“Tables seven and twelve need serving,” he says firmly.
“Of course,” I say, looking at him without yielding, as I’ve learnt to do, despite my natural lack of authority: this confrontational staring back at someone is my talent. I might be completely in pieces on the inside, but to stand there with a waiter’s idiotic and equally impenetrable “pride” staring back—well, that I can do. I don’t give in. I use my face to say Of course back at the Maître d’s face. The Maître d’s face is shiny with lotion. He has a kind of broken wet look going on there, combined with his dry hair. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way round?
“And please do something about that kale.”
“The florist was just here. Should I call him back?”
“What do you need the florist for?”
“To sort out the kale.”
The Maître d’ rubs his eyes. It looks completely grotesque. How can he put pressure on those bags without bursting them?
“What do you mean?” he says wearily.
“It’s not good floristry to leave the Brassica from Thursday, standing there smelling like death and manure,” I say. “He should fix it.”
The Maître d’ continues his rubbing, to my horror, while his left hand points dejectedly towards the bar. The Romanesco is lying there. Ugh.
“There’s a lot of the stuff in here,” he says.
“Ah . . . of course,” I say, jolting towards the Romanesco as though I had been given a rap behind the knees. “The Romanesco. I’m so sorry.”
“It was the young lady who drew my attention to it,” he says quietly, nodding his head in the direction of the Child Lady, who is still sitting over by the curtain.
“ ‘It’?”
“That you had left behind the vegetable.”
“Ah, you don’t say,” I say, grabbing the Romanesco with both hands, simultaneously feeling myself derail. “What did she say?”
“She said that you left the cauliflower—the cabbage.”
“I understand.”
“It’s good that you understand.”
“But what did she say?”
“What do you mean?”
“How did she say it?”
“How did she say it? By opening her mouth, I should think.”
“I see. But how could you know it was me she meant?”
The Maître d’ stops his rubbing and lets his hand drop like a lead weight. He stands there for a few seconds with his eyes closed, as though he is sleeping upright. Then—with some kind of facial exertion which begins with him raising his eyebrows to lift his heavy lids upwards and continues with him opening his mouth wide to also pull them downwards—he finds a gap between lid and bag so that he can start his repetitive blinking/squinting and slowly bring his surroundings into focus, not unlike a mammal opening its eyes for the very first time.
“There was no misunderstanding,” he says, gaping.
“Of course not,” I say.
“. . .”
“But she can’t have named me.”
“ ‘Well, let’s see!’ said the blind man to the deaf one,” he says with satirical enthusiasm.
He doesn’t need to do that to me.
The very tip of the Romanesco is pointing towards the raised seat where the Child Lady was sitting before she moved, towards the barstool, which is a raised seat; that’s where it’s pointing. Vanessa hurries by with her dutiful stride, and I seize the opportunity to delegate.
“Hey!” I shout a bit too harshly. Vanessa jumps. “Can you call the florist?”
“Wasn’t he just here?”
“Sadly, he didn’t do his job.”
“I’ll call him, then,” Vanessa says, scratching the stubble on her head.
ANNA ARRIVES
HERE COMES BLAISE ENGELBERT, VIGOROUSLY, through the curtain. Engelbert has a whiff about him. He’s really dressed up today. What a suit. We’re all used to seeing quality suits in here, but this one is spectacular. The cut. The materials. Sharper than patterned Damascus steel. That might be a metaphor from the wrong cultural context, but it’s all the same. If you can imagine translating British tailoring to traditional Syrian metalwork, well, then you can picture Blaise Engelbert right now—he’s as sharp as damascened metal. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even the Maître d’ gives him a quiet but unmistakable compliment, and that isn’t something you see every day.
“I have to say . . .,” I say as he passes.
“Yes,” Blaise says. He knows what I’m referring to.
“Yeah, that’s really something,” I say abstractly.
“Yup,” says Blaise.
