Lights Out in Wonderland

by DBC Pierre

  Moments later, a damp cry.

  Giant Panda Paw with Borlotti Beans

  & Baby Root Vegetables

  on Potato Skordalia

  INGREDIENTS FOR PANDA

  250–300g of panda wrist, trimmed

  and tipped with arm and claw

  joints removed

  50g mirepoix (onion, celery,

  and carrot)

  bouquet garni

  420g borlotti beans, blanched and

  peeled

  baby carrot, turnip, and parsnip

  chopped Italian parsley

  INGREDIENTS FOR SKORDALIA

  1kg Pontiac potatoes

  7 peeled garlic cloves

  sea salt

  125ml cream

  25g butter

  25ml olive oil

  Boil all the solid skordalia ingredients until soft, then purée adding heated cream, butter, and olive oil. Season with salt to taste.

  Season and rub panda wrist sections with oil, then sauté until brown and leave to rest. Add the mirepoix to a braising pan and color lightly, placing the wrists on top. Add bouquet garni and cover with cold water, sealing the pan and bringing to a boil. Move the pan into an oven and bake for 40 minutes at 180°C, checking progress, turning occasionally and cooking until tender. Cool and remove the meat, strain the liquid through a fine strainer, and reserve.

  To serve, blanch the borlotti beans and baby vegetables in reserved liquor, reheat the wrist meat, and place with beans and vegetables onto the skordalia. Finish the remaining broth with olive oil and parsley, and spoon over meat.

  SERVES 7. BON APPÉTIT!

  TEN-THIRTY

  The air outside has grown crisp, streetlamps show it to be grainy with haze. Activity has quietened around the building, even the bistro trailer pumps softer beats, while the protesters, still milling near the entrance, seem to be thinking of home. Moving past the trailers, I finally see Gottfried near the terminal.

  “A little problem,” he says. “Is there a turtle inside? Because Anna already reported it to a policeman. She’s there, down past the vans, crying her heart out.”

  “Hm—I saw it arrive. Is the policeman responding?”

  “He’s not, your men are lucky, because there are protesters and other issues to deal with. Animal cruelty is an unexpected complaint today, he probably thinks she’s crazy.” Gottfried wheezes for a moment after his walk, looking around. When he faces me again his gaze is heavy. “I have to say—these are some swine you unleashed on our place. These people are devouring everything. Devouring me, Anna, you, your friends, and all the world around. We’re on that table being eaten tonight, and they’re not even chewing but gulping us down. Thank God I moved Gerd out to the Piratenburg.”

  I’m distracted by the whoosh and pop of a Roman candle in the monumental garden, followed by a pair of the Basque’s foot soldiers charging through trees to stop the culprits. I find myself wondering why they would want to stop such innocent celebration, which must also serve them as a cover—and after running a few options through my mind an answer starts to dawn that makes me tingle, then shudder.

  An end-play.

  I ask Gottfried to meet me by the stairwell entrance at eleven, just before the tortoise is brought up to the kitchens.

  With this, moving along the side of the building I search all the entrance porches for signs of life—and in one of them finally see a darker shape. Someone hunched almost double against the building, twenty meters away.

  I take a step closer. The figure slowly stands.

  A compact figure, arms loosely hung: Anna.

  I’m suddenly aware of the cape floating around me, and step under a lamp to show myself. She waits there, gazing back.

  And after a moment—just turns and walks away.

  Confit of Koala Leg

  with Lemon Saffron Chutney

  Followed by a Digestive Elixir of Infants’ Tears

  INGREDIENTS FOR KOALA

  7 whole koala legs

  For glaze:

  2 cloves of star anise

  2 inches of ginger

  1 cinnamon stick

  70ml maltose

  70ml light soy

  70ml balsamic vinegar

  a little orange peel

  1 whole clove

  For crust:

