The diners are split between those who eat hungrily, such as Aldino, Tom Harlan, his assistant, Maggie, Hugo Bertrand, and the photographer and cameraman from Star Life; and those who barely touch their plates, such as Tricia, who’s anorexic; Christie, who cares more about her figure than anything else in the world and forces herself not to eat; the writer, who does likewise to suck up to her; Wally, who’s already drunk too much and pretty much just keeps on drinking; and Kimberly, who probably stuffed her face with crap earlier and now limits herself to picking at the food.
Aileen scoops up small amounts of risotto with the end of the fork, places them on her tongue, moves her jaws very gingerly, sitting rigidly on her chair. She never has been a big eater; she’s capable of going days with only a couple of fresh fruit juices, some pieces of sugar-free candy, and bottle after bottle of water. Not eating much is one of the manifestations of her character, just like not sleeping much: she’s able to fall asleep on command (with the help of a pill), but then in the middle of the night she tosses and turns continuously, turning on her light to read, checking her cell phone to see if she’s received any important messages, getting up to pee, going back to bed, kicking, pulling the comforter over to her side. Even when she’s sleeping it seems like a twitch is always imminent, ready to catch you by surprise as soon as you relax. Sharing a bed with her is a sort of continuous battle, an exercise in forbearance that Nick Cruickshank hasn’t by any means gotten used to. Once he even mentioned it to her, as lightheartedly as he could, just to exorcize the matter, and she didn’t find it funny at all, rebutting that if he was so annoyed by it maybe they should consider two separate bedrooms. He asked himself whether to jump at the chance and immediately reply that that was fine by him, but he knew she would have interpreted it as the definitive end of the romantic phase of their relationship. He was reminded of when his parents decided to sleep in two separate rooms, and how less than a year later his father had left the house; he decided that a minimum of adaptation might be indispensable if two people want to live together. But the fact remains that with his second wife he slept extremely well, without having to adapt to anything; at least from that point of view the change has not been advantageous.
“Alors? C’est bon?” Madame Jeanne sticks her head back in the dining room, to see whether her risotto has been a success.
“C’est grand!” Nick Cruickshank smiles at her gratefully but feels genuine displeasure at having to share such a special gift with people incapable of fully appreciating it.
“Mmmm.” At least Aldino murmurs with satisfaction; Tom Harlan nods, but without conceding much in the way of words; his thin and pale assistant snatches another forkful, as if he’s afraid they’ll take his plate away.
Aileen merely continues to probe the risotto with the tip of her fork, without commenting; she picks up a slice of artichoke, chews it laboriously, resumes telling the Bertrands about this morning’s photographic outing, in a clear display of disinterest for Madame Jeanne’s masterpiece.
In truth Madame Jeanne is anything but invasive: she’s content to reign unchallenged in her kitchen kingdom, coming out only to serve the food and clear off the plates. Her timing is perfect; she arrives neither a minute too early nor too late, there’s never any hint of rushing or laziness in her movements. For example, now she has disappeared once again, slipping away without anyone noticing.
Nick Cruickshank tries to focus on the flavor and consistency of the last few forkfuls, but he can’t help noticing Aileen’s misgivings and Wally’s boorishness, the bovine look on Kimberly’s face, the meddlesome expression of the Star Life editor. He does his best not to look at anyone, but his eyes continue to be pulled left and right as if by magnetic attraction, and with each glance the exasperation seething inside him grows. Finally he’s unable to resist. He turns toward Wally. “Don’t you like it?”
“The artichokes are chewy,” Wally mumbles with his mouth full, a perfectly stolid expression on his face. “And the rice is undercooked.”
Aileen turns her head quickly toward the Star Life editor, flashes another ironic smile; she couldn’t be more pleased with this attack on Madame Jeanne’s credibility.
“Yeah.” Kimberly goes so far as to twist her frog-like mouth into a disgusted grimace, as if she habitually dines on things infinitely more sublime.
