Cooking With Fernet Branca

by James Hamilton-Paterson

  ‘Rather too much,’ is his reply, half muffled as he eases his helmet off, to my anxious greeting ‘What’s new?’ ‘Marja’s done a bunk – did you know? Much worse, though, is they’ve arrested Father.’

  ‘What? Who? Why?’

  ‘The police, apparently working with Europol. Panic called me in Trieste and warned me to lie low for a bit and certainly not to come home. It’s politics, of course. Basically, our dear government will do absolutely anything to get the country into the EU at the next intake, whenever that is. Panic says the old alliances are far from reliable any longer. So the police rolled up without the usual courtesy warning and took Father off with them to headquarters. I can’t imagine they’ll hold him for long. Panic got the lawyers down there within the hour. But even so. Oh – and they impounded that black helicopter of ours, as well as the Cessna, so that’s why I came in this.’ Ljuka gives a backward jerk of his handsome head to indicate the machine in the paddock, now dark and without sign of life except for a faint ticking of cooling metal. ‘It belongs to the company.’

  My brother towers in the kitchen shedding his jacket. He catches sight of Marja’s letter lying on the keyboard where I dropped it and picks it up. ‘When did this arrive? Is she OK?’

  ‘Read it,’ I tell him. ‘I was out earlier and she may have phoned. As far as I know they’re somewhere between Venice and here. Have you met this Mekmek fellow? Is he all right? I mean, is he at least better than Timi?’

  ‘Probably. She only told me about him the other day, cross-my-heart top secret, and I haven’t been allowed to meet him yet. Computer geek, I think. That could be useful, in the circumstances.’

  I make us coffee and Ljuka takes the torch and goes back out to fetch a small overnight bag from which he produces a bottle of galasiya from the estate – the real thing, ninety-two per cent proof. ‘Luckily I had this in the Trieste office,’ he says. ‘Make the most of it. It looks as though you may have to do without food parcels from home for a bit.’

  He sits on the sofa with his cup and leans back, eyes closed. I suddenly realize he’s all in. For the first time I can remember, my little brother looks like a tired adult.

  ‘How bad is it?’ I ask. ‘Really?’

  ‘Pretty bad.’

  ‘Are they after you?’

  ‘Oh, probably. Possibly. I don’t know. It’s too early to tell whether they’re trying to give Father a scare – or a warning, which amounts to the same thing – or if this really is it and from now on we’re going to be chivvied and harried wherever we go. Arrested, released; arrested, released – you know. Much the same tactics as the Russians used, I gather. Only this will cover most of Europe. Raids on our offices, bank accounts frozen, our people picked up on trumped-up charges, our computers hacked into, electronic surveillance.’ His voice dwindles as he takes a gulp of coffee.

  ‘“Trumped-up”, Uki? No – I’m a coward; I don’t really want to know. That makes me a hypocrite, too, since we all know how this house was paid for, the car, my subsistence here until Pacini’s cheques began coming in. But …’

  ‘Better you don’t know, Matti. If there are innocent parties in all this they’re obviously you and Marja and we must keep it that way. Not that I think ignorance will be much defence if they’re really determined.’

  What a fool, I think, looking at him with such fondness it may not be that second bottle of wine that fills my eyes with tears and swells my heart with protectiveness. What a stupid boy and how predictable all this is. How predicted it was, given my last conversation with him in this very room a month or two ago.

  ‘Stay here, Uki,’ I tell him. ‘You’ll be safe here.’

  He shakes his head with a smile. ‘As safe as anywhere, that’s true. Anyway, I’ll gladly sleep the night here. I’m bushed.’

  ‘Do we still have money?’ Really I’m thinking of dumb practical details like being able to fill the helicopter’s tanks.

  ‘They can’t possibly know all the accounts. They’ve been disguised and dispersed over years. Hell, Matti, you yourself have a dozen at least.’

  ‘I have?’

  ‘Of course you have. So has Marja. What do you think Father’s been doing with his money all this time? He’s been steadily salting away a good part of it for us children. “Family first”, remember. What did you imagine?’

