The Road Home

by Rose Tremain

  Lev’s bandana had been replaced by a cotton cap, identical to the ones the chefs wore. It fit snugly over his shorn head.

  Now and again, Lev glanced up at the thin, seventeen-year-old boy who had replaced him as nurse in his old kingdom of the dishwash. This boy wore the bandana now. He looked, to Lev, like an apprentice pirate, nervous of the vast, steel-colored sea that surrounded him. Tendrils of his brown hair escaped from the scarf and clung to his neck, damp with steam. His name was Vitas and he was from Lev’s country. Lev felt protective toward him, but had no time to give him. The chefs’ demands came fast and didn’t slacken. Laboring his way through the skinning and seeding of tomatoes for a coulis, he was aware that Pierre needed spinach, and G.K., who was molding zucchini cakes, shouted to him that he’d run out of mint leaves. Lev left the tomatoes sliding in a bloody mass to the far edges of his chopping area, tore a bundle of mint from the chiller, rinsed it, and began picking off the leaves and hurling them into a colander.

  “Lev!” shouted Pierre. “Spinach! You’re holding up table six.”

  “Coming, Pierre . . .”

  The mint leaves stuck to Lev’s hands. He realized he should have picked the leaves off first and rinsed them afterward. He saw juice from the tomatoes begin to drip down the front of the work station. He wiped his hands, ran water into his sink, threw in the spinach, then returned to his mint, shutting off the cold rinse faucet with his elbow. He glanced up to see G.K. pausing in his own work to stare at him, and he knew the import of this electric stare by now. No words were needed.

  He thought about the promised seven pounds an hour. With that, he might be able to increase his payments to Ina by about ten pounds a week. And then, instead of bleating on and on about his return, she might at last begin to be proud of what he was trying to do . . .

  “So rescue it,” he instructed himself, imitating one of G.K.’s peremptory commands. “Stay calm, like you stayed calm at Ferndale Heights, and rescue it.”

  He set up the spinach colander. With his thumb and first finger he kept jabbing and pulling at the mint. He waltzed the mint round to G.K., waltzed back, piled up the clean spinach, pressing it down, piling on more. Pierre was standing and watching him, furious at his own enforced idleness, flicking a tea towel against his shoulder.

  “Okay, Lev? Come on! I need the spinach . . .”

  He saw Vitas turn round and stare at him. The boy’s look was one of terror. Sophie kept her back turned. She was plating up lamb medallions, each with a careful spoonful of onion marmalade. Lev’s hands felt raw in the cold rinse water. G.K. was again bent over his zucchini cakes. Lev prayed he could get the spinach to Pierre before G.K. looked up again.

  It was done now. Pierre snatched the colander from him, threw a fistful of leaves into a waiting pan.

  “Lev,” called Sophie, “I’ll need the tomatoes in about two-point-five minutes.”

  “Yes,” he said calmly. “Tomatoes coming.”

  He snatched at some kitchen paper and wiped up the tomato leakage, then returned to the dicing. The tomato seeds were stubborn, jelly-like, and clung to the tomato flesh. He had to gouge them away with his fingers. The task was almost complete when he saw a spinach leaf arrive in the tomato bowl. “Cooking,” G.K. had once said to him, “is at least eighty percent about separation and amalgamation. The chef is almost always addressing one or other of these processes. A restaurateur I knew in France used the terms ‘divorce’ and ‘amour’. . .”

  So now Lev had this amorous green spinach leaf lying on the inviting tomato flesh. He smiled as he plucked it out and denied it a second life in the stockpot. He finished dicing the tomatoes and took the bowl to Sophie. He saw the skin of her face pink and moist under the soft cap and the tip of her tongue innocently caressing her top lip as she carefully laid a spear of asparagus across each medallion. Sudden desire for her made his head swoon. She looked critically into the tomato bowl. Then she smiled at him and said, “Okay. Nice.”

  The smile made him mad to touch her—just stroke her cheek or, better still, slide his hand over the sweet contours of her arse—but she’d made him agree, made him promise, that the affair had to be kept from the staff at GK Ashe. She said it would “muddy” the feeling of everybody working as a team. She said it would make G.K. nervous.

