The Chef's Apprentice: A Novel (33 page)

Giuseppe picked his teeth and asked, “What was her crime?”

“Her? Nothing.” The guard scratched his crotch. “In a few minutes, when she’s good and bloody, they’ll bring her husband in to watch. He’s the one they want; he’s a librarian. She’ll only last a few hours, but he’ll talk fast enough. No one watches very long without talking. It’s a good chair.”

When we got back outside, I vomited into the canal, and Giuseppe laughed. He said, “I knew you had no balls.”

While Venice cowered under the watchful eyes of soldiers, the kitchen staff kept busy preparing foreign dishes for the inquisitive doge’s steady stream of scholarly guests. We served professors from some of the oldest universities (pork and buttered dumplings for one from Heidelberg, and pasta with a creamy meat sauce for another from Bologna), a renowned herbalist from France (rich cassoulet), a noted librarian from Sicily (cutlets stuffed with anchovies and olives), a dusky sorcerer from Egypt (marinated kebabs), a Florentine confidant of the late Savonarola (grilled fish with spinach), an alchemist from England (an overdone roast joint), and monk-copyists from all the major monasteries (boiled chicken and rice).

During those long dinners, conversations became interrogations, and the Ugly Duchess always showed one blue eye and one brown. The most important guests were questioned politely and bid
arrivederci
. But there was an unexplained spate of highway robberies, and one heard rumors about many of the doge’s guests disappearing on the road after leaving Venice. Guests of lesser consequence, like monk-copyists, were simply surprised over dessert by guards who appeared out of the wall to escort them to the dungeon for more strenuous interrogation.

I wasn’t the only witness to those abductions. In a palace with so many servants, rumors circulated freely about new and grisly tortures in the dungeon: crushing, disembowelment, drowning, foot roasting, and leisurely flaying. Torturers employed rats, saws, molten metal, thumbscrews and claws. Sometimes the stories were reported with disgust, sometimes with fear, and sometimes, I regret to say, with relish.

During that anxious and brutal period, the chef appeared at work each morning with dark circles under his eyes. He walked around the kitchen massaging his temples and sometimes failed
to test a sauce before it was served. Once, Pellegrino asked him to taste a mushroom sauce, and the chef only stared at the pot. Pellegrino tapped his shoulder, and the chef startled. He tasted the sauce and nodded, but for the first time in my memory, the chef wore his toque at a sad tilt.

One day, we heard that Giovanni de’ Medici had begun private inquiries into the book; Florence would vie with Venice and Rome for information and they had their own dungeons. This news so distracted the chef that he failed to complete his menus for the following day, and he stayed late in the kitchen that night, hunched over his desk.

I tarried over the stockpots until all the cooks left and then approached him. “Maestro,” I said, “when will we speak again about the secret writings?” I hoped for some crumb of knowledge, some interesting tidbit with which to pacify Francesca until I had enough money to rescue her.

The chef pressed a thumb and index finger into his eyes. “Not now, Luciano. This is a volatile moment. Keep your head down and don’t stir anything up. We’ll talk when the pendulum swings back to calmer times.”

I decided to broach another sensitive subject. “Maestro, do you think the doge really believes there’s a formula for eternal youth?”

The chef laughed. “Did you really believe there was a potion to make Francesca love you? People believe what they want to believe. Beliefs are stronger than facts.”

Was a more profound truth ever spoken? Many people believed the book had whatever they wanted most, but all of us wish to believe that the people we love are exactly who we want them to be. The chef saw my potential more clearly than my flaws; I saw Francesca’s charm more clearly than her pragmatism. Were we so different from the doge, who saw the hope of rejuvenation more clearly than the certainty of decay?

Now, I sometimes imagine the doge in his private rooms,
naked, gazing into a looking glass. He would have seen a shrunken old man with loose, sallow skin, sagging jowls, the bridge of his nose caving in from syphilis, fleshy bags draped under his eyes, and brown splotches dappling his bald head. His stringy neck would have descended into deep hollows behind his collarbones, and his concave chest would have drooped in a series of flaccid pouches dotted with pallid nipples and moles. The skin on his upper arms would have hung like crepe. His penis would have been a shriveled worm covered with cankers, and his scrotum stretched and elongated, all of it dangling sadly between spindly, hairless legs distorted by swollen veins. He might have wept.

