Vanilla Salt Page 8

  Frank loves meat. The mere sight of a good, thick deep-red steak, of the kind that makes you feel full just looking at it, has him slobbering, in seventh heaven. He ate very little protein when he was a kid in Mozambique. Too much gruel, a little bit of fish and lots of cassava. When he arrived in Catalonia he was shocked to see the barbecues they cooked, huge dishes piled with a variety of meats he’d never seen in his life, or even imagined. For him, a dishful of barbecued meat was the ultimate in luxury, even when the product was of the most dubious quality.

  Àlex thinks that barbecues are for rustics, for plebs without the slightest sensitivity or culinary culture, a way of eating that helped to get through the long years after the Civil War, when Franco’s push for development turned the Sixties into the decade of desarrollismo. Then, families crammed into their SEAT 600s and filed out of the city, heading for farmhouses on the outskirts where they could stuff themselves in these displays of gastronomic grossness – that’s if the word “gastronomic” applies to an array of charred cuts of meat drowning in stinking aioli. Yet Àlex caters to Frank’s tastes and makes him a fine barbecue with rabbit, steak, lamb, chicken… and pork.

  Of course Muslims don’t eat pork, but Àlex loves a grilled botifarra, and since he’s already violating his own principles by grilling a heap of meat, he might as well give himself the treat of a couple of these glorious Catalan sausages.

  “Hey, chef, can I smell burnt meat? Who are you cooking for? Didn’t you tell me it was going to be a silver-spoon concoction?”

  “Yes, of course. There’s duck liver with port-reduction sauce. I had some meat, so thought I’d do a barbecue, but don’t imagine it’s for you, eh. I wouldn’t cook as much as a chicken bone for you. Come on, sit down. Oh well, I’ve cooked it now, so I’ll give you a couple of the smallest bits,” Àlex says, producing an immense platter of meat straight off the grill.

  “They’re the smallest bits? In my country, a plateful like that would be enough to feed the whole village! If I’d known, I would have brought a nice big serving of McDonald’s fries.”

  Fries are another one of Frank’s weaknesses. He remembers the first time he went to eat in a McDonald’s as if it were happening right now. He’d worked unwaged for more than three months, because his boss kept going on about his “apprenticeship”, and when he finally got his first pay he decided to spend his money by going to eat in a real fast-food joint, in the most famous, biggest fast-food chain in the world, McDonald’s, the Mecca of the West.

  It’s curious the way Frank lives, straddling two cultures. He wants to be African and seem European at the same time. He misses his country’s customs and traditions, but sees himself in the mirror of Western ways of being in the world.

  “Heaven help you! If you dare to cross my threshold with a potato in your hand I’ll wall you up and you’ll never see the light of day again. And if it comes from that rat-meat hamburger dump, whose name I’d never as much as pronounce, I’ll shove you into the Josper and the coal will look white next to your ashes.”

  “You’re weird, Àlex. What the hell’s your problem with potatoes? Have you ever been hurt by a potato?”

  “It will never happen, because I’m never going to eat one. They did enough damage to me when I was a kid.”

  “I don’t get it. What on earth are you saying? Did you overeat and get indigestion when you were a kid?” Frank’s intrigued.

  “Mental indigestion, that’s what. Come on, let’s eat,” Àlex says, changing the subject. “In your honour today, I’m cracking open one of the great wines in my cellar, a Vall Llach 2007. I probably won’t need to hang on to it any longer. And as for you, I’ve made one of these papayaand-mango juices you’re so fond of.”

  Frank looks at Àlex and sees a face betraying infinite bewilderment and sadness. He doesn’t know what it is, or exactly what it expresses, but the chef can’t hide some kind of despair that’s eating him up.

  The phone rings. Normally Àlex flies to answer it, but today he drags himself over to see who’s calling, as if his ankles are shackled, as if he fears that bad news awaits him on the other end of the line. A couple of minutes later, no time at all in fact, he returns to the kitchen, grabs the cloth hanging from his waist, flings it down on the table and opens the bottle of Vall Llach. After filling his glass to the brim, he says, “That’s it. Make the most of it, my friend.”