  ‘You’ll think me crazy,’ I say humbly, ‘but to tell the truth I’ve never really given it a thought. I’ve been too interested in, well, music I suppose. And wanting to make my own living.’

  ‘Oh, Matti, you’re hopeless. Small wonder Father despairs of you.’

  ‘He does, does he?’

  ‘Honestly, this misconception of Father is ridiculous. He loves you deeply. He loves all of us deeply. But you know his character, that generation. It’s perfectly natural that sometimes he gets a bit exasperated by your, I don’t know, other-worldliness or something.’

  ‘Only I bet he doesn’t use that word. I bet he says I’m prikmul.’

  ‘It’s true.’ My brother smiles into his empty coffee cup. ‘Other-worldly to the detriment of your family obligations. He says what other word can he use about a daughter who shows no inclination to settle down and get married and make a grandfather of him, as is his right. Prikmul. Says it all.’

  ‘And do you think that too, Uki?’

  ‘No. No, I know you better than Father does. I know you’re not deliberately prikmul, Matti. I guess you’re an artist, and that’s that. God, I’m bushed,’ he repeats.

  Prikmul or not, I suddenly become concerned for my little brother and start throwing sheets over the sofa. ‘I’ll get you a pillow from upstairs.’ But by the time I come down with it Ljuka is already asleep. There is a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. Although he has taken his jacket and trousers off and despite the altitude up here it is a warm Tuscan night in September. I leave him with the sloppy smile one bestows on sleeping babies and go up to my empty letto matrimoniale where I remember I never asked him whether Father already knows that his other daughter, too, has fled the coop. I’m smitten with a pang of guilty affection for this father who, all unbeknownst, has been making generous provision for me and whose empire may even now be starting to collapse around him. I stare sleeplessly up through the darkness past the invisible beams and through the stone roof, but without seeing the hard-eyed galaxies staring back. For the first time in a long while I realize I actively miss my mother.

  The absolute uselessness of regret.

  41

  ‘How was the sofa?’ I ask next morning as I make coffee and Ljuka begins to stir. ‘No metronomes?’

  ‘Huh?’

  “That dudi neighbour I’ve told you about, Gerry? Sat himself down there some weeks ago right on top of a metronome Father gave me when I went to Moscow. It’s quite a sharp little obelisk. From his expression I’d say he became intimate with at least ten centimetres of it. I was hoping you didn’t have a similar mishap last night.’

  ‘Really, Matti,’ he says sleepily but still managing to sound shocked. I smile, knowing exactly what his problem is. Not only should a Voynovian elder sister not be coarse; she shouldn’t make jokes that imply shared experience with a dudi, no matter how accidental or innocent. Ah me. Moscow Conservatory taught me a lot more than music. Pavel might have won the Tchaikovsky Prize that year but when he wasn’t practising for six hours a day his thoughts weren’t much on music. The parties we had in those little student flats were hardly in accordance with the public face of Soviet sexual morality. But then we were artists, and the Russians have always understood there can be no rule that has no exception. I believe that was just as true under the Soviets, if not more so. It may be heresy for a daughter of Voynovia to say so, but there’s lots of good stuff in the Russians. Some of them.

  ‘I’ve been misjudging Gerry rather,’ I tell Ljuka, waiting to hand him a cup of coffee as he swings his feet to the floor and runs both hands through his enviable mane of hair. He has the smudged look of a suddenly wo
ken child.

  ‘Oh?’ he says disinterestedly, sipping and shuddering. So I tell him of the recent revelations and at the mention of Luc Bailly, Per Snoilsson and Brill he perks up. ‘He knows those people?’

  ‘Apparently, yes. He’s written books about them. Or is writing, in Brill’s case. Of course, I was forgetting you’re a motor racing fan.’

  ‘Yes, well, Snoilsson’s world famous, Matti. He’s still Formula One champion. And just about everybody’s heard of Freewayz and Brill. Their music’s in every disco from Spitzbergen to Sydney, I’d think. Pretty crappy it is, too, but the kids go for it in a big way. Brill must be making a serious fortune. And this Gerry of yours has got his hooks into him? Smart guy.’