I think you have to be my age to put a value on lapels like that. It’s as though children—with all their hypersensitivity to food and that kind of thing—don’t take in the important details. Children don’t notice the small things. How a glowing light in the corner of a room can mean so infinitely much. How a good or bad chair can save or ruin an interior. And the opposite: how relaxed your sensory apparatus becomes by the time you’re my age. I never get carsick. I can eat moldy cheese and rotten fish. I can chomp on calluses and fibers without retching. I couldn’t do that as a child. There can be as many lumps as you like in the soup. I can knock back schnapps without pulling a face. That’s impossible for children. But if the door is ajar and I feel the slightest draft around my feet, the faintest hint of cold, well, then I react. I react powerfully. Which door is open now? I wonder. As a child, I could wear wet shoes for hours without noticing. I would smell like sheep when I came in again, my thick wool socks would be so wet. My nails cracked, but I didn’t realize until it was too late. I wouldn’t have noticed Blaise Engelbert’s masterful lapels as a nine-year-old, either. They would have been invisible to me. But now his lapels are all I can see. How about those lapels? No, I’ve never seen anything like them.
The Child Lady jumps up from the marble table as though everything were choreographed, and follows Blaise over to table ten, my table. It’s time for the pulling out of chairs now. The Child Lady gives Blaise her hand. Blaise takes it gallantly. I take hold of the back of the chair I assume the Child Lady will be sitting in and pull it out while I indicate with my other hand where she can/should/will/must sit down: Here, on the chair I have pulled out.
“Thank you,” she says.
“Of course,” I say.
She moves so that the backs of her knees are in front of the seat and the fronts of her thighs against the edge of the table, waiting for me to push in the chair. I catch a slight hint of musk again. It is musk, isn’t it? She is waiting for the touch of the seat against the backs of her knees as a sign that she can strain her thigh muscles—the front group, the so-called four-headed muscle, the body’s biggest—and then bend her knees to sink down onto the chair, likely with a complex interplay of tightening in the frontal and medial thigh muscles, supported by her hamstrings to the back, so that she is squatting slightly for a moment, with the great gluteus muscle, the gluteus maximus, fully tensed, waiting for me to push the chair beneath her, which I do, so that she can comfortably sit down.
“There,” she says.
I see thousands of possibilities for how I can parry this “There,” but I steer myself away from saying “Voilà,” “So, there, now,” “Excellent,” or anything else stupid. I control myself and I breathe repeatedly through my nose, down into my mustache. Sensibly quiet, that’s how I keep myself. Professionally and sensibly quiet.
Apropos of controlling yourself—or the counterpoint of control, letting loose—I must say that Old Johansen took the change of mood seriously. The music on the mezzanine is presto now, so to speak. It’s vivace on that raised, enlarged, ingrown bay of his, or is it called vivo? Is it vif the French call this kind of quick, cheery music, verging on the hectic? Is it a bit lively? What does the Maître d’ think about that? Don’t we, the staff, in our jackets, black-and-white, take on a slightly comical character when accompanied by this lebhaft music? I wish he would dampen the mood a to
uch, Johansen.
There’s something about that musky scent. It smells a bit like old lady. On a young woman like the Child Lady, it becomes utterly special. Blaise also uses fragrance, and it’s extremely subtle. His scent mixes with the Child Lady’s soft musk. What does Blaise use? There’s a hint of Grey Vetiver, but the wood note is different, the wood in his scent is closer to Encre Noire. More aquilaria, or oud. You can detect a damper type of wood than in the Vetiver. Does he mix scents? Very few men do. Is Blaise so advanced? He probably is. I almost feel high on these scents now. A cheerful mix of smells, like Anna talked about. That’s the kind of advancement we want here at The Hills. In here, we want unexpected combinations and mixes of the highest, best qualities. We want, figuratively speaking, eggs to be plucked from hens, and for the paste of crushed and ground sunflower seeds to be pressed until the oil runs out, and for this oil to be mixed with the egg and whipped hard, so that the whole thing changes character and becomes mayonnaise. That’s what we want, like I said, figuratively speaking. Blaise’s and the Child Lady’s scents have an almost magical effect when mixed, equivalent to the miracle of mayonnaise. Something completely new and special occurs between them, between their aromas, their bouquets. (How to describe mayonnaise to someone who has only tasted sunflower seeds and eggs on their own?)
