White Truffles in Winter: A Novel Page 4

  Yes. There was, indeed, a cheetah. At 77 Chester Square. She actually wanted two small lions, but the man at Cross Zoo in Liverpool only had two very large ones. "Quand même, as Miss Bernhardt is so very fond of saying—I’m not sure how you Americans or English would say it. “No matter,” perhaps? All I know is that she would never allow a person or thing to stop her once her mind was set to a task. In any case, Miss Bernhardt took the cheetah instead.

  She could be rather sensible at times.

  For most, a cheetah as a domestic companion would have been a questionable choice. But “It is very droll,” she said. Unfortunately, as we all know, the English have no sense of humor when it comes to wild things. Look at how they treat their Irish.

  So when Miss Bernhardt arrived home with her cheetah in a cage, her wolf on a leash, six small lizards in a box and around her shoulders, tethered to a gold chain that one usually uses for pince-nez, a rather large chameleon that harrowingly resembled an ancient Chinese dragon—it created, let us say, an incident. A scandal, actually. Everyone was speaking of it everywhere and the talk became so intense that her employer Monsieur Got from the Comédie-Française begged her to take her brood back to Liverpool to their keeper at Cross Zoo.

  When faced with logic, Miss Bernhardt did what she usually would do. She defied it. She set the cheetah on the wolf, sending them both into a howling frenzy, which made her monkey laugh and won the heart of the jolly round Got.

  Or so she said. It is often difficult to tell what is a fabulous story and what is the truth. But then, why does that matter? Truth is often irrelevant. And whenever you speak of Miss Bernhardt, it is as if speaking of an angel or a demon, as either would be likely to appear at any moment and often at the same time.

  Quand même.

  When the broth is thick and pleasing to the tongue, form twenty small quenelles from the forcemeat of chicken and crayfish butter. She will not eat these, either. She once wore a pair of pet crayfish on her ears to a party. Miss Bernhardt makes it a practice not to eat her pets.

  The quenelles—they must be exactly five-carat weight, and I do mean this in the jeweler’s sense. When Miss Bernhardt raises her silver spoon, and it will be a silver spoon, she will be able to weigh the quenelle by sight alone. If it is six-carat weight, it will be tossed aside. Six is excessive. Four, of course, would be an insult. It must be five-carat weight, exactly, and formed in the marquise cut.

  As soon as the quenelles are molded, poach and set them aside. Saw twelve small marrow rounds from a veal bone; they should be the size of a golden ring. Poach and set them aside also.

  Once these steps are complete, place the quenelles and the marrow in a soup tureen. Add one tablespoon of a julienne of black spring truffles. The perfume of new grass is crucial to this dish. Add to it one tablespoon of new asparagus tips. Again, they must be the very first of the season. Pour the consommé over the garnish.

  When you are finished, serve it quickly. Leave it on the table and walk away. Do not turn around. Heed this advice especially if you are serving this to a beautiful woman. Do not even think to glance over your shoulder. The very moment when the spoon is brought to her lips, when she embraces the deep rich aroma of the truffle and the whisper of spring asparagus, her face will soften with pleasure and she will think of her own childhood, not the stories she tells others but her real childhood.

  It will be a simple moment that she can tell no one about and all the artifice that she has been burdened to create will slip away and her inner light will reveal itself to you. And you will never be the same.

  There is no way to approach such divinity without offending it or being overwhelmed by it. So do not hesitate. Close the door gently behind you. Be thankful if you get out alive.

  “AND SWEET KISSES—SWEETER THAN FRAISES SARAH . . . ”

  Escoffier had signed a letter like that once. Delphine remembered that when Sabine knocked at her door. Bernhardt. Always Bernhardt.

  “Madame?”

  The evening meal had been served long ago. Instead of crushing and canning the tomatoes, Escoffier and Sabine made gallons of tomato sauce. Delphine was told by her nurse that he’d shown the girl how to make noodles and then the two prayed to Saint Elizabeth over them.

