The weight on Jeremy’s chest shifted painfully. One knee rested squarely on his sternum, the other in his groin. A cold sliver across his Adam’s apple remained as well. Jeremy knew the edge.
Jeremy whispered his message. “I brought a gift.”
Siwash took several seconds to decide, but when he did, it was final. He pulled Jeremy to his feet, sheathed the knife and commenced vigorously brushing the leaves and bits of gravel off Jeremy’s shoulders and his back. Then he led the way towards the pillbox, a rounded rectangle of thick concrete and steel, rusting, moss covered, clinging to a rock outcropping on the cliff. Inside the heavy steel door Jeremy found himself in a tiny, although neatly organized, room. There were stacks of books, a narrow cot, two benches and a stool for sitting. On the walls there were dozens of maps taped up, overlapping, flickering in the light offered by many candles mounted inside soup cans.
They had tea. Jeremy’s hands shaking, despite himself. The tea cup rattling. It was China Black, he couldn’t help but notice.
Siwash pulled the stool close. He sat and sipped delicately, the Sabatier unsheathed again and balanced across his knees. “You’re wondering about the maps, no doubt,” he said.
Jeremy hadn’t been, but Siwash had decided to talk.
The Mercator projection was familiar to Jeremy. The Miller cylinder might have even come up in highschool geography. The sinusoidal pseudocylindrical projection rang fewer bells, however, and Jeremy admitted defeat with the gnomonic azi-muthal. “Not unlike personal perspectives,” Siwash said, “we rarely understand map projections that are not our own.”
He was on conic projections now: lambert conformal, Albers’ equal area. “One of my favourites,” Siwash was saying. “Bipolar oblique conic conformal.”
Siwash continued to talk while standing and pointing to a map of North America on the far wall. Jeremy could see from where he sat that it was an eccentric projection. If someone had painted a map of the continent on a basketball and (while the paint was still wet) fired this basketball out of a cannon against a canvas, the resultant print might look something like the bipolar oblique conic conformal projection. Compressed and exploded at the same time. It strained to stay on the page.
“The earth usefully rendered in two dimensions,” Siwash sighed, sitting. His face clouded. There were projection problems, Jeremy learned. Problems inherent in trying to depict the surface of a three dimensional sphere (or a near-sphere, the world being shaped more like a squashed pear) on the impoverished dimensions of a flat piece of paper. “Distortion,” Siwash said, grimacing. “And it gets much worse with scale. You understand?”
Maps of the entire earth were the most distorted, and every projection designed to solve the problem came saddled with its own limitations. Directions weren’t true or the proportions got wonky or—as in the case of the globe cut into petals and flattened on the page—it became impossible to get a sense of how anything was connected. “There’s no straight line here,” Siwash said, stabbing his finger towards a map that illustrated this point. “I know there are straight lines really. I can draw one in the soil.” He drew one with the toe of his boot in the dust of the pillbox floor. “Proving,” he said, eyes wide, “that too much map is problematic.”
“Smaller maps?” Jeremy tried.
Siwash liked that answer. He leaned back, he smiled. He even drummed his fingers on the blade of the Sabatier lying across his knees.
True. The smaller the map, the less the distortion. “A map of the city is pretty reliable,” Siwash said. “But a map of just this room would be better. A map of one square foot of this room better still! How about that? With a map of just one square foot of this room, you’d really know where you were.”
“As long as you happened to be on that one square foot,” Jeremy said.
“Exactly!” Siwash cried, on his feet now, head brushing the ceiling. “Only problem is carrying around all those maps. How many square feet a day do you use? I use dozens, and I conserve. But you use more, city people do. Tens of thousands, squander them. Chew them up, spit them out.”
Aha, thought Jeremy. Because with his pronouncement, Siwash had flourished the box from his holster, about the size of a TV remote control. He placed it on the stool where Jeremy could see it, turned it on. It had a small green screen that glowed with a string of numbers and letters.
“GPS,” Jeremy said, dumbly recognizing the tracking device. Reading the characters that had popped up sharply on the display: N 49.18.32 W 123.09.18.
“Satellites, isn’t it?” Jeremy asked finally.
Twenty-four, in fact. In six orbits.