  “You’re right, Àlex, we should always try to make the most of it and enjoy ourselves. That’s the most important thing in life – live in peace and enjoy it.”

  “Your advice is wise, my friend. Anyone would think you were eighty years old, and you’re not even thirty yet.”

  “Twenty-six, Àlex… Thirty’s still a long way off, because I’m only twenty-six. The richness of my culture comes from listening to the oldest and wisest people. We might not go to school, but we learn lots of things at home. They teach us to listen, which is the most honoured virtue back there. We are people with clean ears.”

  “Don’t get carried away!” Àlex can’t stand anything remotely sentimental, and instantly cuts off any conversation where the slightest hint of tear-jerking appears. “Words come cheap, and the advice you’ve given me is mawkish nonsense. I was taking the piss, but you don’t get a joke any more than you’d eat a slab of ham. ‘Live in peace and enjoy it!’ You’re really brilliant today. Is that the smartest bit of advice those old crocks in your village ever gave you? Don’t make me laugh!”

  “Listen Àlex, you’re pushing it. I’ve got a family and they’re waiting for me, yet I came here the moment you called. Do you really think I’ve come here to eat duck’s liver? No sir, I’m here because I feel sorry for you, seeing you so alone, more shrivelled and bitter than a dried herring. I’m the only one who puts up with you and I’ve yet to work out why. Do you think that a white man, famous chef, restaurant owner would invite a humble delivery man to share his top-of-the-range dish if he had someone else? My wise old folk teach me this: to read between the lines, to know how to interpret a person’s eyes and, above all, to be generous and hold out a hand to someone who’s drowning. May Allah be my witness. You’re drowning, or you’ve already drowned… in shit.”

  “Now you’re the one who’s really surpassed himself! But, anyway, this time I can’t deny it. You’re totally right. I’m finished, full of shit, and it seems I’ve done this all by myself.” By now Àlex has drunk more than half the bottle of wine. “Listen, Frank, I phoned you today so I could ask you if you know anyone who’d be capable of working in a restaurant like mine. Someone who can manage the dining room, because I’m a disaster at that. But as soon as I put down the phone, I decided that this grilled meat, this duck liver and this special wine was going to be the best last supper for Antic Món. I’ve decided to close the show. One has to die so others can live. It’s death that we feed on – has that ever occurred to you? We, I mean we animals, live because we kill. Bloody hell, don’t look at me like that! I’m not just talking about calves, or sheep, or pigs. I’m talking about everything we eat. We have to pull up a lettuce and take its life if we want to get our teeth into it. Everything we eat is a corpse, from the inert carrot through to the cutest little quail. We have to put an end to vital processes before we put anything on a plate. Law of life. You know what cooking is? It’s transforming death into sensual pleasure. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. It’s time to kill Antic Món and start a new life.”

  “Àlex, what are you saying, man? This is scary.”

  “Life’s scary, Frank.”

  “So what will you do if you close the restaurant? This is your whole life. You’ve put everything you have and everything you are into this.”

  “I haven’t got the faintest idea what I’m going to do, or where I’ll end up, but I’ve had enough. That phone call I just had was from the lad who supplies organic vegetables, the only one still bringing stuff. Since he’s hopeless at keeping the books he didn’t realize I haven’t paid his bills for three months. H
e tells me he can’t supply me any more. Yesterday the same thing happened with the milk-and-cheese man. He said he feels let down, because he’d trusted Annette. It seems she promised him that I’d slowly pay off my outstanding bills, but he’s only received a fraction of the amount of the first unpaid bill. He’s been waiting to hear something about a second instalment but still hasn’t been paid a cent. He says we don’t keep our word. But I didn’t have a clue about what Annette was up to with the suppliers. Now she’s gone… You know who I’m talking about? That Canadian girl who came a couple of months ago.”

  “I’m perfectly aware who you’re talking about.”

