The Chef's Apprentice: A Novel (9 page)

He also had the annoying habit of beginning a provocative sentence and then breaking off without finishing, and it was always about some odd new idea or outlandish theory. Once, while watching Enrico build up a fire in the brick oven, the chef said, “You know, there are some who believe there’s a way to harness the power of lightning … but never mind that now. Temper the fire, eh?”

People alleged that the chef could prepare meals to influence people’s behavior (which was true), and rumors circulated about his improbable garden. He cultivated exotic plants no one had ever seen or heard of, and he knew how to use them in some of his most elegantly nuanced dishes. He grew love apples rumored to be poisonous, knobby root vegetables, and serpentine vines with green pods dangling like claws. No one knew where he got his seeds or cuttings. The cooks always said a prayer and crossed themselves before they harvested the diabolical plants.

One of the most peculiar things about the chef was the people who visited him. One time, a well-known historian from Padua came to the kitchen carrying a clutch of folios, and he sat with the chef in hushed conference for an hour. Later, the chef said the folios were a rare collection of Far Eastern recipes compiled by a cook who had accompanied Marco Polo on his journeys. The explanation was accepted with nods of disinterest born of having seen too many such visitors over the years. Only later did I wonder how a simple cook in the thirteenth century might have learned to read and write, or how an insignificant thing like a recipe collection came to be preserved for centuries. When I asked Enrico about it, he said, “I don’t know, but don’t ask him. Chef Ferrero doesn’t like that kind of question.” Then he pulled his eyelid.

Another time, a copyist-monk, renowned for his skill as a translator of ancient languages, visited the kitchen and sat with the chef for hours over a single piece of vellum covered with markings that
looked, from a distance, almost like the sheets of paper I’d seen in the doge’s music room. That time I wondered how the chef himself had become erudite enough to consult with scholars.

After the monk left, I watched the chef stuff the vellum into one of his books and my curiosity got the best of me. I approached his desk, bowed respectfully, and asked where he’d learned to read and write. He shuffled his papers without looking up.

“School,” he said. “Where else?”

“But why do you read all these old manuscripts?”

“I find history interesting.” He tried to wave me off.

I scratched my neck. “What’s so interesting about the writings of the dead?”

He stopped shuffling his papers and looked at me, surprised, as though the answer were painfully obvious. “Luciano,” he said with exaggerated patience, “if we don’t know what happened before we were born, how can we know whether we’re making progress?”

Marrone
, it
was
obvious. “I never thought of it that way before.”

The chef sat forward, elbows on his desk, and steepled his fingers. “Let me tell you a story. There was once a vast library—you know what a library is? Good—the Great Library of Alexandria. An Egyptian king required all residents and visitors to surrender every book and scroll they possessed to be copied for the Great Library. Some copies were so precise that the originals were kept for the library and the copies were delivered to the unsuspecting owners. The king also purchased writings from all over the Mediterranean, including the original scripts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—”

“Who?”

“Wise men with something to say that was worth hearing. The Great Library may have had as many as one million scrolls and codices—history, science, art, philosophy—the greatest collection of human knowledge ever assembled.”

“Are those the books you study, Maestro?”

“No.” He smiled sadly. “While wise men acquired knowledge, lesser men made war, and parts of the Great Library were lost from time to time. The final assault came when a Muslim general conquered Alexandria and decided any writing that agreed with his Koran was not needed, and any writing that disagreed with it was not desired. ‘Therefore,’ he said, ‘destroy them all.’ It’s believed that the books were burned to heat bathwater for his soldiers, and there were enough books to provide six months of fuel for the baths.”

“Why, that’s … that’s …”

“Disgraceful?”

“Stupid! It’s just stupid, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Luciano. And I’m glad you think so.” The chef motioned me forward and lowered his voice. “But the good news is that the keepers of knowledge were not defeated. They devised other ways, craftier ways, to preserve what knowledge came their way. They went underground, assumed disguises, and learned to pass their legacies in code.”

“What kind of code?”

The chef sat back and knit his fingers across his chest. “I think we’ll talk more about that another time. But tell me, what have you learned?”

“That it’s a terrible thing to burn books.”

