The Chef (10 page)

Everyone must have been thinking: someone’s dying before my very eyes in the Huwyler. What on earth has he eaten?

In an instant three doctors were attending to the patient, practically undressing the poor man. One of them gave a preliminary diagnosis – ‘suspected myocardial infarction’
– to the emergency services on his mobile, the second tried to revive him, while the third dashed outside, came back immediately with a bag and gave the man an injection. Ambulance sirens
were already audible.

The paramedics and emergency doctor came in with a stretcher on wheels. Three tables had to be moved out of the way. Then they took him out, not a pretty sight: Dalmann, snow-white, oxygen mask,
vomit sticking to his hair.

Of course the whole restaurant was in chaos after that. Dishes that had been called had to be taken back into the kitchen, half-eaten courses remained on tables, some diners wanted to pay,
others were waiting for their tables to be put back in place, others felt sick. The wife of a well-known business lawyer was in hysterics. And everybody watched in disgust as the two Tamils cleared
Dalmann’s table and cleaned the floor.

Then came the
chef de service
with an air freshener – God knows where he got it from – and before Huwlyer could intervene the room no longer smelled of sick, but of pine
needles and sick.

And finally, when Huwyler gave a short speech, which managed to appease those diners who had not vanished – he was confident that, thanks to the fortunate circumstance, albeit not unusual
for his restaurant, that three doctors had been on hand immediately, the prognosis for the customer in question was very good – at the very moment when a semblance of normality had returned,
Dalmann’s guest came back from the staff changing room – freshly showered and wearing the sommelier’s too-tight and too-short spare black suit – and actually asked to sit
down and continue with his dinner! This, he emphasized with a raised voice, was exactly what his host would have wanted. Not surprisingly, his announcement ruined the appetite of a few more
diners.

The following morning, when Huwyler called Schaeffer – Dalmann’s colleague, who always made the bookings – to enquire about his boss’s health, the man replied, ‘As
might be expected given the circumstances. Following emergency surgery the patient is in a stable condition.’ He spoke like a medical bulletin.

There was one blessing: if Dalmann had died in the Huwyler it would have been more damaging to the business. On the other hand, the media might have reported it.

Andrea did not get in touch until the following afternoon.

Maravan was preparing the
modhakam
for the evening when the telephone rang. She sounded happy, but did not say whether the experiment had been a success. Maravan reined in his curiosity
and did not ask.

Even when he was clearing up her kitchen an hour later he left it up to her. She watched him, a glass of water in her right hand, her elbow supported by the palm of her left. She made no move to
help him.

‘Aren’t you at all curious?’ she asked eventually.

‘Yes,’ was all he replied.

She put the glass on the kitchen table, took his shoulders in her hands, and kissed him on the forehead. ‘You’re a magician. It worked!’

The look he gave her must have been one of disbelief, because she repeated, a little more loudly this time, ‘It worked!’

When he still did not react, she started skipping around him. ‘Worked, worked, worked!’ she said.

Only now did he laugh, temporarily joining in with her dance.

She shocked him with the description of her night of passion. Although she did not go into detail, she told him more than was appropriate to the moral sensitivities of a faithful Hindu. She
finished off with the question: ‘And do you know when she left?’

He cleared his throat: ‘Judging by your tone I imagine it must have been late.’

‘Half past two – this afternoon! Two-thirty.’ She shot him a look of triumph.

‘And why do you think the food was responsible? It could have been down to you as well.’

Andrea shook her head emphatically. ‘Franziska doesn’t sleep with women, Maravan. Never!’

She helped him load the equipment into her Golf and drove him home. For a brief half-hour he was able to imagine that part of his dream had come true: he and his partner Andrea
ferrying the catering equipment back to the firm’s headquarters after a successful job. He was pleased that she was lost in her thoughts, too, and did not break the spell of his reverie with
conversation.

