The Chef's Apprentice: A Novel (23 page)

The big nun screamed, “How dare you try to rob a woman of the cloth?”

The olive merchant looked exhausted. “Then go somewhere else, Sister, and see if another merchant is more respectful.”

By the time Mother Superior resumed a more civilized tone, I’d regained enough composure to manage a reply. “You made the right choice.”

She shrugged. “We’ll see.”

I felt sure she was exaggerating her indifference. Carefully, I said, “What if you met a man who asked for no dowry. Would you leave the convent to marry him?”

“What man worth having would marry with no dowry? I don’t want to be a fishwife, eh?” She laughed. “You really are strange. Who are you shopping for anyway? Are you an apprentice?”

“An apprentice. That’s a good one.” It was a day for exaggerations, so I inflated my chest and said, “I’m a vegetable cook in the doge’s kitchen.” With my faith in the chef restored, I felt it wasn’t so much a lie as a premature truth.

“I guess that’s not a bad job.”

“It’s a great job. I’m going to be a chef.” Emboldened by my self-endowed
status, I moved closer and extended a pinky finger until it brushed against her hand. She curled her pinky around mine and a delicious heat rushed up my hand and through my body. I stood beside her, linked by a fingertip and paralyzed by love. I looked down, wanting to see our fingers entwined, and I noticed the ruffle of lace protruding from her sleeve. I said, “Do nuns always keep lace handkerchiefs in their sleeves?”

“Oh, this?” She pulled out the lace and held it up for me to admire. “I made this.” The sun filtered through the openwork and cast dappled shade on her face. “I love tatting lace. It gives me something to do in my cell, and I do so enjoy pretty things.” She gazed at the diaphanous cloth and a dreamy smile came over her face.

“I learned the technique from a Belgian, Sister Ninette. She died last year but she left me her bobbins, and the convent buys me fine silk thread because my designs fetch a steep price from wealthy ladies. Just last month, I finished a mantilla for a lady of the Spanish court.” She stood a little taller and pulled the intricate fabric taut. “This is my newest design. You see? Dragonflies.” I looked closely and saw the outline of a fragile wing with gossamer veins.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.” She admired it a moment longer, then poked it back into her sleeve. “I’d go completely mad without my needlework.”

Mother concluded her bargaining with a final huff of disgust, and while the merchant wrapped her briny purchases, she glanced over her shoulder at us again. I was drunk on Francesca’s touch, dizzy from her scent and encouraged by her friendliness. Mother’s screech—“Filthy boy!”—lacerated me. She turned on me like a mad dervish, sizzling and ruddy faced, rosary beads rattling, robes whirling. “How dare you touch her?” She pushed me out of the way with a meaty hand, grabbed her olives, and pulled Francesca away, saying, “It’ll be a long while before I bring
you
to the market again.”
As the older woman dragged my love off into the crowd, Francesca looked back at me and winked.

I bought the peaches in a daze. The entire world looked gold as a sunset and smelled like heaven; I had trouble telling one peach from another, but I forced myself to concentrate and I chose well. Now that Francesca thought I was already a vegetable cook, I couldn’t make a mistake that might delay my promotion. I walked through the Rialto under her spell, and the carnival of color and noise didn’t touch me. I existed in a bubble of enchantment. Nothing intruded on my ecstasy until I reached the kitchen courtyard.

As promised, Marco was there, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed cockily. I put down my peaches and dug the wrinkled and smeared parchment out of my pocket. I held it up to his face. “Look. Last night I opened the chef’s private cabinet and copied these words off the bottles in there. Today I had a copyist read them. They’re nothing, Marco. Just herbs the chef uses for special recipes. Are you satisfied?” I picked up my basket of peaches. “I’ll leave some food out later, but now I have to get back to work.” As I moved past him, his hand shot out and grabbed my arm. I said, “Get off me, you dirty turnip.”

“
Dirty
turnip? Well, pardon me, Signor Cabbage-Head.” Marco backed up with his hands in the air. “Maybe I don’t get a nice bath once a week like some people, but I taught you everything you know. You could keep a civil tongue in your head.” His mouth was sneering, but his eyes looked wounded.

“Look, Marco, I don’t want to sneak around behind the chef. I’ve changed. I’m not a thief anymore. I’m going to be a better person.”

“
Boh!
No one changes.”

