Fermentation

by Angelica J.

  As my body grew steadily larger, my craving for cheese continued and my desire for stronger and more brackish cheeses increased. I would eat the cheese at lunch and lie down every afternoon to rest. Genuine sleep was illusory. I spoke to my doctor and he gave me iron tablets to take, but it had got to the stage where the only thing my body would allow past my lips was the cheese and even if I did manage to swallow a pill or two they didn't seem to help. Eventually I threw the bottle away.

  The old man was very sympathetic and would allow me to rest whenever I visited his shop. He could see how tired I was. One particularly hot day when I arrived he looked at me and shook his head.

  ‘You are too tired to take anything in today. Berthe,’ he spoke to the young girl behind the counter, ‘go and fetch the chair from upstairs, please.’ I heard her climb the stairs to the apartment above and moments later she returned carrying a beautiful wooden chair which he placed at the back of the shop. ‘This is your chair,’ he said, ‘for you only,’ and every time I visited the shop thereafter, either he or Berthe or one of the boys would usher me to it. They even placed a cushion on it to make me more comfortable.

  The old man taught me much over the months: which cheeses were best during which season, which wine to drink to complement each cheese, how to distinguish a good goat's cheese from a bad, a good Chaumont from one that was inedible.

  ‘With a Roquefort what you are looking for is the distribution of the mould. Examine how much the mould has spread through the cheese's mass. Imagine a peacock fanning its tail and the blue spreading through the sunlight. At the centre is the bird itself. It's the same with this cheese. The fermentation should have begun at the centre and worked its way to the edge,’ he said, looking down at my stomach. ‘It's really not that different. Your child is growing within you.’

  ‘It had better not be mouldy.’

  ‘Your blood is running through its veins, though. And vice versa. Fermentation is like a swelling. Physical, emotional, edible. It's all the same.’

  ‘And then what happens?’

  ‘The child is born. We eat the cheese. It doesn't really matter. Fermentation is neither the beginning nor the end, but if it goes well then the end is always a much better prospect. A watery Brie or a runny cheese in general is a pleasure to no one. Excessive fermentation. When's your child due?’ I laughed at this and the old man smiled. ‘You've never spoken about the father.’

  ‘He's not around.’

  ‘Do you want him to be?’

  ‘I don't know. I miss him.’

  ‘He's on your mind?’

  ‘Yes. He's on my mind.’

  ‘You talk to him in your head? You want to be with him? You imagine him coming back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The sex will be good if he does.’ The old man laughed at my expression. ‘Sex is always good when you don't know if it's going to be for the last time.’

  ‘This has very little to do with cheese.’

  ‘If there was a cheese shortage and you didn't know whether the cheese you were eating would be the last taste you'd ever get?’

  ‘I do miss him,’ I said. ‘But I can't decide whether I miss him because he isn't here.’

  ‘That's how it's supposed to be.’

  ‘Yes, and when they come back you're supposed to be happy because you no longer have to miss them. The hunger vanishes.’

  ‘And the pleasure gone?’

  I nodded my head.

  ‘As I was saying, excessive fermentation is not good. Now if you'll excuse me,’ he said, ‘I have to do some work downstairs.’

  When the old man had gone I asked the albino boy, ‘How many cheeses are there?’

  ‘Over one thousand,’ he said, ‘and new ones are being created every week. The smaller the world becomes, the more cheese there seems to be. You'll never taste them all, but try the Roquefort. It's the king of cheeses.’

  ‘The king?’

  ‘It has the blue blood of royalty running through its veins,’ he said, pointing to a tall cylindrical tower in the centre of the counter. When the boy cut into the cheese I could feel the knife slicing through the thin rind and then slipping into .the supple body of the piece as easily as if it were splicing me open. He cut a perfectly sized wedge and gently levered it out so that it balanced on the flat edge of his knife. Now I could peek inside the cheese and see, set against the darkness of the rind, how the greater mass was uniformly shot throughout with a light greeny-blue veining. It was exactly as the old man had described the perfect Roquefort.