He would have turned away from the looking glass and lain down on his bed. He would have closed his eyes to see himself anew. In this mind’s eye, his face smoothed out, and his jaw firmed up square. His nose reasserted a strong profile, his eyes cleared, and a thick shock of dark hair sprouted on his head. Sleek muscles defined his legs, his shoulders widened, his skin thickened, his biceps inflated, his chest expanded, and his genitals regenerated.

Ah, if only. He’d feel alive again. Kumquats might taste sweet again and women’s loins regain their clutch. He’d find his long-lost eagerness for challenge, and best of all, he’d have a second chance. Yes, of course he believed it, and no doubt he wanted it as much as I wanted Francesca.

*

Francesca’s impossible demand wasn’t my only worry. Since my promotion, Giuseppe had been finishing his days drunker and more belligerent than ever, and his animosity toward me had intensified. One inevitable night, I found myself alone with him. The chef hadn’t hired another apprentice, so Giuseppe had been forced to take up most of my former chores in addition to his own. He did everything except oversee the stockpots. That task was too important to entrust to him, and it was still my last chore of the day.

While I adjusted the simmer under the pots and banked the fire for the night, Giuseppe loitered at the back door. It was unusual for him to stay one second longer than he had to, and his presence made me nervous. He leaned on the doorjamb taking long swigs from a flat flask.

Giuseppe walked toward me, unsteady and listing; he must have been drinking all day. I picked up my broom as a defensive measure. Giuseppe wasted no time on preliminary threats; he wrenched the broom out of my hand and pulled me up close to his face by the front of my white jacket. I smelled the sweat in his clothes, the oil in his hair, and hard alcohol on his breath. He said, “Vegetable cook, eh? You’re really special, aren’t you.”

I tried to pull away, and he slammed me against the wall.

“You know how long I’ve worked without a promotion, thief?”

The chef had told me to keep my head down, so I thought it best to let his rant run its course. I could defend myself if I had to.
“No, signore.”

“Years! No one helps Giuseppe.
Boh
.” He spit in my face, then pulled the toque off my head and flung it away. “Why should you get a promotion?”

I wiped the spittle off my face. “I don’t know,
signore
.” I stifled an urge to hit him.

“Filthy little bastard. Picked off the street for no reason. Clean clothes, three meals every day … now a promotion, and Giuseppe works harder than ever.”

“Sorry,
signore
.” I tried to push him off, but he shoved a knee between my legs and held it there. I dared not move.

“Sorry? Not yet, but you will be. That crazy chef thinks he can bring a thief into the kitchen? It’s an insult. I’ll get him, too. Giuseppe has ways. Giuseppe knows people.”

The pressure between my legs was more threatening than painful, but all he had to do was push up. I said,
“Sì, signore.”

The network of spidery red veins over his nose and cheeks deepened to purple. “
Sì
,
signore, no
,
signore
. You don’t fool me. I’m watching you,
vegetable cook
.”

I stood very still, hoping silence might defeat him, but it only seemed to enrage him further. Giuseppe drew back and hit me hard with the flat of his hand, and I fell on the stone floor. Before I could scuttle out of his way, he grabbed my hair and wrenched one arm behind my back. He was bigger, and he had me off balance. With a drunk’s reckless strength, he dragged me toward the fireplace. I tried to swat at him with my free arm, but he twisted my hair and yanked my arm up higher behind my back, forcing me nearer the fire. I felt heat on the rim of my ear and thought I was finished, but he jerked me back and hurled me against the wall. A vestige of sobriety must have reminded him he could lose his job and possibly more. I crumpled on the floor; my ear throbbed, and my arm hung limp and aching at my side. Giuseppe said, “You’re not worth it.” He spat in my direction, swayed while he swigged from his flask, and staggered out the back door.

I touched a wiry patch of singed hair near my ear. The ends felt crispy as
fritto misto
. My ear felt hot and sore, and my cheek stung from Giuseppe’s blow. But I blinked back my tears. I wouldn’t give him that. I resisted the urge to take up Enrico’s bread paddle and follow him. He was bigger, but I could surprise him. I could smash his crude face, and he’d never see it coming. I really wanted to, but I heeded the chef’s advice.
Keep your head down, and don’t stir anything up
. I applied cold water to my ear and congratulated myself for my restraint.

