Vanilla Salt (30 page)

Roda el Món is in darkness when Annette gets back, and Àlex’s car isn’t in the garage. So much the better. She doesn’t feel like finding him there and having to confront him, although she knows that she’ll have to sooner or later. She’s upset and can’t get Carol’s words out of her head. The restaurant will be opening in a couple of hours, and she has to make a couple of cakes. If she concentrates and works fast, everything will be ready when the customers arrive. Actually, there are no reservations, even though it’s Friday, usually a busy night.

She gets the ingredients and utensils ready, but can’t find the beaters from the hand mixer. She looks everywhere, opening all the drawers… but what on earth is this? A transparent envelope with the remains of some bluish powder in it. She’s never seen this before. She picks it up and hides it in her pocket just as she hears Àlex’s car arriving. Her heart is thumping loudly, tolling like an old church bell. It’s amazing she can hear anything else.

He comes inside and puts on his apron without as much as saying hello to Annette. He goes into the cold room and reappears with about ten onions bundled in his apron. He gets a chopping board, spreads a damp cloth over it, tucks it in underneath to make sure it doesn’t move, picks up a knife and starts chopping them. Annette knows this will take almost an hour, and that he’s doing it because something is bothering him, filling him with sadness.

Meanwhile she breaks eggs into a bowl, adds sugar and beats the mixture well, watching Àlex out of the corner of her eye. She sees tears pouring down his cheeks and, for some inexplicable reason, she feels sorry for this bastard who’s trying to destroy her – has destroyed her in fact. Two men have ruined her life with poison. Now she’s crying too.

Nobody has come for dinner. Àlex has spent almost the whole evening chopping onions and Annette has made cakes. She’s increasingly convinced that Carol’s story is true, and there’s no doubt that Àlex is acting very strangely, as if he’s guilty of something.

Annette can’t sleep, so she spends almost the whole night at her computer reading the latest reports on Roda el Món, as well as seeing what the bloggers are saying. Everyone’s talking about the poisoning. It’s terribly depressing, because they all mention both their names. They’ve been judged and sentenced, and she has no idea how to redeem the situation. Carol’s words are still ringing in her ears: “I think that if you get rid of him, we can start again from square one. I’ll organize a couple of interviews for you in the mainstream newspapers and TV programmes.”

She goes down to the kitchen before sunrise, makes herself a cup of tea and, with the sole aim of ridding herself of this obsessive mulling over everything, she decides to make some cornbread, just like she used to do for her girlfriends in Quebec. They came to have it for breakfast, as they loved the taste of a good cornbread sandwich with cottage cheese. They would chat away and laugh, without a care in the world because they were all from well-to-do families and never missed a wink of sleep, unless they were fretting over what to wear to the opening of some art show or other. They said they wanted to eat cornbread because the cob was a great metaphor for their tight little group. They always giggled at the witticism.

What are her old friends doing now? She misses them. They’ve lost a member of the group – Annette – but she’s sure that their conversation is the same, still naughty and racy in her absence. She and Àlex are two lost kernels of a cob that was once strong and whole. Life brought them together and the need for company united them, but the only thing they have in common is the wish to be left alone, which is hardly a strong bond.

We are social animals, but excessive dependence on a group weakens us. Annette tells herself she has to be strong, has to learn to live alone, as this is the last option open to her. She must cling to solitude like a drowning sailor clings to a bit of flotsam. She is that drowning sailor, lost in the immensity of the world, about to go under… swallowed up in the hatred and envy of the human beings around her.

“The smell of bread woke me up,” says Àlex, standing in the kitchen doorway.

“We no open today, because I receive email from Health Department. They send inspector to discover why journalists sick. I make cornbread. You want breakfast?”

“No, I’m not hungry, and I don’t eat maize.”

“You so chic you no can to eat humble thing like is corn?”

Àlex makes himself a cup of coffee, talking to Annette with his back turned to her. “I don’t think anything. You know I don’t eat that kind of stuff, and you also know why. Don’t push me. I’m not in a very good mood and have no wish to try to decipher the hidden meanings in your enigmatic words.”