  ‘Roquefort is a true cheese-lover's cheese. Its veins will run through you,’ the boy said, giving me a small piece to taste. ‘Test it against the tip of your tongue. Right there,’ he said, sticking his own tongue out and tapping the end of it. ‘It's very good, isn't it? A sort of complex flavour. Monsieur says this is the best month for Roquefort.’

  ‘Has he always owned this shop?’

  ‘No. Berthe's father used to own it. The shop could have been hers but she sold it to Monsieur. He was a friend of the family and used to be a carpenter by trade. He built sets for the theatre.’ The albino boy blinked and then handed me the package of cheese.

  This time I couldn't wait to get the cheese home and had to stop off in the park to taste it. I found a seat near to where some children were playing and sat down. The cheese had already begun to melt and I scooped up a large piece with my fingers and stuck them in my mouth. I could feel the soft mouldy tubes against my tongue, their penetratingly sharp taste, and it wasn't long before I had finished the whole piece off, even down to licking the wrapping where the cheese had oozed out against the paper.

  The house stood in isolation in the middle of wide lawns that stretched to the hills. Someone had built a huge bonfire which towered menacingly on the lawn at the back of the house. I could see it from where I was hiding. Whoever had built it had spent days on it. You could see where tree trunks had been dragged across the lawns and, as a final touch, a small stepladder had been propped up against it which led to the top.

  I stood on tiptoe and that way I could see straight into the house through the leaves of the bushes behind which I was hidden. A woman was sitting in a chair before a large mirror. She was a young woman, in her mid-twenties. Her skin was smooth and she wore her blonde hair in a bob that only just touched the nape of her neck. Next to the woman was a small table. That was all.

  A black Ford car slowed down the gravel driveway and then came to a standstill. The engine cut and a man got out. I ducked down into the undergrowth until he had reached the back door and let himself in. After several minutes I rose up to peer through the window, half expecting the woman to have disappeared, but she was still there, sitting impassively in the chair.

  The man entered the room. I could see he held a small bowl in one hand and had a blue towel and something darker draped over one arm. The woman did not turn round but remained staring at her reflection in the mirror. I could not tell but I did not think she even registered his entry.

  The man now stood beside her. He took out a small object from the breast pocket of his shirt. It was a razor and he proceeded to draw it up and down a leather strap. That was the object he had been carrying along with the towel. He was sharpening the razor's edge. When he had finished I saw him put the razor down and pick up the small bowl. I saw his lips move as if in speech and the woman immediately tilted her head back. She could still see herself in the mirror. The man lifted his arm and she closed her eyes. I saw his lips move again and at once she re-opened them. Then he took a small squat brush from the bowl and began to lather her face. He drew the brush over her pale cheeks and dabbed at her upper lip. He stroked under her chin. Finally, when her face was covered in the thick creamy lather, he placed the bowl and brush to one side and picked up the sharpened razor.

  He held the razor up between his fingertips, so that the woman could see the gleaming silver blade in the mirror, and then he placed its edge against the skin of her cheek and drew
it down in one long, even stroke. He did this several times and each time I could feel the skin tingling down my spine.

  When it came to her neck he held her head with one hand as he poised the razor's edge at her throat with the other. Momentarily he caught her eyes in the reflection, then swiftly he moved round to the back of the chair, tilted her head right back and drew the knife up the tight skin of her neck. The woman's mouth opened as the razor pulled over her skin and her hands clasped the arms of the chair tightly.

