Vanilla Salt (9 page)

“I can’t ask her. Annette’s not working here now. She got upset. She was interfering too much in my work and I told her so. I don’t think she liked hearing this, even though I was well within my rights. She packed her bag and left, more than a week ago. Tough luck for her and I told her so.”

“Come on Àlex, I know you. Are you trying to tell me you told her patiently and clearly what the problem was?”

“Well, in the kitchen words take on a different tone. It’s different from the world you move in, where everything’s so watered down. Here it’s about straight talking, no beating about the bush. This is because we work with knives. We leave the fancy words for all the PhDs and BAs.”

“I see. So you did a hatchet job, right? You didn’t mince your words and spewed it all out. Your idea of ‘no beating about the bush’ means swearing and insults. Well done, Àlex, you’ve gone and lost a real gem. For your information, Annette’s a highly cultivated, well-educated
woman who’s done everything possible to breathe some life into the restaurant. She was sleeping very little because she spent hours working for you on Facebook. She wrote wonderful things about your cooking, posted some beautiful photos, responded to the comments of visitors on the social network and did everything she could to entice people to come and eat at Antic Món. Anyone else would have left you high and dry after not being paid the first month’s wages. But she, who’s committed to the project and from a very good family, by the way – which anyone can see from a mile away – didn’t even mention it. Have it your own way, but I recommend that you go and find her and get her back.”

“Listen here, you bloody keyboard-and-pixels wuss, I’m fed up with your advice, and everyone else’s for that matter. All you wankers, constantly banging on about what I have to do or undo! Well, guess what, now I’m going to eat a
llonganissa
sandwich because I feel like some lovely cured-pork sausage, and I’ll shit it out when I bloody well feel like it. Get it? I pay a high price for my freedom and I’m going to use it however I damn well like. Right now I’m going to use it to tell you that I hope that this virtual world you inhabit will suck you up and turn you into a hologram, so you can skulk around like a soul in purgatory. Now fuck off.”

“I’m not going to give you any more advice,” Òscar says. “But I’m sorry that you’ve gone and trampled all over a fantastic woman like Annette. And I’m also sorry that, once again, you’re going to be more alone than an anchovy in a banana split. Bye-bye. Have it your own way!”

Antic Món opens its doors at one thirty sharp. Actually, this is in a manner of speaking, because in order to cross the threshold, customers must ring the doorbell, whereupon a helpful member of staff – and, now, none other than Àlex himself, as the only staff member – welcomes them as if they were guests at the chef’s home.

This was Àlex’s wish. He wanted a doorbell at the entrance of Antic Món to give the sensation of its being a private home, while at the same time the staff would show the courtesy of opening the door for the customer. He thought it an elegant touch. Now, when he’s got no one to help him, the damn bell’s God’s gift to Àlex, because he can keep working in the kitchen or anywhere else, right up to the moment when his customers arrive.

The doorbell rings. It’s a group that’s reserved a table for three. They look at him and one of them whispers, “This must be Àlex Graupera, the chef himself.”

“Good afternoon. Come in. Have you booked a table?”

Why the hell has he asked that? As if it made any difference! If they’re the ones for the only table written down as reserved in the book, that’s great and, if they’re three passers-by, so much the better! There’s no risk of overbooking.

“Yes, we have a table for three reserved in the name of Armengol.”

“Would you like this table?”

Àlex realizes that he’s opened the door in his white chef’s jacket, which is spattered with grease stains. Worse, he hasn’t shaved today. He looks like a tramp. He’s got to smarten up. He can’t wait on people looking like this. But the fact is he simply can’t manage everything.

“Would you mind if we had that one over there on the right? Last time we were here we sat at that table and we have very good memories of it.”

Àlex doesn’t answer. He merely nods and jerks his chin in the general direction of the table so they can go and sit down.

“Here’s the menu, and the wine list too.”

“Menu?” asks the younger of the two girls. “We thought you offered a taster menu with wines to match. That’s what we had last time, which was a huge surprise. And what about Annette and Carol, aren’t they here? They looked after us so well. They’re such great cooks and were so friendly! We’d like to see them again today, if that’s possible.”

