The Chef's Apprentice: A Novel (25 page)

He continued his lecture on herbs. He talked about the subtlety of bay laurel, the many varieties of thyme, and the use of edible flowers as garnishes. A hummingbird whizzed by and hovered; the chef grew abstract and said, “You know, there are those who believe men will someday be able to fly.” He raised his hand to point at the hummingbird drinking from a red flower, and I shielded my face. When no blow came, I peeked through my fingers and saw the chef staring at me. He looked like a man whose face had been slapped. He said, “I’d never hit you, Luciano.”

“Oh, I know. I was just, uh …”

He turned away from me and spoke quietly to some invisible listener in the sorrel. He said, “My father used to beat me and my brother, and even my mother. He drank, you see. He was a very sad man. I hated him. I wrapped myself in hatred for protection; I cradled hatred in my heart, and it was a bitter comfort.

“One day when I was old enough, big enough, I pulled him off my weeping mother. He’d been beating her with a stick, as if she were an animal. I was a child, but I screamed at him. ‘What kind of man are you? You should be ashamed.’” The chef looked at me, and his eyes infected me with his sadness. “My father was gaunt by then, and always filthy. He dropped his stick and slumped onto a chair. He looked at my mother whimpering on the ground as if he’d just noticed her, and you know what he said? He said, ‘I am, son. I am ashamed.’

“I’ll never forget the moment my father admitted his shame. It helped me to discover that there’s freedom in forgiveness. We are better people for knowing how to forgive.” The chef looked at me again. “That’s one of the reasons I’ve decided to forgive you for last night. You knew you’d done wrong and you took responsibility. You’ve earned another chance.”

“
Grazíe
, Maestro.” At the time I wondered how I could be forgiven so easily. Now I think the chef knew I would carry his mandate to forgive for the rest of my life.

He said, “My father died soon after that incident. If he’d lived, he might’ve redeemed himself.” I must have looked doubtful because he added, “No one is beyond redemption.”

“Giuseppe—”

“No one, Luciano. Unfortunately, some of us die before we get there. Of course, there are those who believe we get more than one life … but that’s another conversation.” He went on in the neutral tone of a teacher. “At first, I only wanted to be different from him. Better. I thought I only needed to achieve professional success and social respectability. Then I met Chef Meunier. You remember him, eh?”

“
Sì
, Maestro.”

“God bless his droll heart. I learned from him that the measure of a man is taken not only by his achievements, but also by his struggle to achieve, his will to do good, and the tenacity of his
effort. I see that will in you, Luciano.” He stood then, and something in the deliberate way he did so made me stand as well. “I have something to say to you, Luciano, and I’ll say it plainly. I’ve given this much thought, and I’ve made my decision. I believe your occasional lapses are due to youth and your unfortunate beginnings. I believe you have it in you to be a fine man, and I want to help you. I wish to make you my protégé, the heir to my knowledge.”

Shocked at this blunt statement, I wondered how my effort to impress him had earned punishment, while my attempt to steal had earned forgiveness. I didn’t understand it, but apparently my future with the chef was assured after all. I was the chef’s protégé. I would have the opportunity to become a better person. The chef would help me transcend myself. Elated, I wanted to feel the word in my own mouth. I said, “I’d be honored to be your protégé.”

“
Bene
. From now on I’ll expect more from you.”

I had many questions about what, exactly, a protégé did. I understood that it was better than an apprentice, but I had questions about new duties and privileges. I said, “Now will you teach me to cook?”

“Certainly.”

“Will you tell me what makes custard firm?”

“Custard? Eggs, why?”

“It’s one of those things that looks like magic. It goes in liquid and comes out firm. Eggs? How strange.”

“It’s no mystery. Haven’t you ever seen eggs firm up when they’re cooked? They bind with the other ingredients and pull it all together.”

I smacked my forehead. “Of course!”

“Custard. Sometimes you’re a strange one, Luciano.”

“Not as strange as this garden. Will you explain these plants to me?”

The chef smiled. “This garden is about greatness. Anyone can boil an ordinary pot of rice. What makes a great chef is skill out of
the ordinary. That’s what this garden is—it’s not magic, it’s just not ordinary.

