The Chef's Apprentice: A Novel (45 page)

Domingo said, “If you were expecting two people, you should give back half the money.”

“No, I remember now. One is right. Go on, get out of here.”

But I held Domingo’s arm. “Thank you, Domingo. You saved my life.”

“Niente.”
He tucked his hands in his armpits and looked at his feet. “Good luck, Luciano.”

“I said get out of here.” The captain shoved him, and Domingo clomped down the gangplank and disappeared in the rain.

The captain had no time for sentiment. “Get down in the hold before someone sees you.” He pushed me toward a stunted door, and only then did I remember the chef’s letters in my pocket. I should have given them to Domingo. The captain said, “Are you waiting for the
Cappe Nere
? Move!”

That night, I sat against acrid-smelling barrels banded with metal so biting cold they burned to the touch. I was drenched and chilled to the bone, trembling from head to toe. The tips of my fingers were numb, and I blew on them while I recalled my childhood fantasy of stowing away, warm and dry, between sacks of Florentine wool as the vessel rocked me to sleep. There were no soft surfaces in that hold except for my own breakable body and Bernardo. The cargo had been efficiently packed for sea travel in wooden barrels sealed with tar to protect against salt and damp.

The boat rolled and bucked in the storm; it threw me back and forth, banging me first on one barrel, then on another. The motion made me sick, and I retched, but there was nothing to bring up. A bitter, metallic taste pooled in my mouth, and I swallowed it.

I managed to move some barrels into a haphazard circle and then jammed Bernardo and myself into a space in the center. It was tight, the barrels stank of damp, and the cold metal bands stung, but at least the ship couldn’t toss us about like rag dolls. At the first squeeze of claustrophobia, I inhaled deeply and came back to the moment. It was an uncomfortable moment, but I survived it.

The captain, steady on his veteran sea legs and quite friendly once I was stowed and hidden, climbed down to bring me a hunk of bread and a half bottle of wine. He left it in my lap and bid me a cheery good night. I knew I should eat. I needed to eat; I wanted to eat; and I tried to eat. But thinking about the chef and Marco and the lost book, I couldn’t swallow. I chewed a mouthful of bread into a pulp for Bernardo, and he licked it from my hand. I braced myself against the motion of the boat and laid my cheek down on the plank floor. Bernardo snuggled against me, fastidiously licking his wet paws. I smelled brine and wine, wet cat and wet wool. My cheek chafed against the splintery wood under my face, and I could still taste my own bile. Exhaustion brought the small mercy of a fitful sleep.

When I woke the next morning, the storm had passed, and the
boat moved easily over soft swells. Bernardo and I found our way above deck, and I wondered for a moment whether I was meant to remain hidden. I quickly decided that, no, I had paid for my passage—or Chef Ferrero had. I stepped out onto the deck, and the light blinded me. The captain greeted me with a friendly smile, congenial now and free of his nervous tics. It was only in port that he’d been afraid; it would be bad for him to be seen pocketing money for unscheduled passengers. Once we were at sea, I was free to roam at will.

I’d never seen so much bright blue space. The green canals of Venice are lined with buildings that block the horizon. The port, congested with the ships of all nations, obscured the open sea with a forest of masts and riggings.

Out at sea, ocean merged with sky, and blue stretched to a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree forever. I felt giddy in the novelty of such openness. I stretched out my arms and turned in a slow circle. Balancing on the gently rolling deck, I walked to the rail, hooked my arms over the side, and took my first look at the world beyond Venice. I reached out one hand to touch the unbroken blue and felt the sky ripple between my fingers. For an instant, my world was peaceful and infinite. Then Bernardo mewed and moved against my leg, and everything came back in a mournful rush. The perfect peace of an infinite heaven was an illusion.

The captain came up behind me and clapped me on the back. He said, “Go down to the galley if you want some breakfast.”

In spite of my downcast mood, the crisp sea air and the mention of breakfast made hunger rear up. It felt traitorous to want food under the circumstances, but I did. I went below and followed appetizing smells to a room with a low ceiling and a long table. The galley cook, a toothless old salt, handed me a bowl of steaming porridge while Bernardo pounced on a mouse, and we both settled in to eat. Though the porridge was hot enough to scald my mouth, I felt nothing.

