by Martin Suter
‘How?’ he asked.
‘Her heart. One moment she was alive and the next she was dead.’
‘But her heart was so strong.’
After a pause, Maravan’s sister said, ‘Her heart was weak. She had a heart attack two years ago.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘She didn’t want you to know.’
‘Why not?’
‘She was afraid you might come back.’
When Maravan had finished talking to his sister he went into the bedroom, took Nangay’s photo from the wall and placed it by the domestic shrine. Then he kneeled and said a prayer for her. Was Nangay right? Would he have gone back if he had known about her heart attack?
Probably not.
That evening Maravan varied the Love Menu. He cooked all the dishes exactly in the way Nangay had shown him.
He did not prepare the urad lentil purée marinated in sugared milk as ‘man and woman’, but dried it in portions in the oven.
The mixture of saffron, milk and almonds he simply served as a warm drink. And he made a paste out of the saffron ghee, which was eaten with warm milk.
He used neither the rotary evaporator nor jellification, and made no attempt to defamiliarize textures or aromas.
The meal that evening was a homage to the woman to whom he owed everything. Just for tonight, he did not want to abuse her art for something she would never have approved of.
All the while, curry leaves and cinnamon bark sat in hot coconut oil, filling the whole apartment with the aroma of his childhood. In memory of Nangay.
Andrea had noticed instantly that something was wrong. Maravan did not turn up until late into their preparation time. When he finally arrived, the whole apartment was soon smelling more strongly of curry than his obsessively aired kitchens ever had in the past. And what she served up had nothing to do with the Love Menu she knew.
Right at the start she had made a comment about the changes and received an angry glare in return. ‘Like this or not at all,’ was all he had uttered, and throughout the remainder of the afternoon and evening he only spoke when necessary, to discuss timings.
The client – a regular – was visibly disappointed when she brought the ‘greeting from the kitchen’. It was a small spoon with a dark paste next to a shot glass of hot milk, which she had to announce as ‘urad lentils in hot milk’. But the woman he had booked for the evening was new and so excited that he did not let it show.
Shortly before Andrea left the apartment – Maravan had gone long before, almost without saying goodbye – the client, wrapped in a Turkish towel, came out of the room, handed her three 200 franc notes and grinned: ‘At first I thought it was the alternative version of the menu. But I must say, it got me going even more. Compliments to the chef.’
35
Once again Maravan had spent more than two hours in Dr Kerner’s waiting room. The well-thumbed newspapers lying around all carried the same lead story: the forthcoming swearing-in of the first black president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama.
This event was also the main topic of conversation among those waiting. The Tamils were hoping for a Sri Lanka policy that was less government-friendly, the Iraqis for a rapid withdrawal of American troops from their country, and the Africans for greater engagement in Zimbabwe and Darfur.
When Maravan was finally called into the surgery, Dr Kerner looked up from his patient file and asked, ‘How’s your great-aunt?’
‘She’s dead.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear that. You did all you could. Why have you come to see me?’
‘It’s not me. It’s about my great-aunt. You asked me last time whether her heart was OK. Why?’
‘If she’d been suffering from certain circulation problems she should not have taken the Minirin. It works as a blood-thinner. It cancels out the effects of anticoagulants and so could bring about a stroke or a heart attack. How did she die?’
‘From a heart attack.’
‘And now you’re worried the medicine may have been to blame. Not very likely. She would have had to have had a prehistory of circulation problems.’
‘She had a heart attack. Two years ago.’
Now Dr Kerner cast him a look of mild horror. ‘You should have told me.’
‘I didn’t know. She kept it to herself.’
36
Towards the end of January a small piece of business news caused astonishment in professional circles. It even found its way into the daily papers.
Kugag, the firm defying the economic crisis by manufacturing in the renewable energy sector, had announced it had entered into a joint venture with hoogteco, a Dutch company, the biggest European supplier of solar and wind energy – and Kugag’s biggest competitor.
All who knew – and some commentators did know – just how rapidly developments progressed in this area, and how sensitive technological knowledge in the sector was, were amazed by this move. Because it could not occur without sharing know-how.
Experts asked openly what Kugag, the smaller but more dynamic of the two firms, would gain from this collaboration. It was considered to have one of the leading research departments in the world; its production capacity had recently expanded to meet future demand; its order book was full and analysts knew of some promising product innovations that were in the pipeline.
Kugag did not have any image problems either. Its CEO had recently been chosen as manager of the year in the ‘new technology’ sector.
If anybody was going to profit from this deal it could only be hoogteco.
Hans Staffel, Kugag’s CEO and normally a good communicator, raised eyebrows on this occasion with his botched information policy. It was hoogteco that went public with the news. To begin with, Kugag refused to make any comment, then announced that the matter was not yet definite, and very belatedly issued a terse communiqué that confirmed everything stated in the Dutch report.