“Annette’s not working here any more, and Carol only cooked here once and won’t be doing it again. The kitchen and restaurant are mine. I’ve never offered a tasting menu. On that occasion, they offered it because I wasn’t here and they couldn’t think of anything better to do. Here you have an à-la-carte menu. Choose the dishes that appeal to you most. They’re all excellent.”

“What a drag having to choose!” protests the older girl once Àlex is out of earshot. “That chef isn’t very nice. What a shame that Annette’s not working here now. Shall we go?”

They think about it for a while, but end up giving a vote of confidence to the chef. They’ll stay and order one dish each.

They’ve eaten very well, but there haven’t been any surprises like the last time and it’s been nowhere near as amusing. The chef is run off his feet, because he has to look after a couple of other tables as well. A grand total of eleven people. Àlex can’t look after his customers properly and practically throws the plates on the tables. He’s rushing all over the place and, to cap it all, the phone hasn’t stopped: bookings, suppliers, people offering information and a mobile-phone salesman who doesn’t even know what advantages he was supposed to be offering. Àlex doesn’t shove the phone down his auditory canal, as he’s about a thousand kilometres away, but he’d love to give him half a kilo of a new kind of ear decoration.

When they finish their meal, the three friends call Àlex over. “We’ve eaten very well. Is cumin the secret ingredient of the black-sausage lasagne?” the young man asks.

“Yes, there’s cumin in it, but that’s no secret.”

“Well we want to know if cumin is the ingredient so we can get our free Caol Ila, as promised. And since we’ve already guessed two secret ingredients, we’d like our free dessert. Warm fondant chocolate cake, please.” The young man insists.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I understand it’s some rumour on Facebook,” Àlex says, his face as sour as vinegar – stale vinegar, that is.

“Man, I wouldn’t call it ‘some rumour on Facebook’. It’s on the official Friends of Antic Món page. We’re among the very first followers, and that’s how we got to know about the restaurant. It’s been our favourite ever since and we’ve recommended it to all our friends. By the way, the page says that if you return to the restaurant within a month you also get a free glass of cava. To recap: you owe us three shots of Caol Ila, our dessert and three glasses of cava.”

Àlex massages his chin, trying to curb the impulses he’s feeling in his arms. He’d love to indulge in a bit of assault and battery.

“Let’s see now… I think it’s all very well that you’ve played, you’ve won and you’re owed after playing, but I don’t know what game this is, and I don’t know anything about this page, and I don’t know what kind of imbecility this social-network stuff is. This is a serious restaurant, not a bloody Christmas raffle. Here you pay for things, because everything is of the highest quality. If you want two for the price of one, go and check out the pre-packaged stuff in the supermarket. So here you are. This is the bill. What if I’d pestered the great Yves Thuriès with all this drivel when I went to the fabulous Le Grand Écuyer! I would have been thrown out on my arse.”

The other diners are watching Àlex, whose face has gone bright red, and they can hear how boorish he’s being. They can’t believe their eyes and ears. They don’t dare to say a word, but stare at their plates in case he turns on them as well.

All the customers have left. Àlex cleans up the dining room, puts on the dishwasher, sets the tables, sweeps up and cleans the toilets.

An hour later, when he’s finished, he returns to his paradise: the kitchen. Before checking to see that he’s got everything he needs for the
next menu, he decides to cook a dish just for himself. In the freezer he finds some foie gras slices brought by some supplier from Périgord for him to taste, this delectable duck liver he’s had stowed away for some great occasion. Well, today’s the great occasion.

Àlex has had enough. Everything’s so difficult. He’s had enough of customers who think being coddled is more important than the food they’re served. He’s had enough of suppliers who won’t wait to be paid. He’s had enough of staff walking out on him. He’s had enough of waiting tables. He’s had enough of ironing chef’s jackets. He’s had enough of devoting heart and soul to cooking.

He must decide. Maybe it’s time to close Antic Món and invest his efforts in some other job that doesn’t involve so many problems, or even hire himself out as a chef to some other restaurant. Then, when he’s finished the day’s work, he can get changed and go home. That’s it. Maybe Can Bret needs a chef… They’re full up and short-staffed. Weekends perhaps?

He could also rent out Antic Món. In fact, the house belongs to him, well, to the bank, because he’s got a mortgage that will keep him enslaved for the rest of his life. Now that he’s thinking about that… bloody hell, he’s received a couple of letters from the bank and they’ve been lying around unopened for days. Bad news, for sure.