“Excellent. Go on now. I believe Dante has beets to peel.” He went back to his papers without another word.

There were no more stories that day, but in the following days there were many peculiar visitors: a linguist from Genoa, a librarian from the Vatican, a local calligrapher, and a priest purported to have ties to the heretic monk Savonarola. One time, a printer with ink-stained fingers brought the chef one of the so-called quick-books fresh from his
stamperia
. The chef said it was the latest cookbook from Florence, and he added it to his overstuffed bookshelf.

For me, the most memorable visitor wasn’t a scholar, but the
chef’s own brother, Paolo, who came only once, unexpectedly, from the family farm in Vicenza. Paolo visited a few days after my failed attempt to eavesdrop on the chef and his wife. It was early in my apprenticeship, and I was still insecure about my position in the kitchen; I worked silently, with my head down, and endeavored to be invisible. Perhaps that’s why the chef and his brother conversed within my hearing, as if they didn’t see me.

Paolo first appeared at the back door, twisting a well-worn peasant’s cap in his calloused, big-knuckled hands. He stopped just inside the door and stretched his neck, peering around the room, trying to locate his brother, and then he stepped into the humming kitchen, looking up at the high windows and sideways at the white-jacketed men around him. He moved awkwardly in his thick farmer’s body. As he made his bashful way through the room, Paolo left a rush of whispers in his wake, and that slight shift in the normal workday buzz made the chef turn, with a sauced fingertip at his lips and a critical furrow in his brow, judging a cook’s béarnaise. When the chef saw Paolo, the furrow disappeared. He smiled and shouted, “My brother!”

Paolo’s face lightened. The brothers threw their arms around each other, and the chef announced, “Everyone, meet my brother, Paolo.” Paolo smiled shyly and twisted his cap. The cooks offered a nod or a polite smile and then turned back to their work.

For privacy, the chef and his brother walked to the back of the kitchen to converse at a discreet distance from the cooks. The chef poured two glasses of red wine and they sat at a table near the cistern, almost directly in my path as I, the invisible apprentice, carried water buckets in and out the back door. Due to the chef’s fetish about standing water, I emptied half-full buckets and hauled in fresh ones all day long.

After the customary pleasantries, they spoke of Paolo’s family and the farm, of a new son, a new calf, his wife’s indigestion, and an unusually smooth batch of homemade wine. When the conversation
seemed to have exhausted itself, Paolo put a hand on the chef’s shoulder and said, “Amato, I didn’t come to tell you about the farm. I came to tell you our mother has died.”

The chef’s lips parted slightly, whether in surprise or from a wish to speak I don’t know. Then my maestro put his head in his hands, and the brothers sat in silence while Paolo stared at the floor. Finally the chef said, “May she rest in peace.” He made the sign of the cross and kissed his thumbnail. “Thank you for coming to tell me, brother.”

“But of course I’d tell you.”

“I’ll try to visit her grave.”

“Bene.”
Paolo began twisting his hat again. Having reported on the farm and delivered his news, he seemed to have no more to say. He twisted the cap mercilessly, and a nervous tongue darted out to wet his lips.

Seeing his brother’s discomfort the chef said, “You must be anxious to get back to your fields. Of course you are. But I have some beautiful veal. You’ll take some home. So white, you won’t believe your eyes.”

The chef started to rise, but Paolo pressed his shoulder, and the chef sat down again. Paolo said, “There’s something else.” The tip of his tongue flicked over dry lips.

The chef faced his brother with an expression partly perplexed and partly expectant, as though he might know what was coming. He said, “About Giulietta?”

Paolo hung his head. “And your son.”

My ears perked up. His son? Chef Ferrero had four daughters, but no son.

“Aha.” The chef nodded.

Paolo didn’t look at him. He said, “Giulietta died. The child didn’t.”

“So. I
do
have a son.”

“I’m sorry, Amato.” Paolo opened his hands in a gesture of
helplessness. “You know how Mamma was. After Papà died, she did as she pleased.”

“My son lived.” The chef stared at him. “Tell me everything.”