If only the chef had heeded his own advice.

With daily reports of torture and executions goading him, my maestro couldn’t restrain his culinary meddling. I knew he was planning something the morning he came to work with the old hop in his step and his toque starched straight up. I wanted to say, “Remember, Maestro, don’t stir the pot,” but a vegetable cook
doesn’t presume to counsel the chef. Alas, with hindsight, I know I should have dared.

We had instructions to prepare a dinner for a philosopher from the University of Padua, one Professor Pietro Pomponazzi, who had gained a controversial reputation with his essay “On the Immortality of the Soul.” In it, Pomponazzi proposed the idea that after death a soul lingered in some ambiguous state, waiting to take possession of a new body. Exactly how it worked was the subject of many heated debates in Padua.

The chef announced that he’d personally prepare the main course, a special dish of his own creation. He said the preparations required intense concentration and he’d need complete privacy. This behavior always preceded his most suspicious meals, and it made me uneasy. The chef said, “This dinner is important. Our guest has the social grace of salami but he inspires worthy discussion. He has theories that deserve consideration.”

I couldn’t believe he took Pomponazzi seriously enough to interfere. I said, “Maestro, the man says we continue to be born over and over again in new bodies.” I opened my palms as if to say, “Surely you jest.”

The chef smiled. “Crazy, eh? But if you think about it, being born twice isn’t any stranger than being born once, is it? Open your mind and don’t be too quick to dismiss it. If nothing else, it should make you ponder our purpose. Now bring me a nice fat capon.”

He instructed Eduardo to prepare simple custards for dessert and added, “I’ll make the garnish myself.” The chef made an impromptu trip to the Rialto, and then he assembled his ingredients with a brisk efficiency. He made one foray into his private cabinet and shoved a handful of something into his pocket. I had a bad feeling.

That evening’s special dish was Capon Stew in Mare’s Milk. The chef boned and chopped the capon, brought it to a boil in reduced chicken stock, then added mysterious herbs and spices. He lowered
the heat before adding the rich mare’s milk, and the aroma of the sexless meat stewing in its well-seasoned sauce made my mouth water. The cooks sniffed curiously while Pellegrino, excluded from the preparations, simmered in envy. After ladling his masterpiece into a porcelain tureen shaped like a rooster, the chef brought a handful of dried leaves out of his pocket, crushed them to a fine powder over the stew, and stirred them in.

For the custard garnish, he boiled two dozen roses to make a scant cup of rose-petal jam. This, too, received a heavy sprinkling of the finely crushed leaves from his pocket. He placed a big pink dollop of the rose confection on each cup of custard.

The dinner began with an antipasto of
frutti di mare
. Pomponazzi speared a little squid ring and chewed. He gave a grunt of approval and said, “Your chef has the touch. Very tender.”

“
Sì
, I have a genius for a chef, and it seems I also have a genius at my table.”

“Many in Padua would disagree.”

“Shortsighted fools. Tell me,
professore
, if the soul lingers, waiting for rebirth, does that mean that no one really dies?”

“Ah, you’re a student of the soul.” The professor warmed to his favorite subject and quickly became bombastic. If one could tolerate his pedantic style one might contend that he made a plausible case for his implausible theory.

But the doge was not interested in dissecting the argument. He wanted to know about the professor’s sources, the books he had read and where he had read them. Through the partially open door, I saw the doge tapping an impatient finger on the table, and I expected him to call the guards out from behind the Ugly Duchess at any moment.

But Pomponazzi was a fast eater as well as a fast talker. The
frutti di mare
disappeared quickly, and immediately a maid bustled in with the rooster tureen. She announced, “Capon Stew in Mare’s Milk,” then ladled generous portions into two bowls and bowed
out of the room. The men examined the unusual dish and inhaled the fragrant steam rising in their faces.

Pomponazzi said, “What’s that delightful aroma?”

The doge shrugged. “My chef is full of surprises. But tell me about your research. Is it the library at Padua—”