  Frank is dumbstruck. He can’t come up with any piece of advice from the elders to console him. He’s shocked that Àlex is going to close his beloved restaurant as he knows all too well that Antic Món’s the most important thing in the world to him. It’s been his whole life, but all in vain. Now he’s got to close shop. Frank doesn’t know what to say and opts to keep quiet, so Àlex can let off steam.

  “Man, I was bloody furious when I found out that Annette was doing deals with the suppliers behind my back, but on second thoughts, I can see she was probably trying to help. Now I can’t tell her off because she’s gone too. Bloody hell! I want to say it and for once and bloody all: I think she’s great! She was probably the best thing to happen in Antic Món after Moha left. You remember Moha, right?”

  “Of course I do. How could I forget him? You were good friends, great friends, and you were always laughing, you and Moha. Have you heard from him?”

  “Yes, he phoned me one day to see how things were going. I lied and said everything was fine. Since he left, it’s all gone down the spout. And now, Annette. I really liked her…” Àlex has drained the bottle of Vall Llach. “I don’t know where she is, poor girl. I didn’t pay her, not even a cent. Where could she have gone without money?”

  “What if she came back, would you still close the restaurant?” Frank tests the waters. He’s trying to work out if there’s anything he can do to stop what he sees as the looming disaster of Àlex’s closing down the restaurant.

  “I owe too much money, Frank. I don’t know how I can pay off so many debts. Well, if Annette was here and if she agreed we could try to find some kind of solution.” Àlex is thinking aloud. “She was on my side, a friend, but I turned her into an enemy… out of pure egoism, for the stupid bloody pleasure of ill-treating her, so I could still feel I was the boss and, to tell you the truth, because I was afraid of being indebted and feeling dependent on somebody else. I’ve always been a coward. Then again, I don’t think I’ve got it in me to keep going with this bottomless pit of problems, a restaurant that gobbles up money. Anyway, I wouldn’t know where to go looking for her. I haven’t got the faintest idea where she is. She won’t come back, that’s for sure, even if I get down on my knees and beg her. Forget it… Eat up, damn it!” he exclaims, changing the subject. “What’s wrong with you, lad? Anyone’d say I cooked you up a kilo of those sardines you hate so much – yeah the ones that make your hands stink so much your wife won’t let you go near her.”

  Frank hasn’t heard Àlex’s last words, as he’s still pondering his confession. It’s the first time he’s ever heard the chef talking so intimately, so sincerely, and he’s full of compassion. This is Frank’s greatness. He’s had a tough life, but there’s not a drop of rancour in his heart. Ninety per cent of the man is generosity. The other ten per cent is ears, for listening, understanding and helping. That’s why, betraying Annette’s trust and friendship, he blurts out five words:

  “I know where she is.”

  6

  FLAME

  Sharp knives, of course, are the secret of a successful restaurant.

  GEORGE ORWELL

  “Why you tell him where am I?” Annette is angry with Frank. Then she immediately feels guilty for overreacting and changes her tone. “No worry. It OK. You no wrong.”

  “I know that nothing in this whole story is my fault,” Frank says, “and that I can say whatever I like. I knew you’d be upset, but even so, I had to tell him. I felt really sorry for Àlex. That man’s finished and he needs you. He says he wants to close Antic Món. Can you believe that? He’s put his whole life into it!”

  “But I no person. I no can to help him.”

  “I think you mean you’re not the right person, because you’re certainly a person…”

  “Pardon, I speak very bad the Catalan.”

  “You can say that again! You speak it as badly as Graça. I’m used to it, so I can understand you. I fear, Annette, that you’re the only one who can help Àlex. In fact he’s missing you. Yes, he confessed it. If he knew I told you, he’d slit my throat and fill it with black sausage.”

  “It’s true I no have place for go, no have work, no have papers. I no can to be here, in your house, my all life. I must to go.”

  “Annette, don’t go back to Antic Món because you’ve got nowhere else to go. That would be a bad mistake, and both you and Àlex will end up burnt. Only go back if you want to, if you think you can offer something, because, by helping, people grow and are less like animals.”

  “You savant person!”

