White Truffles in Winter: A Novel Page 7

  An older woman with a straw-colored rope of hair—Escoffier assumed it was Nina’s mother—smiled at the thought of the beguiling Sarah tumbling into the timpani. But the man next to her—his lemon-colored mustache made him obviously the child’s father—fawned, “And we would have all run to your rescue and swooped you up into our collective adoring arms.”

  Sarah looked at the man as if he were a speck of dirt on her jacket. “Yes, well, I didn’t fall. Lucky us,” she said, and turned back to Escoffier. “I’ve seen your work at Doré’s. The floral. You’re very good. The poppy was so lifelike; how you crafted the leaf to appear as if it were folded, as if the wind had creased it, was quite remarkable. You must understand what I mean. The moment I saw her, I knew I must make a bust of her. A child this charming must have the soul of cupid within her. Don’t you think?”

  Escoffier was not sure what he thought. He had expected a private luncheon. And perhaps an indiscreet moment or two after lunch—Doré had obviously failed her—and then back to the kitchen to oversee Léon Gambetta’s special dinner. A luncheon with a yellow-haired family was a possibility that he had not thought about.

  “I must get back soon,” he said.

  Sarah smiled as if she could feel his disappointment, expected it, and yet was irritated by it. “We’re almost done here,” she said. “But if you are much too busy to wait, you could just leave the basket and put it on Doré’s account.”

  Escoffier thought of the dozens of small plucked pigeons at the restaurant that were, at that very moment, being scalded, roasted and sauced—and felt a certain kinship.

  “Mademoiselle, perhaps another time.”

  “Surely you can wait half of an hour for me.”

  “I could wait a lifetime.”

  “So could everyone else, but I only need a half hour from you.”

  Escoffier smiled and bowed. How could he not? “Shall I set that table?”

  The only suitable table in the studio was a long rough wooden one filled with paints and old painting cloths. “Do you have anything clean to cover it with?”

  “There are some clothes and things in those suitcases by the door. There might be something there.”

  The child began to fidget. “When will I get my special book?” she said. “My head is tired. I’m cold.”

  “Even angels can be ill-tempered,” she whispered to Escoffier. “You should keep that in mind for the future.”

  In person, Sarah was nothing like he imagined. She was more human and somehow more real—and yet still magical. Everyone in the room was watching her. You couldn’t look away.

  She re-posed the fussy Nina with her head down and eyes up again. “Mon enfant,” Sarah said in her most silvery voice. “You have never seen an album like the one I am having made for you for being such a very good model.” Sarah stubbed her cigarette out with the heel of her boot and began to chip at the marble again. “Every artist I know I have told of your beauty, and they are working on an offering to honor you. Meissonier, for instance, the painter, is doing a watercolor scene of the war: a Prussian regiment attacking a French inn being defended by French soldiers. It is as bold and brave as you are. Gounod, the composer, is working on a new song, ‘La Charmante Modèle,’ because, of course, I have told him what a delightful model you are.”

  It seemed to Escoffier that the child and her parents were transfixed by the princely sum such a book would bring on the open market.

  Escoffier set the table. He’d found a Japanese kimono, an obvious prop from some theater production, to use as a tablecloth. Paris had recently fallen in love with all things oriental. It was red silk brocade, covered with a flock of white flying cranes, and made from a single bolt of fabric. The neckline and cuffs were thickly stained with stage makeup but the kimono itself was quite beautiful. It ran the length of the thin table. The arms overhung one end.

  Outside the building he’d seen a garden with a sign that read “Please do not pick.” But it was, after all, for a beautiful woman. Who would deny him? And so Escoffier cut a bouquet of white flowers: roses, peonies and a spray of lilies, with rosemary stalks to provide the greenery. He placed them in a tall water glass and then opened the basket of food he’d brought. He laid out the china plates so that they rested between the cranes, and then the silver knives, forks and spoons, and a single crystal glass for her champagne. Even though it was early afternoon, he’d brought two dozen candles.

