White Truffles in Winter (33 page)

When the fire made its way up the elevator shaft, the floor beneath me caught fire and began to smoke. When the doors opened, I ran into the hallway and all I could see was smoke. I could hear screaming and praying. Smoke was everywhere and the elevator I had just been standing in burst into flames.

“Come with me!” I shouted and continued to shout. “Follow me!” I knew where the fire escape was. “Take my hand. Take my hand.”

And they did. I took the hand of the woman next to me and she took the next person's hand and one by one we formed a chain, some of us dressed, some of us naked, but all of us holding on to each other. We raced the flames. As we ran I threw open every door, screaming, “Follow me. Follow my voice.”

And then suddenly I thought,
Where is Finney?

The Broadway actor Jameson Lee Finney was an agreeable sort of man. He'd come to Europe for a vacation and was departing within the week to rejoin his new bride in America. He often held court in the dining room and was always complimentary to me about the fish: the sole in particular. How he loved it.

Americans can be very enthusiastic about many things, including fish.

“Monsieur Finney?”

He did not answer although I had seen him go to his room to dress for dinner just moments before I entered the elevator.

When I finally pushed through the door of the fire escape, the cold night air pushed the smoke back. I could not see Jameson anywhere. The hallway was black with smoke, and dark, but I knew where his room was; three doors from mine. I took a deep breath and ran back for him. His door was unlocked. I ran in.

“Finney?!”

Nothing. Fire suddenly wrapped itself around the doorway. “Monsieur Finney?!” No answer. My lungs were closing down. I pulled the blanket from the bed.

I saw the bathroom door.

I remember thinking that I should open it. But the fire was suddenly moving through the room. I wrapped the blanket around me, and ran into the hall. The blanket was burning. Fire slid down walls as if water.

“Finney?!”

I ran. I ran as fast as I could and at the end of the hallway, I dropped the blanket, and threw myself through the open door of the fire escape.

The guests were all still standing on the roof. Trapped. The fire had burned the two floors below us. I looked over the edge; there was a naked woman hanging from a balcony. One floor below her, a man in a towel was getting ready to jump to the street below.

Our only salvation was to leap across to the next building, His Majesty's Theater, and then make our way down that fire escape and out into the street.

“Jump!” I said. “Everyone jump!”

It was only two or three feet at the most, but no one moved.

On the street below, people were screaming. “Jump.”

No one moved.

“Follow me.”

I took off my shoes and jumped across to the building, then opened my arms. “I'll catch you,” I said. “Follow me.”

One by one, the guests leapt across into the night, into my arms and into safety. I often staggered back, nearly toppled by the weight of them, but no matter. We were all safe.

In the sinister glow of the flames, we applauded. Joyous. Relieved.

I tried to keep Finney out of my mind. He is safe. Safe.

The moment was so moving and so tragic that I have never forgotten it.

“Follow me.”

Two hundred fifty firemen and twenty-five engines soon arrived on the scene. My kitchen was flooded, although the dining room was untouched. While the firemen worked above us putting out the flames, my staff found their way to the kitchen. At 1 a.m. the press found us working to salvage whatever we could. There was at least two million francs worth of damage.

Apparently, I was asked what I thought about the fire. I don't remember being asked anything at all.

“What do you expect?” I was quoted as saying, “I have roasted so many millions of chickens in the twelve years I have been at this hotel that perhaps they wanted to take their revenge and roast me in turn. But they have only succeeded in singeing my feathers.”

I remember that we were all standing in the kitchen laughing. But I try not to think about that.

Despite the damage, we reopened within the week. Our first menu included
Soles Coquelin
, Jameson Lee Finney's favorite dish. He so loved fish. When they found him he was in the bathroom, naked. His body was burned beyond recognition.

I often think of him paralyzed by fear, waiting to be saved.

It was time to relinquish my post.

And so, I groomed Ba. Nguy
e
˜
ˆn Sinh Cung was his proper name. “The Accomplished,” he said it meant in Vietnamese, although everyone called him “Ba.” He was a frail young man, kindhearted, intelligent and polite. He cared for the poor, as I did. The first time he came to my attention was when he was a dishwasher. He would often send large uneaten pieces of meat back to the kitchen to be trimmed and saved.