On the following Monday, Kugag was hit hard on the stock exchange. By contrast, hoogteco had an outstanding start to the week.
A spokeswoman for Kugag – the firm had hired a spokeswoman, no doubt on the advice of its communications consultant – played this down and described the deal as a completely normal, very specific business venture, entered into from a position of strength.
One commentator expressed doubt at this strength and wondered about possible financial difficulties that may have resulted from speculation on the American sub-prime market.
Another commentator wondered why the board had not prevented this development. Or whether Staffel had not exceeded his authority here.
There was no reaction forthcoming from the CEO himself, who usually did not shy away from the public eye.
February 2009
37
Maravan was busy most evenings at the moment. But he was able to interrupt his preparations at lunchtime, when he met Sandana. He waited for her outside the travel centre and then they would go to a café, restaurant or snack bar at the station.
They would use this scant hour to tell each other about their respective lives.
Once she asked, ‘If we were in Sri Lanka now, what do you think we’d be doing?’
‘You mean now? Right now?’
Sandana nodded. ‘At half past twelve.’
‘Local time?’
‘Local time.’
‘It would be hot, but it wouldn’t be raining.’
‘So, what are we doing?’
‘We’re on the beach. It’s a little cooler in the sea breeze under the palm trees. The sea is calm. It’s generally calm in February.’
‘Are we alone?’
‘Nobody to be seen for miles.’
‘Why are we in the shade and not in the water?’
‘We don’t have our swimming costumes. Only our sarongs.’
‘You can go in the water with those on.’
‘But they’d become see-through.’
‘Would that bother you?’
‘Looking
at you? No.’
‘Let’s go in then.’
On another occasion Maravan told her about his fears for Ugalu. And about Nangay. What she had meant to him. And that he felt partly to blame for her death.
‘Didn’t you say she would have dehydrated without the medicine?’
Maravan nodded.
‘And didn’t your sister say, “One moment she was alive and the next she was dead”?’
They became closer. They rarely touched physically, although they gave each other the hello and goodbye kisses that were normal in this city, although improper in their culture.
She was still sharing a flat with her workmate, a jolly woman from the Berner Oberland, who he had once met when the two of them were leaving the travel centre at the same time. Sandana had no contact with her parents.
One evening in February, Maravan, who had been cooking in Falkengässchen and was able to clock off early, was sitting at his computer surfing the internet. The news from his country was getting more and more depressing.
The army had established a safety zone for refugees, which, according to matching reports from the LTTE and various aid organizations, they were now bombarding. There were many civilian deaths. Whoever was able to flee the conflict zone was doing so, and being immediately interned in refugee camps. Many people were saying that the government forces were on the brink of victory. Maravan and most of his compatriots knew that a victory was not the way forward to peace.
Shortly after eleven o’clock that night there was an insistent ringing at his door.
Through the spyhole he could see a middle-aged Tamil man.
‘What do you want?’ Maravan asked when the man took his finger off the bell for a moment.
‘Open the door!’ the man ordered.
‘Who are you?’
‘Her father. Now open the door or I’ll kick it in!’
Maravan opened the door. He now recognized Sandana’s father, who stormed into the flat.
‘Where is she?’
‘If you’re talking about Sandana, she’s not here.’
‘Of course she’s here.’
With a gesture of his hand Maravan invited him to take a look around. Mahit inspected every room, went into the bathroom and even looked on the balcony.
‘Where is she?’
‘At home, I expect.’
‘She hasn’t been at home for a long time now!’
‘I think she’s staying with a friend.’
‘Ha! Friend! She’s living here!’
‘Is that what she told you?’
‘We don’t talk any more!’ He was practically shouting. Then he suddenly calmed down and repeated at normal volume, ‘We don’t talk any more.’ He sounded astonished, as if he had only become aware of this fact just now.
Maravan could see tears welling up in the man’s eyes. He put a hand on his shoulder. The man angrily shook it off.
‘Sit down. I’ll make you some tea.’ He pointed to the chair by his monitor. Mahit sat obediently and put his head in his hands, sobbing gently.
When Maravan brought the tea, Sandana’s father had composed himself. He thanked Maravan and took small sips.
‘Why does she want us to think she’s living here when she’s staying with a friend?’
‘She doesn’t want to marry the man you’ve chosen for her.’
Mahit shook his head in puzzlement. ‘But he’s a good man. My wife and I spent a long time finding him. It wasn’t easy.’
‘Women here want to be able to find their own husbands.’
Mahit flared up again. ‘She’s not from here!’
‘But not from there, either.’
The father nodded and started crying again. This time he made no attempt to wipe away his tears. ‘This bloody war. This shitty, bloody war,’ he sobbed.
When he had calmed down, he finished his tea, apologized and left.
38
Maravan was no longer quite so focused as before. Now, almost every lunchtime he went out for an hour, whereas in the past he would have been busy concentrating on preparing dinner.
