I felt I must speak to her so she’d eat. She was painfully thin, and she always took the tiniest portions and ate only half of them. “I’d say I’m sorry, Jule, but I don’t know what to be sorry for.”
“Oh, the hell with it,” she said, but she pulled her salad toward her and took a forkful of sprouts.
Juliet’s outburst, which occurred when I had been there about a month, marked the end of the honeymoon. I had run out of big cleaning projects, and I felt I had exhausted the possibilities of tofu and brown rice.
I was beginning to worry, during those hot late August days, that I might become a hard and solitary spinster. I couldn’t get along with anyone. Juliet and her constipated digs at me, Alan’s nutritional evangelism, my mother’s subtly reproachful letters from California—all of them irritated me to the point of frenzy. I’d had high hopes for a new, mature relationship with my sister, but now all my ancient grudges were coming back: the hamster incident, the paint on the sweater, the borrowed binoculars, the tattling. I saw she was suffering—perhaps she saw I was—but we were unable to approach each other. The old walls between us, dissolved by time and distance, went up brick by brick the closer we got. Daily life, with its opposition of habits and tastes, had thickened between us until we could hardly see each other. I saw a snappish, egotistical tyrant; she saw—most likely—a pesky, moody loser. And Alan … I had sensed he was uneasy at my being alone in the apartment all day, and one night before I shut my door I heard him say to Juliet, “It’s not good for her to mope around here.”
He’s afraid I’ll steal from him, I immediately thought. He’s afraid one of my basic conflicts will come to a head here, among the health foods and vitamin supplements and poetry journals and Juliet’s Greek grammars. I was tempted to yell out to him, “Don’t worry, Alan, there’s nothing here I want.”
I misjudged him, though. It wasn’t my kleptomania that bothered him. He was too saintly not to overlook it, and would—I realized when I got to know him better—share his last crumb, his last dime, with me if necessary (with me, or with any down-and-out dope fiend at his clinic). Also, he was sure my morning heap of vitamin pills would keep the urge away. No, what bothered Alan was my social life. Juliet put it bluntly. “Maybe you should get out a little more, Cordelia,” she said. “You’re never going to meet anyone if you just hang about in here all day.”
(It was one of the ways Juliet always managed to irritate me: she said about instead of around, as they do in English movies.)
I said, though it was a lie, “I don’t want to meet anyone,” and I said it as sullenly as I could.
“It would give you something to do,” Juliet said.
“It’s not good to be alone so much,” Alan added in his generalizing way. I knew from the unavoidable nighttime sounds that Alan believed an energetic sex life was part of a healthy regimen. I assumed also that he and Juliet probably wanted to get rid of me and have some time to themselves, so I did as I was told. I went out on the streets of New Haven the next afternoon and took a walk downtown.
I left late in the day deliberately so Juliet and Alan would have to get their own dinner (though some chick-pea patties and a batch of tofu-tamari dressing were waiting in the FRIDGE). I started out lonely, and the more I walked the lonelier I got. The air was cooler for once; the streets were full of people. No one walked alone, it was all couples or noisy groups, people coming out of work, all of them laughing and cheerful, as if the jobs they’d just left were in Paradise. I imagined them all going home to eat tofuless dinners with people who didn’t criticize or analyze or pore over books. I remembered the long walks I used to take in the city, when my biggest problem was deciding between Mr. Clean and Top Job, and when I got some sort of sustenance from those crowded streets. Now I had to go only a block or two to learn that what the crowds had to offer was just another kind of solitude. The laughing faces were, finally, too much for me, and I walked with my eyes down, searching the gum-dotted sidewalks, the shoes and the pantlegs that strode by, for a clue to the puzzle my life had become. I found no clue, of course. The passersby and the hard-used streets were only scattered parts of the confusion. I knew no one, I had no place, no one wanted me, there was nothing to replace the degradation I’d brought with me from Hoskins. The old neat plaid life I’d led was raveled hopelessly, beginning with the loss of Danny—no, of Hector’s—no, even before that, when Macbeth and I entered combat and I lost. Or was it before any of these things? And could it ever have been, really, the neatly-squared-off life I imagined, with Juliet’s splotched, purple passions on its fringes? And Danny’s …? I went back down the old dead-end road: why had he left me? Why had he left me? What had happened, those long, sweet, dull days on George Street, to lead him out the door and into that black car?