When I asked him why he did this, he said, “These things shouldn't be thrown away. You could give them to the poor.”

He did not yet know of our decades-long arrangement with the Sisters, our Quail Pilaf à la Little Sisters of the Poor and their Gala Nights.

Ba had a chef's heart, although most chefs would have just trimmed the meat, put it back on the plate and served it to another diner.

“My dear young friend, please listen to me,” I said. “Leave your revolutionary ideas aside for now, and I will teach you the art of cooking, which will bring you a lot of money. Do you agree?”

He stayed with me four years. I thought he would remain forever.

His French was beautiful. He was such a loyalist that he and his fiancée, a dressmaker, Marie Brière, wrote impassioned articles criticizing the use of English words by French sportswriters. They demanded Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré outlaw such Franglish as
“
le manager,
” “
le round,
” and “
le knock-out.
” I agreed entirely.

We spent many a pleasant afternoon perfecting the art of pâte brisée. Pastry was a passion of his. More butter, less butter; one kind of flour or the other—he had the mind of a chemist and would cheerfully spend hours working to create the perfect crust. He was a very careful man.

I now believe that the fire would not have happened if Ba had been there. And if it did, he would have opened that bathroom door. Despite his frailness, Ba had a fearless air about him.

Unfortunately, one evening after the kitchen had closed Ba came into my office and resigned. The French had overthrown the Emperor of Vietnam, Duy Tan. I felt as if I had betrayed Ba myself.

“It is time, my friend,” he said. “
Adieu, mon ami.
” He kissed me on both cheeks. “I hope that someday my people will call me ‘Ho Chí Minh,' ‘Bringer of Light.
'
”

I did not know what to say.

The night Ba walked out of my kitchen, I had the same feeling that I had the night of the fire, the same helplessness.

“Follow me,” I said but he was already out the door and could not hear.

Later, I was told that Ba changed his name to Nguyen Ái Quoc, Nguyen the Patriot, and had been held in prison until he'd died of tuberculosis.

Although the information was from a low-ranking French government official, and therefore suspect, the thought still pains me. If this is true, this good, kind man died without becoming the “Bringer of Light,” without leaving a legacy in the world.

“Follow me.”

If only he had heard me. Not everyone can make a mark on this world, but Ba could have. He had that quality. He was a leader. But now he will be sadly forgotten.

There is so much forgetting in this world. My Cherries Jubilee is a very good example of this.

While everyone who eats this dish will always think of the great Queen Victoria, her Jubilee, and remember that cherries were her favorite food, the recipe does not contain ice cream. It never did. If there had been ice cream, the dish would not have been so embraced by the Queen as representative of her spirit as a monarch. It was the lushness of the cherries, the dark sweetness that she enjoyed. They are by design an erotic fruit—does a cherry not remind one of a woman's own dark fruit? This fact did not escape the Queen. She ate it greedily. She was a complicated woman.

And so, it is important that one understand the recipe correctly. It is as follows:

Simmer stoned cherries in sugar syrup. Drain. Place them in a golden bowl, which must be at least fourteen-carat weight, and reduce the syrup, thickening it with cornstarch or arrowroot diluted with cold water. Combine the syrup with a tablespoon of warmed kirsch and pour over the cherries. Step back. Set aflame.

As you can see, ice cream would be an insult. Unfortunately, some publishers print the ice cream version as the “real” recipe, and in some extreme cases, they even forget to mention my name.

This is why it is difficult to leave a legacy behind. Even when I write these pages, I think that if this book does not go to the publisher before I die, it will fall into the hands of others who will take my thoughts and change them. Maybe even this very chapter will, in the end, not include Ba. Or maybe it will mention Ba but not Cherries Jubilee because the editor will be embarrassed to have insight into the secret life of a queen. Or, maybe, he will just forget to put this chapter in.

Forgetting. Everyone is now forgetting.

Again, the Germans.

The only way to combat forgetting is to cook. A well-prepared dish adds beauty, depth and complexity to life. Food is a thing of enchantment and to believe in enchantment, and to weave its spell, is a radical and necessary act.

And so. Silently. Cook.

L
ESS THAN TWO WEEKS AFTER THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE
, Delphine Daffis, a French poetess of distinction and officer of the Academy, Escoffier's heart gave out.