  “Never marry a Catholic,” Delphine told the woman.

  There were eighteen at the table that night, so many mouths to feed, but bread, noodles and sauce were all they had. Delphine stayed in her room, exhausted. The nurse cleaned her, turned her, dressed her in her white lace nightgown and lace bed cap, gave her a dose of morphine and left.

  Delphine could not sleep. She turned on the reading lamp by her bed and tried to pick up a book with her one good hand, but the hand went weak and the book tumbled onto the floor. The nurse had left the window open; the curtains were pulled back. Delphine lay for a very long time and watched the lights of the city flicker and spark.

  When the house finally fell quiet, she heard Escoffier turn on his radio. He was hard of hearing. He turned the volume up loud. News filled the night air. The German president Paul von Hindenburg had died. Rather than hold new presidential elections, Hitler’s cabinet passed a law combining the offices of president and chancellor with Adolf Hitler holding both. Germany was now under the control of a single man. The newsreader had said the leader had taken the title of Führer, or “guide.”

  The radio went off abruptly. Sabine knocked again.

  “Madame, I was told that you wanted to see me.”

  “Come in.”

  Sabine opened the door gently. For a moment, she seemed apprehensive, more like a young girl than the cross young cook. She’d changed out of her kitchen whites and into a cream-colored blouse and long, pleated skirt. Her nails were freshly painted red. Her hair was set in Marcel waves and then curled into a net, as was the style. Her shoes were impossible, four-inch red heels with ankle straps. They looked like dancing shoes, which was surprising considering her limp. Delphine suspected that Sabine was going to meet someone, a man more than likely. She smelled of cigarettes and cheap perfume.

  “Come closer,” Delphine said.

  The girl took one step. No more.

  “Fine,” Delphine said. “Do you know how to make spun sugar?”

  “No. May I go?”

  “No. That can be worked around. Have you seen many strawberries at the market? We will need hothouse fruit, about three to four pounds. And you’ll need a pineapple; go to the Grand. Escoffier was their directeur de cuisine many years ago.”

  “The hotel?”

  “Queen Victoria herself stayed there; that is how she came to know Escoffier. They will sell their fruit if you ask for the directeur. The man’s name is Bobo. He is tall and tan. He looks indolent but is far from it. Pay him the least you can and listen to nothing he says. He fashions himself to be very good with the ladies.”

  “Is he?”

  “No.”

  “Then he’s odd?”

  “Crazy. They all are. You know how long most chefs live? Forty years. Smoke. Heat. Pressure. It all makes them insane. Bobo needs to feel dangerous and so we humor him. It makes him happy. Now. After the pineapple is procured, the ice cream must be made—”

  “Madame, I have spent all the household money on tomatoes.”

  “What?”

  “There is no money for pineapple, strawberries or cream. You directed me to buy tomatoes, and I did. And tonight Monsieur Escoffier has directed me not to sauce them again. The children, apparently, do not like them that way.”

  Delphine had forgotten. “But what will we make with all the tomatoes, then?”

  “Stories.”

  The girl was like a small nasty dog.

  Delphine imagined the disaster the kitchen would soon be with cases of rotting tomatoes staining the marble, filling the air with flies. “So now are we to eat
tomatoes every night until September or until they all rot?”

  “Yes. May I go?”

  “No. Sit.”

  The girl did not sit. Nor did she avert her eyes, as most servants would have done. Sabine reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a pack of Gitanes. She took out a cigarette and put it in her mouth and waited for a response.

  “I would like you to sit for a moment,” Delphine said quietly. “Please. And you may smoke if you wish. It doesn’t bother me.”

  That was clearly not the response Sabine had expected. The cigarette hung in her mouth unlit. Her red lipstick was beginning to smear. There was a thin bead of sweat above her upper lip. “You can tell me what you want while I am on my feet,” she said. “I don’t like sickrooms. It smells in here.”

