The Clarkl Soup Kitchens (21 page)

My date for that evening could not leave her own complex. It was just as well, because I was exhausted and in no mood for nooky.

November 15, 2140
– My order of four cases of amontillado arrived! Now I will have something really special to serve when friends drop by after work.

Spirits of any kind are almost unknown here. The Clarklians are teetotalers, even the Monarchs, and each case of that sherry cost me almost five hundred American dollars.

I always prepare a few hot hors d’oeuvres at the end of the dinner service to take back to my cabin for the evening’s date. Now I can serve them as they ought to be tasted, with a fine wine.

May 22, 2141
– My bank account is looking better! I received a raise of five hundred dollars a month!

I have been thinking about buying a little vehicle, the kind my lady friends have shares in. These vehicles are sold by the Carriers at several locations around the capital. Each person buys a share, based on how often the vehicle will be used. Most of my lady friends own tenths, which allows them to drive to my compound one night a week and run errands one other afternoon or evening. The Carriers keep the vehicles, maintain them, and check them in and out.

You can’t drive on Clarkl unless you own a vehicle or a share of one. This law keeps the riffraff off the roads and cuts down on traffic accidents. Anybody who has been involved in a traffic accident in any way is banned from driving a vehicle for about two years.

Everybody drives very cautiously. The only modes of transportation available to those involved in accidents are bicycles and the inconvenient busses.

The Monarchs own several Rolls Royce automobiles, and one of the churchwomen of our dining room took a picture of two of these cars on a road near the capital. Gasoline is imported from
America
to fuel them. All the Clarklian vehicles run on electricity, which is very plentiful here on this planet full of water.

November 14, 2141
– Excitement today! The Batwigs came to our dining room and ordered twenty meals to go, twice a day, from now until notified otherwise. A vehicle of Slinkers will call for the meals at about
8:00 a.m.
and
3:00 p.m.
, and we will need to have the meals boxed and ready at those times.

The dining room manager and I quickly drafted instructions for reheating the food. We assumed the Batwigs had someone who could translate written English.

Now our menus have to account for the dishes to be sent to the Batwigs. Are these really for the Monarchs?

All we can base our selections on is what our friends the Drones are fond of. Sugar products are at the top of their list, starting with cake and pie. They are very fond of broccoli but not cabbage.

January 17, 2142
– A nice holiday this year, with a few gifts from the Drones and a piece of local artwork from the Batwigs.

We put up our usual treelike structure in the window, with handmade decorations and glass ornaments people had brought from home in
America
. The dining room manager unpacked the strings of lights used in past years and put those all around the front and the sides of the building. On Christmas day, the Drones brought tiny icicles made from silver and placed them on the tree. Later that day, the Slinkers brought the painting when they came for the afternoon pickup.

This painting is a curious mixture of gold, platinum, and oil-based colors. It is not really very literal, so we had a good time guessing what was being portrayed. The dining room manager put it over the welcoming table, a stand where the hostess greets the guests and updates the daily “meals served” statistics. The Drones have been very appreciative of the painting, even though we don’t know what it represents. We smile and nod while they excitedly point to it.

March 23, 2142
– This was the day of my trip to Udan’s Palace, the home of the rulers.

Yesterday, during the afternoon pickup of the to-go order, the senior Slinker, the one who warms his hands over my stove every time he comes into the kitchen, gave me a note written in formal English.

“You are invited to come to the home of the rulers tomorrow. You will be escorted with the early food.”

I figured I was to be ready for the trip at
8:00 a.m.
, so I packed a little bag with my knives, a few whisks, and two one-quart saucepans. The churchwoman in charge of the laundry gave me two clean and nearly new toques.

I found the time inconvenient, but I realized it was not my option to fuss. That time of the day is the busiest time of the breakfast service, and I usually have no time for even a small break.

The senior Slinker was ready. He allowed me to put on my best coat and grab my bag before he escorted me to a seat in an open-air bus. Where are the Rolls Royces when they are needed?

We drove for about twenty minutes, over roads I had never traveled and through an elaborate gate with a stern guard. Then, we traveled up a winding road to a large stone dwelling at the top of a hill.

I was escorted to a large lobby, a place that was colder, if that could be possible, than the bus. This was a square room of about forty feet on each side. It contained no decoration and, of course, no fireplace. It was just four walls of rocks, some smooth and some quite rough.

A group of seven Batwigs came to meet me. One asked for my coat, but I was reluctant to give it up. Another stepped forward with a cloak of a heavy, silky material, and he covered my shoulders with that garment.

Our group immediately walked to a room that was similar in decoration but much, much larger. At the far end of that room sat four Monarchs on large wooden chairs. We approached the Monarchs and the Batwigs bowed. I just stood in place, waiting for instructions. As an American, I did not feel inclined to bow to anybody.

How funny I must have looked to them! A stout American male in gray striped trousers and a white smock, with a curious white hat and a Clarklian cloak! I wish more than anything I could have had a picture of that moment, with the Batwigs bowing and the Monarchs slouching on those uncomfortable seats and the American wearing a funny hat.

A minute later a line of Slinkers entered from a side door carrying a large table of food. Our food!

The Monarchs lost all interest in the Batwigs and me. They pitched into the breakfast and wolfed up everything on the plates in ten minutes.

The Batwigs stood very still during this time, as if they would cause indigestion for their rulers if they interrupted with casual breakfast conversation.

