The Scandalous Life of Sasha Torte

by Lesley Truffle

  Meantime at my shop, work continued. Walls were knocked down and the windows enlarged on the ground floor. Wide burnished-copper window frames were installed to make it light-filled and airy. Decorative panels comprising of painted canvas under glass were fitted between the outside windows. The panels depicted brioches, cakes, tarts and in magnificent gold lettering, Sasha Torte Patisserie.

  On the outside corner of the building more panels were decorated with romping mermaids and hirsute muscled mermen, all bearing assorted sweet fancies. Charlie had been so generous with his time and expertise that I chose to acknowledge his contribution on the painted metal sign outside. Swinging over the front door, locals recognised a likeness of Charles Daniel O’Rourke, with one eyebrow sardonically raised, shouldering a wicker basket of Angel Croissants.

  I was very indulgent in all furnishings and cheekily set new standards of sumptuousness for Wolfftown’s copy cats and those aspiring to greater sophistication.

  Clare Dasher’s protégés laboured for weeks painting the murals inside my patisserie. At that time, Clare had developed something of a taste for young Venetian and Florentine artists. I was fortunate that the painters among them were experienced in fresco painting. My God, you should have seen those young men; dark haired, five-o’clock shadows at midday, smouldering good looks and impressive physiques gained from clambering around scaffolding. I regretted that Viola was not around to admire the Italians at work.

  They were a hedonistic bunch of individuals, led by a Florentine called Serge Balsamo, and much given over to having fun and red wine at lunchtime. We got on like a house on fire and they used every opportunity to sharpen up their English language skills. I loved creating new pastries for them to try. One bloke in particular, Giovanni Fenaroli, was very taken with my latest vol-au-vent creation.

  Giovanni licked his fingers clean, leant down from the scaffolding and murmured in my blushing ear, ‘Miss Sasha, what you have made is a big orchestra in the pastry’.

  ‘Ah, do you mean a symphony perhaps?’

  ‘Yes, a symphony of delicious tastes. Ahhhhh, those fat little mushrooms, the cream, the wine and the herbs all making music. Magnifico! Your pastry attacks a man’s taste buds and in seconds she’s had her way with him.’

  For the first time it occurred to me that my culinary innovations were capable of seducing people. It was a sobering thought but unfortunately I didn’t stop to think what the ramifications might be.

  Clare’s Italian artists decorated the walls with romping cherubs waving wheat sheaves and elegant glass murals depicting goddesses bearing platters of cakes. When they ran out of wall space they painted the ceiling with an ingenious trompe l’oeil. On glancing upwards we were treated to blue sky, fluffy white clouds and a bevy of laughing beauties, tossing flowers from a balcony. My goddesses created quite a stir with their transparent tunics revealing pink nipples and the sensuous outline of hips, buttocks and quims.

  Serge Balsamo was in charge and he suggested, ‘If we paint nudes in the classical style we’ll get away with it. We could even picture them fornicating if we draped a bit of a Roman toga across the proceedings or suggested something akin to ancient Greek vase painting. I once sketched Michelangelo’s sculpture of David. Even his hairy balls were on display yet David was acceptable to a whole bunch of Popes.’

  Grandpa made one proviso, ‘Fair enough, my friend. But make damn sure you keep religion out of it. I want a personal guarantee you won’t paint the Pieta bearing up the pork pies, or every pious Catholic for miles around will be after me with a fucking shotgun.’

  While work was in progress crowds gathered on Main Street, hoping to glimpse something scandalous. Thus Sasha Torte Patisserie was notorious even before we opened. Serge cunningly covered the windows in old newspaper to keep Wolfftown in a state of anticipation. When workmen were traipsing in and out, locals glimpsed large gilt-edged mirrors reflecting the black and white marble floor and petite round tables with padded chairs. My flamboyant décor ensured Wolfftown’s casual interest soon turned into avid curiosity.

  Weeks went by while I impatiently waited for my European import orders. Many luxury goods were not available in Tasmania. It was easier to order directly from London, rather than mess around with orders from the mainland which often arrived incomplete or incorrect. But on Charlie’s recommendation, a Melbourne manufacturer was commissioned to produce translucent duck-egg blue porcelain tea sets. Every single piece bore the name of my patisserie in cursive gold lettering. I also commissioned our local foundry to make essential equipment such as madeleine, kugelhopf, charlotte and timbale moulds. The foundry manager was very generous with sizing, so initially I had to bake extra-large madeleines. Mine were more like monster clam shells, as opposed to petite delicate lemon cakes. I called them clam bombs and they became extremely popular. Gourmets travelled many miles just to get their greedy paws on them.

