by Martin Suter
Love Food had a total of three bookings till the end of the year. Two on the back of her promotional dinner, and one from a couple of Esther’s patients who had contacted her directly. And this was December, the high season for the catering industry.
Even if there were another one or two bookings, these would not be enough to keep Love Food afloat. Andrea saw two choices: go on the dole like Maravan or look through the job announcements. Maybe she would find something that would give her the evenings free, so she would be available for Love Food if they got a booking. She had not abandoned all hope that Esther Dubois might call again, or someone else from her clique. She still clung to the idea – her idea – of aphrodisiac catering and hoped that Maravan’s residency status would soon allow them to run Love Food as an official concern.
To her mind it would have been unfair on him to give up so quickly. She felt responsible for his situation. If it were not for her he would probably still be working at the Huwyler. And, after all, it had been her fault that they no longer had bookings through Esther Dubois.
She dropped the job advertisements, pulled the shawl up to her chin and started thinking again about how to get Love Food back on its feet.
But it was a surprising call from Maravan that provided the answer.
The previous day Maravan had been standing at a snack bar at the main railway station. He was wearing a woolly hat and scarf, sipping his tea. Before him was a folded Sunday newspaper, unread, in which he had put an envelope with 3,000 francs in large denomination notes. It was practically all he had left from his Love Food income.
He had found out the day before that his sister had received a letter from Ulagu. The boy wrote that he was committed to the struggle for freedom and justice and had joined the LTTE fighters. It was his handwriting, Maravan’s sister had said, but not his language.
He saw Thevaram coming. He was making his way through the passengers, idlers and those just waiting. At his side was the silent Rathinam.
They waved at him and came over to his table. Neither of them showed any inclination to get a drink from the snack bar.
Maravan pointed to the paper. Thevaram dragged it over, lifted it slightly, felt the envelope with his hand, and counted the notes without looking. Then he raised his eyebrows approvingly and said, ‘Your brothers and sisters back home will thank you for this.’
Maravan sipped his tea. ‘Maybe they can do something for me, too.’
‘They are fighting for you,’ Thevaram replied.
‘I’ve got a nephew. He joined the fighters. He’s not even fifteen.’
‘There are many brave young men among our brothers.’
‘He’s not a young man. He’s a boy.’
Thevaram and Rathinam exchanged glances.
‘I will give greater support to the struggle.’
The two men exchanged glances again.
‘What’s his name?’ Rathinam suddenly asked.
Maravan told him the name, Rathinam jotted it down in a notebook.
‘Thank you,’ Maravan said.
‘All I’ve done so far is made a note of his name,’ Rathinam replied.
As a result of this meeting Maravan decided to ring Andrea.
He was not sure whether Thevaram and Rathinam had any influence over Ulagu’s fate, but he knew the LTTE’s arm was a long one. He had heard of Tigers demanding contributions from asylum seekers, using scarcely veiled threats against relatives back home. If they were capable of threatening people’s lives over such a distance, then maybe it was in their power to save them too.
Maravan had no option. He had to seize the chance, however small, that the two men could do something for Ulagu. And that cost money. More than he was earning at the moment.
The cold room smelt of heating oil. It had taken Maravan a long time to light the burner. Now, barefoot and in a sarong, he was kneeling before the domestic altar doing his puja. Despite the cold he was taking longer over it than usual. He prayed for Ulagu and for himself, that he might make the right decision.
When he stood up he realized the burner had gone out and the bottom of the combustion chamber was swimming in oil. He set about soaking up the oil with kitchen paper – a job he detested. When he had finally done it and the burner was lit again, Maravan and the whole flat stank of oil. He opened the windows, took a long shower, made himself some tea, then shut the windows.
Maravan pulled the chair away from the computer and over to the burner. In his leather jacket, pressing the cup of tea tightly against his torso, he sat in the weak light of the deepam, which was still flickering by the shrine, and thought.
Undoubtedly it was against his culture, his religion, his upbringing and his convictions. But he was not in Sri Lanka. He was in exile. You could not live here as you did at home.
How many women of the diaspora went to work, even though it was their job to run the household, bring up the children and cultivate and pass on the traditions and religious customs? But here they had to earn money. Life here forced them to.
How many asylum seekers were obliged to take jobs that were only fit for the lower castes – kitchen helps, cleaners, carers? Most of them, because life here forced them to.
How many Hindus within the diaspora had to make Sunday the holy day of their week, even though it ought to be Friday? All of them, because life here forced them to.
So why should he, Maravan, not also do something that back home would go against his culture, tradition and decency, if life in exile forced him to?
He went to the telephone and dialled Andrea’s number.
‘How are things looking?’ was the first thing Maravan asked when Andrea answered.
She hesitated a moment before replying. ‘Pretty dire, to be honest. Still only three bookings.’
It was silent on the other end for a while.
Then Maravan said, ‘I think I would do it now.’
‘What?’
‘The dirty stuff.’
Andrea understood immediately what he was saying, but asked, ‘What dirty stuff?’
Maravan paused.