As soon as the meal was consumed, the Monarchs got up and left through a gold-curtained exit behind the large seats. I saw the chairs for what they were, and I knew our Drones had much more comfortable seating for their breakfasts. No Drone eats breakfast on an uncushioned chair. No Drone eats breakfast on a chair without arms. The Drones eat the same food, but on better chairs.

Then, I looked at the plates. We had packed the food on paper plates, and these plates were the same ones the Monarchs used when they ate! We had assumed the food would be reheated on the paper plates and then transferred to some wonderful dishes made of gold or platinum. I realized our Drones ate from better china and with better utensils than the Monarchs!

I did not have much time to analyze all of this because I was soon shuffled off to the kitchen. This was a square room of about fourteen feet on each side. Again, the room’s walls were made from rough and smooth stone, and a door with a glass window allowed light to enter directly from the star.

The kitchen was nearly an exact duplicate of the kitchen where I worked every day! The electric ranges were against one wall, a preparation table was in the center, and several sinks were on each other wall. My friend the lettuce robot, or his twin, was here, too. Above the sinks on two walls were the same refrigerators we used, and over the prep table were six microwave ovens.

The only food I could see here was what was left in the boxes from our to-go package. I looked into the ovens, and nothing was cooking. I looked into the refrigerators, and nothing was cooling. Finally, I raised the lid of the only pot on the twelve-burner ranges and saw yesterday’s porridge, cold and stiff and starting to pull away from the pot’s sides.

My host, a Batwig, pointed in the direction of the door leading to the outside, and I followed him to an overgrown garden. Here someone had tried to grow several vegetables, but weeds had overtaken the plants and the food had never been harvested. I saw corn still on the ears and peas still in the pods. I nodded and smiled, not really knowing what else to do.

The Batwig led me to another door, one not as grand as the entrance into the lobby, and we entered. Here was a long hallway, with dozens of doors opening onto it. About halfway down the hallway, the Batwig paused and opened a door to our left.

I stepped into a brightly lighted room full of overstuffed furniture and tapestries on the walls. It looked like something from a castle where the occupants were going through hard times. Everything was patched, and even the patches were faded. Again, I nodded and smiled.

The Batwig then led me into an adjoining room, obviously a bedroom, with a thin mattress and a set of rusted, exposed springs. A decrepit dresser stood near the bed, waiting for its cue to fall over. Next to the dresser was the door to a private bathroom, a place with a rusty toilet and a miniscule shower. More nodding and smiling.

Finally, the Batwig led me back to the lobby. The Monarchs had not returned to the room with the big chairs, and the table had been taken away. I looked for some sign of gracious living, some sign I was in the home of the ruler of a nation that could send spacecrafts and precious minerals to a small planet far away. Nothing appeared. There were no decorations, there were no comfortable chairs, and there was no food in the kitchen.

The Slinkers were waiting. They exchanged my visitor’s cloak for my own best cloth coat and escorted me, toque on my head and knives in my bag, back to the open-air bus.

We retraced the route to our complex, and I went in the dining room’s front door, back to my own world.

August 18, 2142
– Life here has been very normal since my trip to the castle. I described the tour in as much detail as I could remember to everyone in my complex, and no two people had the same conclusion.

One person believed I was about to be kidnapped and they changed their minds when they saw my hat. Another was sure I was expected to make suggestions about the layout of the kitchen. Other ideas were even more mundane or more outrageous.

The to-go orders continue. The Slinkers pick them up twice a day, right on schedule. We fill those orders with exactly what we are serving our Drone friends, and we have never received any special requests.

October 30, 2142
– The offer came today. The Batwigs have asked me to transfer to the castle. They assured me I would have the kitchen I saw all to myself and would occupy the suite of rooms.

I need the help of the State Department to formulate my answer. Of course, I am not going over to that pile of rocks! The idea of a chef having a kitchen all to himself reflects an absolute lack of knowledge about how a kitchen staff works. And that uncomfortable, ugly, and dirty suite is worse than anything I saw while I was in the Army.

I have sent an urgent request for help to New Washington, with copies to the ambassador here and the bishop who manages the New Christian Congregation’s relationship with the government. I want to send a refusal but I don’t want a response of “Off with his head!”

And how could I run my very active love life from that fortress? Who would visit? Why?

I feel I am being squeezed, and the sides of the box are getting smaller and smaller.

November 5, 2142
– The ambassador has sent a draft of a reply, and it is the most weasel-worded piece of correspondence I have ever seen. The first three paragraphs are dedicated to telling these Batwigs how honorable and gracious they are, the next two paragraphs describe the offer in the most glowing terms, and the final paragraph says I would be too unhappy away from beings of my own species to live more than a few days.

I can’t possibly sign anything like that! What kind of a fool would believe it, for one thing? For another, it just leads to the conclusion that the Batwigs should just kidnap the entire compound.

I’ll spend the next couple of days working on the letter and send an alternate draft to the ambassador.

November 15, 2142
– My letter is in the fifth draft, with suggested text going back and forth between the various parties, some in
America
and some here on Clarkl.

One suggestion is that I go over to the castle for a couple of days a week. I may have to accept that, for the sake of the entire American community here.

December 8, 2142
– I started my new routine two days ago, and now I am back home in my little cabin.

I have been assigned three helpers in the kitchen, all Slinkers, and my main job has been to cook food for freezing and to train my helpers to pull food from the freezer and get it ready for the table.

The dining room manager gave me twenty place settings of the best of our china, and I have that at the castle now. I also have some sterling silver and some very nice crystal, contributed by the dozen or so dining units here. I don’t think the Monarchs have the best of everything, but their service is as nice as anybody else’s.