  So he left her and returned to his station. He felt order beginning to return there. Beside him, the vegetable chiller hummed in the rich and humid air. He carried the empty tomato bowl over to Vitas, who was scouring a roasting pan. He saw Vitas’s feet awash, his trousers soaked. He took down the mop and bucket and gave them quickly to the boy. “Mop it now,” he said quietly, “before Chef sees it.”

  It was a crostini night.

  When they were settled with their beers and the hot, oil-scented food, G.K. said, “Not bad, considering. Well done, everybody.”

  “Chef,” said Lev, “tomorrow I will get faster.”

  “You did okay. The thing was, you didn’t panic. I registered you not panicking, and I liked that. But come in earlier tomorrow, Lev, get more of your prep done before the service starts.”

  “I will, Chef.”

  “Sophie did very good,” said Pierre.

  G.K. turned to Sophie and ruffled her curls. Lev saw her blush. “I agree,” said G.K.

  “Table seven commented really favorably on the medallions, doll,” said Damian, swigging lager from the bottle.

  “I think I overcooked them by about half a minute,” said Sophie.

  “Well,” said G.K. “learn from it. We’ll put them on tomorrow. Get them perfect tomorrow for New Year’s Eve.”

  “She did good, though,” insisted Pierre. “First night as sous-chef. Didn’t she, Chef?”

  “Yes,” said G.K. “I said so.” He turned away from Sophie and glared at Vitas, after glancing through into the kitchen, where unwashed pans, utensils, and plates were still piled up. Lev watched Vitas, who was gulping his beer and seemed unaware of G.K.’s glare. Lev noted that the boy’s eyes were bruised with exhaustion and that his hair hung limply round his pale and serious face.

  “What about you, Nurse?” said G.K. “Got away from you a bit, did it?”

  Vitas looked blank.

  “Because it’s a mess in there. Isn’t it? And that was a lite evening. What went wrong?”

  “I am tired,” said Vitas.

  Damian grimaced. “Lad,” he said, “didn’t I tell you? ‘Tired’ is not a word we use in this kitchen. We live with it, but we don’t talk about it. We just carry on.”

  G.K. nodded his agreement. He said to Vitas, “The kitchen has to be clean before you leave it, right? You understand, Nurse?”

  “I come here in morning . . .”

  “No,” said G.K., “you do not come here in the fucking morning. In the morning we’re stocking the fridges and the chillers. Waldo’s in, making puddings. I may be prepping. And none of us is setting foot in a dirty kitchen, right?”

  Vitas blinked. He said to Lev in his language, “The Chef does not understand that I have to sleep now.”

  “What’s he say?” said Damian to Lev.

  “He says he is very tired, but he will do it. I will help him.”

  “Okay, but you shouldn’t have to help him. You’re on veg prep now.”

  “I know,” said Lev. “But tonight I will.”

  Lev saw Sophie looking at him. The look was amused, sexy, and tender. He returned her the ghost of a smile. Then he finished his beer and stood up. “Come on, Vitas,” he said. “In one hour, you’ll be able to go home.”

  Now the place was empty except for Lev and Vitas. Lev had watched Sophie riding off into the darkness on her bicycle, with her football scarf wound round her head. Then he’d resumed his old place at the sinks, giving Vitas the tasks of scouring the burners and salamanders and mopping the floor. In the corner of his eye, he could see Vitas moving very slowly, almost dreamily, seeming not to see what his work entailed, staring blankly at areas of grease, then dragging a cloth uselessl
y over them, the scourer forgotten in his other hand.

  Lev finished the pans, put the washer on its final cycle, polished the sinks, threw the damp tea towels into the laundry basket, and hung up new ones on the steel pegs. He gazed almost fondly at the station where he’d reigned for what seemed like a whole lifetime, then looked at his watch. It was 12:55. He knew where he was going to go . . .

  Vitas was leaning on his mop. And now Lev saw that tears were dribbling down his face. Though Lev longed to leave, he knew he couldn’t abandon Vitas. He crossed to him and took the mop from his hands. “Just need some sleep, do you?” he said.

  “I can’t do this job, . . .” sobbed Vitas.

  “No?”

  “I miss my dog.”

  “You miss your dog?”

