsetting my tenants, wouldn’t have been countenanced in my day. It is absolutely disgraceful. Of all of this I say nothing. But while you were out doing whatever it is you have been doing, all night, with him, that man, that foreigner, an important letter has been delivered for you. I discharge my duties as landlady, I put myself last, I sacrifice myself to the will of my tenants. The reputation of my house is destroyed by the actions of this brazen girl, but still I deliver her mail…”

  I took the letter from Nonna’s hand and, simply saying “Thank you,” I disappeared inside my apartment and shut the door.

  I immediately recognized my mother’s handwriting. My mother had written me in Palermo only once before, and that was twenty years ago now. That first letter had informed me that she had shot Antonino Calabrese after discovering him in the cowshed with the dairymaid Balbina Burgondofara.

  Certainly Mama was not one for needless letter writing; this letter also had to mean bad news. In haste I tore it open. It read as follows:

  “Rosa, figlia mia,

  I have had a telegram from your brother Luigi in Chicago. He has heard from his associates that you are behaving like a whore, and have got mixed up in the company of some Inglese. You must stop it immediately, for he says he cannot have a stain on the family honor. I say to you Rosa you must stop your whorish behavior or I don’t know what will happen.

  With my best wishes

  Your mother

  Isabella Calabrese”

  Immediately there was a tap on the front door. I opened it to discover Nonna Frolla outside.

  “Was it bad news?” she asked with hope in her voice.

  I simply shut the door again. Outside Nonna could be heard muttering, but I ignored her.

  How could the news travel so fast to Luigi in Chicago? I knew he had been successful in the States, had become a businessman with his own chain of pizza restaurants. I knew he had connections; but how could his “associates” know about me?

  What Mama said sounded almost like a threat. I did not take it seriously, of course, but it was puzzling. This business of family honor too. Even when he was still in Castiglione, Luigi was not concerned with that. It was all very strange.

  My thoughts began to chase their tails until they became blurred. I recognized the signs and saw it was time to take out my pans. Preparing a dish always helped me to think more clearly. Besides, I was ravenously hungry. The delicious pasticcio di Sostanza was sufficiently complicated to give me enough time to consider the facts.

  First I kneaded a rich pastry dough and set it aside to relax. Then I took a plump cornfed chicken that I had hanging in my larder, and setting it down upon my butcher’s block I took a cleaver to it, splitting the bones with a fizz as the blade whistled through the air and came down with a thud. How good it felt to chop away like this: one of the things I missed most about the fattoria was butchering the animals I had slaughtered. When we were children growing up, my brothers wanted to be cowboys or postmen: I, however, wanted to be a butcher.

  I kept returning to thoughts of l’Inglese. How did Luigi know about him? I browned the chicken pieces in some good olive oil, and when they were done I fried the onion in the same oil, to ensure I had captured all the flavor of the fowl.

  Then I added parsley, some tomatoes, finely chopped, salt, pepper, and a good-sized bay leaf. I returned the chicken pieces to the pot and left it to simmer.

  Luigi had spies in Palermo, that was obvious: but I was not presumptuous enough to think he would have them keep a watch over me. I was of no interest to the Mafia.

  I sliced thinly through the chicken’s innards with a sharp cook’s knife. How I loved the delicate feel of livers between my fingers. I sautéed these in butter with the heart and gizzards and they released a bewitching aroma, which, out in the street, caused the passersby to close their eyes and inflate their nostrils.

  “She may be a whore,” I heard Signor Manzini saying beneath my window, “but she knows how to cook.”

  Perhaps I was looking at things the wrong way. Perhaps it was l’Inglese they were interested in. I cannot explain why that thought came to me and took hold as I crumbled some fresh sausage into the smoking oil and watched it bubble. I added a little red wine and some fresh tomato sauce, some salt and a grind of pepper. I almost added too much pepper, for while my mind rotated on this premise, my wrist continued to twist the head of the pepper mill. But my skill was such that I subconsciously stopped just in time.

  I lined the pie dish with the pastry. Despite my obsession with l’Inglese, I had to admit I knew almost nothing about him. I placed a layer of the chicken meat in the pastry case and sprinkled over a little cinnamon and a little sugar.

  I had no reason to suppose he was involved with the Mafia. But the idea kept grating away at me. It just seemed to fit.

  Next, a layer of sausage. More cinnamon. Mmmmmm. Wonderful fragrant powder. He had told me he was a scholar, but what did that really mean? Giblets. Then chicken again. Then sausage. Then giblets. Suddenly I felt scared.

  I poured tomato sauce over the top and stretched the pastry lid over the dish. Then I sealed the edges with a finger dipped in water and a few deft pinches.

