The Hundred-Foot Journey (30 page)

“Mehtab, please. I am very tired. Don’t get me riled up before I go to bed.”

She sucked pensively on her lower lip for a few minutes, but I could tell she was in one of her pugilistic moods. The next thing she said was, “And what happened to that Isabelle? Why she doesn’t ring anymore?”

“We broke up.”

“Aiiieee. You dumped her. You are like a teenager, Hassan.”

“I am going to bed, Mehtab. Good night.”

Of course, my sister had gotten under my skin—it was her comment we’d soon be selling bhelpuri at the side of the road that did me in—and I tossed and turned that night. Somewhere in the middle of the blackness I flashed to a trip I had made just the month before, to a greenfield site outside Paris. One of my poultry suppliers had opened a new factory, and, very proud of his state-of-the-art plant, he had invited me for a tour. It was the size of an airport hangar, smelled of hot feathers and guano, and inside this cavernous space I was greeted by chickens flying down a chute to a pen, where North Africans in hairnets, white coats, and rubber boots stood waiting. The men, burly but oddly graceful, grabbed the squawking birds by their scaly legs and rhythmically slotted them, one by one and upside down, into clips moving along a conveyor belt overhead, a magic carpet heading straight to a black flap in the wall.

Pulled through the opening in the wall, the chickens—dangling upside down, their hearts pounding, wattles trembling—were plunged into a dark and warm and confined space, their automated journey lit softly by a soothing purple tube light overhead. The birds were instantly calmed, their shrieking wing-flap suddenly reduced to a cluck now and then. The belt headed—smoothly, inexorably—up to another flap. As the belt turned the corner, the silent birds’ dangling heads brushed against an innocent-looking wire. The electric jolt to the head instantly stunned them. Then another wire, again, as they went through the last flap.

So they never saw the rotating blade, like an electric can opener, coming in to slit their throats, or heard their spurting blood hit the steel walls. They never saw the butcher leaning in, with his steel-gloved hand, knife at the ready, slitting further any chicken neck not completely opened up, the slop trays underneath filling up with tapping fluids. But I did. And I saw how the dead birds continued on their automated journey into a block-long metal box, where they were dragged through boiling water to loosen feathers and where rollers peeled off their white coats, so they emerged pink and naked and ready for the rows of men and women sitting at their posts, ready to quarter and package and ship.

This was the vision that visited, in that restless space between sleeping and waking, and it greatly soothed me. For this vision of the chickens heading to slaughter reminded me that there are many points in life when we cannot see what awaits us around the corner, and it is precisely at such times, when our path forward is unclear, that we must bravely keep our nerve, resolutely putting one foot before the other as we march blindly into the dark.

And it was just before I fell asleep that I remembered one of Uncle Mayur’s favorite expressions, often repeated as we walked, hand in hand, through the slums of Mumbai when I was a little boy. “Hassan, it is Allah who gives and takes away,” he liked to tell me, with a cheerful wobble of his head. “Always remember this: His will is only revealed at the right time.”

And so, finally, I arrive at the last pivotal event of those strange days. Following Claude’s dismissal, Jacques and I searched for a front-room replacement. We interviewed I don’t know how many prospects—a Welshwoman with a ring through her nose; an earnest Turk who seemed promising but spoke very poor French; a Frenchmen from Toulouse who looked superb on paper until we found out, during a background check, that he had been arrested three times for torching cars during student riots. In the end, we hired the half brother of Abdul, one of our best waiters, who promised he would take personal responsibility for his younger sibling.

It was toward the end of this wearisome process, late one afternoon, that Jacques stuck his head in my office to announce that there was a chef downstairs asking to see me personally.

I looked up from the stock sheets I was studying.

“What’s this? You know full well we don’t need another chef.”

“She says she used to work with you.”

“Where?”

“Le Saule Pleureur.”

I had not heard that name for some time, but hearing it again on Jacques’s lips was like a bolt of lightning. My heart began to pound.

“Send her up.”

I don’t mind admitting, in that peculiar mental state I was in, I was strangely frightened and half-expecting Madame Mallory to walk through the door.