Siwash closed his eyes. “I believe in three segments,” he said. “Space, control and user.” An incantation. A creed. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and settled. Jeremy didn’t move.
“I believe in a master control facility, in the monitor network and in the signals through which groundtrack is maintained. I believe in earthbound receivers, in the free download of positional data. I believe in the geodetic datum of latitude, longitude, velocity and time. In millimetre accuracy across this ground and in the sanctity of parameters. Forever.”
His eyes opened. The air rang.
Between them glowed the GPS verdict on the matter—N 49.18.32 W 123.09.18—and around them stretched the infinite coordinates of a familiar landscape, sweeping away in all directions. Up into the black forest to Caruzo. Along the cliffside to Chladek. Through the trees to all the others. And all these points linked clearly to this one. To Siwash Rock itself, motionless in any breeze, only acknowledging the wind with the slight waving of its single hardy tree.
“You were counting people,” Jeremy said, slowly. “And they always said you would reach a number one day.”
Siwash raised the knife until it hovered an inch under Jeremy’s chin.
“But they were wrong,” Jeremy said. “You always had the number. You only counted others to record their passage, to see them move by in thousands. And to see this number glowing, always the same, every day, this has been your reminder that you are not in motion.”
Siwash let the knife fall slowly to his side and stood quite still. And with that resignation, Jeremy knew what the Professor had long known: that there were different paths into the same wood. Different views of the same familiar story. Caruzo the first, the guardian, his sense of obligation buried in this place. His quest for redemption and reunion finally complete. Chladek the wanderer, returned at last to his Place of Trees. Siwash the eternal seeker, wanting definition, wanting assurance, certainty on the matter of where he stood. None of them were waiting for anything. They’d found it.
Jeremy pulled the Fugami slowly from his waistband and laid it across his knees. For a moment there were only two things in the room—the Sabatier, the Fugami. The one shone, the other seemed to absorb the light.
“You took something from me,” Jeremy said.
Siwash sat heavily opposite.
“Something from the outside,” Jeremy went on. “Something that I will need as I return.”
It was a friendly exchange, in the end.
Siwash was impressed by the sight of the new blade, its impervious black sheen. But he thrilled at the idea of a blade remaining sharp into the fourth millennium. That kind of permanence—that kind of a clean and undistorted line—could so rarely be assured.
And after Jeremy had his Sabatier comfortably in his hand, he left, feeling the familiar balance of it, the talismanic simplicity of this hand-forged quillioned blade made even before his father was born. He left Siwash to his round room, his ring of flickering candles and his maps providing their various views of what could be known of the world around them.
GERRIAMO’S
– DINNER –
KEBAB OF LOCH LOMMAND SALMON ON A KIMCHI BED, SEAWEED + SMOKED OYSTERS
SALAD OF PERIWINKLE + TRUFFLE, ENDIVE WHEATSHEAF, POTATO CREAM
DANDELION-ROCKET PESTO SOUP WITH CRÈME FRAÎCHE
ESCABECHE OF SARDINE WITH
PRESERVED LEMON OIL
BRUSCHETTA OF BOUTIFAR WITH CARAMELIZED PEPPERED APPLE
SAUTÉED FOIE GRAS WITH WHITE-PORT PEAR SAUCE, GINGER + POTATO CRISP
TRADITIONAL GAME CONSOMMÉ WITH GERRIAMO’S SIGNATURE WON TON
TERRINE WITH PICKLED LENTILS, BEET CARPACCIO, VARIOUS BREADS
PRAWNS WITH SPICED YAM WAFERS, GRAPPA + THAI GINGER CREAM
FILLET OF TITICACA FLATFISH WITH WASABI POTATO CRUST + SESAME JUS
RISOTTO OF WILD MUSHROOMS, SEASONAL LEAVES + HERBS
ASSIETTE VÉGÉTARIEN
SQUAB CRAPAUDINE WITH WILD BERRY CREAM SAUCE + POTATO GRATIN
DUCK WITH RHUBARB SAUCE, SPAETZLE + LEEKS
BEET-MARINATED GRILLED GOOSE BREAST WITH SPICED TURKISH COUSCOUS
ROAST RACK OF NEW ZEALAND LAMB, CELERIAC PURÉE, BLACK OLIVE JUS
PAN-SEARED RABBIT SADDLE WITH SWEET ONION + PANCETTA
BEEF TENDERLOIN WITH RED-WINE REDUCTION, LEEK FRITE + CHESTNUTS
GERRIAMO’S
– DESSERT –