  I could see the man was aroused. He pushed the girl out of the chair and slid it to one side. Holding the girl by her hair, he leant her body against the ledge under the mirror. With one hand he kept her pinned down, with the other he tore down her pants and unzipped his flies. His cock was fully erect and I watched as he pushed it inside her cunt, all the time keeping her face to the mirror and watching her as he shoved into her harder and harder and her soft pink tongue flicked and licked the glass. Then I saw him pick up the razor again and I watched as he raised the blade and then swiftly drew it across her throat. She slumped forward immediately like a veal calf, her legs buckling beneath her, blood spurting out and hitting the mirror, whilst at the same time the man's whole body jerked into her, making her move like a puppet. When he finally withdrew, he slipped the knife into his pocket and then, wrapping his arms around the girl's waist, lifted her up on to his shoulders. I could see the blood was still pumping out, soaking into the man's white T-shirt. He brought her out into the garden where he laid her on top of the bonfire and then crouched down to light a match. Once the fire was alight the man walked away.

  At first the flames were small, like bright parrot tulips, but gradually they rose higher and began to lick at the girl's arms and legs and I could see how her face was melting in the shimmering heat, being devoured down to the bone.

  ‘Do you like fire?’ a voice came from behind me. I turned round to see the man standing by the bushes. ‘You can't see properly from there. Why don't you move closer?’ he said, taking me by the arm. He walked me across the lawn and then stopped at some distance from the fire. ‘Do you think this is close enough?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘No. You are wrong,’ he said, walking me closer again and then stopping.

  ‘How about this?’

  ‘This is a good view,’ I said.

  ‘But still a little too far, wouldn't you say? Better closer still,’ and he led me so close that now I could feel the heat of the flames against my face and the smell of the burning body stung in my nostrils.

  ‘This is a good spot,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Yes, this is very good too.’

  ‘You can smell the flesh burning, can't you?’

  ‘Yes, I can smell it.’

  ‘Fire is cleansing. It cleanses the air. It kills off impurities. Bodies should never be buried. They breed in the earth. Fire is the final solution.’

  We moved again and this time when we stopped we were only centimetres from the flames which leaped up from the inferno. The woman who lay at the heart of the fire was nothing but a blackened skeleton and I could hear her bones cracking. Soon she would disappear altogether, her body turned to ash.

  ‘Ash is softer than skin,’ he said. ‘Is your skin soft?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Soft enough?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  The man was pressing up against me and then his hands ripped at the back of my dress. He put his arms around my waist to act as a support while he pushed himself inside me. I tried to struggle free, to prise his hands open, and then suddenly I was aware that the moment I succeeded, the moment I found a way to make him release his grasp, I would fall straight into the fire. The choice was mine.

  I awoke to an unnerving silence. The children were no longer playing. No one was there. I looked at my watch which read 6pm. I had been sleeping on the bench for over three hours and no one had thought to wake me to ask if I was ill or needed help. They probably thought I was a tramp and that the bench was my home. I was very tired, my dress was wet from sweat and where my skin had been exposed to the sun it was red and sore. It took me a considerable amount of time to walk back to my apartment. I shuffled along the streets exhausted and sweating. I wanted nothing but to reach my bed and lie down and close my eyes and sleep a deep sleep. And yet I knew that when I returned home my body would begin its craving again. It was a hopeless cycle.

  It was at this stage that the child's movements appeared to lessen. After the first time I had felt it kick, it would repeat its aggressive action with apparent vengeance almost every day, but now this activity waned. I believed the child had become calmer or perhaps it too had begun to feel the heat and had grown lethargic like its mother.

  GAMMELOST

  A Norwegian cheese reeking of juniper berries. The mould is introduced to the cheese by piercing it with long metal needles. It has an overpowering flavour with a pungent aroma and unless eaten in small quantities bears a punishing aftertaste.

  I walked through the city but I do not remember where I went or what I saw. The city had receded and my dreams were what I remembered. My world was being turned inside out: the waking hours vanishing or coming back to me in glimpses, the dreaming hours recalled in minute detail and mad, vivid colours. Or maybe both worlds merged but I could no longer tell where reality ended and the dreams began. The summer dragged on; July, August, September. I was floating at sea and the line on the horizon where the sea ended and the sky began melded into one. Perhaps it had always been like that but I had never noticed.