Paolo shrugged. “There’s not much. I came in from the fields one day to find Mamma and the infant gone. Later, I couldn’t make her talk. I tried. I really did. She told me the child had died and she’d buried him, but I didn’t believe it. He was a healthy boy—strong. I didn’t know what had happened, and I didn’t know what to tell you.”

“I believe you, Paolo. I remember you couldn’t look at me when she told me they both died. You couldn’t meet my eyes once that day.” The chef shook his head. “But she lied to my face. And after the way she treated Giulietta … you know that’s why I stopped visiting her.”

“I know. But don’t judge her too harshly. She had such hopes for you.” Paolo lowered his voice. “And she really believed the child was cursed. You know why.”

“
Sì
. The mark.”

A mark? I touched my forehead. A mark like mine? What if … but no, that’s silly. How easily I could succumb to wishful thinking. Birthmarks were common enough.

Paolo said, “I don’t believe the nonsense myself, but she—”

“Ah, Paolo.” The chef wagged his head. “Our mother did more injury than you know.”

“I understand.” Paolo squeezed the chef’s shoulder. “A man has a right to know his son, his immortality.”

The chef barked a laugh with no joy in it. “It’s not a matter of vanity, Paolo. A male heir would have made a difference to me. There are things at stake. You don’t know.”

Paolo took his hand off his brother’s shoulder and sat back. His bushy, mismatched eyebrows lifted in surprise. “What are you talking about? You have four daughters. Come on, Amato. You’re not a king, eh?”

“
Sì, sì
. Of course you’re right. Forgive me. I’m not myself.”

Paolo lowered his eyebrows and waved as if to erase what he’d just said. “I understand. It’s a terrible blow.”

They sat a moment longer, once again sensing the end of their common ground. Then they stood and embraced. The chef said, “What’s done is done. Thank you for coming, brother.”

“Niente.”

“The veal?”

“I have to go.” Paolo was twisting his hat again.

“
Bene
. Go with God, Paolo.”

“Good-bye, Amato. I’m sorry.”

At first I felt only shock. There was a woman other than Signora Ferrero? A son? I couldn’t imagine my maestro with anyone but his beloved Rosa and their daughters, but I heard what I heard.

After Paolo left, the chef sat at the table, looking blank and deflated, and my heart clenched for his loss. Losing his son through his mother’s deception seemed worse than more ordinary kinds of loss—it was less natural than death, more personal and malicious than an anonymous twist of fate. I poured a stream of fresh water into the cistern and a rush of sentimental memory overwhelmed me: the chef’s generosity in taking me off the street; the patient way he instructed me in my duties; the naked, unconditional love he showed for his family. He deserved to have known his son, and I wished I could comfort him. I wished I might replace the son he lost. I had a mark, perhaps like his son’s; maybe I reminded him of this lost child. Maybe he considered me …

Then, the musical gush of water streaming into the cistern reminded me of how happily his family had sung when I wasn’t there, and I remembered my place in the world.
Stupido
. He didn’t want comfort from me. He was the maestro, and I was the apprentice. If he wanted to find his real son, he’d look for him.

The idea that he might look for his son disturbed me. Could he find the boy? How long had it been? What age would he be? Where
would the chef start? How would he know him? Paolo mentioned a mark. What mark? And if he found him …
Dio
, what if he found him? A real flesh-and-blood son would surely take my place in the chef’s affection, and what else might he take? My job? My future?

In a span of minutes, I went from sympathy for the chef to worry for myself. I caught sight of my face in the icy water of the cistern—frightened eyes and a grim mouth distorted by ripples in the water. Ugly. I glanced back at the chef, who hadn’t moved, and my heart opened to him again. His suffering moved me, and I felt an urge to pray. I looked up, because that’s what people do, and I thought:
Please, let him find his son
.

As I went out to refill my bucket, I remembered something the chef had said to his brother, exactly the sort of remark that contributed to his reputation as a mysterious figure. He’d said, “There are things at stake. You don’t know.”

But I wanted to know. I wanted to know everything. I was a true child of Venice, weaned on her mysterious beauty, her watery light shifting like magician’s mirrors. Venice had seduced me with her female anatomy, with her liquid channels and her maze of voluptuous temptations. Venice excites a desire to know what is hidden, a lust to penetrate her charms, a wish to know all her darkest secrets.