  The food had to be served à la française; there were no waiters to bring course after course. So he kept it simple. Tartlets filled with sweet oysters from Arcachon and Persian caviar, chicken roasted with truffles, a warm baguette, pâté de foie gras, and small sweet strawberries served on a bed of sugared rose petals and candied violets.

  There was a lovely domestic rhythm to the moment. On one side of the studio, Escoffier was transforming a corner into an elegant dining room. He pulled the red velvet curtains, lit dozens of candles to set the stage. On the other side, Sarah was sculpting the petulant cherub and weaving the tale of the magic book—a promise she would clearly not keep.

  Half an hour elapsed. As promised, Sarah bid Nina and her star-struck parents goodbye.

  “Such beautiful idiots,” Sarah said after them.

  “And the book is fantasy?”

  She laughed, “But of course. I am fantasy.”

  A thundercloud passed overhead. A hard rain began to fall on the glass roof. The room filled with the scent of the flowers and wet earth, humus and peat.

  Sarah washed her hands and face in the sink as if she were an ordinary groundskeeper. She scrubbed her elbows and arms with harsh lye soap and then wiped them dry with a torn cotton towel. Escoffier was mesmerized by the humility of the moment—this was after all the great Sarah Bernhardt. Then she shook off her scarf and her wild tumble of hair cascaded down her back. She took off her boots and rolled her stockings into a ball. She took off her jacket. And then her vest. Her trousers. She folded her silk blouse, unhooked her corset, and continued on until she was completely naked. She never paused once. It was as if Escoffier wasn’t even there.

  And then she rubbed her skin with a spiced oil that reminded him of walking down the street in the Moroccan section of Paris late at night, when the lingering fragrance of so many evening meals filled the air with cumin and ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and pepper.

  She was Venus, that much was clear, standing naked in a darkened room, unashamed as a child. But the darkness that the rain brought made her skin seem so white that she could have been made of marble. She was as untouchable as any museum statue.

  The rain fell hard against the glass roof. Escoffier could feel it in his veins.

  Sarah turned to him and seemed bemused that he was still sitting there. “Most men would have either run or thrown themselves on me.”

  “I am not most men.”

  They both listened to the rain for a moment. It seemed to be letting up a bit. Dozens of flickering candles set across the long red table warmed the moment.

  “Do you see this?” Sarah pointed to a half-moon scar on the side of her belly. “It is my one imperfection. Odéon. During the siege.”

  Four years earlier, during the Prussian War, Sarah had converted the Odéon Theatre into a hospital. She and the other actors had served as nurses. She hired doctors. She’d bartered sex for government rations for the injured and raised a flock of chickens and ducks in her dressing room to slaughter for those who only had a few days to live. Jules, Escoffier’s pastry chef, had worked there with her. He stood alongside her as they collected the dead and dying from the streets. “Ambulance! Ambulance!” they would murmur as they walked along in the stunned darkness.

  “The dead,” Jules told Escoffier. “You never get over the sight of them. Nor that smell.”

  Escoffier understood. He’d traveled as a cook with Napoleon III’s ar
my, was a prisoner of war at Metz, and arrived in Paris in time for the uprisings in which Catholics like himself were slain in the street. Too much death.

  “I am seeing Léon Gambetta this evening,” he told Sarah and as soon as he did, he couldn’t believe he’d said it. Something about her made him want to tell her everything. “But it is a secret. He is setting up some sort of meeting.”

  Sarah’s face went pale at the mention of Gambetta’s name. The rain clouds shifted and shafts of strained sunlight poured down through the glass roof. Her skin turned from marble to paper and she turned slight and frail. Escoffier found himself sweating hard.

  During the siege, Léon Gambetta, the former Minister of Interior and of War, ordered that the French fight to the death. “Never surrender,” he told the people. And so they didn’t. They didn’t feel that they needed to. The French had ingenuity and invention on their side—every man in the army was equipped with a new breech-loading Chassepot rifle and several had the mitrailleuse, an early machine gun. National pride was never stronger. Unfortunately, they were no match against the Prussian army, whose sheer numbers alone were overwhelming. Paris was soon surrounded.