“Oh?” He was wrong and I wanted him to know it. I wanted him to know I had something good in me. “Last night I had a chance to steal a lot of money, and I didn’t do it. There’s a silver box of coppers and ducats in the spice closet. It’s ready cash that doesn’t even
get counted, but I didn’t take any. Well, a ducat for the copyist, but nothing for myself. The chef is going to make me a vegetable cook. I’m going to earn my money honestly. You’ll see.”

“Boh.”
Marco scuffed his heel on the pavement. “A vegetable cook.” He sulked and scratched his hollow belly. “This doesn’t change anything, Cabbage-Head. I still want that book.”

“Here,” I said. “Have a peach.”

He took it in sullen silence.

“Like I said, if I hear anything about alchemy, I’ll tell you.”

“You better.” Marco shoved his peach in a pocket and slouched away.

In the kitchen, I unwrapped the peaches, arranged them on an oval platter, with their blushes turned faceup, and presented them to the chef. He inspected them like a jeweler examining diamonds. He turned one over, sniffed, and smiled. “Well done,” he said. “Keep this up and you’ll be cooking soon.”

“
Grazie
, Maestro!” But, I wondered, how soon? I decided it would be best to impress him with my new culinary knowledge immediately. Armed with the names of those rare herbs, I felt very close to my promotion.

I picked up my broom and swept my way across the kitchen toward the chef, who was sprinkling salt into a pot of his sublime white-bean soup. He stirred steadily, round and round, while the beans broke down and thickened the soup. When the mixture reached the right consistency, the chef added a handful of fresh spinach and recommenced stirring. He worked until the mixture was well blended, then crumbled in some dried sage and gave it a shot of ground white pepper. He dipped the tip of his little finger into the soup and touched it to his tongue. He rolled it in his mouth, and his eyebrows knit. “Not quite,” he murmured.

I stepped forward as if onto center stage and cleared my throat. In that proud moment, I could feel my head already swelling with the thrill of being a vegetable cook.

I leaned toward the chef so that
no one else would hear the secret ingredient and whispered, “Perhaps it needs some valerian.” The chef turned and straightened his high toque. “What did you say?”

Stupido!
Valerian was for the sauce. What a blunder. I looked around to be sure no one was listening and said, “I mean opium. The soup probably needs more opium.”

The chef’s face twisted into an expression of anger so intense it made me take an involuntary step backward. He said, “Where did you learn those words?”

I couldn’t think fast enough. “From Giuseppe?”

“No you didn’t.” He seized my arm. “Tell me, Luciano.” The kitchen fell into an audible silence.

I stammered. “I don’t remember.”

He released my arm and adjusted his toque again; it sat very low on his forehead, almost touching his eyebrows. I braced myself. He took a step forward, and I instinctively hopped back and raised a defensive arm in front of my face. I waited for the blow with eyes closed tight, but it never came. When I opened one eye, I saw the chef fingering the brass key around his neck. He glanced at his private cabinet and said, “This is unacceptable.”

“Maestro, I—”

“Silenzio!”
He circled me with his hands clasped behind him. He didn’t raise his voice or make threats, yet he exuded menace. He said, “You will not eat for the rest of the day.” He continued to circle, and I dared not move. “We’re serving roast chicken tonight. In the courtyard, there is a crate with twenty hens to kill and pluck and clean. You’ll do all of it by yourself. Then you’ll get down on your hands and knees and scrub up the mess.”

The entire staff gawked. No one had ever seen such a display of temper in that kitchen. They stared at us until the chef flapped a hand and said, “Back to work. Everyone.”

I could manage a day without food, but the idea that my maestro, my benefactor, my
savior
should be the one to impose hunger
on me was a stunning blow. And twenty chickens to kill and pluck and singe and clean?
Marrone
, that was the filthiest, vilest task of all. Wringing their necks while they struggled and fought, chopping off the heads, and pulling out handfuls of slimy, stinking guts before hanging them by the feet to drain? I’d finish with blood congealing all over me, clotting between my fingers, drying in my clothes, and smeared over my face. Then I’d have to singe the pinfeathers—argh! Just the thought of that cloying stench made my throat close up. Beginning to end, it was an odious, disgusting job.

Even worse would be the humiliation of getting on my hands and knees to scrub the cobbles. Normally, the chef would call a charwoman to clean up that sort of mess. After I finished my foul task, scrubbing the pavement would add insult to injury. My two magic words, “valerian” and “opium,” had moved me even further away from promotion. Now I was demoted to charwoman, and the chef was angrier with me than he’d ever been.

