The Hundred-Foot Journey (20 page)

All shriveled, like a biology experiment gone bad.

“Ah, non, merde.”

“Hassan!”

“No. But look. I don’t understand. I have done this a dozen times before. The soufflés. They died.”

They all came over to look.

“Pff,”
said Jean-Pierre. “Utter disaster. The boy, he’s incompetent.”

Madame Mallory shook her head in disgust. Like I was hopeless.

“Margaret,
vite,
take over for Hassan. Do the soufflés again. And you, Hassan, prepare the day’s pasta. You will do less harm there.”

I slinked off to the corner of the kitchen to lick my wounds.

Twenty minutes later Margaret came by my station, ostensibly to take down a dish, and as I reached up to the shelf to help her lift down the large platter, the backs of our hands touched and a jolt of electricity shot up my arm.

“Don’t let them bully you, Hassan,” she whispered. “I made the exact same mistake once. In deep winter, the outer wall in the storage room gets intensely cold, chilling the molds on the shelves of that wall. So, when you make soufflés in winter, you must first bring the dishes out into the main kitchen at least thirty minutes earlier, so the molds have time to reach room temperature before you pour in the egg whites.”

She smiled sweetly, turned away, and I was in love.

This thing between Margaret and me, it all came to a head a few weeks later, when we found ourselves in the same aisle of the kitchen. Madame Mallory and Jean-Pierre were on either side of us, banging pots and yelling at the front-room staff for a pickup. Margaret and I self-consciously ignored each other, until, that is, she bent down to retrieve some tarts from the oven, and I bent down to retrieve a pan immediately adjacent to her, and our legs inadvertently touched.

There was a shock of fire up my leg, right into my groin, and I gently leaned into it. Much to my delight, I felt her lean in from her side, and a few exquisite moments later, when I came up again with my pan, I was gasping for air and holding the pan strategically before my midriff.

“Come see me at my flat during the break,” she whispered.

Well, I tell you, no sooner had we finished the lunchtime service than I had my whites off and was pushing my way down Le Saule Pleureur’s raked garden and piles of snow. Finally through the stucco-and-stone wall, I broke into a run, slip-sliding down the icy back alleys to Margaret’s flat, just above the local pastry shop in the center of town.

Margaret met me in front of her building, and we exchanged knowing glances, but still did not say a word to each other. I looked nonchalantly up and down the cobblestone street, to see if we were being observed; her hand was shaking as she put the key into her building’s frosted front door. An elderly couple entered the Bata Shoe Store down the lane; a young mother and baby carriage exited the pâtisserie; a florist was shoveling snow outside his shop. No one looked our way.

The door swung open and we were inside, past the apartment mailboxes and radiator, taking the stone stairs two by two, laughing, charging up to her studio on the third floor. Through that door, at long last in the privacy of her flat, we were all frantic hands and open mouths and dropping garments wherever they fell.

That afternoon I took lessons on the French interpretation of
la lingua franca,
and after a hot shower involving lots of giggling and large quantities of soap, we reluctantly made our way back to Le Saule Pleureur, separately, far too relaxed and carefree for the rigors of the evening’s mealtime duty.

“Focus, Hassan. Where is your mind today?” snapped Madame Mallory.

That’s how it started. But our growing intimacy was not without its obstacles. Sleeping in a monk’s cell, next to the ever-watchful and austere Madame Mallory, was not exactly conducive to a romantic relationship. So these snatched afternoon encounters—as stimulating as they were—they were always hurried and gasping, with no chance for Margaret and me to ever spend languid time together.

One late afternoon, while I was dashing out the door and literally lashing tight my belt buckle as she stood in her kimono holding the door open, Margaret quietly said, “I am sorry you cannot spend more time, Hassan. Sometimes I get the impression you don’t want to know me better.
C’est triste.
”

Margaret then gently eased shut the door of her flat, leaving me to flounder on the apartment building staircase like a fish hooked and hoisted onto a boat’s deck. She was like Mother. Didn’t say a lot, but when she did, my heavens, it would hit you harder than any of Papa’s tirades.

That walk home I discovered, for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to run away when a woman I liked opened the door to something deeper. Quite the opposite; I wanted to plunge through Margaret’s open gate headfirst. So, walking back to Le Saule Pleureur that afternoon through the back alleys, I muttered loudly to myself, determined to make more time available for Margaret, particularly on our one day off from work.