  Grandpa advised me on staffing. We managed to poach Jacko’s sister, Maggie Willow, from the Dasher Estate. It wasn’t difficult as Maggie had been suffering at the hands of Lady Dasher. Clare was jealous of youthful beauty and punished her young maids by having them at her beck and call at all hours.

  Maggie confided, ‘You’d think with all the booze her Ladyship guzzles that she’d be out like a light. Nope. She’s up all night tugging on the bell rope. At three o’clock it was, empty my chamber pot, at four, my water bottle is cold and at five, pass the laudanum. Then there was the young mens we weren’t supposed to notice in her bed. Difficult when there were two hairy feet sticking out from under the eiderdown. Poor wretches. You should have seen them the next day, dark circles under their eyes and some could hardly walk. Her Ladyship’s just like them spiders that kill their mates after they’re done with the fucking.’

  I also employed a Wolfftown local, Dolores Flügge, who’d tried whoring as a career but not found it to her liking. She’d been working for several months in our town’s busiest knocking shop and she came with an excellent reference from the brothel madam.

  One morning over a cup of tea Dolores told me, ‘I thought it would be all lacy underpants, gorgeous dresses, good perfume and lots of easy money but it’s trickier. Hocking my box don’t bother me none, it’s all the talking. Yakkety-yakkety-yak. You have to keep telling them old coots and fumbling lads how bloody virile they are and what great cocksmen they is.’ Dolores popped an entire boysenberry tartlet into her mouth and managed to keep talking. ‘I tell you, Sasha, one young blade kept following me up Main Street with these sad puppy eyes. Virgin he was, randy little bugger. He blew his entire pay just getting his rocks off. The madam of the house tried to get it into his thick skull that you is not supposed to fall in love with a professional whore. Even if she’s just given you the best head job you’ve ever had in your life.’

  Prior to her short but lucrative career as an unbuttoned one, Dolores had shown great promise in the Tub of Blood’s kitchen as a pastry cook. When I first hired Dolores, Mrs Flügge proudly told me, ‘My girl knows her way around a kitchen all right. Dolores’s plum pies are still spoken about with great reverence by the Tub’s most hardened drinkers. They told me they were heart broken when she left to become a whore at Clops McCoy’s.’

  Dolores really has the perfect touch with flaky butter pastry. It’s so light that it dissolves in your mouth like a transient dream.

  Grandpa insisted I employ a manager. ‘Sasha, you’re young and inexperienced and we both know you’ve got no head for figures. It wouldn’t be right for me to be constantly interfering in your business. So how about you employ a good manager, a man of integrity and skill to take care of all the taxing business details, eh?’

  With Charlie’s help we found our man. Charlie persuaded a former colleague to leave Melbourne. His name was Snuff Rogers and he’d been in partnership with Charlie, back in the days when the two of them owned Mon Amour. Charlie vouched that Snuff was a bread maker par excellence and also an outstanding businessman. Prior to going into business with
Charlie at Mon Amour, Snuff had lived in Paris and successfully operated his own boulangerie on Rue du Cardinal Lemoine. When Charlie described Snuff’s bread making technique I was transfixed. I’d never thought of bread making as being more than just a tedious daily chore.

  Charlie reckoned, ‘Snuff’s bread is superb and remains the best I’ve ever eaten.’ He licked his lips and smiled at the memory. ‘At his boulangerie Snuff made an absolute killing producing premium breads and simple but exquisite flans. He had the Parisians patiently queuing up around the block before he opened in the mornings. But understand this; for his baguettes, Snuff first caught his wild yeast and then made a slurry, a type of dough starter.’

  ‘Snuff caught wild yeast?’

  ‘Yes. Most bakers tend to use fruit but Snuff began weeks earlier with a red cabbage. That fine silky silt on cabbage leaves is wild yeast. Snuff would bury the cabbage leaves in flour and water to capture the wild yeast, and then he’d add water and flour for a few more days before removing the leaves. This slurry became the mother lode and he’d feed it regularly to maintain its growth.’