Expecting the worst, he goes over to the cash-register desk, finds them and slits them open with a knife. One is a bank statement showing that the restaurant’s in the red, because some heartless supplier has taken out what Àlex owed. For the last couple of months none of the money the restaurant’s earned has been paid into the account, which is now inert. He’s not paying it in because there’s no need. As soon as it hits the cash register it leaves again because he has to spend it in the supermarket. The money doesn’t have time to get to the bank.

He can’t make head or tail of the other letter. Reading it makes his head spin. He hasn’t understood anything, but can see it’s not good news.
He reads it again and works out that the property will be foreclosed unless he gets his mortgage and interest payments up to date. In a nutshell, they’re going to kick him out of the restaurant and seize his house.

Faced with such problems, the best thing he can do is tuck into some duck liver, wash it down with some Kripta, Catalonia’s best cava, and forget about everything else. Today he’s going to give himself a party. Just for him. We’re born and we die alone, and that’s life’s only truth. He peels a few turnips and puts them on to boil. “Baby love, my baby love.” He adores Annie Philippe and that oh-so-Sixties style of hers. He was very young, but he was a big fan and he’s still got his old LP. He mashes the turnips in a little of the water they’ve been boiled in. “
Je ne pourrai pas deux fois, aimer de cet amour là
.” He puts a frying pan on a low flame and makes the sauce with orange juice and port, rendering it down till it’s thick and syrupy. “
Pour que ton cœur efface tout?
” He places another pan over high heat and sears the slices of foie gras and, that done, he takes some slices of brioche and places them in the pan to soak up all the flavours of the duck. “
Si ton amour s’endort, si ton sourire n’est plus pour moi?
”

He then sets it out beautifully on a dish: the slices of brioche, the duck liver, the turnip purée and the orange sauce, but now, all of a sudden, he doesn’t feel like eating it, or at least he doesn’t want to eat it by himself.

He picks up the phone, the landline. He hasn’t surrendered to the tyranny of the mobile phone, partly because he doesn’t need one. He rarely leaves the restaurant, so he can almost always take a call. He phones Frank Gabo. It’s ages since he’s spoken to him, in fact not since he stopped supplying fish or, to be precise, since he stopped supplying it
officially
. He wants to thank him for all the boxes he’s been leaving, day after day, at the door of Antic Món, and maybe Frank will happen to know somebody who can help him out, a few hours a week. Frank delivers to a lot of chefs and maîtres. He might even know somebody who’d want to buy Antic Món.

“Frank, my friend, are you anywhere near here?”

“Where’s here? Your place? Bigues i Riells?”

“I’ll cut to the chase: do you want to come and eat some duck liver that’s as tender as a nun’s tit, right now?”

“Now? And no nuns, please, I’m a Muslim.”

“That’s precisely why I’m not offering pork, you stupid bastard. It’s now or never. Up to you.”

Frank’s worried. Àlex might have found out that Annette’s taken refuge with his family and now wants to entice him into the kitchen. He’ll make him eat heaven-knows-what, and once he’s got him where he wants, he’ll run him through with three of his biggest knives and then throw him in his soup pot for a bit of flavour and colour. Frank knows how Àlex’s mind works…

Yet the hard-boiled truth is that he feels desperately sorry for Àlex. He has no friends. The fact that he’s called him to come and share one of his most delicious dishes, a five-star treat, is a sure sign that he’s more alone than a luxury restaurant’s last lobster after a Wall Street crash.

The very idea of loneliness is more than Frank can stand. He’s from a country where most houses have more than one family under their roofs, and people are constantly coming in without knocking and leaving when they’re ready. The door is never closed and you can always find somebody to talk to or share a sunset with.

When he came to Catalonia, even though he was just a small child, he was shocked to see how people locked themselves away at home, slamming the door behind them, and how you needed a key or a doorbell if you wanted to see somebody. If it had only been a question of keys and doorbells, it wouldn’t have been so bad. The worst thing, he discovered as a little boy, was how unapproachable Europeans were. If you’re going to drag a “Good morning” out of them, or exchange just a couple of formal words, you have to be a “friend” and that’s difficult, really difficult.