This meant I had to inform the family I would no longer be regularly coming by the Dufour estate for our weekly feasts. This was, of course, as dangerous and diplomatically fraught as any Middle East negotiation, but the following Monday, knowing what was at stake, I manfully marched the short distance between the two restaurants, bristling with purpose.

My purpose evaporated the moment I crossed Maison Mumbai’s threshold. Auntie made me sit in the family’s most honored armchair, before fussing and plumping the pillow behind my back. Mehtab had, since my departure, taken over the kitchen at Maison Mumbai, and she emerged from the back of the house with a smile and a puffball pouch of crab-and-prawn paste, plus a few papri chaat, savory biscuits with curd.

“Just to tide you over, Hassan,” my sister said. “Lunch will be ready in an hour. I made your favorite lamb trotters soup. Just for you. Now put your feet up. You must rest, poor boy.”

I knew how much work had gone into making these delicacies, and my stomach churned with guilt. Mukhtar was on the couch opposite me, absentmindedly picking his nose while reading the newspaper comics jointly with Uncle Mayur.

“Thank you, Mehtab. Umm . . . sorry. But I can’t stay for lunch today.”

The room froze.

Mukhtar and Uncle Mayur looked up from their newspaper.

“What are you saying? Your sister and aunt have been slaving in the kitchen for you all morning.”

This remark was of course predictable, but not from laid-back Uncle Mayur, who always outsourced such acid remarks to his wife. It underlined how serious my trespass was, and his attack shook me.

“Umm . . . I am sorry. . . . Sorry. But I have other plans.”

“What do you mean, other plans?” snapped Auntie. “With whom? Madame Mallory?”

“No. With some of the restaurant’s other staff,” I said vaguely. “I should have told you earlier. Sorry. But it was decided just this morning.”

Mehtab did not say a word. She just lifted her head high, like a great begum who had been deeply offended in her own home, and solemnly retreated to the kitchen. Auntie was furious and shook her finger at me.

“Look how you have hurt your sister, you ungrateful beast!”

To make matters worse, Papa’s great bulk suddenly loomed in the doorway, and his deep voice rumbled over us like a tank battalion.

“What this I hear? Not eating with us today?”

“No, Papa. I have plans.”

He crooked his finger for me to follow him.

Mukhtar sniggered. “Now you’re in for it.”

I looked daggers at my brother before following Papa and the ominous sandpaper rasp of his slippers slapping across the floor. When we were out of earshot, deep in the darkened hallway, Papa turned to look at me imperiously from his great height, but I looked right back up at him, ready to hold my ground.

“It’s a girl, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Go. Don’t worry about them.”

I must have looked confused.

He wobbled his head, the Indian way, and before I knew what was happening, he was leading me farther down the hallway, the slap-slosh of Papa’s slippers turning right, down the half staircase, down to the Dufour mansion’s side door and the gravel drive. Papa took out his jangling keys, unlocked the door used for deliveries, and held it open.

He smiled kindly and gestured with his head.

“Go. You are working very hard, Hassan. You deserve some fun. I will take care of Mehtab and your aunt, don’t you worry. The ting about agitated hens, you throw some corn, you cluck over them a bit, and in no time they settle down. So go. I will take care of them. Not to worry.”

“Listen up, all of you.”

Madame Mallory and Monsieur Leblanc stood in the doorway of Le Saule Pleureur’s kitchen in heavy overcoats and hats.

“Henri and I will be gone for most of the day. We have some errands to run in Clairvaux-les-Lacs. So you will collectively assume the day’s responsibilities in my absence, and I will review your work when we return at eighteen hundred hours.”

It was a couple of years into my apprenticeship, and not, in itself, entirely unheard-of as Monsieur Leblanc and Madame Mallory occasionally took time off together, a morning here, an afternoon there, for errands or a little relaxation. We were never entirely sure about the true nature of their relationship, whether discreet Monsieur Leblanc and intensely private Mallory indulged in some form of amour when away from the restaurant and its staff; there was much speculation in the kitchen on this point. Margaret and I, perhaps influenced by our own secret, were convinced the elderly couple were lovers, but Jean-Pierre and Marcel took the opposite view.