But of course it was not the old woman.

“Margaret! What a wonderful surprise.”

She stood hesitantly at the door frame of my office, shy and retiring as she had always been, waiting for me to invite her in. I instantly came from behind my desk, we hugged and kissed, and I gently led my old culinary comrade and lover by the hand into the center of the room.

“I am so sorry to barge in on you like this, Hassan. I should have called.”

“Nonsense. We are old friends. Here. Sit. . . .What are you doing in Paris?”

Margaret Bonnier, in a fleur-de-lis dress and cardigan, calfskin Kelly bag at her shoulder, nervously fingered the crucifix around her neck, bringing it up to her lips, just as she had done so many years ago when Madame Mallory used to terrorize us. She was more matronly, of course; her hair was now bottle-blond. But through the thickening of age, she had somehow managed to hold on to something soft, and even through the marks of time I could see my old friend from long ago.

“I am looking for a job.”

“In Paris?”

“I married. The mechanic, Ernest Borchaud. Do you remember him?”

“Yes, I do. My brother Umar was mad about cars. Ernest and Umar, they used to work on engines together. Doing I know not what.”

She smiled. “Ernest owns the Mercedes and Fiat dealerships now. We have two children together. A boy and girl. The girl, Chantal, she is eight. Alain, he is just six.”

“That’s marvelous. Congratulations.”

“Ernest and I divorced. The papers came through two months ago.”

“Oh,” I said. “I am sorry.”

“The children and I, we have moved to Paris. I have a sister here. We all needed the change.”

“Yes, I understand.”

She looked at me, steadylike. “Perhaps, it is something I should have done long ago. Moved to Paris.”

I did not say a thing.

“Of course, the city is so expensive.”

“Yes, it is.”

Margaret looked out the window for a moment, gathering herself, before turning her eyes back on me. “Forgive me for being so bold,” she said, in a voice so battered of its self-confidence, only a whisper came out. “But . . . do you need a sous chef? I will work any position. Hot kitchen. Cold kitchen. Desserts.”

“No, I am afraid not. I am sorry. I cannot afford to take on more staff.”

“Oh,” she said.

Margaret looked around the office in a panic, trying to figure out what she should do next. Her shoulders, I noticed, were tensed and bunched under her dress, but then abruptly dropped in defeat. And then she was standing to say good-bye, clutching her Kelly bag for balance. She smiled, but her lip was trembling a little.

“I am sorry to have troubled you, Hassan. I hope you won’t hold it against me. But you see, you are the only restaurateur I know in Paris, and I didn’t know whom else I could—”

“Sit.”

She looked at me like a frightened girl, her crucifix dangling from between her lips.

I pointed at the seat. “Nah?”

Margaret sank back into her chair.

I picked up the phone and called Chef Piquot.

“Bonjour, André . . . Hassan ici
. . . . Tell me, did you fill that cold-kitchen opening? . . . He didn’t work out. . . . Yes. Yes. I know. Terrible, the way they carry on these days. Such prima donnas. . . . But you know, it’s excellent news the fellow didn’t work out because I have the perfect candidate for you. . . . Yes. Yes. Not to worry. I worked with her at Le Saule Pleureur. First-rate sous chef. Hardworking. Very experienced. I tell you, my friend, you will be thanking me. . . . No, I don’t think so. She’s just moved to Paris. . . . I will send her right over.”

When I put the phone down I discovered, much to my horror, Margaret was not joyous that I had found her a position at Montparnasse, but was sobbing into a tissue, unable to talk. I did not know what to do, where to look, as the office filled with her weeping. But then, still shaking with emotion, head still down, Margaret’s left hand reached out across the table, fingers blindly searching the air for contact.

And that’s when I understood she had had a very hard time.

That this was the best she could do—for the moment.

So I reached over with my right hand and we silently met halfway.