  ‘I can’t work out if he’s smart or not but he’s obviously much more professional than I’ve been giving him credit for. Plus he speaks fluent Italian. I’ve been underestimating him because he’s such a queen. For all I know I’m wrong about that, too. Anyhow, he’s been underestimating me as well, so I suppose it’s mutual.’

  ‘He’d better not have been disrespectful.’

  My little brother, my champion. ‘We’re grown-ups, Uki,’ I say. ‘Right now, you and I have far more urgent things to worry about than Gerry. What are we going to do? How can we find out what’s happening with Father? Can’t you call Panic?’

  ‘I’ll do that right away.’ He gets to his feet and struggles into his trousers. He still looks dazed and underslept but the coffee’s beginning to work. He pulls the phone over, dials an interminable number and then turns round, flattening his hand over the mouthpiece, to say rather shockingly: ‘Go away, Matti,’ nodding his head towards the back door.

  I understand and go out. The less I know the better. And it would be safer not to risk Panic overhearing my voice. We have to assume the line may be tapped at that end. Or even at this end. The long arm of Europol. It’s depressing: too much like going back to an era I’d hoped had been left behind for ever. I wander apprehensively across the grass to the helicopter whose top surfaces, I notice, are shawled in dew. I’ve always liked these machines. I like the way they smell purposefully of kerosene. This one looks a lot tenner and more civilian than the last thing Ljuka turned up in. Still, the twin blades of its tail rotor are painted black with two yellow stripes across them, waspish colours implying that if you were thinking of making it your prey it might be safer not to. Flight; escape. I’m chiefly worried because I can’t tell how worried I ought to be. I would have thought Father and Ljuka had long since made provision against this moment, would have all sorts of contingency plans. But there again, too much power for too long slows people down. It makes them cocksure and slack, which was part of what I was trying to tell Ljuka the last time he was here.

  I go around and lean my head against the cold plastic of the window in the pilot’s door and gaze in at the beautiful functionality of the instruments and levers and switches, all of which I’ve had explained to me. Flying these things is tricky. It’s all a matter of co-ordination, with both hands doing things in two different planes and independently of the feet. In its way it’s quite like playing the organ. It surely oughtn’t to be any more difficult to fly one of these than it is to play a Bach trio sonata. Easier, actually, given the number of qualified helicopter pilots and the dearth of organists good enough to play the trio sonatas.

  I’m just trying to remember where the ignition switch is when Ljuka himself comes out. His face is suddenly very adult indeed.

  ‘They’ve kept him,’ he says. ‘I had to get it from Franek. Panic’s gone. He got away in time. They’re at the house and they’ve impounded all the papers they can find. Franek says he thinks it’s co-ordinated and they’ve arrested people in Sarajevo, Pristina, Christ knows where. What are we going to do, Matti?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d be able to tell me, Uki. What do I know about all this stuff? I shall be all right; it’s you I’m worried about. They’re probably looking for you. Where could you go?’

  It’s as if an old plan is coming back to him. ‘Marseilles. I’ll be fine once I’m on the ground there. I’ve got reliable friends. I guess after that North Africa and eventually the States. At least until the pressure’s off and we know where we stand.’

  ‘As long as it’s not in a dock in The Hague.’

  ‘Don’t. Ah, kakash!’

  I follow his gaze. A dark blue car plainly marked CARABINIERI in white capitals along the side is gliding quietly to a stop beside the house. Two uniformed men get out of the back, the senior greying handsomely and festooned in braid. Both wear pistols in polished holsters whose flaps they unbutton automatically as they walk towards us. It’s true what they say in books: your knees really do feel weak suddenly.

  ‘Can you get away if I distract them?’ I say foolishly, my mind blank of heroic tactics.

  ‘The machine’s keys are in the kitchen,’ Ljuka says briefly. And since that is that, we begin walking calmly to meet them.

  It starts off very civilly. The senior of the two announces himself as maresciallo Sgrizzi. I introduce myself and my brother. We all shake hands. The policemen appraise the helicopter with interest and walk around it. I remind myself that the carabinieri are part of the Italian military and not strictly civilians at all.