On such days when the two went on an outing, Madame Mallory divvied up the day’s preparations for the evening meal among all of us. I, of course, was always given the least complicated of the assignments. On this blustery fall day, however, Madame Mallory had the devil in her, and she decided to mix things up, to keep us on our toes. Jean-Pierre,
chef de cuisine,
master of the meats, was tasked with making dainty desserts. Margaret, so skilled with sweets and pastry, was ordered to get her hands dirty with the fish. And I, the novice, was expected to prepare and precook the evening’s main meat dishes, which included, among other things, six wild hare, the same amount of pigeons, a gigot, and a pork joint. Most were perennials on the menu and were simple executions of well-known Mallory recipes. They did not worry me.

The hare, however, they were a
surprise.

“Chef, is there any particular way you want me to cook the hare?”

“Yes. I want you to astonish me,” she said, and without further instruction, she and Monsieur Leblanc were out the door.

Well, you can imagine, no sooner had they left than the three of us went to work, lips pursed, brows beaded with sweat, keenly aware we had each been given an exam to determine how flexible we were in the kitchen. Jean-Pierre was soon dusted in flour, whipping up mille-feuille with preserved citrus cream made from Menton lemons, while Margaret, stern-faced with concentration, made a crayfish-and-sherry saffron sauce to accompany meaty chunks of pike grilled perfectly on metal skewers.

If I am honest, most of the day is lost to me in a blur of relentless hard work conducted at a furious pace. I do remember that after I butchered the hares, I marinated the pieces in white wine, bay leaf, crushed garlic, malted vinegar, sweet German mustard, and a few crushed and dried juniper berries, for that slightly pungent and piney aftertaste. Suitably softened, the hare then spent several hours cooking slowly in a cast-iron pot. It was nothing grand. It was simply my take on an old-fashioned country recipe, fleetingly glanced at during a study session up in Madame Mallory’s attic library, but it just seemed right for a chilly and windy autumn night.

The side dishes I prepared were a mint-infused couscous, rather than the traditional butter noodles, and a cucumber-and-sour-cream salad dashed with a handful of lingonberries. I thought together they would make soothing and light counterpoints to the heavy mustard tang of the stewed hare. Of course, now, looking back, I realize the cucumber and cream was, conscious or not, inspired by raita, the yogurt-and-cucumber condiment of my homeland.

Madame Mallory and Monsieur Leblanc returned in the early evening, as promised, and we watched anxiously as the chef silently took off her overcoat, donned her whites, and made the rounds, inspecting what each of us had prepared. I recall that she actually had fairly kind words to say about all of our efforts, for her, albeit she never missed an opportunity to point out how each of us could have improved our dishes, with this adjustment or another.

Jean-Pierre’s red fruit tarts, for example, had a very respectable crust, firm, and the lip-puckering crème de cassis filling also had just the right balance of fruity sweetness and tart acidity. But when everything came together it all lacked somewhat in originality, she sniffed. A little grated nutmeg on the crème fraîche would have elevated the dessert into something special, as would have a few wild strawberries from the woods, sprinkled around the rim of the plate.

Margaret, meanwhile, had, besides the grilled pike, made rouget stuffed with asparagus and simmered in a grapefruit bouillon, before wrapping the fish in a filo jacket that was lightly baked in the oven. “Very unusual, I grant you, Margaret. But the pastry ruins it, for me. It’s a nervous tick with you, always wrapping everything in pastry dough. You must be more confident and leave your comfort zone. Such strong flavors—rouget and asparagus and grapefruit—they do not need a pie crust slapped on top.”

By now she had wandered over to my station, where I stood nervously, a greasy tea towel hanging from my shoulder. Madame Mallory inspected the gigot
—
the spring lamb, its skin perforated with garlic slivers, dusted in cumin and
herbes de Provence,
all ready to enter the oven—but didn’t comment. The pork joint was already roasting in the oven, but was still too raw for a tasting, and the
pigeon avec petits pois
simply received a head nod.

Madame Mallory was, however, drawn to the cast-iron pot bubbling on the stove, pulsing and filling the air with a vinegary steam. She lifted the heavy lid and peered inside at the game stew. She sniffed, took a fork to a joint of hare, and the meat broke off easily. Chef Mallory then snapped her fingers, and Marcel rushed over with a little plate and a spoon. She tried the hare with some of the mustard gravy spooned over the minty couscous and the accompanying sour-cream-cucumber salad.