A SELECTION OF SORBETS: KIWI, PERSIMMON, LYCHEE
ASSIETTE DU FROMAGE
PARFAIT OF WILD BERRY, MINT, CHOCOLATE
WARM CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH GOAT’S MILK GELATO
APPLE TART WITH LEMONGRASS + SMALL-BATCH BOURBON CREAM
THE GUERRILLA GRILL
The days were streaming by. Ideas fully blossomed. And having laid his plans, committed to them, Jeremy wouldn’t have minded if time slowed down so he could enjoy himself more. But starting at five o’clock in the morning he was talking with suppliers, time zone by time zone, working his way westward with the sun. Eager suppliers, as it turned out, even some of the international ones having heard about the new ownership and vying to be part of another Inferno success story. He placed his advance orders and took a perverse pleasure in turning inside-out his previous patterns. Dante greased customs. Dante greased everything. All avenues of international supply yawned open and Gerriamo’s had credit.
Midday he sometimes took an hour and visited the park. Caruzo’s grave first, always. He felt him in the soil. He felt the children too. Part of himself. They were all there and it rooted him. He felt strengthened and pure leaving that place of respectful trees.
Time permitting, he’d pop in on Chladek to see how he was doing. Or Siwash, with whom he might kill a pot of China Black and review projection theory or knife design.
“Have you considered,” Siwash said, on one of these occasions, spinning strands of gold with his voice, “living here?”
Jeremy politely declined.
“You are a riddle,” Siwash said, shaking his head and relighting the candle under his bipolar oblique conic conformal map of North America.
The Professor had returned home to write, and Chladek missed all the action that he and Caruzo used to generate. He told Jeremy: “Without them, the place is less … glamorous.”
Afternoons, Jeremy was running the squad through a short but intense training cycle. They came in around two, got dressed in their white jackets and check pants. Then Jeremy took them through drills, stalking up and down the line behind them like a drill sergeant, dressed as they were but for the executive chef colours he’d chosen for a thin band at the neck: blue, red and white. They did a mock dinner, a family meal and a debrief, sometimes over a sip of wine. Although Jeremy didn’t want to inflate his head by officially awarding him the title, Henk had become the de facto sous chef. He was blindingly fast, followed instructions and, as it turned out, had a good instinctive feel for Blood cooking.
“This menu is pretty hip, I take it,” he said in private to Jeremy after an overarching group discussion about the restaurant’s approach. “I mean, we’re sorta making a point almost.”
“Sorta,” Jeremy said. “Like what, do you think?”
Like, Henk tried to articulate, that no pinch of sea salt would do when a combination of spices from eight different countries were available. “It’s …,” he summarized, “copious.”
“It’s copious,” Jeremy agreed.
Henk also produced Chico the dishwasher, who for seven bucks an hour was no doubt glad to see the outside of the Juize ’n’ Bluntz for a stretch.
Joey would have become their weak link, but Jeremy decided the guy would work out if it killed him trying. He had a serious case of digital spasticity, for one. He was about one in five to drop any given breakable item. Three plates the first day—it was all Jeremy could do not to ask him to leave, right there on the third plate. But Joey grabbed a broom. “Broom,” he said, sweeping up. And then he left the broom next to his station.
Presumably to save him time when he breaks the next one, Jeremy thought. Mise en place.
There was also the talking-to-himself part. “Onions. Medium dice,” he would say, while chopping onions in the way described. “Sauté to golden,” he would say five minutes later. “White wine. Reduce.”
During which process, invariably, someone would think he was talking to them and answer. Angela would say: “Sorry? White wine?”
And Conrad would say: “What white wine? I thought we did these with port.”
And so on, until Jeremy or Henk jumped in and got everyone back inside their own envelope of concentration.