Through the window, I notice that the Pig is being driven to the door, in a car that can’t be described as anything but a ride. It’s exactly 1:30, his usual time. I show the Pig to the table where Blaise is already glittering in his suit, with the Child Lady glowing by his side.
“Are we expecting anyone else?” I ask, bobbing up and down on my toes.
“Just the three of us,” says the Pig.
“Three it is.” I begin to clear away the fourth setting. “Can I tempt you with anything before your food?”
“I’ll risk a glass of the white burgundy.”
“Wonderful.”
I place the white burgundy in front of the Pig’s hand, light as a soap bubble. He nods in thanks and touches the crystal, runs his index finger, all dry, and his thumb, all stumpy, rough, up and down the stem. Then he solemnly lifts the glass and sips. The Child Lady glances upwards, as though she were twelve years old and I were a friend of her father’s and she were the Pig’s daughter and the Pig were my friend. Her smile is delivered with a closed mouth at first, but then she parts her lips. It’s like a curtain being raised from her much-discussed dental arch. The Child Lady gives me the whole row of pearly whites; her smile crushes everything else around it.
•
It’s approaching a quarter to two. The time of day when children Anna’s age finish school, I think. Or is it? Does she go to any kind of clubs? After-school activities? If Edgar had given me a time, I would have been able to avoid falling into speculation around Anna’s arrival. I quickly squeeze past the chef and into the wardrobe corner. Zero messages from Anna. Nothing from Edgar. Once again, I’m staring at a blank screen. A bit of scrolling can’t be prohibited. First I see a picture of SpongeBob balancing two corn on the cobs, one on each eyeball, plus a ’90s recording of Eminem rapping about pickles as he fries onion rings in Detroit. I also learn that Jewish families who fled from the Nazis back in the day are now seeking German passports because of conditions in the UK. Damn Edgar.
•
Vanessa, with her close-cropped hair, traipses over with the florist. He’s behind her, in his florist’s uniform, which is essentially a gardener’s outfit: working clothes. Robust trousers with a set of functional pockets. A pair of gloves sticking out of one. Now I have to grill him a little. We don’t want any stench in here.
“Hey!” I say, with my characteristic lack of timing. “Florist!” I blurt out.
The florist reacts. As does the Maître d’, who is standing over by table seventeen. He looks at me like a deep-sea anglerfish, with bulging eyes and an unhappy mouth, the wall lamp sticking out from a panel just to the left of his face like one of those antennae with a glowing lump that those fishes have.
“One moment,” I say, holding my fingers in the air while I move my left hand, with the bandage, behind my back.
The florist leans against the bar and studies my walk over to him. My footsteps clomp against the pretty mosaic floor. He can watch my head movements, the hen-like motion, the strutting. The stoop. I wonder whether I’ll manage to keep up the momentum.
“Hey,” I say.
“Yes?”
“The colorful kale.”
“The decorative kale, yes.”
“Do you notice it?”
“Do I notice it?”
I flare my nostrils and sniff gently with my big nose, plus I give a brief wave with one hand to signify odor.
“Do you notice the kale?” I repeat.
“Can’t you just tell me what you want?”
“It stinks.”
“Then you need to take it out,” says the florist.
“Well, you can carry it out, then.”
“I was up at Høybråten,” says the florist. “Did you make me drive all the way back here just to carry a withered plant outside?”