I half expected to run into Danny in New Haven. He wasn’t any more adventurous than I was; New Haven had always been the limit of his world. I half looked for his brown sandals and long, freckled toes. If I saw him I would snub him—walk right by with a faraway smile on my face, as if life was bliss and rapture without him. And if he ran after me and pulled at my arm, I’d look blank for a minute, then say, “Oh, Danny! Well, how are you? Long time no see!”
I had developed a trick of sealing off my thoughts by counting my footsteps. I plodded along, counting, reached a thousand, and closed my eyes. If your life is empty, fill it up: I opened my eyes. People were passing me, parting ranks to get by, unsurprised, continuing their conversations around me. I was on Chapel Street, way downtown—not six blocks from Colonial Towers. I was standing in front of a little basement restaurant that hadn’t been there in the old days. The name of it, “Grand’mère,” was scrawled in brown across a white signboard. There was an ornate wrought-iron fence—brown-and-white-checked curtains—a smell of food when the door opened.
Also a sign in the window: SALAD PERSON WANTED. I half thought I would apply for the job. After four vegetarian weeks with Juliet, salad making was one thing I knew well. But it was the smell of the food that drew me off the street. Dinner with Alan and Juliet awaited me at home (green salad made of the limp organic oddities from the health food store, the tofu-tamari dressing, chick-pea patties, and beetroot coffee), but I was desperate suddenly for a piece of meat, a dessert, maybe even a glass of wine. I didn’t debate long. I hurried down the stairs and inside, as if by instinct, ready to sin.
I knew by the accent mark in Grand’mère that this was a French restaurant, and I felt pleasantly daring. My mother had rustled up plenty of vaguely French food over the years (all of it touched with her bizarre individuality—à la maman, Horatio always appended to her creations), but I had never been in a real French restaurant before. Without hesitation, I ordered stuffed mushrooms, boeuf en daube, and a carafe of red wine. No salad. And for dessert I’d have a big fat piece of pastry. I saw a selection of them gleaming on a wheeled cart—flaky, fruity, glazed, gorgeous.
While I waited for my food I looked around. At that time, I thought it was one of the oddest restaurants I’d ever seen. I was used to bright, antiseptic eating places. I never knew there were dim, aromatic little ones like this, outside of the movies. The ceiling was low and hung with brass lanterns. The chairs were mismatched, with caned seats, the tables tiny and topped with brown-and-white-checkered cloths. I could imagine Cary Grant or Audrey Hepburn sitting at one of them. There was a polished mahogany bar off to one side, and a woman behind it singing softly to herself while she shined a glass; when I looked at her she winked at me. The waitress was a short, fat blond girl with a deep tan, wearing a long skirt, a low-necked peasant blouse, and a checked apron. The place was half full of people digging without guilt into their unwholesome food, and the two sounds predominating were a low hum and a continual subdued clink: talk and food. Nourishing, no matter what Alan might say.
That morning I had made a list. “Jobs,” it was headed. Time to be practical, time to go beyond my unofficial job of unpaid housekeeper. Time, in fact, to separate myself fr
om Juliet and Alan, where I stuck out among the books and the nuts like a circus act in the Yale library. I had sharpened a pencil and sat up straight at the kitchen table while I wrote:
1. store clerk?
2. dogs?
3. food
I had written it quickly, and then stared at it awhile, analyzing. Clerking in a store was my obvious first choice: New Haven was full of stores, I had plenty of experience, and I was good at being a clerk—clever with money, friendly with people, and willing to work hard. But it scared me: I was afraid I would steal (was my life any less empty than it had been in Hoskins?), afraid some object would pick me out and I wouldn’t rest until it was safely lodged in the spare room. The mere thought of it made the beetroot turn uneasily in my stomach. And then how was I to explain away my lack of a reference from my previous employer?