  It was the hottest day yet. The thermometer measured 42 degrees at midday, the air was thick with flies and the stench on the streets had reached unbearable proportions. The army had been ordered to clear away the rubbish. They patrolled the streets at night, standing by their trucks with guns slung round their waists like exotic pieces of jewellery. It was all cosmetic. The smell clung to the air and had seeped into the buildings and the pavements and the skin of the people. Our skin was porous and, just like the cheese which wept out its salt, so our skin drank in the rank, fetid atmosphere. It was all related. The smell of the city was in our sweat and the news broadcasts told of water shortages and bulletins advised us to share baths and not to water the plants.

  The only thing that retained water was the body I lived in. I was hiding a secret reservoir that no one could tap, but the penance for this clandestine activity was that I could hardly move because I was so heavy, and my ankles had swollen so that it was painful to walk. I felt like a slug and yearned like Christian for a release from my burden.

  That particular morning I discovered an old measuring tape in one of my cupboards. I slipped it round my waist but I could not make the ends meet. I was a custard marrow, a shiny dark aubergine: plants that slowly fill with liquid until their thick skins are set to split.

  After my shower I left the apartment and went for a walk. I found a café and sat outside in the shade of a large green umbrella. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again Justine was sitting at one of the far tables. She was with a group of friends, talking and laughing. I sat and watched her ordering coffee and cakes and then a man came up to her and bent down and kissed her on the right side of her face. Eventually he turned round to where I was sitting and stared right at me. It was Serge.

  I stood up and from my table hailed a taxi, but instead of telling the driver to take me back to the apartment I told him to go to rue Trebec. I wanted to see the old man. As the car pulled off I turned round in my seat. I could see Serge standing on the pavement. His hands were in his pockets and he was staring at the car as it drew away. I thought I saw him shrug and then I thought I saw him smile.

  Berthe was standing behind the counter when I walked in. She had taken to touching my stomach whenever I visited the shop and resting her ear against me, believing she might hear its heart beat like an African drum. ‘It's still sleeping,’ she'd say. ‘Maybe I'll hear it next time, eh?’

  B
ut this time when I entered she looked at me and immediately directed me to the chair.

  ‘What's wrong?’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘I'll call him,’ she said. ‘Just keep an eye on the shop.’

  She disappeared into the back and moments later the old man came downstairs.

  ‘Come up. I'll help you.’

  He took me by the arm and together we walked through to the back of the building and up a narrow staircase. He showed me into a small room without much furniture. There was a bed and a table with books on it. I sat down on the bed.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I saw him. I didn't know he was back.’

  ‘You've been crying.’

  ‘I feel ugly. Look at me.’

  ‘You're pregnant. You're fat. But you're not ugly.’

  ‘I'm a ripe cheese?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  The old man poured out two glasses of wine and handed me one. His hands were ancient. I noticed their veins and the brown mottled marks on their skin. ‘The wine will do you good,’ he said. ‘Drink it.’

  ‘Why do you live like this?’ I said, looking round the room.

  ‘I don't want anything else. I don't need it.’

  ‘You must want something.’

  ‘I'm happy here. I like the work . . .’

  ‘What about a lover?’

  ‘You're taken,’ he said, laughing.

  ‘Would you have had me?’

  ‘You wouldn't have had me. More to the point, isn't it? Stick to what you really love.’

  ‘But aren't you ever lonely?’

  The old man looked down and for some reason I looked down with him, but there was nothing on the floor.

  ‘Berthe?’ I said.

  He looked up again. ‘Yes. Berthe.’

  ‘But you never said.’

  ‘I thought you knew.’ He put his glass down on the table. ‘I've known her since she was a child. Are you shocked?’

  ‘I just didn't see it,’ I said.