  100g salt

  100g Szechuan pepper

  INGREDIENTS FOR LEMON SAFFRON CHUTNEY

  3 large Meyer lemons

  50ml white wine vinegar

  ½ peeled cooking apple

  2 crushed cloves of garlic

  1 onion, peeled and minced

  1 pinch saffron threads

  1 tsp horseradish

  Boil all the glaze ingredients and reduce to a glaze. For the crust, heat a pan and roast the pepper until fragrant; add the salt, heat a little more, then cool. Rinse and dry the koalas, tying by the neck to allow air flow around the legs. Once dry, liberally sprinkle the legs with salt mixture and rest the marsupials for a minimum of 1 hour and a maximum of 4. Rinse off the salt under running water, and have a large pot ready with boiling water and a little ginger and spring onion. Blanch each koala leg for 30 seconds and remove. When dry, brush with the glaze and hang in a cool area for at least two days, repeating the glaze at least two or three more times. Finally, place the legs in a braising pan with a little mirepoix. Cook for two hours, covered, on 150 to 160ºC, then remove cover and cook for 1 more hour.

  For the chutney, zest lemons and reserve the zest before squeezing. Put the zest and juice into a large nonmetallic bowl with vinegar and 25ml water. Cover and leave overnight before emptying the contents into a stainless steel preserving pan. Add all remaining ingredients except sugar. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until fruits are tender, then add sugar and stir over heat until fully dissolved.

  To serve, add a koala leg to the center of each plate and dot with satellites of chutney. Follow the dish with a 7ml shot of healthy infants’ tears followed by 16ml of Ratzeputz liqueur.

  SERVES 7. BON APPÉTIT!

  TEN FORTY-FIVE

  Thomas joins me at the curtain. We reflect that sea-horse tails and oyster mussels are too delicate a snack for the current mood in the salon. Watching a sea-horse tail disappear up the willowy boy’s anus, Thomas makes a note to brief Didier for future events.

  Didier has left, and so has the other man. Only the shadowy forces remain.

  “Who was the man who came after the Basque?” I ask.

  “Pike,” he says. “You should’ve asked him the end of his story.”

  “Amazing. I don’t suppose they’ll be back?”

  “No. The Basque always runs away in the end. And the company here isn’t to their taste. It’s many years since Pike was in Europe, I bet they got changed and went to Curry 36 on Mehringdamm. They’ll be on the street with pommes and wurst. Didier loves to play the heavy Prussian on the street.”

  “I hate to ask if it’s an irony, while sea-horse tails and tiger are being served up here.”

  “No irony. It’s called class.” Thomas pulls back from the curtain as a blob of shit flies through. “These fuckers wouldn’t know.”

  The banquet has collapsed to the floor, Wonderland has become a writhing mass of cloth and flesh. All the room’s cushions and rugs have been gathered, with guests squirming like maggots, grunting and rasping, skin glistening over Persian designs, sexual organs like weeping faces and veined worms forming unrepeatable artworks in the manner of Des Esseintes’ jeweled turtle.

  A gazelle carcass lies on its side in the fountain. The nearest of its long, arched horns makes a breakwater against which a variety of flotsam bobs and whirls. Before I can list all the different things floating there, a guest lur
ches up and urinates long and hard into the wine. His frothy jet sends debris eddying over the horn.

  Another shadowy force crawls up and refills his goblet.

  The portly man lies against an arch on a pile of cushions. The willowy boy is naked on all fours over his face. The man slurps at him, mouth flashing red, tongue darting and jabbing. A maiden sits astride the man, impaled and rocking, sometimes reaching down to squeeze his half-flaccid member. Then a wail takes my attention, and I see another boy bent over the table, head laid flat on its side, buttocks stretched open, with a guest’s hairy arm making pistonlike thrusts behind him.

  Our elegant place has become a level of hell.

  A new girl passes into the salon before I can stop her. I feel sorry. She glows with good nature and whenever she smiles she gives a little shrug, a default to all the things a life might bring, which is just as well because it brings them all here. Her build is boyish, not quite plump, with proud neck and back, and candid brown eyes. As she purrs around I see an arm slowly emerge from under the table.

  She disappears with a thud.