“The first seeds for love apples came from the New World. They’re not poison, Europe simply hasn’t caught up with them yet. For now, only I appear to have the secret of rendering them into salubrious delicacies. People eat in amazement, and my reputation grows.” He laughed and pointed to a corner of tilled earth where nothing grew. “When the season is right, I’ll plant yams there. Then you’ll see some magnificent dishes.”

“Yams?” I wanted to talk about protégés. I wondered whether a protégé might be allowed to learn the formula for the love potion.

“Yams are a type of potato, also from the New World. Long and slim with orange flesh, sweet as honey.” He bunched up his fingers like a rosebud and kissed the tips. “I grow white potatoes, too, and keep a supply in the root cellar. Just wait, Luciano. In the root cellar you’ll see things more interesting than love apples and beans.”

I could see that we would have to discuss culinary matters before I could broach the love potion. “How do these strange things get to Venice from the New World, Maestro?”

“How does anything get to Venice? Strapped onto camels and horses and elephants, packed in the holds of ships, piled onto carts and wagons, tied on the backs of men.” He circled the air with one hand as if to say “Who cares how they get here, as long as they do?”

“But so few have been to the New World.”

“You think so?” His eyes danced with a devilish glint. “Men thought the earth was flat, yet Cristoforo Colombo sailed right through the horizon and showed us that the earth is round.”

“Maestro, men have been burned as heretics for saying the earth is round.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say it to an Inquisitor. But in fact, the earth
is
round and always has been. So why assume that Colombo was the first to discover it? Muslim astronomers said the world was round
centuries ago. And Norsemen were crisscrossing this round earth in overlapping arcs long before Colombo.”

“Norsemen?”

“Explorers and adventurers have brought us far more than what you see in this garden, or even what you can find in the hidden stalls of the Rialto. They’ve brought us ideas and divergent views of the world and its people. In the forests of Africa, there are tiny black men who have lived with nothing but the earth under their feet for thousands of years. In the Far East, high civilizations thrived millennia before Jesus. In the New World, nations rose and fell for centuries before the Spaniards arrived. Travelers before and after Marco Polo have been importing and exporting a steady stream of goods and knowledge. Knowledge is the most valuable commodity. Knowledge is the stepping stone to wisdom.”

The chef spread his arms wide to encompass his garden. “What you see here is nothing. Over the centuries, hundreds of writings and scientific formulas have been added to the body of human knowledge.”

“Formulas? Like alchemy?”

“A formula’s just a recipe, Luciano. Don’t make too much of the word. What you need to know is that some of us have taken on the task of collecting, recording, and protecting as much of this knowledge as we are privileged to learn. We save ideas worth thinking about, even when they’re inconvenient, and especially when they’re threatened. We keep the flame of free thought alive. We are the Guardians.”

“Guardians.” I looked at the love apples with new eyes.

The chef ruffled my hair. “The world is bigger and older than you know, and we’re all heirs to its accumulated wonders. There are things you could never imagine. There’s a vast land down in the southern sea where giant rodents stand on two feet and carry their babies in pockets. I’d like to see that.” He smiled. “The Guardians
believe we shouldn’t discard our inheritance too easily. We can see farther ahead by standing on the shoulders of our predecessors. Civilizations are built on the bones of the dead.”

“What about God?”

“God?” The chef closed his eyes and rubbed his temple as though he’d suffered a sudden stabbing pain. “That word is used to excuse some of humanity’s most heinous behavior. God is another conversation. For now we’re talking about great teachers and the knowledge they’ve passed to us.”

It all sounded so grandiose that my voice came out in a whisper. “You want to share this knowledge with me?”

“Everything in its own time. You have much to learn before you’re ready for the secrets encoded between chicken broth and roast lamb.”

Chicken broth? Roast lamb?
Boh
. I wanted to hear about the grand ideas, the big secrets: alchemy, giant rodents, and love potions. I said, “But, Maestro—”

“Luciano, first things first. When the Guardians began, we needed a disguise. We needed a way to collect and save our body of knowledge without becoming a clear target, like the Great Library at Alexandria. Someone hit on the idea of being cooks. No one notices servants, eh?”