  “My dog, Edik. I think of Edik waiting for me, by my mother’s door. I wanted to bring Edik to England, but I wasn’t allowed. They said he might have rabies. But he doesn’t have. He’s the best dog . . .”

  A storm of weeping overtook Vitas. Lev handed him a damp dishcloth, then sat down on the stool where G.K. often sat, late at night, to plan his menus.

  “Edik is a one-person dog and that person is me.”

  Lev stayed silent while Vitas went on sobbing, then he got up and went through to Damian’s bar area. He took down a shot glass and poured out a double tot of vodka. He brought this back to Vitas. “Drink,” he said.

  Vitas gulped the vodka. His weeping subsided at last. He wiped his eyes with the dishcloth.

  “How do you survive here?” he said. “This fucking place . . .”

  “I work,” said Lev.

  Vitas looked forlornly round at the kitchen, still not clean. “I hate this,” he said. “And I hate the Chef!”

  Lev shrugged. “Try not to,” he said.

  “Why? That man is horrible. He’s rude. I hate him. He’s an arrogant bastard. The way he calls me Nurse. I’m not a fucking nurse.”

  “I know. Just ignore that, Vitas. Stay with G.K. and you may have a future in England.”

  “I don’t want a future in England. I hate England. It’s like that shit hole Jor, except with more Muslims and more blacks. I want to be back in my village with Edik.”

  Lev looked at the boy, remembering how extreme youth is almost always touched by extreme melancholy.

  “Where are you staying?” Lev asked.

  “Some tip of a room. Hackney Wick. And the Wick’s full of immigrant scum.”

  Lev ignored this. He said, “Do you know your way home?”

  “Yeah. Night bus.”

  “Right. Go home, then, Vitas. I’ll finish off in here.”

  Vitas was silent. He now appeared slightly sheepish. He pushed a strand of damp hair out of his eyes. He blew his nose on some kitchen paper. “Where are you from, then?” he asked, after a while.

  “Auror,” said Lev. “Small village, like you. Above Baryn.”

  “That place where they’re going to build the dam?”

  “What?”

  “I heard they were planning to make some dam—on the Baryn River.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Dunno. Somewhere. Perhaps it was someplace else.”

  Lev stayed very still. He thought about the Baryn River and how it came down from the once-forested hills above Auror and ran through the pastures beyond Ina’s garden. He thought about the fact that this was the only river that flowed into Baryn.

  “I think if they were going to build a dam near Auror I would have known about it,” he said.

  “Maybe,” said Vitas.

  “In the old days,” Lev said slowly, “I certainly would have known, because my wife worked in the Procurator’s Office at the Public Works building in Baryn. But my wife died.”

  “Your wife died?”

  “Yes. So you see, Vitas, you’re not the only one to feel sad.”

  After Vitas had left, Lev sat on in the kitchen and again broke one of G.K.’s cardinal rules by smoking a cigarette. Images of Auror filled his mind. He saw the rags shivering in the trees above his father’s grave. He saw Ina’s goats huddled together in their pen. And he heard the silence of his village, that sweet silence of the night, never broken by the spirits to whom Stefan used to utter his peculiar prayers, but only by the calling of owls.

  He got out his phone and punched Rudi’s number. Lora answered in a sleepy voice. “Lev, Rudi’s out,” she said. “Driving some people home from Baryn.”

  “How’s the Tchevi?” Lev asked.

  “Still jumpy. But he’s got the belts, finally. From somewhere in the Ruhr. He’s going to fit them on Monday.”

  “Good,” said Lev.

  There was a moment’s pause and Lev could hear Lora yawning.

  “I’m sorry to call late,” he said, “but I heard a rumor tonight, about a dam they’re planning to build above Baryn. ‘Above Baryn’ must mean on our bit of the river.”

  “A dam?” said Lora. “We never heard anything about a dam.”

  “There’s a boy who works in this kitchen, from some village near Jor. He told me.”

  “Perhaps they’re going to make a dam above Jor?”

  “No. He said Baryn. So we have to find out, Lora. Can you go and talk to Procurator Rivas?”

  “You know I don’t like that man, Lev.”

  “I know. But people in Rivas’s office would know.”