Nick Cruickshank tries to think of a sarcastic and maybe even slightly educational retort, but he’s too embittered at the idea of sharing the table with people whom he couldn’t care less about or detests, first among them that moronic slob of a bassist who’s convinced that seeing as he’s been carried in spite of himself to worldwide fame and fortune, he must necessarily be in possession of God knows what profound truths. The realization of having spent decades circling the globe with him and still finding him here now with his revolting wife suddenly seems unsustainable.
“What is it?” Despite his obtuseness Wally must be able to read something in his expression, because his facial muscles contract into one of his most unpleasant expressions. “Eh?”
“Nothing, nothing.” A few years ago Nick Cruickshank might have thrown a wineglass at him, or at least a piece of bread; after which the other band members would have taken sides with one or the other, and one of those restaurant- or hotel-smashing brawls would have broken out that have become part of the Bebonkers’ most lurid mythology. But since then he’s worked hard to rein in his lowest instincts: he simply turns his head the other way, excludes the Thompsons from his field of vision.
Aileen lays down her fork and a piece of bread on the risotto, pushes away her plate of half-eaten food. She turns toward him. “Tomorrow at ten, Lucien Deleuze and Marissa are coming with their teams, with the gazebos and other structures.”
Nick Cruickshank suddenly feels like he’s up against the ropes, like every other time he’s presented with a schedule or a deadline. “Couldn’t they come the day after tomorrow?”
“No, they cannot.” Aileen looks at him with feigned surprise, shakes her head ever so slightly. “You might not realize it, Nick, but time is really tight.”
“Ah, right.” He sets his fork down on the table, stands up.
Aileen wavers between offended and moderately alarmed. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll see you later.” Nick Cruickshank succeeds in forcing his lips into a smile, waves to his fellow diners with his napkin before letting it fall on the tablecloth.
“Nick.” Aileen tries to hold him with her stare, but certainly doesn’t want to make a scene in front of all the guests and the Star Life team; she turns toward that giant pain in the ass Hugh Bertrand, pretends to be suddenly very interested in what he’s saying.
Nick Cruickshank goes out into the hallway, ducks into the kitchen.
Madame Jeanne is not entirely surprised to see him, just a little apprehensive. “Ça va?”
He nods, though he’s very tense; almost on the verge of exploding, actually. He goes to the window, turns back, shoves his hands into his pockets, takes his hands out. Over the years he’s experimented with a variety of techniques for achieving inner equilibrium, from yoga to shuai jiao to painting, but he’s never quite been able to get there: imbalance is always crouching down there inside of him, waiting for the slightest pretext to rear its ugly head. It’s true that it is an essential part of his character, the soul of his songs, his principal source of inspiration, the engine that drives him. If he did reach a state of permanent calm, so long Nick Cruickshank, and so long Bebonkers. So?
Madame Jeanne points to the great olivewood cutting board where she’s setting out the cheeses she’s going to bring to the table after the risotto. She doesn’t say anything; as usual, they don’t need many words to communicate.
Nick Cruickshank reaches out, breaks off a piece of Auvergne bleu with his fingers, eats it as he walks around the kitchen. But he’s not hungry anymore, he can’t stop feeling that he’s under siege, and thinking that the siege is only going to worsen in the coming days, w
ith each passing hour.
Madame Jeanne glances at him two or three times as she repairs the damaged cheese with a knife, sends Didiane out to collect the plates and silverware with the cart. She cleans her hands on her apron, goes to take a white Styrofoam container out of the refrigerator, puts the container on the table and removes the cover, then removes the protective paper beneath the cover. She takes out a spoon and bowl, places them next to the container, gestures to him in invitation.
Nick Cruickshank shakes his head, but nonetheless approaches the table, because he’s sorry to refuse her offer. Attached to the white Styrofoam cover is a small piece of straw-yellow paper rolled up tightly and tied with red string. He unties the knot, unrolls the paper: in pen is written Life is too short to waste it making other people’s dreams come true.
Madame Jeanne observes him inquisitively, seeing him just standing there.