After everything had been put away in his flat, she made no move to leave. They stood on the tiny kitchen balcony, Andrea leaning against the railings with a cigarette. She did not inhale the
smoke, and hastily stubbed it out soon afterwards, as if she were trying to nullify the drags she had taken. It had become noticeably cooler, but the rain had stopped a few hours earlier. From open
windows came the music, chit-chat and laughter of Maravan’s Tamil neighbours.

Down in the inner courtyard a dealer was concluding a rapid, silent transaction. Then both parties vanished.

‘What’s your greatest dream?’ Andrea asked.

‘Going back home, and peace.’

‘No restaurant?’

‘Sure. But in Colombo.’

‘Until then?’

Maravan straightened himself, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘A restaurant here.’

‘And how are you going to finance that?’

He shrugged. ‘Catering?’

Andrea looked up at him. ‘Exactly.’

He looked amazed. ‘Do you think it might work?’

‘If you cook as you did for me.’

Maravan laughed weakly. ‘I see. What about the customers?’

‘I’ll worry about them.’

‘And what do you get out of it?’

‘Half.’

Andrea had a business plan and a little money. Eighteen months previously one of her mother’s sisters had died childless, and had passed her inheritance to her four
nieces and nephews. Apart from some savings, the legacy was a chalet with a few holiday apartments in a winter spa town in the Alpine foothills, where snow was not guaranteed and where the woman
had spent half her life. The beneficiaries did not hesitate to sell the chalet. After deductions, each of them had received about 80,000 francs, of which Andrea only had about half left, because of
her frequent changes of jobs. She wanted to invest some of it in Love Food, as she was now calling the company.

She would obtain the equipment Maravan needed – in particular the rotary evaporator. She would buy a stock of cutlery and crockery. She would take care of drumming up custom. She would
swap her Golf for an estate. She would be responsible for the administration and service side and put up the initial business capital.

Maravan would provide the know-how.

Seen like that, Maravan had to admit that fifty-fifty was more than fair.

A
Love Dinner
for two would cost 1,000 francs, plus drinks, primarily champagne on the advice of the maestro, which they would be able to purchase wholesale and sell at restaurant
prices.

Maravan was in agreement with everything. It may not have been the sort of catering he had envisaged, but in his culture there was nothing objectionable about the idea of dinners to enhance the
love lives of married couples – Andrea’s imagined clientele. And the prospect of spending a lot of time with Andrea made him happy.

‘Why are you so keen on this?’ he asked. ‘You’d find another job easily.’

‘It’s something new,’ she replied.

A rocket soared above the roofs, slowing down by the second, stopped for a moment, then plummeted back to earth in red strands that burnt themselves out. People were celebrating the first of
August. And the founding of Love Food.

This was the second time that Maravan had cooked in Andrea’s flat, but they had already developed a sort of routine. He knew where to find everything, and she no longer
had to ask any questions when laying the table and decorating the room. They went about their work like a real team.

The guest that evening was Esther Dubois, a psychologist Andrea had met in a club some time back. She had been there with her husband, although this had not prevented her from making blatant
advances towards Andrea.

Esther Dubois was a renowned sex therapist, who for a number of years wrote a well-regarded advice column in a magazine for women over forty. She was over forty too, had dyed her prematurely
greying hair flaming red, and was a regular in the society pages.

Andrea had contacted her at her practice and had little trouble in persuading her to come. ‘To an exciting culinary-sexual therapeutic experiment,’ as she had put it.

She arrived half an hour late with a fat bunch of white arum lilies, because they suited the theme of the evening so well, she said. Andrea introduced Maravan with the following words,
‘This is Sri Maravan, a great guru of erotic cuisine.’

She had not cleared the ‘Sri’ or the ‘guru’ with Maravan beforehand, and from his reaction she concluded that maybe she should have done. He held out his hand to the
guest with a shy smile, then returned to his work.

‘How exciting!’ Esther Dubois said as Andrea showed her into the darkened room bathed in candlelight. She immediately made herself comfortable on the cushions and asked, ‘No
incense? No music?’