‘If someone else rings and wants, you know, sex dinners. As far as I’m concerned you can say yes.’
‘Oh that. All right, I’ll take that on board. Anything else?’
‘Nothing.’
As soon as Maravan had hung up, she looked for the number of the caller who had asked about the sex dinners. She had noted it down, just in case.
December 2008
27
The apartment in Falkengässchen was on the fourth floor, right in the middle of the old town in a lavishly restored seventeenth-century house, if the inscription above the door was to be believed. A new, silent lift had brought her up here. The sitting room and kitchen took up the entire floor. The sloping roof went right up into the gable and opened out onto a roof terrace, from where you could look out over the tiled roofs and church towers of the old town.
A door in the wall led to the adjacent building. Behind it were two large bedrooms, each with a suite of furniture, and a luxurious bathroom. Everything was new and expensive, but kitted out in bad taste. Plenty of marble and gold-plated fittings, deep-pile carpets, dubious antiques and chrome-steel furniture, bowls with dried, perfumed petals.
The apartment reminded Andrea of a hotel suite. It did not look as if anybody lived there.
When she rang the man who had asked about ‘sex dinners’ that time, he answered with a brusque ‘Yes?’ His name was Rohrer and he came to the point immediately. They – he did not reveal who ‘they’ were – occasionally organized private dinners for relaxation. The guests were people for whom discretion was crucial. If she thought she might be able to offer something in this line, he would arrange a test dinner. Depending on the result, this might lead to further dinners.
Andrea met Rohrer the very next day to look around the premises. A man in his late thirties with short-cropped hair, he scrutinized her with a professional gaze. She was a head taller than him, and in the cr
amped lift up to the apartment she could smell a mixture of sweat and Paco Rabanne.
She told him that the apartment was suitable and that the suggested date in four days’ time – she looked awkwardly in her diary – was possible.
The dinner was served in the bedroom. The suite had been removed and Andrea had made the usual table with cloths and cushions – including brass fingerbowls, as now diners would be eating with their hands again.
For the first time Maravan worked with a tall chef’s hat. Andrea had insisted on it, and at the moment he did not feel like putting up a fight.
The dinner was planned for a woman and a man. Rohrer would leave the moment the guests arrived. But Andrea and Maravan should stay after the last course, until they were called.
He cooked his standard menu. With the usual care, but without the usual passion, Andrea thought.
The man was Rohrer’s boss. He was in his early fifties, somewhat overly groomed, wearing a blazer with golden buttons, grey gabardine trousers and a blue-and-white striped shirt, the white high collar of which was fastened by a gold pin. It made a bridge below the knot of his yellow tie.
He had green eyes and reddish, slightly longish hair, styled back with gel. Andrea noticed his fingernails. They were carefully manicured and polished.
He glanced into the kitchen, said hello to Andrea and Maravan, and introduced himself as Kull. René Kull.
They did not see his companion until they brought out the champagne. She was sitting at the dressing table, her narrow back in a low-cut dress facing Andrea. Her hair was shaven to within millimetres and went down in a wedge shape to the bottom of her neck. Her skin was a deep ebony colour, which shone in the light of Andrea’s sea of candles.
When she turned round, Andrea saw a roundish forehead of the sort that women from Ethiopia or Sudan have. Her full lips were painted red and now puckered into a surprised, interested smile.
Andrea beamed back. She had not seen such a beautiful woman for a long time. Her name was Makeda. Makeda set about the dinner with such pleasure and gusto that Andrea wondered whether she might not be a prostitute. Kull, on the other hand, kept his composure, not even unbuttoning that collar which had already seemed as if it might choke him when he arrived.
When they had not heard the temple bell for a while after the confectionery, Andrea listened anxiously to the noises coming out of the room. Then Kull strode into the kitchen.
‘Of course, the main reason for the effect this dinner has is the knowledge that you’re eating an erotic menu – and all the other stuff, the candles, eating with your hands. But do you actually put something else in the food?’ Kull’s cheeks were slightly red, but his top button was still done up.
‘I don’t put anything else in the food,’ Maravan explained. ‘It’s what’s in there already that creates the effect.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Herr Kull,’ Andrea interjected, ‘I’m sure you’ll understand that that’s our professional secret.’
Kull nodded. ‘Are you just as discreet in other ways?’ he asked after a while.
28
From that point onwards Love Food cooked regularly for Kull. The venue was always the apartment in Falkengässchen. Only the guests changed. Especially the men.
René Kull ran an escort service for a very upmarket, mostly international clientele. Men whose business brought them to the financial centre or the headquarters of the International Football Federation, or those who were simply making a stop on their way to a family holiday in the mountains. They set great store by discretion and were not infrequently accompanied by hefty, taciturn men who would munch on sandwiches they had brought with them in the sitting room.
Kull did not quibble about the price Andrea had tentatively asked for: 2,000 plus drinks.