  Now that I had found love again, this late in my life, why was fate so cruel to me? Could this man too be connected with la famiglia? Despite having been born with teeth in my mouth, I was cursed with ill luck.

  Before popping the pasticcio in a hot oven, I made a slash at the top with a knife to release the steam and brushed it with a beaten egg yolk.

  I sat down at the table and looked out of the window. He was out there, somewhere, not far away. My soul somehow reached out to him. I knew the dangers. I was certainly not going to take Mama’s ad
vice and end the relationship, but I would need to be on my guard.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Our lessons continued throughout that glorious summer, though at the villa rather than at my apartment; Nonna Frolla’s interference and the gossip of the neighbors gave me no peace, and I was afraid that l’Inglese’s violent temper might provoke him to do something awful if he ever came there again.

  The weather was perfect, hot white days and warm sultry nights: weather for cooks and lovers. The produce in the market was now at its finest: everything ripened by the intensity of the sun, the flavors richer, the odors more pungent, and the colors brighter than at any other time.

  It was, I decided, the right time to make the ’strattu, a traditional tomato paste, made outdoors and found only in Sicily. Nowadays the trouble of making it deters all but the most dedicated of cooks. I had not made ’strattu since I was a girl back at la fattoria, and I thought it would be a good learning exercise for l’Inglese, who, it seemed to me, was far too impatient to be a true Sicilian cook.

  He complained loudly as I had him carry a whole sack of ripe tomatoes back from the Vucciria market. They were an almost fluorescent red in color from the heat of the sun, bursting with juices and their wonderful perfume: warmth, sunlight, fertile earth, summer, rain. L’Inglese was a similar color as he struggled with them up the hill to the villa, cursing loudly.

  He made more fuss when I made him chop them all and pass them through the fine mesh of a sieve to remove the peel and the seeds. For hours he sat in the sun, wearing a floppy hat, straining his tomatoes over a wooden barrel. Not a single seed was permitted in the mixture, and I inspected it frequently for quality.

  “Signorina, how about a little tea break?” he asked after a while, his eyes glinting with mischief. “What about a little recreation?”

  “Not until you have quite finished, my lazy apprentice,” I answered.

  Later, when all the tomatoes were sieved and there was no trace of skin or pips, we added some handfuls of salt and leaves of fragrant basil and poured the entire mixture onto the center of a large table we had set out in the sun behind the house.

  Slowly, over a period of two days during which you must remember to stir frequently, the sun heats the mixture and evaporates the water, leaving a sumptuous, rich, dark tomato paste, which gives our pasta sauces their unique taste.

  All day long, for two long days, I made l’Inglese stir the ’strattu with a large wooden spoon. And as he stirred we talked.

  I told him about my family: I described Mama, Papa, and my brothers. He was particularly interested in Guerra and Pace. Dear boys. How I missed them.

  I told him about the fattoria where I grew up, and described to him in detail la cucina, which he never tired of hearing about. He even had me draw a diagram so he could understand the layout more clearly.

  “Ah, signorina, it reminds me of the kitchen in the house where I spent the summer holidays of my childhood. In Provence. It is there that I acquired the love of food, and the pleasure of cooking. Tell me, signorina, why is it you leave such a cucina for the closet you call a kitchen here in Palermo?”

  “Ah, it is a long story, signor.”

  “I have the time, signorina. My instructor tells me I must stir this wretched substance every few seconds for the next two days. She is a tyrant. A positive tyrant. And so I beg you, signorina, begin your story. My hours are at your disposal. I am going nowhere.”

  And so, faltering at first, I began to tell my story. He listened with rapt attention as it unfolded, and at times I had to remind him to stir the ’strattu, for he was so engrossed in my words he forgot everything else. There were times when I am sure I saw tears well up in his blue eyes, and then he would grasp my hand with his in a gesture of sympathy and understanding.

  It was the first time I had ever spoken of my past, and yet it felt right to reveal my secret to this man, on that day, that summer, under the burning sun.

  When I had finished my story I felt free and light. I had told it as it was, and it was laid out between us like the planks of a bridge. It felt so good to trust him and be open to him and let him into my world.

  “What an incredible story, signorina,” he said after a pause, which he had filled with much stirring of the ’strattu.

  “I knew the instant I set my eyes upon you that you had a secret, a sadness which showed in the shadows behind your eyes, even when you smiled, but my guesses were poor bloodless creatures. How I hoped you would share it with me. You are an amazing woman, Rosa Fiore. All my life I have been looking for someone like you. We are two of a kind, you and I. Kindred spirits.”