Nick Cruickshank can’t move, can’t speak: inside him is the strangest jumble of thoughts and sensations, out of which emerges the memory of the time his father quoted this same line to him or to his brother or their mother, probably to the whole family. As if his father, of all people, had ever dedicated even five minutes of his own life to making anyone else’s dreams come true. And how about him? His songs are connected to other people’s dreams, it’s undeniable: they strike chords, they resonate. But there’s a big difference between that and making those dreams come true. And in his personal life? In the past? In the present?
Madame Jeanne continues scrutinizing him, starts to look seriously worried.
He rolls up the little piece of paper, sticks it in his pocket. But he’s still in a suspended state, struggling to pull himself out of it.
Didiane comes back in with the cart loaded with dirty plates and cutlery; she, too, looks at him with bemusement. Through the closing door come the voices and laughter of the people in the dining room; hard to say if they have dreams, but demands, most certainly. And lots of them.
Nick Cruickshank picks up the spoon from the table, sinks the spoon slowly into the darkest section of one of the four different colors of gelato; he looks at it, brings it to his mouth, savors it slowly.
THURSDAY
NINE
MILENA MIGLIARI THINKS that she was right about at least one thing in her argument with Viviane yesterday: there is no end to gelato season. You only have to look around this small open-air market in the church square, despite its smaller size in the second half of November, and ideas for the most delicious autumn flavors come spontaneously.
Take these Var chestnuts, which are smaller than the ones from the Ardèche and don’t enjoy the same fame or PDO certification: the mahogany color of their lucid skin is simply gorgeous, as Richard pours them into her cloth bag after weighing them on his scale. They have an exquisite flavor, woodsy, hazelnutty, like alpine bread, sweet, comforting, which you could highlight with a little honey from the very same chestnut trees. Or take the pomegranates from Bargemon that she just purchased, two stands back: with a small knifed incision the seller unveiled the brilliant ruby kernels squished one against the other, glossy, alive, overflowing with sourish-sweet juice. Or take the persimmons that Philippe grows near Tourrettes and sells at the stand right over there, in packs of three to protect them, round and orange like little suns, in these days increasingly leaning toward black and white. You don’t have to go far to be wonderfully inspired, get ideas for new recipes. As winter gradually approaches, things will get even more interesting: she’ll need to think of yet-to-be-developed flavors, and look for new approaches to traditional ones, such as dark chocolate or cream. Revenue will be limited, since there’ll be hardly anyone except on weekends, and even then customers will be few and far between; on the other hand, without the constant pressure of people at the counter she’ll have much more time to study, to invent. Yes: the end of gelato season is a cliché, and like all clichés serves only to reassure people lacking in imagination.
But if she has to start this hormonal stimulation business at the Centre Plamondon on Monday, with everything that that entails, her mental time and space for thinking about autumn and winter flavors will be notably reduced, that’s for sure. And it’ll be even worse for the spring and summer ones, to say nothing of those for autumn and winter of next year. She’ll be wholly occupied with breastfeeding and diaper-changing and baby-food-making; forget about gelato. She’ll be able to dedicate only a fraction of her days to her work, and that’s if all goes well; she might be forced to delegate almost everything to Guadalupe, simplify recipes, give up her research and experimentation. Just the thought of it makes her feel dizzy, makes her almost stumble as she passes by Marianne and Richard’s stand; every Thursday they come here all the way from Luberon with their goat cheese.