  ‘I assume you are the pilot?’ Sgrizzi addresses Ljuka, whose Italian seems well up to simple question-and-answer stuff.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘And of course you have the necessary documenti?’

  ‘In the house.’ We go in and from his bag, rather to my surprise, Ljuka produces a sheaf of official-looking papers and licences covered in stamps which the maresciallo examines briefly but keenly. He then asks to see my own permesso di soggiorno, which by some miracle I remember is marking a page in Prokoviev’s eighth sonata. He hands everything over to his subordinate with a nod. The younger man takes them outside to the car: standard practice familiar to any Italian motorist. He or the driver will get on their radio and check the details.

  ‘Please forgive this intrusion,’ Sgrizzi is addressing me, I presume as the lady of the house whose brother is about to be taken away in handcuffs. I interrupt graciously to offer him coffee which he politely refuses, a bad sign. ‘I’m afraid my business is official.’ Worse still. ‘It is with you, signora, rather than with your brother. At present.’

  Worst of all. I sit down. ‘With me?’ I repeat feebly.

  ‘It is a delicate matter. You may wish your brother not to be present.’

  ‘What on earth …? No, I don’t want him to leave.’

  ‘As you wish. I must tell you, signora, that a very serious charge appears to have been levelled against you and it is my duty this morning to question you about the matter with a view to appropriate action being taken.’

  ‘Against me? “Appears”?’

  The maresciallo looks at me a little sadly, I think, like an uncle disappointed in his niece. ‘It has been suggested that you are actively engaged in prostitution.’

  There is a long silence in which my blood abruptly stops circulating and jells to embalming fluid. I catch Ljuka’s eye. He has understood, all right. His face is crimson and swelling. I shake my head urgently. The last thing we need is one of his explosions.

  ‘Can we get this straight, maresciallo?’ My tone is reasonable. ‘You’re saying you think I’m some sort of call girl?’ At this point, mainly out of relief that this isn’t about Ljuka, I’m afraid I begin to laugh.

  ‘An allegation has been made to that effect,’ he replies cautiously.

  ‘Oh? And by whom, may I ask? This is incredible.’

  ‘It is a serious matter, signora,’ the maresciallo chides me. ‘Unfortunately I am not yet at liberty to divulge the name of the person concerned. As I said, this is in the nature of a preliminary enquiry. But the allegation implied that not only may you yourself be engaged in this profession but that you might also be acting to procure others from Eastern Europe. Er, Voynovia, isn’t it?’

  At this moment
the dam bursts and Ljuka submerges our polite exchange beneath a torrent of Voysk – mercifully. The tirade is aimed at Sgrizzi’s honour, lineage, sexual practices and personal hygiene. Before long he will be challenging the maresciallo to a duel in the paddock, I realize with horror, but a noise from outside is becoming steadily more insistent above my kid brother’s impassioned voice. Soon the sound of an approaching helicopter fills the room.

  That does it, I think. These people are not fooling after all. The policemen outside have found out about Ljuka on their radio and have sent for reinforcements. And a glance at my brother’s face shows he has reached exactly the same conclusion. I lay a restraining hand on his knee.

  Gerald

  42

  I am making a leisurely breakfast, trying not to wonder if tarty Marty is having hers in bed with Filippo Pacini. ‘A natural pilot,’ his father called him. I’ll say. To take the taste away I spread my toast from a carefully hoarded jar of my precious Log Jam. Not actually logs, of course, but oak twigs. I am probably the only person in the world who knows how to make oak twigs as soft as the slices of rind in Seville orange marmalade. They have a sumptuous aromatic flavour, faintly resinous like the waft from a closing cigar humidor. The secret – which has probably been lost since the Late Bronze Age – lies less in the cooking than in the steeping to break down the xylem fibres. That’s the bit which feels so like a trade secret I’m not sure I shall ever pass the recipe on. To have discovered how to impart the scent of freshly sawn hardwood to a preserve is, if I may say so, a real feat. To have reduced a piece of oak to the luscious consistency of crystallized ginger is the mark of a gen– (but here the phone interrupts what is beginning to look like an uncanny prediction of posterity’s judgement).