  She’s afraid of illness. Delphine wondered what it was like to be Sabine, so beautiful but with polio. Flawed and broken. How many hospital rooms had the girl seen?

  “I agree,” Delphine said. “I don’t like them, either. But this will only take a moment.”

  “If you are planning to dismiss me . . . ”

  “And if I am?”

  “Then there is no need to have me sit. I will go readily.”

  “Your father would be furious.”

  “I will tell him that you have no money and he will gladly have me back.”

  “And I would tell him that you are lying. And that the great Escoffier demands that you stay.”

  Sabine suddenly developed a slightly rabid look about her. She pulled a box of matches from her pocket, lit her cigarette and inhaled deeply. Smoke leaked from her mouth.

  “Fine, then. We understand each other,” Delphine said. “Stand if you want.”

  The girl blew smoke at Delphine, but it did not offend her. In fact, she liked Sabine better for it. The moment of independence reminded her of her own youth. “Do you like poetry?”

  “No.”

  “What do you like?”

  “American music. Big Band. That Créole Josephine Baker. “

  “La Baker favors tomatoes.”

  Sabine nearly smiled.

  “It is true,” Delphine continued. “And she is unafraid of garlic. Escoffier once presented her with a blackbird cooked in forty cloves of garlic and she laughed out loud. It was a very witty gesture.”

  “I would think that she would have been gravely offended.”

  “Then you do not know her art. She became very rich because she is a black bird with a beautiful voice. She sang songs while dressed as an ignorant jungle girl, which all of Paris knew she was not. So they laughed. Genre Folies Bergères. Very chic.”

  The girl flicked an ash onto the oriental rug. “Is that all you need to know, Madame? My taste in music?”

  “No.”

  Delphine had hoped for so much more from Sabine, like kindness or even cooperation, but it was not forthcoming, so she continued. “I need you to help Monsieur Escoffier create a dish for me. It will mean extra work for you. But if you do this, and tell no one that I asked you to do this, I will give you that coat and release you from service, if that is what you wish.”

  Delphine pointed to the full-length ermine coat that she had had her nurse drape over the trunk at the foot of her bed. Queen Victoria’s furrier had designed it; his tag was in it. It was Victorian in style—floor-length with oversized sleeves and a high collar made from some sort of dyed mink—it was old but still beautiful. It arrived by post, years ago; the first of many gifts sent with a card signed “Mr. Boots.”

  Unfortunately, the coat was so small that she couldn’t even fit her arms into it. She had wanted to give it away but Escoffier refused. He wouldn’t even allow her to give it to his beloved Little Sisters of the Poor so that they could resell it and feed the old age pensioners and the hungry.

  “It was a gift,” he told her, and the way he said it told Delphine it was a gift to him, not her. It was all very odd.

  Sabine carefully crushed her cigarette out on the bottom of her shoe, placed the remains in her pocket for later. She picked up the coat and ran her hand along the champagne-colored silk lining. Held its soft collar to her face for a moment.

  “Try it on,” Delphine said.

  The fit was perfect, as if made for her—which pained Delphine. The girl looked more like Sarah than ever before. The black fur set off her wild eyes. If her hair were in a topknot, as it usually was, it would have been like looking at a ghost.

  “Take it off before Escoffier sees you.”

  Sabine reluctantly removed the coat. Folded it gently and placed it back over the trunk where she found it. “What kind of dish?” she said. “What sort of dish do I need to make to get a coat like this and my freedom?”

  Delphine had no idea what she was looking for. Something. Anything. It didn’t matter. “I thought perhaps if you made the Fraises Sarah it would inspire him. It was a very famous dish. After it was served, all the newspapers around the world wrote of it.”

  This was only partially true. The articles were about a worldwide event, the first Dîners d’Epicure, at which four thousand members of Escoffier’s gastronomic club La Ligue des Gourmands sat down and ate the same meal at the same time in New York and thirty-seven European cities. It was the first global event ever—monumental in scope.