Andrea had never come into contact with this world before, and she was fascinated. She was quick to strike up conversation with the women, who usually arrived before their clients and would have a drink and a few cigarettes in the sitting room while waiting. They were beautiful, wore off-the-peg clothes and expensive jewellery, and treated her as if she were one of their own. She enjoyed chatting to them. They were funny and talked about their work with an ironic distance which made Andrea laugh.
The women loved these evenings because of the food. And because – as a Brazilian girl confessed – it even made what came afterwards quite fun.
Andrea had little to do with the men. They usually turned up accompanied by Rohrer, Kull’s dogsbody, who would bring them straight into the prepared room, then disappear immediately. When Andrea served up the dishes, she would focus her attention on their female companions.
On one occasion she was banished to the kitchen with Maravan. There was a huge commotion in Falkengässchen before the guest arrived. A number of bodyguards searched the apartment, one making a recce of the kitchen, and after the mystery person had been smuggled past the closed kitchen door, yet another bodyguard came in and announced that he would be doing the waiting. All Andrea had to do was explain to him what each dish was. Each time he had served one, he practised the presentation of the following one with her until the temple bell rang again.
‘I’d love to know who that was,’ Andrea said as she and Maravan were going down in the lift.
‘I wouldn’t,’ Maravan replied.
It was not the shady side of his work that bothered Maravan, it was his role in it. When the diners had been for couples in therapy, he had been treated with the respect afforded to a doctor or specialist who is in a position to help people. And when they had done normal catering assignments he had been feted like a star.
Here he was ignored totally. It didn’t matter how tall his chef’s hat was, he was invisible. He hardly ever came face to face with the guests, and Andrea never had any compliments to relay back to him when she brought in the dirty crockery.
As a kitchen help Maravan had been used to leading a shadowy existence. But this was different: the guests came here because of his creations. Whatever happened between them was a direct result of his artistry. In short, the artist in Maravan felt neglected. And, what was almost worse, so did the man.
His relationship with Andrea had not developed in the way he wanted. He hoped that being together almost every day, the close contact and the conspiratorial nature of their collaboration, would bring them closer. It did, but only as friends, almost like siblings. The erotic element of their work did not rub off on their relationship.
However, whereas Andrea felt nothing more than friendship towards Maravan, she became very close with the girls working for Kull. By the second meeting they were already hugging each other like long-lost friends, spending the time before the punters – Maravan deliberately called them this in front of Andrea – arrived chatting, smoking and laughing on the white sofas. There was one girl in particular she liked: a tall Ethiopian called Makeda. If Maravan was honest, he felt jealous of this woman.
Makeda had fled to Britain with her mother and older sister when she was twelve. They belonged to the Oromo people; her father had joined its liberation movement, the Oromo Liberation Front. After the fall of the Derg government he was an OLF deputy in the transition parliament, but following the elections the OLF left the Government and put itself in opposition to the ruling party.
Early one morning soldiers had arrived at Makeda’s parents’ house, ransacked the place and taken away her father. It was the last time she saw him. Her mother made dogged attempts to discover where he was being held, and thanks to some former acquaintances she did indeed find out. Her contacts even allowed her to visit the prison. She returned home silent and red-eyed. Two days later, Makeda, her mother and sister crossed the Kenyan border in a clapped-out Land Rover. From that point on, her mother could not call in any more favours from old acquaintances. They flew to London and sought asylum. They never heard from her father again.
At sixteen Makeda was discovered by a modelling agency scout. He called her ‘the new Naomi Campbell
’. Against her mother’s will, she went to a few castings, took part in some fashion shows and was photographed for magazines. But she waited in vain for the breakthrough.
It was during Milan Fashion Week that she crossed the fine line between up-and-coming model and call girl. Feeling lonely, she took a purchaser for a boutique chain back to her room. When she awoke the following morning he was gone. On the bedside table were 500 euros. ‘I then realized that my first lover had also been my first punter,’ she said with a sarcastic laugh.
When she had to accept that she was not going to get very far as a model, Makeda went back to her family and to school. But by now she was used to a freer and more expensive existence. Life was too constricted at home; she found her mother’s views too narrow-minded. It was not long before they were arguing. Makeda moved out, for good.
She was discovered by another scout, but this time they worked for an escort service. Makeda became a call girl, a profession in which she met with rather more success than on the catwalk.
Makeda had come across Kull less than a year ago. He lured her away and she followed him to Switzerland, where she felt pretty lonely.
She related all of this in the half-light of Andrea’s bedroom. While waiting for a client they had made a date for the following day. Despite the cold, they went for a walk by the lake and ended up in Andrea’s bed, as if this were the natural order of things.
So Maravan’s jealousy was not unjustified. Andrea was in love.
Not long after their last visit, Thevaram and Rathinam were back at Maravan’s flat. They brought news from Ulagu. They claimed he had signed up for the Black Tigers, an elite unit of suicide bombers. The entry requirements were very tough, however; there was a good chance he would be rejected. They could try to increase this chance through their contacts, if Maravan so wished.
Maravan promised them another donation of 2,000 francs.
After their visit, Maravan let his sister know, via the Batticaloa Bazaar, that he had made some initial progress in the matter they had discussed.