I take hold of his upper arm, not too hard but firmly, and lead him towards Blaise and the Child Lady. We stop two meters from their table. I draw in more air through my nostrils to signal that he should do the same. “Smell,” I say. The florist sniffs cautiously. I tell him that this is the scentscape we aim for at The Hills. Oud. Aquilaria. Mixed with gastronomic aromas. The scentscape? The florist looks confused. Now I pull him over to the bar, where there is a huge arrangement of musty decorative kale. “Not this,” I say. He asks whether I’m serious. Yes, you can bet your life I am. I ask him to inhale. Honestly, says the florist. Your work, or lack of it, I continue, has disturbed the scent panorama. You need to ensure smooth blooming. The florist tries to explain that plants don’t have an expiry date. If something withers between Monday and Friday, surely we can just take it out? Like I said, I say again, and with a police commissioner’s movement, I grip his arm, but with the wrong hand—the bandage twists and the blister stings. I try to swap, but in my fumbling the florist snatches his arm away and says Don’t touch me. He pulls back and shakes his head irritably. I try to grab him but just end up shoving his shoulder with an awkward right hand.
“Stop it,” he says, moving with tetchy, floristic steps towards the exit. I’m knocked off-kilter, off balance, tilted. Then he disappears behind the curtain. The florist is not happy now. I wonder whether he’ll ever be back to do his floristry—or de-floristry, if you can put it like that—here at The Hills.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, as I’m standing there, staring after the raging florist, two small hands appear and part the curtains by the entrance. Anna peers in. Here she is. My insides jump. She bends down. A good bucket height above her head, an outstretched shirt sleeve appears. The curtain moves to one side. Who does this bony hand belong to? My insides jump and jump. Anna takes a step forward, and in comes Sellers, tall as he is. Bewitching as he is. The scamp is standing in the doorway. On his face, he is wearing the biggest smile of all, as is fitting for a scamp.
“Sweet girl,” he says to me with a wink.
PART V
HOLBEIN
THEY SAY THAT HANS HOLBEIN the Younger’s sketched portrait of Baron Wentworth is damaged and doesn’t bear Holbein’s distinct left-handed hatching, Blaise says eagerly. They say that the drawing may have been tampered with at a later date. The hat and the ear are flat as a pancake, fair enough, and the head of hair could certainly be called uninspired. The dirty ink spot giving the right eye definition against the brim of the hat is certainly a later addition. But everyone who has had this drawing before them, says Blaise—and now he puts his shoulder to the wheel to carry his audience, Sellers, with him, and spells it out with emphasis—everyone who has seen this drawing one-on-one, live, with their own eyes, knows that it’s first-rate.
Blaise says all this to Sellers, shamelessly, standing by Sellers’s table,
table thirteen, gesticulating, with the Pig by his side. He is speaking loudly enough for me to hear everything as I hide here, bowed, with a heavy face, behind the pillar, waiting for a sign. They’ll probably seal the deal with something to eat or drink soon. That’s how adults behave.
The facial hair beneath Wentworth’s nose, Blaise continues, is comparable in terms of genius to the way Sir Thomas Wyatt’s mustache is depicted—no more, no less. The contouring on the bridge of his nose is formidable. Exceptional. That bridge is second to none. Literally. It’s on a level with the highlights of Velázquez’s Pope Innocent X’s lower lip, says Blaise. And I mean that, he says. Big words, but that’s the way it is. The coloring on Wentworth’s nose and nostrils, which is impossible to capture in reproductions, is so subtle, so delicate and über-minimal, that there’s no equal. Taken as a whole, including the clumsiness of the hat, the feather, and the shadow from the brim, the drawing is a mystery. As with many of Holbein’s Tudor drawings, it’s difficult to say when, and by whom, the ink contours were added, if not by Holbein himself. Were they applied in order to transfer the image to woodblock or canvas? The silver point—when was that added? The brushwork ranges from masterful to simple. The mediocre ear and the sublime depiction of how the lace collar bends around Wentworth’s neck—how can these two levels be found on the same sheet of paper? None of Holbein’s drawings contain more contradictions than the sketch of Wentworth, and they raise one another to the highest of artistic heights. At the same time, the drawing is vanishingly faint. Almost invisible.
“And what’s the point here?” Sellers wants to know.
“Well, it’s that I want you to come and take a look at the drawing,” says Blaise, still wearing his spectacular suit jacket.
The Waiter Page 13