Milena wonders if one of the reasons why Viviane is insisting so much on the baby idea is that she really isn’t all that thrilled at seeing her so engrossed in her gelato. Maybe at the beginning Viviane regarded it as simple work, and a good way to keep her occupied; never imagined that she would throw herself into it with such passion. She vividly remembers when she began to achieve her first really good results and find the first customers who appreciated them, and realized she was only at the beginning of her journey. She told Viviane about it, that night, to share her enthusiasm. Viviane stood there listening to her, then smiled as if at an overly excited little girl, and said, “Ma poulette, in the end gelato is simply gelato. If it turns out good, that’s enough.” She tried rebutting that a postural massage was just a massage and nothing more; that it really wasn’t worth all this effort to perfect it, let alone want to write a book about it, with general premises and anatomical explanations and illustrations and quality photos and all the rest. Viviane was offended, as if the two lines of work weren’t remotely comparable, divided by the same gap that separates a real job from a hobby. Maybe because Viviane began doing postural massages a long time before she started making gelato, maybe because she views massages as a necessity and gelato as a treat; maybe because her income is much higher, and much more continuous. But there they are again with the roles they’ve assigned each other, almost without realizing it: the dreamer and the realist, the seeker of the impalpable nuances of flavor and the breadwinner.
The truth is that after a certain point Viviane’s moral support has diminished, and it’s continued diminishing, to the point of turning into a sort of veiled resistance composed of doubts, criticism, objections, more or less explicit complaints. She began accusing her in an increasingly less playful tone of wasting too much time studying and perfecting recipes, spending too much money on ingredients, producing too little gelato when demand is high and too much when it’s low. And complaining about the hours, about seeing her come home late at night, about knowing that when she’s not at the shop she’s off reading books at the library or doing research on the Internet. Then she came out with the idea of the baby. Tough to imagine that the two things aren’t connected; they are. So where did the idea of having a child really come from? From a sudden burst of love? The need to make long- and even longer-term plans? The desire to create a bond that’s difficult to break? The fear of seeing her slip away, caught up in her passion for gelato, or some other passion that’s yet to surface?
Another thing that’s beyond doubt is that Viviane has become increasingly hostile toward her passion for folk dancing. There too: in the beginning she liked the fact that she wanted to participate in the dance group in Callian on Friday nights, said it seemed like a good way for her to express her sociable nature and physical exuberance. One time Viviane accompanied her and even participated in the Breton dance, telling her as they were returning home that she’d really liked seeing her dance so well, that she was proud of her. But then her attitude changed, revealing itself in jibes and brief provocative phrases almost every Friday morning, at breakfast. “Do you really have to go dancing tonight, too?”; “Don’t you get sick of all that spinning around?”; “You do know that no one’s going to die j
ust because you don’t go this one time.” Maybe Viviane is irritated that, for her, dancing is both something fun to do as well as a commitment, annoyed by her loyalty to the other people who meet every week in the room beneath the old town hall. The result is that she complains more and more often about having to eat dinner alone after a hard day’s work, while she is out hopping around to the music like a cricket, as if the summer months weren’t enough, when she invariably comes home late.
It is true that in June, July, and August she keeps the gelateria open until ten at night and then has to clean up and organize the lab and shop with Guadalupe, such that she rarely pulls down the rolling shutter before eleven. But it’s her job, not a pastime or a whim. And even though she bends over backward during those summer months to run home every afternoon and prepare a nice dinner that’s all ready to heat up, when she gets home in the evening she invariably finds Viviane in a bad mood, ready to start in with distressing recriminations: the empty house; the sad, solitary meals in front of the television with no one to talk to. Displeasure thus compounds her exhaustion, in addition to the effort required not to overreact when all she’d like to do is cry. But it’s even worse with the dancing, because Viviane considers it a useless and infantile game that she could easily do without, if she only wanted to take a little better care of their relationship (which in the evening would essentially consist of lying there half asleep on the couch in front of the television). She has held firm until now, since dancing is too important to her own equilibrium and she truly cares for the people with whom she dances. But every single Friday she ends up feeling terribly guilty, before, during, and after dancing, when she hurries home knowing she’ll find Viviane in full-on victim mode. In speaking with other women in the dance group she’s realized that her situation is anything but exceptional: almost all the boyfriends or husbands hate the idea that one night a week they want to dedicate themselves to polkas and mazurkas and waltzes and gigues, to Scottish dances and contredanses, to gavottes and bourrées and “Circassian circles.”
Imperfect Delight Page 7