I killed and plucked and cleaned the first chicken, then hung the headless body by its feet. Blood ran down my arms, splattered my face, soaked into my clothes, and puddled on the floor. The stench was nauseating. I’d killed chickens before, but that day, after the chef’s unexpected rage and seeing my clever plan backfire so completely, my stomach turned over and bile rose in my throat. I gagged and ran to the garbage pail to throw up my morning meal. I came back, gasping, wiped my mouth with a bloody hand, and returned to my repugnant chore.

Nineteen more? Simply for having spoken two words? I only wanted a promotion, and what in the name of God was wrong with that? Rage swelled in my throat until I had to spit. I ground my teeth and hung the ghastly chickens by their feet. The pile of warm guts pulsed with a few still-beating hearts, and suddenly I hated that kitchen and everyone in it. In my confusion, memories of simpler times on the street with Marco and Domingo came back to me purged of hardship, as if it had been nothing but good times
and camaraderie. In that unhinged moment, I thought Marco had the right idea after all. I should be using my place in the palace to nose out information about the secret of alchemy or find a way to claim that reward. At the very least I should get my hands on the love potion. The repulsive odor of scorched pinfeathers made me gag again, but I had nothing left to bring up. I mumbled, “I’ve been a fool.”

With the last chicken cleaned, the entrails sorted, and the organs rinsed for the stockpot, I got down on my hands and knees with a bucket of water and sponges and rags and brushes. I dragged myself through the ignominious chore: first soak up the blood with sponges, then change the water, then wash the cobbles, then fill the bucket with clean water and scrub between the stones with a soapy brush, then rinse and mop. I worked with my head down, and my tears dripped into the suds.

I knew where Marco slept. I also knew I could recover his goodwill and elicit his advice with a nice, fat leg of roast chicken.

CHAPTER XVI
T
HE
B
OOK OF
T
HIEVES

B
ernardo watched while I washed off the chicken blood. I said, “Looks like Marco was right. The chef doesn’t want me to learn and he’ll be sorry. Somehow, I’ll get that love potion. Then we’ll leave.” I stripped down to my small clothes (how mercilessly Marco would have teased if he knew I wore small clothes under my trousers), and I pumped cold water to sluice over my head and shoulders. As I pumped, I resented anew the many unnecessary buckets of water I carried every day—without complaint—to satisfy the chef’s unreasonable mania for fresh water. I rubbed myself raw with lye soap and rinsed thoroughly, but the odor of chicken blood seemed to ooze from my pores even after I put on clean clothes. The foul smell of humiliation was indelible.

I wouldn’t tell Marco about the chickens. I couldn’t bear to see his look of smug triumph. I’d tell him just enough to explain my change of heart and draw out his advice. Ironically, it was Marco himself who had taught me that only fools tell the whole truth. Marco said that lies could tip the scales in an unjust world and that it was only right that we create advantages for ourselves to make up for our meager lot in life. Marco said we had a right to lie.

That night in the dormitory, I waited impatiently for the other servants to fall asleep. I felt simultaneous dread and eagerness for the meeting with Marco, and I distracted myself with fantasies of Francesca. I hugged Bernardo and thought about her green-apple breath, the silky feel of her fingertip, the way her remarkable eyes devoured the swell of life in the market. I stroked Bernardo, saying, “I know I could make her happy.” Bernardo purred. “She hates the convent; anyone can see it. If I had that love potion she’d come away with me and we’d both be happy.” Bernardo snuggled deeper into my chest. “All I want is the love potion. He can keep his old writings. I won’t betray him, even though he betrayed me.” I felt my eyes fill, and it made me furious. “I’ll show him. I
won’t
betray him. I’ll leave here and never say a word about those writings. Never. He’ll know he lost a good man, and he’ll be sorry.” My lips trembled, but I didn’t cry.

When the moon peeked through a high window, I fished the stolen chicken leg from under my blanket and tucked it into my waistband. Oh,
Dio
, that aroma. It had been roasted to golden perfection, crisp outside and juicy inside, with a crust of coarse salt and crushed thyme. It made my mouth water and my stomach howl, but I resisted. I needed Marco’s counsel more than I needed dinner. I shoved my shoes under my arm and ran down the stairs and out the back door, tugging on one shoe at a time while I hopped forward on the other foot.