At
2
a.m. Sabine found him. His mouth was slightly open, as if hungry. She sat with him until the authorities came. “He shouldn't be alone,” she told them.

“You're an odd girl,” the man said.

After they took his body away, Sabine walked through the streets of Monte Carlo until she came to the long thin house overlooking the Grand Hôtel.

Bobo held her for a long time, until she stopped crying. Until he did, too.

“He was released,” his doctor told the newspaper and explained about Madame's long illness and peaceful death. “They had a great love,” he said, although he hardly knew them.

On February
14
,
1935
, the story ran around the world. And on that day, the celebration of the Feast of the blessed Saint Valentine,
Un Dîner d'Amoureux from Escoffier to Escoffier
featuring
Fricassée d'Homard à la Crème d'Estragon à la Madame Delphine Daffis Escoffier
was scheduled to make its debut at the Grand Hôtel.

It did not.

On the feast day, Auguste Escoffier,
Officier de la Légion d'Honneur
, was taken from
La Villa Fernand to the village of his birth, Villeneuve-Loubert, to an ancient cemetery filled with rows of Escoffiers, as well as those who had married into the family, the Blancs and the Bernodins. The entire line extended back to the eighteenth century, slab after slab of marble overlooking the tiny village whose rows of red-tiled roofs lined the hillside. At the south edge of the ancient cemetery, there was a mausoleum with elegant wrought iron gates and a small vault with three marble plaques, side by side, “Delphine,” “Daniel,” now “Auguste.”

The funeral was by invitation only. Sabine was left behind to pack up the rest of La Villa Fernand. The bank called the notes on the house and the manager himself delivered the papers to Paul, who did not know his father's financial problems were that extreme but was not entirely surprised. Sabine was told to inventory and organize the remaining belongings of Escoffier so that the family could sort through the things they wished to keep and the things that they wished to sell to museums and libraries after the war. They knew there would be a demand for such things. He was, after all, Escoffier.

Bobo had not been invited, either. He arrived at La Villa Fernand later that night carrying a large hamper of food. Inside there were only two things: a salad of carrots, baby zucchini and spinach dressed in lemon and olive oil and a small baked pumpkin, hollowed out and filled with a stuffing of leftover lamb, cream, farmer's cheese and green olives. It was beautiful. The skin was shiny; the small lid was cocked to one side.

“Housewife cooking as you requested,” he said and opened the bottle of red wine that he had brought. “Is there anything left in the cellar?”

“Just a Moët. I found it on the last rack, in the back. I think it was forgotten.”

Bobo put another log on the fire in the dining room. The pumpkin was still warm. Sabine sliced into it and picked up a bit with her fingers. It was soft, savory and only slightly sweet. The room filled with the scent of garlic and roasted lamb. They sat at the dining room table, next to each other, knees touching. Bobo handed her a glass of wine.

“It's odd without him,” he said and his voice echoed.

She raised her glass to the heavens, and so did he.

“This pumpkin is very good,” she said.

“From Provence. My pastry chef wrote it down for me.”

“Unfair.” She took another forkful. “ ‘Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are?' How will I know you?”

“Mystery is good.”

Bobo gave her a copy of the menu that they had created together. “A keepsake,” he said. The
Dîner d'Amoureux from Escoffier to Escoffier
was printed on a deep red parchment, with each course embossed in burnished gold leaf.

She ran her fingers over the lettering. “Elegant and yet savage. Just like the heart of a chef.”

“People would have eventually found out it was just our imaginings of Papa's heart, and not the real thing.”

“We could have said it was ours, in honor of them.”

“People get funny about the dead. Who are we to honor a master?”

“It's too beautiful to waste.”

“True. It did everything a fine meal should. It told a story. It made me imagine what my own heart would be like after all those years of marriage. The subtleness of the eggs and caviar; the richness of the lobster—it all made me think. I even had it printed in a way that was regal and slightly tarnished but still, hopefully, beautiful. As I think my heart would be.”

Above them, the floor creaked. For a moment it seemed as if Escoffier were in his room again. Writing.

“Old houses,” Bobo said.

Sabine handed him the paper that she had found on the floor next to Escoffier's bed. He read it carefully.