‘Sri Maravan believes that both of these are distractions. One from the aroma of the food, the other from the pounding of the heart.’ This line had not been cleared with him either.
She took the temple bell and rang it. ‘This is all he allows me.’

The door opened: Maravan brought in a tray with two champagne glasses and two small plates of mini chapattis. While the two women clinked glasses, he drizzled the curry leaf, cinnamon and
coconut oil essence on to the small chapattis.

‘No chemistry, I hope,’ Esther Dubois remarked.

‘Cooking is both chemistry and physics,’ Maravan replied politely.

She took the chapatti, sniffed it, closed her eyes, bit off a piece, chewed solemnly, and popped her eyes open again. ‘An incomparable piece of chemistry and physics.’

The therapist, normally a chatty woman, hardly said a word during the entire dinner. She restricted herself to making all sorts of sighing and moaning sounds, rolling her eyes and fanning
herself theatrically. At one point she said, ‘Do you know what the sexiest thing about this is? Eating with your hands.’

And when she had polished off the last of the glazed hearts with a contented sigh, she asked, ‘What now? Your handsome guru?’

But the handsome guru had already gone.

This third dinner had the same effect on Andrea. It was a wonderful evening and wonderful night, even though Esther Dubois as a person left her cold. She found her too
intellectual and somewhat too broad-minded. Andrea did not like these bi women in open relationships with their husbands, who could ring up around midnight and say, ‘I’m not coming back
tonight, hon. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.’

Anyway, the following morning she was happy that Esther had got up so early and had made a dash for it before breakfast, like an unfaithful husband.

‘You’ll be hearing from me,’ Esther said when she came back into the bedroom and kissed her on the forehead. The promise was in reference to a short business chat during their
night of passion. Andrea was pretty sure that she would keep to it.

‘Does it always work?’ Esther had asked with a sleepy voice.

‘It does with me. Even with a man once!’

‘I didn’t know you slept with men too.’

‘Me neither.’

‘Extraordinary. What does he put in it?’

‘They’re ancient Ayurvedic aphrodisiac recipes. But he cooks them in his own very particular way.’

‘Do you know how many of my patients would give their right arm for a meal like that?’

‘Send them over,’ was all Andrea replied, snuggling up in the duvet and finally going to sleep.

Dalmann was convinced that Schaeffer was trying to expose him to ridicule. The tracksuit he had brought him was red with neon-yellow arms. ‘Couldn’t you find
anything more conspicuous?’ he asked.

‘I’m told that the more expressive colours are preferable at this time of year. Not least for safety considerations.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘I took some expert advice,’ his colleague said, rather piqued.

Dalmann had put on the outfit, but in all honesty he did not care for it. None of the others looked any better in theirs, which were either too tight or too big. Nor did he care for the way they
tried to atone for the sins of previous decades: slaves to their fitness machines, bright red in the face and out of breath.

Dalmann was sitting on an ergometer, pedalling without much effort. In a slot in front of the handlebars was a sheet of paper detailing his personal fitness programme. He was skipping the other
exercises, concentrating instead on the ergometer. This allowed him to regulate his exertions and sit down at the same time. The doctor at the health farm had told him to do the exercises every
day, but never push it to the limit. Dalmann had strictly observed the latter piece of advice.

They had inserted a stent, a tiny tube which expanded the constricted heart vessel that had been responsible for the infarction. It had not been a particularly invasive procedure; he had come
through it well and now just had to complete this tiresome health farm treatment and take some medicine to regulate his blood clotting so that the tube stayed open. Apart from that he was supposed
to lead a healthier lifestyle, watch what he ate and drank, and – the thing he found most difficult of all – give up smoking.

In the past he had always said, ‘I’d rather be dead than go to a health farm.’ Now, however, he did not find it so awful. It was like a luxury hotel with a slightly more
professional wellness centre. Admittedly, the guests were older and more delicate, and the only thing they talked about was their health. But he did not have to talk to them, did he? Every other
day Schaeffer came with his briefcase and they spent a few hours working in Dalmann’s suite.