They were working off drill sheets Jeremy had prepared. Detailed instructions for each of the dishes they would prepare. And so the following list of steps hung on the pass-through shelf in front of every station:
App. #1—Salmon Kebab
1) place salmon kebab on the grill
2) warm seaweed
3) warm 3 smoked oysters
4) plate kimchi
5) plate seaweed around the kimchi
6) plate 3 oysters, triangle
7) plate salmon kebab
8) plate chili-oil drops on plate rim
9) plate up (say: “kebab plate up”)
Every afternoon Joey de Yonker would come in and look at his lists, squinting, nodding like he thought he might have seen them before.
The rest of the squad was actually better than Jeremy had expected. Speed was going to be a problem when they got well and truly slammed, but Torkil only took a couple of days to get used to the bread ovens and from that point onward was producing very decent bread, loaves, rolls, baguettes, épis. Angela, Conrad and Rolando were figuring out the range tops and the grill. They were burning stuff, certainly. But less stuff the second week than the first.
“Did somebody intend to watch these?” Jeremy yelled at one point, looking in on a tray of baguette slices in the oven. They were theoretically becoming crostini; more practically, charcoal briquettes. “You set off the Halon only once in my kitchen, you understand? Once. Now somebody deal with it.”
There was a trickle of smoke coming out of the oven. Rolando threw his lanky frame into action. He slid his hands into hot gloves, grabbed tongs and a roasting pan, and started scooping the burning bread out of the still-hot oven into the pan.
“The sink, please,” Jeremy yelled at Conrad, who flashed on the water just in time for Rolando to dump his load of smoking toasts. The water killed the smoke. The Halon did not discharge. Everybody looked sheepish except Henk, who looked angry.
“If you can’t remember you got toast in the cooker,” Jeremy said, looking at Henk and knowing this message was going to filter down. “You put a goddamn baguette up on the pass-through there. Everybody knows there’s bread in, so everybody knows it’s gotta come out sometime.”
“Got it Chef.” “Right Chef.” “Won’t happen again Chef.”
“OK, let’s get back to it. Thanks, Rolando. Fast hands.”
So it went. But they were also having fun, and Jeremy knew that with the drills down, the sequence of steps internalized, then the intensity of the opening would melt time. Service would hit and they’d be in the zone. They’d wake up and it would be over, all too soon.
Out front, meanwhile, it was swarming. Servers were being trained. They were stocking the bar and arranging tables and fixing glitches in the c
ash register and order system. A monitor and printer had to be installed at the pick-up counter in the kitchen, from which Jeremy would announce and distribute the incoming orders. He had intended this counter to be the border between front and back, but Jeremy was fighting a losing battle trying to keep spectators out of his kitchen. As they worked through the menu, the squad was starting to make great smells. Once the menu had been printed and distributed out front, it became impossible to keep out the curious.
They were at day eleven in the countdown, a week and a half to showtime, and Benny came back with Dante and stood watching them run through the mains. The servers were getting menu initiation that day; Jeremy suggested they prepare six goose and six prawn mains for lunch. A chance for a first, live, small-scale test of the squad’s grill routine.
“Nice and easy,” Jeremy said, leaning on the pick-up counter and looking at each of them. Angela, Conrad and Rolando were on the far side of the main cook top. Henk stood on the near side, shotgun to Jeremy’s station. Torkil was at the baking counter, working on pastries. Joey was at the plating station.
“All right, ordering three prawns.”
“Ordering three prawns,” Henk said and threw on the kebabs, which took two minutes a side. Rolando finished the yam wafers in the deep fryer and Joey fanned these out on the three plates Conrad had prepped with a puddle of warm Thai ginger cream.
“Order three more prawns,” Jeremy said.
“Ordering three prawns.” Henk flipped the first set of prawns, plated them in the spiral fashion at the centre of the plate as Jeremy had demonstrated. Chef Papier then walked back to the plating area and finished each dish with diamonds of yellow pepper set carefully at the edge of the cream. Plates to the hot pick-up and they were gone.
The second set of prawns went on, and Jeremy noted that Joey turned smartly to his new plates. Nice mahogany brown wafers. Puddle of cream. Nothing wrong with that.
“Doing good,” Jeremy called out. “OK? Order three goose.”
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