March’s feeble sun retreated behind the city’s rooftop guttering. It was that time of day when the restaurant was brooding in its dismal place, that strange twilight between matinee and evening’s curtain call. The returning members of the staff were exhausted and snappish after the two-hour break, unsure whether they could once again pull themselves together for the late performance. And the dining room itself, so lively in the bright lights of the evening performance a few hours hence, appeared shopworn through the stale haze left over from lunch. It was difficult not to become despondent. Late winter shivered in the folds of the velvet drape; a bread roll, like a dead beetle, lay on its back under a chair.

I was in the kitchen as usual, sweating onions and garlic in a skillet, sliding into that trance that overtakes me when I cook. But for some reason, on this dark March evening I did not surrender myself completely, but hovered at the edge, halfway between here and there, as if I knew something momentous was about to occur.

Through the kitchen’s swinging doors—as I shook the spitting skillet—I heard the returning waiters stamping their feet in the hall. I heard the Hoover’s drone and the banging of the espresso machine as it was knocked free of old grounds by an apprentice. Bit by bit, din and duties stepped into the cold space that had occupied the restaurant just moments before: knives were sharpened, fresh linen was snapped, we heard the industrious back-and-forth of the accountant’s printer coming from upstairs. And before long, the gloom was gone.

France Soir,
the evening paper, came roughly through the letter flap, clapping to the mat. It was an old habit that Jacques stubbornly would not part with, even in the digital age, and he picked the paper up and took it to the back table where his front-room staff was sitting down to a quick dinner of grilled
andouillettes
before the evening service began.

Newspaper under his arm, Jacques took his seat in the back, among the others. He helped himself to a portion of the chitterlings with rice, and tomato salad, reading the paper as he ate. But suddenly there was this odd gurgling in the back of Jacques’ throat and he violently dropped his fork. Before the others could find out what was the matter, however, he was up on his feet, through the door, and dashing across the dining room. And the scoundrels, enjoying nothing more than a good fight, jumped up and ran after him, hoping to witness what was looking like a first-rate row.

That was how they arrived in the kitchen: out of breath, highly agitated, slamming through the swinging doors. We in the kitchen were innocently shelling peas and dicing shallots and trimming fat, but now we froze in midchop and looked carefully about us as Jacques thrashed the air with the evening paper and bellowed.

I thought, Oh, hell, not again—for the previous night Jacques and Serge almost came to blows, as each had blamed the other for a botched order. And from the corner of my eye I could see Serge gripping the end of a lamb joint like it was a club, quite prepared to wallop Jacques or any other member of the front staff foolish enough to provoke him. I was, I don’t mind admitting it, utterly exhausted and at the end of my strength; I could not take another fiery confrontation between staff members.

“Maître! Maître!”

Jacques accusingly pointed the rolled-up newspaper at me.

“The third star! Michelin
has just given you the third star!”

The first roars of excitement subsided and the staff stood three-deep around the butcher block, clinging to my every syllable as I read aloud the five-paragraph story. It was all about who was up and who was down. And then it came—the half sentence—informing
le tout Paris
Le Chien Méchant was among just two establishments in all France elevated to the third star.

I was stunned, numb, while a kind of Bastille Day raged all around me.

The staff banged pots and yelled and leaped about the burners. Jacques and Serge were in each other’s arms, almost like lovers in a passionate embrace, and there were tears and back-clapping and hoots of joy, all followed by more rounds of the most heartfelt handshakes.

And what was I thinking?

I cannot tell you. Not rightly.

My emotions were stirred up. Jumbled. Bittersweet, you know.

The excited staff stood in a line—the black jackets of the front room and the whites of the kitchen, like chess pieces lined up in a row—each wanting to personally congratulate me. But I was not warm, not effusive in my thanks. It might even have appeared as if I didn’t care as I observed all this joy unfolding about me from a great distance.

But consider: only twenty-eight restaurants in all France had three stars, and my journey to this point had been so long and arduous that I could not rightly believe it had finally arrived. Or, at least, I could not believe it simply on the basis of a half sentence in a mass-market evening paper. And Suzanne, near the end of the line, appeared to read my mind, for she suddenly said, ‘What if the reporter got it wrong?’

“Merde,”
Serge yelled from across the kitchen, angrily pointing at her with a wooden spoon. “What is it with you, Suzanne? Always something bad to say.”