  And a longing grows in me.

  To just get away.

  I’m about to turn when Thomas grips my arm:

  “Even the Basque never saw anything like it,” he hisses. “They’re just a breed of animal. I’m getting out of here with one of the wagons, these pigs can go to hell. But before I forget, the Basque said as a matter of thanks you should choose something from the kitchen before you go. Check the shelves, the produce is superb: truffles, chocolate, smoked fish—many good things. Also a box you might recognize from a restaurant in Tokyo—still sealed, technically in quarantine, with samples of a biological nature, and signed papers from the restaurant, of course, guaranteeing authenticity. And in fact I have a friend who’s a specimens courier—I think you even met him. So pick yourself something else from the shelf, let him return that one to Japan.”

  I feel a sweat of relief, my bones sag inside.

  “It’ll be there tomorrow night. Forensics are expecting it.”

  “And this was planned all along?”

  “My friend, my friend.” Thomas hugs me around the shoulder. “First of all, we hoped you would see that an excuse was needed to secure a specimen, one that didn’t seem like the Basque was gathering evidence for the case. The banquet will be known in certain circles and was the first legitimate opportunity to serve a fish. How were we to know it would be stolen from the trailer? So as to your question, no, this wasn’t planned—in fact it never happened. Remember?”

  We stare at each other, running our adventures through our minds. And I know without wondering that this will be the last time I see the dashing Thomas Georg Philip Frederick Florian von Brandenburg Stendal Saxe fuck-knows-even-what-else, who needs a business card about a meter long.

  As our gazes break apart—mine cloudy and sheepish, though perhaps with a new gleam, his like a bolt of lightning—we muse a moment on our limbos having touched this way.

  Because they did touch, this once.

  Then he steps back, clicks his heels, bows.

  And is gone.

  Caramelized Milk-Fed White Tiger Cub

  Steamed Silken Tofu and Eggplant with Mushrooms,

  Roast Garlic, Ginger, and Shallots

  in Soy Dressing

  Chiseled tiger-tooth toothpick

  INGREDIENTS

  1 milk-fed white tiger cub belly

  1 medium eggplant

  500ml of grape seed oil

  6 cloves garlic

  300g packet silken tofu

  3 tbsp mushroom soya

  2 tbsp shao hsing wine

  2 shallots, julienned, white part only

  3cm piece ginger, julienned

  2 tbsp peanut oil

  7 oyster mushrooms

  7 shiitake mushrooms

  fried shallots and coriander

  sprigs to garnish

  Reserve the tiger pelt with paws and tail for table decoration. Marinate the tiger belly for 24 hours with coriander seeds and shaved ginger, adding some palm sugar and ground white pepper to the marinade. Take care not to use too much sugar. Braise the tiger belly, covered with oil, for 6–8 hours. The slower it cooks, the better the result. Once cooked, it should be weighted to compress the belly flat. Cut the flattened belly into squares of between 180 and 220g. Make sure the belly is reheated skin-side down before serving, to allow the skin to crisp.

  For the silken tofu and eggplant, cut the eggplant into large cubes and salt for 20 minutes before washing and patting dry.

  Heat oil in a wok and add garlic, frying until golden. Remove the garlic and pat dry, then fry the eggplant until golden, also drying on a towel. Cut the tofu to the same size as the eggplant, taking care not to break when cutting. Place the eggplant and tofu in a heatproof container and drizzle with soy and shao hsing wine. Steam for 8 minutes until tofu is tender. Cook off the mushrooms separately and add to the dish at the end.

  To serve, place the silken tofu and eggplant in the center of each plate and perch tiger belly squares on top. Swaddle with mushrooms, and garnish with julienned vegetables. Finally, drizzle with soy mix and sprinkle with crispy shallots.

  SERVES 7. BON APPÉTIT!

  ELEVEN O'CLOCK

  The tortoise has withdrawn into his shell, leaving only his old man’s face peering out with its look of sadness, eyes slowly curling this way and that. It takes four men to haul him onto a goods trolley, at which two set off pushing him to the salon.