‘Just popping out for a bite,’ he would say.
When he returned he was usually quite cheerful, which he had not been for a long time, ever since that evening when he cooked the alternative menu.
Not long afterwards the client had ordered the same menu again and a different woman, but Maravan had refused outright.
‘It’s not meant for that,’ he told Andrea.
‘But the client says it worked brilliantly.’ ‘That wasn’t the intention,’ was Maravan’s answer. And with that he considered the matter closed.
He would not explain what the issue was, and she did not probe him. It was a delicate topic. She did not want to upset him. She was happy that he seemed so jolly lately.
It was only by chance that she discovered the reason for the change in his behaviour. Makeda had a booking with someone attending a UN conference in Geneva, and so Andrea had taken her to the station. After the train left she went into a sandwich bar on the station concourse. And it was there that she saw him.
Maravan was sitting at a small table with a pretty Tamil woman. They had eyes and ears only for each other.
Andrea hesitated for a moment, but then decided she would disturb their idyll after all. She went up to the table and said, ‘I hate to interrupt.’
The girl looked enquiringly, first at her then at Maravan. He had lost his tongue.
‘I’m Andrea, Maravan’s business partner.’ She offered her hand and the young woman took it with a relieved smile.
‘And I’m Sandana.’ She spoke Swiss dialect without a hint of an accent.
As Maravan did not invite her to sit down with them, Andrea left soon afterwards, saying ‘See you later’ to Maravan, and ‘Pleased to have met you’ to Sandana.
Later, in Falkengässchen, she said, ‘Why don’t you take the poor girl to a nicer restaurant?’
‘She works in the travel centre and only has a short lunch break.’
Andrea smiled. ‘Now it’s all making sense: you’re in love.’
Maravan did not look up from his work. He just shook his head and muttered, ‘I’m not.’
‘Well, she is,’ was Andrea’s reply.
The following morning another piece of Kugag-related business news caught the media’s attention. Hans Staffel, one of the Managers of the Year, had been relieved of all duties with immediate effect. ‘Due to differences of opinion regarding the firm’s strategic orientation.’ The commentators thought it was obvious: the CEO’s dismissal was connected to his opaque decision to enter a joint venture with one of the company’s largest competitors.
‘Look! We know him,’ Makeda said, showing Andrea the official portrait which Staffel had got an expensive photographer to produce for the annual report during happier times. Andrea was leafing through the newspapers she had bought while fetching the breakfast croissants. Makeda was watching her; she could not read German.
‘What’s happened to him?’
Andrea read the article. ‘Booted out.’
‘But I thought he was so brilliant.’
‘He screwed things up by getting involved with a Dutch firm.’
‘Wasn’t the guy he came to Falkengässchen with one of those?’
‘What?’
‘A Dutchman.’
Maravan was reading the paper for another reason. More than 10,000 of his compatriots had held a demonstration outside the UN building in Geneva. They were demanding an immediate end to the military offensive.
Over the last few days the news from Sri Lanka was getting ever more catastrophic. The area occupied by the LTTE had shrunk to an enclave of no more than 150 square kilometres, in the middle of which stood the town of Puthukkudiyiruppu. Kilinochchi, the Elephant Pass, and the ports of Mullaitivu and Chalai were in government hands. The Red Cross estimated that besides the roughly 10,000 LTTE soldiers, a further 250,000 people were surrounded and coming repeatedly under fire.
The Government had published not very convincing photographs of a two-storeyed, comfortable-looking bunker that had housed the Tamil commandant Prabhakaran, but from where he had made a hasty departure. A rumour was circulating that he had left the country.
It was not until he put down the paper that Maravan noticed the picture of a man he had let into the apartment in Falkengässchen the previous month, because Andrea had been out buying matches. All he read was the caption: Fired: Manager of the Year Hans Staffel.
Later that morning, when they were still in bed, Makeda said out of the blue, ‘He took photos of him.’
‘Who did?’
‘The Dutch guy. When the bloke who’s got the sack went into the next-door room with Cécile. After a while the Dutch guy stood up, took something from his jacket, opened the door quietly and stayed there until Cécile sent him out.’
‘How do you know he took pictures?’
‘Cécile shouted out, “Ça suffit! Photos cost extra!”’
39
Just for a change, Love Food cooked for a married couple again. The clients were regulars with Esther Dubois, the sex therapist – a sort of arty-crafty couple in their mid-forties who were working very seriously at their relationship. Andrea had no idea where they had got her details from. She suspected they were being passed around by word of mouth among Esther Dubois’s patients, because more and more clients were coming from this source.
They lived in a house with a vegetable garden and the wife wanted Maravan to swear that he would use only organic ingredients. Maravan agreed, although he could not provide a cast-iron guarantee for all the molecular texturizers.