“Mashed potato with white truffles?”

“It's like an
aligot
because it's whipped so long, but it seems unique, does it not?”

“It speaks of magic but it is just mashed potatoes.”

“But it is for Madame.”

“And no one can ever know. The great Escoffier could not wish mashed potatoes, even with truffles, as the only dish that he dedicated to his wife.”

Bobo poured a bit more wine into their glasses. “Where will you go now?”

“My father wants me to come back to Paris. Tomorrow.”

“And tonight?”

“I have a few boxes to put away.”

“I could leave the kitchen light on for you at the house.”

He said this so shyly, at first Sabine wasn't sure what he meant but then he shrugged. His face was indeed beautiful, his blue eyes tired. His hair was going gray in fits and starts although there was a calmness to him that she hadn't noticed before.
Heaven is a lonely place.

“People will talk.”

“If they do, we could do something about it. Eventually. If you like.”

“Or we could do nothing and enrage my father.”

“If you like.”

Bobo kissed her. Just once. No more. “It feels like he's watching.”

“He is.”

And yet the very timbers of the house, the floors, the ceilings, all felt bloodless, like bones, drying, the marrow worn away by life itself.

Bobo packed the remains of their dinner. Sabine watched as he walked past the garden and out into the street.

She picked up the dishes and put them in the sink.
Let the banker wash them,
she thought, and put on the last clean apron and weighed out a pound and a half of small yellow potatoes. She placed them in the Windsor pan with just enough water to cover as they boiled, about four inches. While the potatoes cooked, she took a survey of what was left in the house.

The furniture had been covered with white sheets and pushed to one side to await the van to take it. Whatever was deemed trash had already been burned in the garden. In Delphine's room, the old Victorian coat lay across the bed where Sabine had left it. It still shed, still smelled musty. Paul told her to pack it away. “We'll tell the auction house it belonged to the Queen.”

Sabine couldn't. It was beautiful. Floor-length with oversized sleeves and a high collar made from some sort of dyed mink. And Papa did create the recipe and so it was rightfully hers.

She put it on and went into the kitchen.

“One cup of warm heavy cream, ten tablespoons of unsalted butter—emulsify this on the lowest possible heat. Every action you take makes a small impact on the final product. You must cook the potatoes in their jackets and with the least amount of water, or else they will not properly absorb it. You must emulsify the butter and cream in a continuous motion, or else it will separate.

“How much attention you pay to something so simple, so basic, like love, is crucial.”

The last bottle of champagne was chilled. Sabine opened it and poured herself a glass. Took off the apron. She did not remove the old fur coat. She did, however, twist her long hair into a topknot, as her father had told her to do when she first came.

She worked as if she were a ghost.

With the wooden spoon, she beat the potatoes over low heat to dry them and then bit by bit added the cream and butter emulsification. She did exactly what the recipe said but it didn't seem to work. The potatoes became stiff and formed a small round ball around the spoon. She lowered the heat, splashed champagne into the pan. Tried again. It still didn't work.

She boiled more potatoes, cut the last of the butter and started again. After a time, the potatoes slowly, gently, became puree. The recipe required that half the mixture then be placed in a buttered baking dish, covered with a thick layer of thinly sliced white truffles and a layer of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and dotted with butter. “Repeat until all the potatoes are used. Then place in a very hot oven for
10
to
15
minutes until a brown crust is formed.”

The baking dishes were all packed away and so she used the cast iron “fraying pan.” It was not pretty but it worked. The crust turned golden brown and filled the house with the rich perfume of white truffles and warm cheese.

Sabine took her glass of champagne and the pan of potatoes into the dining room and sat at the table. The last log in the fireplace was nearly cinders. She took the recipe and tossed it into the fire. It flamed for a moment, snapped and then caught. Glorious and burning.

Bobo was right. It was, after all, only mashed potatoes. Time consuming. Difficult to make. Not a legacy at all.

It was nearly dawn. Like a swimmer short of air, the sun was pushing its way up through the blinding noise of blue that was the sea. The sky surrounding
La Villa Fernand was bleeding color and light.

That fur, that hair, that divine face, ghost after ghost. This life. Or that.

And then she took a spoonful.

“Joy.”