  My mind boggled. Who was this strange man? ‘Feed it?’

  Charlie grinned. ‘Yes, by adding extra flour and water. Snuff wouldn’t actually start making bread until he’d deemed the starter suitable. The man is a perfectionist. He kept the mother lode alive in his pantry and kept refining and re-using it to bake batches of bread. The mother lode was stored in a covered black pot that seethed and bubbled. It was a malignant beast. The kitchen apprentice, who was a bit simple, refused to go anywhere near it. He swore it was voodoo.’

  I also learnt that Monsieur Rogers was a humane man and impoverished artists could settle their outstanding bread bills by bartering Snuff their paintings. These were mostly still-life paintings involving bread. Before Monsieur Rogers left Paris to return to Australia, he exhibited all the bread paintings to great acclaim and sold the whole bloody lot. Parisians take their daily bread very seriously.

  I couldn’t wait for Snuff Rogers to sail into Wolfftown and take up his new position. I knew he’d be a real asset to my audacious enterprise.

  Grandpa took to Snuff immediately. ‘Great bloke. Reminds me of a chap we nicknamed, the Viking, he’s got the same golden mane and broad shoulders. The Viking kept a fully loaded Remington shotgun strapped to his leg under his loose trousers.’

  ‘Was he a criminal, Grandpa?’

  ‘Nah. He was just obsessive about his right to carry a gun. He was always in trouble with Nora over her no-weapons rule. The Viking was dead keen on nudity, it’s a Nordic thing. They’re like that over there. In the middle of winter they’re very keen on getting their kit off and dipping in frozen ponds.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be ghastly?’

  ‘Oh no, possum. It’s all very natural and healthy and I enjoyed it immensely when I was in the cold countries. I remember a time when a beauteous blonde lass thrashed me with pine branches and rolled me around in the snow in the forest. Naked.’ He paused to relish the memory. ‘Gertie was merciless in other ways too. She could’ve crushed any man between those powerful thighs of hers. After she’d sorted me out, I got crapulous on mulled wine in a sauna with my Nordic amigos. We sweated like swine in our own juices.’

  Snuff Rogers’s past was somewhat shady. Even Charlie didn’t know his real first name. Snuff spoke in the timbre of a gentleman. Or as Grandpa put it, ‘His fuck-you voice.’ He’d been educated at Eton and Oxford University but was evasive about his early life in England. My instincts told me a dark deed had propelled Snuff Rogers down the social scale to Australia.

  As well as general managerial duties, Snuff was in charge of Dolores and Maggie’s welfare and he took to his new role with gusto. Both girls adored him. In the evenings after work he took them dancing or squired them to the Baudelaire Theatre. If any of Dolores’s previous johns made smutty allusions or propositioned her, Snuff would knock their blocks off. No discussion. Dolores cheerfully announced, after an evening on the tiles, ‘Gees, Sasha, you should have seen it. One minute that slime ball, Jeremy Cazaly, was giving me lip and grabbing me bosoms then Snuff was onto him. Just a quick one-two with his fists and it was all over.’

  ‘I take it that Snuff’s a useful man to have in the event of a brawl?’

  ‘Too right. He got his fists up like a real gentleman and did a bit of a jig on the spot. Never seen nobody fight like that before, he was kinda dancing. A few quick jabs and then Snuff gets back to his card game. The Cazaly gang scarpered, leaving Jeremy out cold on the floor. Them cowards couldn’t get out the fucking door fast enough.’

  Over the course of a few weeks Snuff made it very clear to the general populace that no one would get away with being disrespectful to Sasha Torte or any of her staff. I’d always been protected by Brendan Kane’s shadow but for Dolores and Maggie it was a novel experience to have a vigilante in their corner. Getting around Wolfftown became a safer proposition for them.

  Snuff said, ‘Such a feisty pair of young ladies. Talented cooks, witty, nimble on their toes and quick clever minds. It’s a real pleasure to be in their charming company. And I must compliment you, Sasha, on the staff quarters. They’re magnificently appointed.’

  ‘That’s good to hear, Snuff. I really wanted our staff to feel it was their new home.’