  Of course, Escoffier had created a dish to honor Sarah Bernhardt—yet again. Fraises Sarah was, in fact, much to Delphine’s chagrin, the centerpiece of the entire meal. He even had commissioned a poem written about the dish.

  Always for her.

  During the first course, predictably, a telegram arrived from Bernhardt. All the newspapers reported it. “My two hands stretch out to my dear friend Escoffier . . . and sensitive lovers of real life.” Real life. Delphine no longer remembered the exact words of the rest of the message, but did remember that certain newspapers reported the telegram made Escoffier breathless.

  Even their children felt a sense of shame. Yes, Escoffier and Bernhardt had been lovers long before he even met Delphine. And yes, they had remained close all those years—how close was something Delphine never cared to think about—but the thought of their names in the newspapers together, so indiscreet, still made her angry.

  “And sweet kisses—sweeter than Fraises Sarah.” How could he have written such a thing to me?

  Sabine sat in a chair next to Delphine’s bed.

  “Does Monsieur Escoffier know he is creating a dish for you?”

  “No. It is your job to suggest it and encourage him until he completes it,” Delphine said. “Once it is complete, I will give you a list of newspapers that you will send the recipe to. You will say that it was Escoffier’s dying wish to make this dish for me.”

  “Is it?”

  “That is not important.”

  “Then I would be a liar.”

  “You have never lied for something or someone?”

  Sabine looked out the window at the lights of Monte Carlo. She pushed a stray hair back into her netting. “Why should I do this?”

  “Because I will give you the coat and your freedom.”

  Sabine shook her head. “No, Madame. My question is why do you want me to do such a foolish thing?”

  “Because he loves me,” she said. “And if we die without his ever creating a dish in my honor, no one will believe he loved me. They will think he loved them all better than me.”

  “Especially the actress? What was her name again?”

  This girl clearly knew the power she could possess over Escoffier—that much was clear to Delphine. And her father knew, too. That’s why she was sent to the house. Perhaps they are not idiots after all.

  Sabine looked at her closely, studied her face. Delphine knew what she saw. Bedridden and enormously fat, she was no longer the famed poet Delphine Daffis Escoffier but a h
orrible creature rolled about on gurneys and in wheelchairs, paraded about for the grandchildren to see. A fool. A monster.

  “Never mind,” Delphine said. “Go.”

  Sabine didn’t move. “Madame, it could be possible that if the great Escoffier does not create a dish in your honor, people may believe that he didn’t love you. But it could be possible that they will think he loved you so very much that he didn’t need to prove that to you.”

  “You are very insolent.”

  “I am the cook.”

  “Will you take the coat?”

  “No, Madame. It sheds.”

  Delphine looked at the girl’s cream blouse. Indeed, even in the dim light, she could see fur from the collar all over her shoulders. Delphine wanted to weep.

  “May I go?”

  Delphine looked out the window again. So many lights now searched the coastline. Perhaps La Royale—the French Navy. Germans. They are coming, she thought. Soon, nothing will matter.

  “You know I saw La Baker in Paris. In La Folie du Jour at the Folies Bergères Theater. She had sixteen bananas strung into a skirt and a few beads for a blouse. Very charming. This beautiful naked creature was the only thing anyone could look at. She didn’t sing as well back then, a very pale little voice. But no one remembers that. There was so much written about her, the newspapers immortalized her, so now everyone can only remember La Baker in all her glory.

  “That’s all we can ever hope for. To be remembered.”

  Delphine suddenly felt tired and closed her eyes. She continued on about fame and immortality and was still speaking when Sabine closed the door gently behind her.

  After midnight, the door to Delphine’s room opened again. Escoffier watched his sleeping wife for a moment, her small round face nearly lost in a sea of lace and sheets. The windows had been left open. The room was cold. Moonlight turned everything to steel.