  “We’re late,” says one. “Just give them five minutes with him.”

  Making my way to the stairwell, I pass two messy nymphs beside the tracks, heads against the wall, smoking. The alarum lingers farther down, rocking to himself, studying the ground. I duck into the kiosk store, retrieve one of Gerd’s firecrackers, and climb the stairs to find Gottfried outside.

  “I saw the girl,” he says. “She knows you’re responsible for tonight in some way. She put the clues together herself, with only one deviation from fact—she doesn’t think it’s a situation spiraling out of your control. She thinks you let it happen. Perhaps you should find her and explain.”

  “Or perhaps,” I say, “we should just kill the spiral.”

  Gottfried follows me underground to the stairwell door, where I point out the waiting Frenchman with his gun.

  “Could you cover him? Keep him quiet?”

  Gottfried raises his brow, at which I open my hand to reveal the fuse end of the cracker. We look at each other and over a few moments, with his mouth slightly open, I see him compute the move to its end.

  “A big move,” he whispers. “End-play.”

  The tortoise waits on its trolley in a darker patch of tunnel a few yards short of the salon door, while porters get clearance from inside. The door is shut behind them. After a pause to scout up and down, Gottfried gives my arm a quick squeeze and ambles off towards the alarum. I watch until he draws near, then hurry to the salon door, hissing an apology to the tortoise as I pass. When I see Gottfried reach the Frenchman, I crouch in the salon’s doorframe and light the cracker.

  An almighty bang shocks the air. After a moment the doorway explodes with porters, maidens, and boys flailing into the tunnel. I flatten myself against the wall, hearing forces stumble through Wonderland:

  “Leave it, just run!” cries one. “Get out!”

  The bookkeeper jostles past, trying to gather his tray and scales, till Portly Guest flies into him at the door, naked but for a trouser leg, and knocks the tray with all its diamonds to the floor. The gnome freezes, looking back—but with the guests all gone, footsteps echoing away, he quickly turns tail.

  No cry of false alarm was ever called. Peering down the tunnel, I see Gottfried waddle into a recess with an extra pair of legs dangling between h
is. And with the salon as empty as the scene of a bombing, the floor sparkling with diamonds, ensuing moments eerie for their lack of noise, I step up the tunnel until a lonely shape appears, still huddled into itself. I watch its head crane out as my footsteps approach. And soon comes another set of steps, light ones flying down the stairs; then a small figure outlined at the stairwell, looking in.

  She spots me crouched beside the trolley and stops dead.

  I stroke the creature’s shell till its head looks up. Then I lean close, put my face beside its face, and point it toward the girl.

  I give her time to marvel.

  And I say: “Whoosh.”

  ELEVEN FIFTEEN

  Gottfried Pietsch and I step out of the Zentral Flughafen Tempelhof, Berlin, through a service entrance on the last night of the life she was designed for, never to return again. Chill night meets us at the door. The trailers have left Columbiadamm, protesters have dispersed. A piece of litter flaps along the sidewalk.

  Behind us in the darkened terminal no sailors explain why Dieter is also called Gerd. No tubas play, no wurst is served. No horse stands in the hallway. Across three and a half million square meters of Berlin no American bombers roar, no children wait, no Berliners hope, no pilots wave, no communists watch from afar.

  No Nazis flee, no Russians march, no flames rise.

  A sphinx deceived into a life that didn’t exist steps from a monument whose era never was, with a friend from a state that couldn’t be, into a town that is once more.

  Tonight all our limbos are over.

  A breeze blows.

  As we move up Columbiadamm toward the monumental garden, overlooked by the eagle on his plinth, lightly pummeled by the gravitational suck of a structure meant to outlast human history—a business jet screams into the sky over Tempelhof. It rockets up into the night, sparkling an urgent heartbeat in strobes of red and white. We pause, staring in silence till its pulse dissolves behind cloud, till its thunder wavers and echoes into whispers, and the whispers die bouncing off stars.