  “Things I learnt from the wise old people back home. I’ll tell you about it another time… Better still, ask Àlex about it. I told him about the wise old people in my village.”

  “Pardon, I no understand you nearly nothing. Maybe I go to restaurant. I think this during day.”

  Àlex gets up earlier than usual. It’s not even six in the morning, but after tossing and turning all night he decides to get out of bed. He lets the warm water run down his back. He’s always found the shower comforting. Yesterday he made a decision and informed Frank. He’s going to close the restaurant. Today he has to think about how to go about it. Naturally, this is all new to him. He’s never closed a business in his life.

  The shower water doesn’t offer any answers for the string of questions he’s asking himself. The paperwork for closing down a business; what to do with the equipment; how to rent the place… Then there are the really hard questions. What’s he supposed to do now? Where will he go? What can he do? The water’s cleansed his skin, but his spirit is still muddy with doubts. The stains of disquiet can’t be washed away.

  He gets dressed slowly, looking at the old records and films on his shelves. He’s more than tempted to bolt the door, lock himself in here to waste away, watching all the films and listening to all the records in his collection, over and over again, till he dies. A gradual, pleasant suicide, enjoying his treasures, that’s how he’d like to go. He’s always said that suicide’s for cowards. His father used to like quoting Gómez de la Serna: “Suicide can only be regarded as man’s weakness because it is certainly easier to die than to endure a life full of bitterness without respite.”

  However, today he has to admit that he doesn’t feel like he wants to continue trying to cope with the problems of the world, problems he can’t understand and can’t overcome. He feels like a novice bullfighter faced with a bull that keeps changing colour, form and strength, a bull that’s acting in a completely incomprehensible, unpredictable way. The worst thing that can happen to a bullfighter is to feel afraid. Àlex is afraid.

  He decides to go downstairs and have some breakfast. Today he’ll eat whatever he feels like, the last caprice of a king who’s about to be garrotted. He makes two slices of toast, liberally rubbed with a cut clove of garlic, generously anointed in olive oil and topped with a big chunk of llonganissa, a dry, hard sausage he loves chewing on to extract all its flavour. He adds a bit of salt and pepper. The joys of his larder. He eats slowly, washing it down with an icy-cold beer. He doesn’t feel like reading the newspaper or listening to the radio or knowing anything about this incomprehensible world. He wants to fuse with the llonganissa, feel primitive, not know anything, not understand anything. Only chew, slurp, salivate, swallow… and top it off with a great big beer burp.

  The llonganissa has m
ade him feel better, or maybe it was catching sight of a few leftover bits of salt cod – scraps like dry, salty rosary beads – in one corner of the kitchen. He decides to make himself an ancestral dish his grandmother used to cook. He doesn’t know its real name, but Gran used to call it bacallà de bany d’or. The name comes from its lovely golden colour and the fact that it’s made from the humblest parts of the fish, like gold-plated tin earrings.

  He soaks the pieces of bacallà in plenty of water, which he changes ten times, hoping to remove the salt faster, though he likes it strong-tasting. Meanwhile, he pours a generous amount of oil into a casserole and browns some finely chopped garlic. Then he adds the bacallà, now shredded into even smaller pieces. It has to be stirred non-stop until it takes on the oil’s golden hues and is cooked through. The process takes quite a while and the action of stirring is hypnotic. This should be the time for singing, caressing the bacallà with one of the songs he likes, any one from his French and Catalan repertoire. But he doesn’t feel like singing.

  Annette’s taken his enthusiasm for music with her, borne it off tangled in her curls. He can’t get her out of his head – her sweetness, her smile… His brain’s full of Annette. He turns the fire off and phones Frank.

  “Hey man, have you got over what was bugging you?”

  “Bugging me? You’re the one who was as wobbly as a blancmange.”

  “Listen, is Annette there?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure she wants to talk to you.”

  “Let her decide that, will you. Tell her I’m on the phone, Mr Mozambique!”

  The waiting becomes eternal. Where the fuck has he gone to find her. Quebec? What’s going on? Is it true she doesn’t want to talk to him? At last he hears her voice.