I thought more and more about some kind of job involving animals, dogs especially. Maybe a job in a pet shop. The thought of all those fat, warm puppies in my care was inexpressibly cheering. A puppy would be hard to steal, and I knew I couldn’t have one at Juliet’s. A pet shop would be safe. It might also be depressing, like zoos, like anything caged against its will. What if there were certain puppies no one loved enough to buy? Whimpering puppies? Puppies who got so attached to me they cried when they were taken away? Sick puppies? And would I go berserk and shoo all the animals out the door to freedom one day when their little paws against their cages broke my heart? I didn’t know any longer what to expect from myself.
I don’t know why I put down food—and why I put it down without a question mark—except that I was sick of my new regimen, lonesome for meat and butter and sweet things. Alan praised my cooking and kept asking me how I liked this and that, wasn’t this delicious, never know it was good for you, would you? I didn’t tell him I thought mung bean sprouts looked like little humanoids, and tofu tasted like cuticle, and that I dreamed about Big Macs and jelly doughnuts and potato chips.
Once Juliet and Alan had caught me eating a chocolate bar, a Hershey with almonds. “There’s good protein in almonds,” I had said, licking my fingers. They smiled, shook their heads indulgently, even joked about it from time to time, but there had been politely reined-in disgust on their faces that made me feel worse than weak and errant: loathsome. I saw then that food was a moral issue with them; my missionary comparison hadn’t been far off.
It was true that I felt better than I used to. I found it easier to get up in the mornings, and two chronic chin pimples had disappeared. But I’d never admit it. Alan used to say, “You’re looking terrific, Cordelia. Terrific. How do you feel? Better? More energy? More cheerful?”
“I dunno, Alan,” I used to say, making my face go slack. “I get these headaches …” Or numbness in my fingers. Or heart palpitations. Anything to suggest that the Faith hadn’t taken hold in me yet.
“It’s the heat,” he’d say. “Step up the brewer’s yeast. But look, Julie. Don’t her eyes look brighter? Doesn’t her hair look great?”
I thought constantly of food—real food, as I began to call it. I imagine people in prison dream not of leading a reformed life when they get out but of returning to a life of crime. Hardened criminals, anyway (and here I deliberately don’t think of Danny). I was a hardened eater, and my vice sent me straight into Grand’mère, the arms of the devil.
It was a delicious meal. It even included a large oblong hard roll that reminded me of Mr. Blenka’s special French bread. The roll was made entirely of white flour. Juliet and Alan would have considered it contaminated. I consumed it ecstatically, with plenty of butter.
“I haven’t eaten in a month,” I said to the waitress when I finished my apricot tart and coffee.
She looked startled.
“I mean, eaten well,” I said, and she smiled with pride, as if she had done the cooking herself.
While she was clearing away (and I was having a second cup of coffee), I asked her about the job.
“Experience?” she asked with a sharp look, flattered that I consulted her.
“I’ve made a lot of salads lately.”
“Where?”
“My sister’s kitchen.”
She snickered and shrugged. “You can try,” she said, ending on a dubious, musical falling note, and advised me to return the following day at four.
I was prompt, and I walked from Juliet’s all the way downtown with a spring in my step that didn’t come from brewer’s yeast. The restaurant was empty, and I went through it unhesitatingly to the kitchen at the back. It was small, hot, and quiet. The chef was sitting at a counter spearing little pasta-looking things on the end of a knife and eating them. He was fat, with many chins and a big belly, he wore torn jeans and a torn white undershirt under a clean apron, and he had a tattoo on one arm that said “Malibu 1963” enclosed in a blue heart. A short, sandy-haired man sat on a stool listlessly chopping onions; a cigarette hung from his lip, and I pictured ash in the soupe à l’oignon until when he stuck the cigarette behind one ear I saw it wasn’t lit.
The chef, whose name was Humphrey Ebbets, introduced himself and Archie the chopper and held out the knife. “Have a quenelle,” he said. I had no idea what a quenelle was—my mother’s repertoire hadn’t included them—but I took a bite with a studied lack of hesitation. “What do you think of it?” he asked me, and Archie stopped chopping and waited for my answer. I chewed thoughtfully. It was delicious, but I decided I’d better carp. French-food eaters, I knew, were always carping. “Chewy,” I said.
The chef made no comment, but asked me to chop an onion. Languidly, Archie removed himself from his stool, and I chopped, left-handed. Humphrey watched, saying, “m-hm, m-hm, yeah, yeah,” as if it were a phone conversation, and then he waddled over and took the knife from me with a sigh. “Here,” he said. “I’ll show you how to chop an onion.”