  “But how can you know that,” I asked, “when we know each other so little?”

  “Oh, signorina, how much you have to learn. A thing between a man and a woman is not based on the length of time they have known each other, or on their knowledge of the other’s chronology, their place of birth, what they do, or whether or not they like cats.” He gestured expansively with his wooden spoon, as though searching for the right words in the air.

  “All of that means nothing. It is irrelevant. What brings a man and a woman together is simply a matter of the heart. When I saw you for the first time that day in the library, my heart spoke to yours. Don’t pretend you didn’t hear it. And don’t be fearful. Live it. Enjoy it.”

  “I know you are right. But it feels so strange. So fast. So incredible.”

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” he said, kissing me.

  I had to agree: it was wonderful.

  As night fell we set the ’strattu on the porch to keep it free of dew which would make it moist again and spoil it. Then together we prepared a magnificent tonno alla Siracusa, fresh from the sea.

  I showed l’Inglese how to slice little incisions in the fragrant flesh of the fish and fill them with a mixture of crushed garlic, cloves, and coriander. I loved the way he wielded a knife with the flamboyant gestures of his beautiful hands. Everything this man did with his hands had me fascinated.

  Once the fish was well stuffed with the garlic mixture, we added it to the pan containing the onions we had already softened. Tomatoes, white wine vinegar, and oregano were added next, and while the dish cooked it filled the air with a sumptuous aroma of garlic, herbs, and wine. This heady cocktail stimulated the passions of the hungry and impatient cooks.

  “You will notice how much more delicious the food tastes after making love, signorina,” said l’Inglese, still lying naked on the flagstone floor of the kitchen, wafting a cigarette between his fingers, while I checked the pans and tried to find my dress, which had somehow got lost in the scramble and urgency of the moment.

  He was right, of course. The tonno alla Siracusa was the finest I had ever tasted. When I close my eyes now and think about it, I can still recall the taste of the fish that night and my mouth waters.

  Finally, at the end of the second day, when the ’strattu had reached the right consistency, like thick, dry mud, I showed l’Inglese how to pack it tightly into jars and cover it with oil and salt and a layer of muslin. If wrapped carefully, it will last right through the winter. It gave me such joy to see those jars lined up on the shelf in the kitchen; it was like being home once more.

  When we subsequently sat down to a mountain of pasta con acciughe e mollica made with the paste, l’Inglese had to admit that all the effort had been worth it: he had never tasted a sauce so delicious.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I spent all my spare time with l’Inglese, teaching him about the kitchen, and he in turn taught me the secrets of the bedroom. Still, I did not neglect my duties at the library.

  One evening, toward the end of July, always an unbearably sticky month in Palermo, I was on late duty, and was alone in the library save for Crocifisso the doorman. He was listening to the commentary of a football match on a transistor radio in his little booth.

  There were no readers at all in the library. The university students were on vacation, and the regulars had already gone home.
It was quiet, just as I liked it, and I was able to get on with some shelving in peace. Sometimes it pleased me to help the junior girls by doing this: after all, this was how I had started.

  L’Inglese had gone out of town for a few days, on business, he said, although I didn’t know what business. When I asked, he assumed an air of mystery and said he would tell me when he came back. I was not really very curious: although I would miss him, his absence meant I would be able to get on and do a few things in my apartment that I had been putting off. Putting things off was not something I liked to do.

  I was so happy as I pushed my little cart between the shelves, filing each of the books away according to the catalog numbers that I had assigned to them.

  How my life had changed since l’Inglese had appeared in it, I mused as I refilled my cart with a stack of returned items. What wonderful times we had had together over the past few magical weeks. I hoped it would never end.

  Sandwiched between the high rows of medical books on the second floor I suddenly had the feeling I was being watched. It was the same feeling I had had in my apartment when Signor Rivoli was leering at me from his balcony. A shiver that started between my shoulder blades rippled its way through the length of my body. The light up in that part of the library was not too good. I looked all around me, and then walked gingerly between the rows, looking and listening. But there was no one there; I was just being foolish.

  I returned to my cart and continued with my duties. Then I picked up a book, a much-thumbed volume on human reproduction, and found a piece of paper inserted between two pages. I removed it, as was my custom, and found on it a little drawing of two figures locked in an embrace. The male figure had a little mustache, a large paunch, and a monstrous phallus. The female figure had huge breasts and in every other detail looked very much like me. On the reverse, in his calligraphic script, l’Inglese had written “I miss you.” I smiled broadly as I put it away in my pocket. How had he managed to plant the note so that only I would find it? He was a constant source of delight to me. I loved these little gestures: no one had ever tried to please me before, and I lapped it up.