  Gambetta was undaunted. Like most born handsome, he never entertained the possibility of failure. He was emotional and unruly, given to equal parts of eloquence and heroics. He had only one eye and the empty socket reminded everyone that he understood loss and could overcome it.

  For that moment in time, he was Paris and all of Paris knew it. He had a plan. He would pilot a balloon, the Armand-Barbès, to Tours, where he would organize an army to recapture the city.

  It was an act of holy rage.

  At the appointed time, everyone gathered where the Sacré-Coeur now stands. There were people as far as the eye could see. Shoulder to shoulder, in the valleys and along the hillsides, the city watched as Gambetta, theatrically heroic in his floor-length fur, was carried through the crowd. Saintlike and wild-eyed, he climbed into the ragged gondola basket. He looked up into the large gas-filled balloon, the burners flaming, and then nodded. A dozen men on the ground guided the balloon into the air, one by one they let the rope slip from their fingers while Gambetta unfurled a tricolor flag.

  “Vive la France! Vive la République!”

  The crowd joined in—shouting, weeping. Fear and joy intertwined.

  Unfortunately, the Armand-Barbès did not ascend quickly. It spun, jerked and groaned its way forward low along the ground, taking the hopes of Paris with it. And then, suddenly, for no reason at all, the balloon took flight. An ambling ghost, it began its journey to Tours on the winds of hope.

  But Gambetta arrived too late. Before he could mobilize his army, Napoleon III was captured and France, bloody and beaten, had surrendered.

  “We would have followed him into Hell,” Sarah said to Escoffier and ran her finger along the scar’s jagged edge. “The army continued to store explosives in the theater’s basement. It is universally known as a barbaric act to bomb the wounded, Gambetta told me this, but he should have told the Prussians, too.

  “Toto was just a young boy; his grandmother left him in my care. He was like Nina, beautiful: round cheeks, lazy and charming. He was standing just a few feet from me, in the courtyard, when they bombed us and he was cut in two by a shell.”

  There was a flatness to her voice that was unexpected. Escoffier had seen all her performances on stage. If this were a speech written by Victor Hugo, Sarah would have made the windows rattle with the depth of her sorrow. But she stood before him, small and naked, and whispered.

  “And then, of course, came the Peace Treaty and now the Prussians are Germans and parts of France are now not French. And all is to be forgiven, they tell us. But Toto. Beautiful Toto. There was no peace for him. It was as though a tiger had torn open the body with its claws and emptied it with a fury and a refinement of cruelty.”

  Sarah had a look in her eyes that reminded Escoffier of the horses of their regiment. One by one, he was forced to slaughter the elegant beasts; the men were starving. He’d say a prayer, slice each throat quickly, and then braise, sauce, stew and tell himself that each life taken saved dozens more. Lentils, peas, beans and macaroni—whatever he could find to make the meat go further and postpone the next death a little longer he would use.

  Three days after the army’s surrender a few skeletal horses remained dying in the waters of Ban-Saint-Martin. These beasts who’d carried their riders into battle, whom Escoffier himself fed whatever scraps of food he could spare, turned their dull eyes to him—as did Sarah at that moment.

  “It was a brave thing you did for France,” he said.

  She shook her head. “It was my duty. I could afford to send my mother, sister and my little boy to The Hague and so I could afford bravery. Most had no choice.”

  She pulled a robe out of the suitcase and put it on. It was white satin with white feathers at the throat, wrists and the hem of its opulent train. It made her red hair seem as if it were on fire. Her skin was even more translucent. But her eyes were dark with sorrow.

  Sarah sat down across from Escoffier.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I want there to be no illusions between us.”

  Escoffier had to smile. “You are an actress. How is that even possible?”

  “What you see on stage is a distillation of the history of my heart. What you see across this table is the person.”