“The Indian people in the Americas they worship the maize. It the basic part of diet.” Annette is teaching again. “It result from many years experiments and study, one of first crops where they use genetic selection, which mean the people that they live in this territory no primitive, but they have the high level of the culture. They never eat
maize alone, but put with it meat, legume, vegetable and fish, so they get balance of diet.

“Spanish people they no like maize, and they say it food for poor people, like what happen with big part of food from New World. The poor people they eat it alone, like also they do with wheat, but no can to eat more things with it, so it insufficient. The wheat it have gluten that is protein, and vitamins also, but the maize it have only carbohydrates, so the poor people they get sick and the rich people say it no good for to eat because it make sick the poor people.

“Fifty years the maize take for to arrive to Germany, and there the famous artist Hans Burgkmair he make it immortal with woodcut print, which make the rich German class they get interest and start to eat it. It very strange that simple thing can to change perception of all the social class, but it happen like this today also.” Annette muses aloud on the culture of food as she makes a cornbread sandwich with slices of tomato, cottage cheese, a few kernels of fried corn, a gherkin and some leek mayonnaise.

“I haven’t eaten for three days. Looks like I’ll have to force myself to accept your sandwich. Thank you.” Àlex’s tone and expression are blank.

Annette glances at him as he grudgingly eats her sandwich. He looks like a wounded animal, vulnerable, sad, hurt and broken. He couldn’t have poisoned the food. Not Àlex. But why did Carol accuse him? Maybe pride, envy or jealousy led him in a fit of fury to poison the journalists, but if that’s the case, why is he behaving so oddly now? He’s hardly said a word these last two days. When he’s worried about something he resorts to sarcasm; when angry he turns to insults; when sad he starts drinking and eventually tells her why. But he never goes mute. Annette doesn’t understand it and she’s suspicious.

Àlex finishes the sandwich and leaves, saying that, since they’re closed today, he’ll make the most of the time as he has a few things to see to.

*  *  *

It’s late. The Health Department inspectors are leaving Roda el Món. They’ve spent ages checking the cold rooms, the kitchen and also the toilets. Annette helped them as much as possible and showed them the little packet of blue power, as she, more than anyone else, wants to know the cause of the poisoning. Rat poison, they conclude. In certain doses it can cause intestinal problems in humans. Annette is increasingly bewildered. They’ve never bought rat poison or any other pest-control product, because they employ a company to look after the health and hygiene aspects of the business. So what was a bag of rat poison doing in the drawer with the spoons? Although she is disconcerted, Annette starts joining up the dots and seeing a pattern and connections emerge.

Àlex comes back quite late that night. Annette is in her room, still awake. As soon as she hears the front door squeak she runs downstairs. She can’t wait a moment longer to find out what really happened. Àlex is sitting at the kitchen with a beer in his hand.

“Àlex, I must to speak with you.”

“You want a beer? It’s been a bad day. I don’t want to do anything, but if you like we can go to my room and listen to some music.” His eyes are red and his voice slurred. He’s very drunk.

“No, I no want the beer and no go to your room. You drink enough the alcohol.”

She joins him at the table, serious and severe. “I arrive to point. The journalists no suffer upset from food. Someone
poison
them. You understand? This deliberate. It seem you have relation with this.”

“What are you saying?”

“I say that, if I look at all people who make the party, you from this win most. We know you do it.”

“‘We’? Who knows this? You and who else? Who’s behind this stupid accusation?” He’s very nettled now, with angry, red, swelling veins standing out in his neck. “What proof do you have? I’ve never heard anything
so ridiculous. What possible interest could I have? Professional suicide maybe? You’re crazy.”

Annette takes the packet of blue powder from her apron pocket and throws it on the table.

“I find the rat poison in drawer with spoons. We no buy this never and no use it. I open this drawer every day for making the cakes. It no was there before party. The symptoms they suffer the journalists they the same as give the rat poison. I cannot know why you do this, but I know you are speaking lies to me all the time.”