I remained numb for the entire voyage, which was brief, uneventful, and marked chiefly by sadness. Blue became the color of defeat and salt air the smell of loss. After we docked, I walked the streets of Cádiz with no destination and no plans. I carried Bernardo under my arm, and he purred contentedly in ignorant bliss.

*

Cádiz is deeply rooted in Africa, and even then I recognized the city’s exotic elements as Moorish. I’d often heard “Africa begins at the Pyrenees,” and I saw that it was so. The Moors left enduring footprints on the soul of Cádiz.

I strolled the wharf area, a rough, seedy port swarming with sailors; bars and whorehouses lined the docks. I didn’t speak Castilian, but Cádiz was a busy place, ringing with all the languages of the world. I walked along asking,
“Nessuno parla italiano?”
Now and then someone would answer,
“Sì, paesano,”
and I’d ask about ships bound for the New World. The answer was always the same: No one goes there anymore. Colombo made his last voyage from Cádiz in 1493. One man suggested I go to Lisbon and seek out a captain named Amerigo Vespucci. Where on earth was Lisbon?

I wandered farther into the city, hoping to find someone with more knowledge than common sailors. Cádiz proved to be no more than a maze of cramped alleyways where residents lived in stone houses with narrow slit windows, little fortresses of ignorance where doddering grandmothers barricaded themselves against the evil eye. One grizzled hag said, “What New World?” Her tiny eyes squinched, and she shoved a fist behind her back for protection from the devil.

Cádiz reeked of superstition, yet everywhere, I saw incongruent hints of the recently departed Moors—flowery courtyards carefully paved with hand-glazed tiles, keyhole windows, and ornately carved lintels. Cádiz had a poetic underside, and I began to think I could live there.

Guitar music floated out of a high window. The four-string Arabic instrument sounded one-dimensional compared to an Italian lute, but it was just as evocative. The haunting music followed me as I headed back to the docks. It snaked through the twisting alleys, mingled with the smells of roast lamb and sweet sherry, swirled around the tile frieze of a whispering fountain, and faded slowly, like a memory.

Outside an old church, I stepped aside to make way for a sullen procession of hooded penitents wearing long, red robes. They were weighted down with heavy chains and bent over by life-size wooden crosses on their backs. In the people’s dark eyes, I saw glints of religious fanaticism and a cruelty more raw than any I’d seen in Venice. I decided then that I did
not
want to live in that place. I thought again about Lisbon and wandered on.

I came to a street of
bodegas
, like a small Rialto, with stalls offering octopus tentacles hung overhead like laundry, suckling pigs with tails gleefully curled, and fat smoked hams swinging from wooden beams. Merchants called to me in Castilian, but I had no reason to inspect their wares, no chef to shop for and no cooks waiting for peaches or cheese.

I walked until the sun dipped into the bay and beckoning lights came on in the bars. The sounds and rhythm of the workday yielded to the laughter of sailors prowling the docks for pleasure. They streamed into the bars and whorehouses like the tide. I stopped in the open doorway of a crowded bar and watched a young woman ascend a small stage. Her blue-black hair was folded into a sleek chignon at the back of her neck. She had pinned a red rose behind one ear, and she wore a long satin dress, snugly fitted over her body until it flared, like an impulse, at the knee.

She walked the perimeter of the tiny stage with eyes full of contempt. She seethed as a young man in tight black pants and a white shirt joined her on the stage. He faced her, stiff backed and challenging. They circled each other like animals smoldering with
barely restrained lust. From the background came an occasional world-weary
“Olé.”
A man sang a plaintive
canción
that conjured sad fellahin souls, and soon the singer was joined by guitars and syncopated clapping to an ancient, percussive rhythm. With a primal shout, the woman lifted her flounced skirt above her knees, her thighs flashed, and her heels beat a furious tattoo on the wooden floor. She snapped her fingers and released the snake-rattle of castanets. The young man responded, inflamed and enraged. Their dance was a duel, and they taunted each other to a frenzied climax.