  He poured her a glass of Moët. She took a long sip. The silence between them was awkward. They were strangers, after all.

  “Very well,” he said. “What else should I know?”

  “I was raised in a convent and I not only wanted to be a nun, I wanted to be a saint. I wanted to love God with a love that was boundless.”

  Escoffier sat back in his chair. “Now, I believe that you are making sport of me.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Are you still a Catholic?”

  “Non. I am actually a Jew by birth but I know many Catholics; many of them are brave radicals. I am sympathetic to them and appalled by their persecution here in France, but for me, God cannot exist. It is not possible. If he did why did He forsake Paris?”

  Escoffier felt her sorrow as deeply as he felt his own. He’d asked himself the same question many times.

  He picked up a small fragrant strawberry. “This is not a gift from God?”

  “It is summer made manifest, that is all.”

  He brushed the strawberry against her lips. “And the scent?”

  “A promise of beauty that cannot be kept.”

  Escoffier gently kissed her lips, nothing more than just a graze. “And the taste?”

  He placed the fruit in her mouth and he could see on her face what he knew in his heart. The sweetness of the berry was intense. “How is there not a God?” he asked.

  She laughed and took his small hands in hers. “You are a surprising man, my dear Escoffier. Promise me we will always be friends.”

  Friends? The word pained him. He had hoped for so much more.

  Escoffier gently pulled away. Stood. “I’ll have the boy come around and pick up these things when you’re finished.”

  And then he left without another word.

  ESCOFFIER TOOK THE LONG THIN BONING KNIFE AND RAN it quickly along the flesh of the pink baby lamb. He usually had his rôtisseur, Xavier, do this as the man was from Alsace and the meat and sausages of the Rhine River valley were legendary. However, Léon Gambetta specified that Escoffier cook the entire meal himself—for anyone else this request would be impossible but the Minister had never reserved a private room for a meeting before, and had certainly never dictated its preparation. Escoffier assumed that the evening was very important and, as everyone else was thinking, probably involved the Germans. Certainly, Prince Edward, at the very least. The request for
the lamb made that obvious. And so Xavier could not be trusted.

  Xavier, the rôtisseur, was a red-haired dour-looking man, one of the many Catholics who believed that France lost the war because she had lost her faith in God. Escoffier was not as radical in his beliefs. The two men became colleagues when Xavier served with Escoffier’s regiment, starved alongside him during the Siege of Metz, and came to Le Petite Moulin Rouge because he had no place else to go. His wife and child had been murdered when the Prussians came across the border. The lush vineyards and rolling hills of Xavier’s homeland were now in German hands. The river’s abundant trout, carp, perch and crayfish now belonged to them. The seemingly endless flocks of pheasants, ducks and wild geese were now theirs, too. Even Xavier’s own home had fallen into the hands of a Prussian officer; its century-old vineyard still produced a Gewurztraminer, which was filled with a ripe mouth of fruit and perfumed with a flowery bouquet, but now a German flag graced each bottle.

  As Escoffier butchered the lamb, Xavier hovered nearby holding the small end of a tenderloin, green and dried from hanging in the cellar to age, and looking like a banished child.

  “My friend, I want you to be beyond reproach. We must respect the Minister’s request,” Escoffier said and went back to his work. He was careful not to score the lamb’s skin. He followed the line of the bone, quickly, again and again. Once the meat was trimmed, he pounded it flat.

  “Come now. Work. Work heals the heart,” he said and stuffed the lamb roll with truffle-studded foie gras that he had marinated in Marsala wine, then wrapped the lamb in muslin and placed it in a pâté pan, long and rectangular. He covered it with the remaining marinade and veal stock.

  Xavier just stood there. Watching. Demanding in his silence, but Escoffier wouldn’t look at him. The chef continued on, placed the lamb in another pan, a bain-marie, and filled it halfway with water. “Please,” Escoffier said gently, not looking at Xavier. “The dining room will be open soon and there is so much to do. Xavier. For me. Work.”