“I haven’t lied to you! I haven’t poisoned anyone. I see Carol’s tentacles behind all this, because she was the one. It was this bloody woman who poisoned the journalists.”

“I no believe you!” Annette retorts angrily. “Why she want to poison the colleagues? What is good it make for her?”

“She didn’t want to hurt the journalists, but was aiming at me and, in particular, she wanted to destroy our love. I can’t believe you don’t see this. This woman is an evil fucking bitch. She gets pleasure out of being malicious and harming people and, more than anything else, she loves her own power of destruction. And she wants you. She wants to have you totally in her thrall. You’re a pushover for her, especially as she knows how desperate you are.”

“This no is true,” she protests. “She no need be so extreme for to get what she want. Carol no do this. You manipuler. She no have access to kitchen, and now there is the proof of crime, the rat poison.”

Annette doesn’t know what to think. Both versions are incoherent and seem implausible. And both suggest sick minds at work.

“Think what you like, girl. You’ve been in bed with both her and me. Maybe you’re the crazy one. I didn’t put poison in the watercress soup.”

“It was you, Àlex! I no sure for a moment, but you just betray you because how you know poison in watercress soup? You sick, you murder
and I have fear. I no want you here. This restaurant it belong to me now and I want make it good again. I will do this, but I no want you here.”

“Don’t worry. I’m leaving. Not because you’re making me leave, but because you don’t believe me. Your lack of trust in me is the worst poison you could ever have fed me. I’m very sad to be leaving, because I love you, Annette. You’re the only person who makes me believe in life and you’re all I have in my life.”

Annette watches Àlex closing the restaurant door. He has a small bag in his hand, far too small for his music and film collection.

Annette has been running Roda el Món by herself for four weeks. Each week has brought a new cook and each cook has brought new problems. Carol carries on as if she’s the owner and is in her element. Graça gets ticked off because her earrings are too big; the suppliers get ticked off because she considers that their products are not good enough for a first-rate restaurant like this; Eric gets ticked off because she can’t stand his standard vocabulary of “hey man”, “cool”, “awesome” and “dork”. She berates the chefs until they walk out and takes Annette to task because she’s always too tired at night to “reward” her for all the effort she’s so unselfishly putting into the restaurant.

The four chefs have left, not only because of Carol’s tongue-lashings but also because they consider that Roda el Món is far too humble for a place that aspires to
cuisine d’auteur
. Annette can’t stand this stupid way of thinking and is fed up with Carol. The suppliers’ bills are rising with the new, increasingly exquisite products they’re bringing day after day. She has to put the prices up and the customers soon voice their complaints.

“Annette, these tomatoes are excellent, but not worth the ten euros you’ve charged me for them. I’ve never paid so much in all the time I’ve
been coming here,” complains an executive from one of the nearby factories who often comes for lunch.

“Excuse me, miss,” one of the summer holidaymakers complains, “I asked for a fillet of the ‘fresh fish of the day’, but you’ve charged me for the whole fish!”

The solitary customer has come for lunch today. He’s not the only one who eats alone, but his watchfulness and his questions always put her on edge. She now knows he’s not a Michelin Guide inspector, but that’s the whole extent of her knowledge. It’s not that he seems particularly interesting, but the other customers who eat alone always end up talking about their work, where they come from, their families…

A person who eats alone isn’t necessarily a loner, but usually someone who is circumstantially lonely, which means he or she wants to speak, begin a conversation with the owner which, while usually consisting of the most trivial chitchat, does give some idea of the person sitting at the table. The mysterious “solitary” customer, however, is quite another story. This man, the “loner” as Annette calls him, is skilled at extracting information, while never revealing the slightest detail about himself.

“How are things, Annette? Have you recovered from the problem with the journalists? That must have been tough. Are you coping OK? Has that ever happened to you before?”

“Not exactly like this.” She is sincere with him. “But life it is full of surprises and they not all good. A person no can use always what she learn from experiences that they happen before.”

“You’re a philosopher. So are you saying you had a similar experience before this, but you can’t use what you learnt to sort out the new problem?”