I thought of Francesca and I won’t deny my regret at losing her. Like Marco and me, she lived on the edge and had no solid reason to put her fate in my hands. We both did what we had to do. If the chef could ask me what I’d learned I’d say that unrequited love does not die; it’s only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded. For some unfortunates, it turns bitter and mean, and those who come after pay the price for the hurt done by the one who came before. For me, this has not been the case,
grazíe a Dío
. Time has dulled my pain, but now and again something sparks the memory of her antelope eyes, the scent and feel of her, and in those moments I love her still.

At least I had Bernardo. On our first night in Cádiz, Bernardo and I found a bar whose shingle showed a hand-drawn picture of a bed, an advertisement of rooms to rent for illiterate travelers. I went in and pointed to the shingle. The crone behind the bar kept a slim, black cheroot clamped between her stained teeth while she rubbed her thumb and forefinger together—money first. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the purse the chef had given me. I hadn’t yet looked inside or opened the letters to his daughters. I wouldn’t have wanted to read them even if I could; after all, not delivering them was yet another way I had failed him. I opened the purse and I worried briefly that I might need Spanish currency. Then I remembered that Cádiz was an international port, like Venice, so any currency would be welcome. I wondered,
absently, whether I might have enough money for passage to the New World.

I extracted the folded sheets of paper and saw there was, indeed, plenty of gold, but more astonishing were the papers themselves. I saw immediately that they were not letters but selected pages from the book—the chef’s most valuable writings. He had peeled the artichoke down to its heart. Most surprising of all, written across the bottom of each page, in blue ink, was the one word I could read, written the way I’d learned to read it: “Guardians.” Under that word were more words, also scrawled in blue ink, which would prove to be the names of two chefs and where I could find them.

CHAPTER XXXIV
T
HE
B
OOK OF
B
ONES

M
y maestro wasn’t able to give me years of instruction, but he led me to another teacher who could. He also left me an excellent blueprint for life—his own example. Am I his son? Does it matter? A father and son aren’t made of anything so fragile and corruptible as flesh and blood. What is that but soft fruit and turning meat? No, a father and son are forged by effort, will, and heart. I had all that; there’s nothing more.

I paid a Spanish copyist to read the names of the two Guardians. One lived in the far north of France and the other in the ancient city of Granada, only a few weeks’ journey from Cádiz. That’s why the chef had agreed to go to Spain. I later learned that
“granada”
means “pomegranate”—and thus my journey came full circle.

The Spanish Guardian was the chef to Queen Isabella the Catholic at her residence in the Alhambra. I will simply refer to him as my teacher, and if I appear reticent about his precise identity or my present whereabouts, you will appreciate that there are still many who would silence us.

I walked for twenty-three days, and when I arrived in Granada, I made my way through the Arabic casbah, the Albaicín, a labyrinth
of narrow streets and whitewashed houses with secluded inner gardens. At the highest point of the Albaicín, a panoramic view of the Alhambra, the magnificent Moorish citadel, took my breath away.

Massive cream-colored walls, turrets, towers, and crenellated battlements rambled across a plateau covered in tufted green. Moorish poets describe the Alhambra as pearls set in emeralds. For centuries, the Moors who resided there ruled over a diverse kingdom of Muslims, Christians, and Jews. After the Spanish conquered Granada for Isabella the Catholic, the Moors converted to Christianity and the Jews were expelled from Spain.

I climbed up to the citadel and joined the pilgrims, petitioners, and merchants streaming through the gate. The severe exterior of the compound is intended to heighten by contrast the splendor of the interior. I wandered dumbstruck through a series of genteel courtyards and marble halls with domed and fretted ceilings. Everywhere, I saw fluid arabesques and filigree walls like stucco lace. The effect was one of airy lightness.

When I found the main kitchen, I entered by a side door and stepped around an army of busy cooks while I searched for the chef. I was curious about the foreign foods I would come to know as chorizo, fire-roasted piquillo peppers, La Mancha saffron sealed in blue clay jars, Serrano ham, and pickled eggplant. That kitchen smelled like a cross between my maestro’s kitchen and Borgia’s. It had the clean airiness I was accustomed to, but a tang of briny olives and smoked meats flavored the air.