  “They may know, but that doesn’t mean they’d tell us.”

  “This is meant to be the new era of openness.”

  “Sure. But old attitudes are hard to shake. How do we know whether to believe what they say?”

  “Well, a dam above Baryn would wipe out Auror. About this, they would have to tell you.”

  “Wipe out Auror? Wipe out our homes?”

  “Yes. If you dam a river, it floods backward. Auror would be under water.”

  “They can’t do that, Lev . . .”

  Lev lit another cigarette. He stared out at the mess left untouched by Vitas. He said wearily, “Probably not. Perhaps the boy said it to frighten me. I don’t know, Lora. But find out, okay? If you don’t want to see Rivas, get Rudi to go.”

  “Oh God, now I’m frightened, Lev. Suppose it were true? Suppose we lost our village?”

  “I guess there would have to be compensation.”

  “Compensation? What would that do? Where would we go?”

  “I don’t know, Lora. We’d have to figure it out. Tell Rudi I’ll call again in a few days. Try to get an appointment with Rivas.”

  “What would Ina do, Lev?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She just wouldn’t survive that.”

  “She’d have to survive it.”

  “All the old people. Imagine it. To leave Auror would be the end of their world.”

  This was what he thought about as he completed the work left unfinished by Vitas: his mother dismantling her jewelry shed, packing up her belongings, taking up the rag rug from the floor of her room . . . visiting Stefan’s grave for the last time, gathering a scant bunch of wild marguerites and putting them there, on the rough stone under which he lay . . . sweeping the corners of the empty house . . . slaughtering her goats . . .

  Pray it doesn’t happen.

  Lev could imagine his mother’s face, close to the candlelit icon, close to the photograph of Marina, whispering to the God-Who-Had-Been-Asleep in her country for all her lifetime but whose picture her parents had kept safe in a dark cupboard, obstinately believing that, one day, He would be allowed to return, obstinately telling their child that, in secret, she should pray, that this God-Who-Had-Fallen-Asleep nevertheless saw everything on earth.

  How can a God who is asleep in a dark cupboard see everything on earth?

  His mother used to wonder about it. She had told Lev that, as a child, sometimes she used to unwrap the icon and bring it forward on the shelf, so that a corner of light fell onto its golden surface, and she would stare at the chubby legs of the Christ child and think, In time, t
hose fat legs may grow, and what will be asleep in the cupboard will be a man. And the idea of a sleeping man in the cupboard thrilled her. She used to listen to see whether she could hear Him breathing. But He never made one single sound.

  “And yet,” she once said, “in a way I was right. God slept, but then He woke at the beginning of the 1990s. He took back His power. And He was grown up by then. He knew how to bring the people back to Him.”

  The news about Auror had taken away desire.

  His body aching, Lev rode forlornly home to Tufnell Park. But as the night bus was lurching up Kentish Town Road, his phone rang and it was Sophie.

  “Lev . . .” she said, and across the single syllable of this word, Lev heard the little, irresistible break in her voice.

  “Sophie . . .”

  “Shall I tell you where I am?” she said. “I’m in bed, and I put on some new sheets, and they’re satin, and they’re driving me completely wild. So I was hoping you were on your way . . .”

  Lev smiled. He cradled the phone to his ear. “Sophie,” he said, “I want to hear you say something to me. Then I will come.”

  “Then you’ll come? Right. Say what?”

  “I want you to say you love me.”

  He heard her laugh. Then she said, “You’re so sweet. Men are boys, really. But, yes, I’ll say it. ‘We’re both chefs now, and I love you.’ Have you come yet?”

  12

  A Visit to the Lifeboat Museum

  WITH THE NEW year, mild weather arrived, unexpected and consoling, as though spring were already returning. Lev remarked that he could hear birds singing in the bare plane trees outside Sophie’s flat.

  “They’re deluded,” said Sophie brightly. “They’ll start building nests and then the snow will come.”

  She was happy. “Happy-crazy,” she called it. She took photographs of Lev making breakfast, sitting in the bath, lying naked on her bed. And in their scented nights she was as shameless as the whores of Baryn whom Lev and Rudi used to visit long ago. She made the pronouncement that lovemaking like theirs was a war—with two winning sides.