“That’s true.” I remembered the chef and his brother chatting in my presence as if they couldn’t see me walking back and forth right in front of them.

The chef continued. “Cooks are among the few servants who have a reason to keep written records. We can collect writings from foreigners, and no one is interested in them. After all, they’re just recipes, eh?” He chuckled. “At first, we were only cooks. Later, it was decided we should become master chefs, because that path is long and arduous enough to allow a man time to ponder his commitment. Our recipes are codes, a way to save pieces of knowledge that might otherwise be lost or destroyed. But before you reach
the rank of a maestro, you’ll have to spend years studying and preparing.”

“Like a novice nun?”

“A nun? Ah. Are you still in love with the convent girl?”

“Yes, Maestro. I want to marry her.”

“There’s plenty of time for marriage.”

“But if I’m too slow, she might marry someone else. I’d die if that happened.”

“You wouldn’t die, but I understand your feelings. I loved a girl once … be assured, you wouldn’t die.”

“I would
want
to die.”

“Luciano, marriage is a fine thing, and it will happen for you in time. For now, try to understand that I’m offering you something noble to live for.”

“Why me?”

“Aside from seeing potential in you?” He brushed the hair off my forehead and passed a thumb over my birthmark. “I have my reasons.” He bit his lip lightly. “Do you know anything about your parents, Luciano?”

“Nothing.”

“
Ecco
. It’s not important.”

“But, Maestro, you choose me even though you know me to be a thief?”

“You can be better than that if you want to, and I think you do.”

The chef had more faith in me than I had in myself. It was true I wanted to be better, good enough to be a vegetable cook and a husband, but could I be good enough for
this
? I said, “I don’t know—”

“You hesitate. That’s good. It shows you take it seriously. I hesitated, too, because I wanted an easier path. Also, because I feared there might be more of my father in me than I could overcome. Fathers and sons; a complicated business.”

“I don’t even know who my father is. He might have been a criminal.”

“It doesn’t matter. Each of us is unique, and growth is not a goal, it’s a process. Develop the best in yourself. When we succeed in this, humanity advances.
Bene?
”

He made it sound grand and yet simple. I said,
“Bene.”

We walked back through the garden in silence while I struggled to fit Francesca into the complicated future the chef had laid out for me. I was still wrestling with that when we came to the door of the root cellar and he heaved it open. Worn wooden steps disappeared down into an inky darkness; it reminded me of looking into a bottomless well, and I hung back. Cool, fusty air arose from deep underground.

The chef stepped down into the gloom, saying, “Now you’ll see something interesting.”

“I believe you,” I said. “I don’t have to see it. We can go back to the kitchen now.”

He half turned and looked up at me, his face perplexed, his legs already swallowed in the darkness. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t like cellars.”

“
Boh
. There’s nothing down here but food.
Ecco
, take hold.” He reached out to me, and a combination of trust in him and fear of being seen as a coward made me take his hand. I followed him down the steps into the dark cellar; my palms went clammy, and my breath became heavier with every step.

The cellar smelled musty and alien, and I recognized very little in the shadowy sacks and barrels and crates stacked and piled along the rough-hewn walls. Sausages hung from the ceiling along with strings of onions and garlic. We pushed them aside as we walked stooped over, and the chef pointed out his treasures. “Coffee beans, maize, sugarcane, saffron threads, dried mushrooms—”

“Are the mushrooms called amanita?”

The chef’s face had become an indistinct chiaroscuro of angles
and planes in that cave-like cellar, but I saw the one wry eyebrow he cocked at me. “As you probably know, amanitas are poisonous. No, these are not amanitas.”

He went on with his inventory. “Peanuts, cacao … ah, cacao. Now here’s something close to magic. It gives sauces supernatural depth, and combined with sugar it makes a confection as intoxicating as wine.” The chef patted his sack of cacao; he fawned over it like it was a spoiled pet. He pushed aside a thick sausage and pointed beyond the cacao. “That sack over there is amaranth. It’s rare and hard to find but worth the search. It gives bread a nice nutty flavor.”