He hired me. I never found out why. He used to smile and nod and say, “I knew you’d be good at it,” and once he added, “You got salad hands.” I didn’t believe in salad hands; I think he hired me because he was amused by the meals I was cooking at Juliet’s. That’s what we talked about during my interview—not, thank God, my previous occupation. I remember his saying “I think tofu has a lot of possibilities,” and my disagreeing with such violence that he laughed and got the hiccups (for which he took a swig of vinegar—my mother’s cure). I think, too, he had a knack for staffing his kitchen on insight alone. I turned out, after all, to be a good salad maker.
I liked watching my competence increase. I liked to see my hands at their work, one so quick, the other its slow and cautious handmaiden. I’m not saying that salad making requires a lot of skill. It’s mostly a matter of cutting vegetables up neatly and arranging them artfully on their plates. You have to be finicky and dexterous and have a good memory, and there was a lot of fast footwork, too—from my wooden table to the refrigerator behind it. I also had to steam artichokes, to make aspics and marinades and vinaigrette and mayonnaise and the aromatic broths for the vegetables à la grecque. These tasks I performed in the morning when I got in, at eight o’clock. (I was the day salad person.) There was a machine for the mayo, with huge balloon beaters that whipped up the egg yolks while I dribbled in the oil. I loved it, at first. I also loved the artichokes, with their good hearts like fairytale princesses imprisoned in all those tight, thorny leaves. “Hey, man, that’s like poetry,” Archie murmured when I ventured this inane whimsy.
“Crap,” I said from embarrassment.
“Do not say crap in my kitchen, Delia,” Humphrey ordered from the stove. “And do not deprecate flights of fancy. I have known good food to inspire poetical thoughts on many an occasion—many.” Dreamily, he stirred his sauce. “Let it go, let it flow, we’re all one big happy family here.”
Humphrey was given to such vague, benign utterances: he was from California. He had gone to chef school there, and had come East after having a dream that the Atlantic Seaboard was sunk in depravity and needed good people to migrate there
and save it. Humph considered himself a good person and a great chef (he was right on both counts), so off he went, by bus, eating his way across the country. He was disappointed at first to find the East wasn’t all that depraved, but the restaurants consoled him. He went to New York and ate for three months straight. (That’s when he became, as he put it, “stout.”) Since then, he had cooked all over the East, and he was utterly contented. Cooking was his life. I never saw him—truly, in all the time I knew him—when he wasn’t either cooking or eating. “I got a job to do, and I do it the best I can,” he used to say rhythmically, playing his big black stove like a musical instrument. “I got good food here, and I got good helpers. I got good friends, and we all get along fine.”
He had begun shaving his head when a customer found a hair in the soup, and his head was fat and shiny under the white chef’s hat. His eyes were sunk back deep under thick, golden eyebrows. “You must have had nice hair, Humph,” I said to him once, and he glared at me.
“Food before looks,” he said.
I worked from eight to five, when a chubby Puerto Rican woman named Maria came to relieve me. As soon as she took over, I was free to have dinner. Lunch was part of my wages, which were minimum, but I bought myself dinner there three or four nights a week. The kitchen staff thought I was crazy. “So expensive!” cried Maria, grasping her head in her hands and rolling it around. I explained about the meals at home. “Go to the deli,” I was counseled. “Get takeout Chinese. Get a pizza.” I did, sometimes, but I got an enormous kick out of removing my apron, washing up, changing my shoes, and sitting out front in the near-empty restaurant, at my special table in the corner. “She wants to meet men,” Maria stage-whispered, raising her eyebrows and waggling her hips.
Maybe I did, though the only bachelor who ever seemed to penetrate the ranks of couples who ate there was old Mr. Sawyer, who wore a beret, a long handlebar moustache, and a maroon velvet jacket. But it was mostly that I liked the atmosphere of the dining room, with its brown and white checks and its warm, dim light. It was clean and quiet and orderly there. Coming out of the kitchen, it was like entering the room reserved for company, like the white-and-gold parlor at my old pal Sandy Schutz’s house. And the service was sublime.
Chez Cordelia Page 14