  What I really meant was, I wanted our girls to feel safe. Dolores and Maggie had been doing it tough yet they were about the same age as me. While working as a cocotte Dolores had been badly beaten up. She told me in confidence, ‘When the Zeehan gang attacked me with knives, I begged them, “Do what you like to me but just don’t cut me face. Please not me face.”’

  I was speechless.

  Maggie Willow’s past was so ugly that she simply refused to discuss it. It was her brother Jacko Willow who hinted of the unspeakable things that had been done to her. Subsequently I swore to Jacko that I’d do everything within my powers to make Maggie and Dolores safe from the vagaries of fortune. Then they too would finally have a chance to experience the good things in life.

  A magnificent white marble counter dominated the shop. I’ll never forget the feeling of awe I experienced the first time I stood behind it, and fingered my new French silver cash register. It was an eye-catching machine of vast proportions and was lavishly decorated with rococo curlicues, strange symbols and indented fleur-de-lis.

  My establishment exceeded even my expectations. It was a temple, a building of such astounding beauty that I felt unworthy of its ethereal grace. Papa’s low opinion of me had stuck in my mind and couldn’t be dislodged.

  On opening day, I was nauseous with fear and worried that I had over reached myself. My hands shook as I reluctantly went downstairs to unlock the front door of Sasha Torte Patisserie. I hadn’t expected anyone to be there and was shocked by the growing crowd I could see through the front windows. We sold out of everything within the first hour, except for beverages, but still the premises swarmed with local folk, marvelling at the sheer opulence and the magnificent abundance of my enterprise. They tried out the chairs, stroked the white marble counter and ogled the paintings and frescoes.

  ‘Disgusting. Such filth. Naked women. Typical.’

  ‘It’s just what one would expect of Rose Torte’s daughter. We are leaving. Millicent, did you hear me, young lady? Millicent!’

  ‘Ahhhhhh, how very beautiful. Such artistry and fine craftsmanship.’

  ‘Congratulations on your innovative enterprise. Well done, my dear!’

  ‘Whoa! Get a load of them pictures, them lovelies are bare as the back of me hand!’

  ‘Too damn right. Better than the Riff. Pity we can’t get a pint of ale here.’

  ‘Hey, mate. It’s got more fucking marble than the Vatican.’

  ‘I told you, Herbert, we should have got here earlier. That harlot with the rouged cheeks just bought the last box of Hazel Decadents. Greedy little bitch.’

  ‘Calm down, my dear. Rest assured, Miss Torte will still be in busine
ss tomorrow.’

  My enterprise lurched ahead, using the time worn traditions of trial and error. Success was virtually assured from day one, as was my unnerving ability to make enemies. The first was Mayor Wolff’s new daughter-in-law, the young woman formerly known as Thomasina Brown.

  One morning during the first week, Maggie tinkled the bell to summon me to the counter. She was blinking back tears. ‘The young Mrs Wolff won’t let me serve her. She’ll only have you or Dolores.’

  My heart went out to Maggie.

  I approached the counter and said a little too cheerfully, ‘Mrs Wolff, what seems to be the problem?’

  She scowled. Clearly marriage to Wee Willy Wolff had not sweetened Thomasina’s disposition. I’d heard on the grapevine that her marriage was neither passionate nor happy. Rumour had it that Wilbert Wolff frequented the back stalls of the Baudelaire Theatre, where he regularly succumbed to the dextrous charms of Miss Fanny Gibson. She billed herself as a tension relief specialist. So popular and successful were Fanny’s soothing ministrations that her dance card was regularly full. Well before the end of the first act.

  Thomasina was struggling to master her anger. ‘We seem to have a misunderstanding. I am – as you well know – the Secretary of the Ladies Auxiliary and President of the Christian Temperance Union. And I insist upon making my position crystal clear.’

  ‘Be my guest. I’m always open to a frank exchange of opinion.’

  Thomasina’s little rosebud mouth was distorted with disgust. ‘Miss Torte, I will not, repeat will not, be served by Aboriginals. One simply doesn’t know where they’ve been.’

  ‘I understand your position, Mrs Wolff.’

  She relaxed. Here was a privileged young woman well used to getting her own way. It appeared that since she’d become a member of the Wolff clan Thomasina had developed an even greater sense of her own importance. She became sugar sweet. ‘I knew we could come to an arrangement, Miss Torte.’