The Chef (15 page)

He relit the flames under the pans and waited, absentmindedly, until the bubbles started rising again.

He noticed the mobile phone on the work unit.
One missed call
, it said, and a text message.

Stop. Dinner cancelled. A

Maravan went to the stove and turned off the gas. He did not care.

There was still no trace of Ulagu three days after his disappearance.

On the fourth day the Tigers arrived.

Maravan was experimenting in his kitchen with different jellification dosages when the bell rang. Two of his compatriots were standing at the door. He knew one of them: Thevaram, the LTTE man
who had arranged Maravan’s
modhakam
job at the temple and pocketed 1,000 francs for the favour.

The other man was holding a briefcase. Thevaram introduced him as Rathinam.

‘May we come in?’

Maravan reluctantly let them in.

Thevaram glanced into the kitchen.

‘Well equipped. Business seems to be doing all right.’

‘What can I do for you?’ Maravan asked.

‘They say you’ve set up a catering service.’

Rathinam remained silent, just staring at Maravan.

‘I cook for people sometimes,’ said Maravan. ‘Cooking’s my profession.’

‘And successfully, too. You sent more than 6,000 francs back home in the last few weeks. Congratulations!’

It came as no surprise to Maravan that the Batticaloa Bazaar had passed the details on to these people.

‘My grandmother is very ill,’ was all he said in reply.

‘And you paid back all your loan to Ori. Congratulations again!’

Ori, too, thought Maravan. He waited.

‘Yesterday was Maaveerar,’ Thevaram continued, ‘Heroes’ Day.’

Maravan nodded.

‘We wanted to bring you Velupillai Pirapaharan’s speech.’

Thevaram looked at his companion. The latter opened his briefcase and took out a computer printout. At the top of the page was a portrait of the stocky LTTE leader in camouflage gear, and a long
text underneath.

Maravan took the sheet of paper. The two men offered him their hands.

‘Congratulations again on your success. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that the authorities don’t hear of your lucrative activities. Especially as you’re still signing
on.’

At the door Rathinam spoke for the first time: ‘Read the speech. Particularly the end.’ Maravan could hear their footsteps in the stairwell and then the muffled ding-dong of a
doorbell one floor below.

The end of the speech went like this:

Maravan went into the kitchen, threw the paper in the bin, and washed his face and hands very thoroughly. Before he entered the sitting room he took off his shoes, then he kneeled in front of
the domestic shrine, lit the wick of the
deepam
, and prayed fervently that Ulagu would not follow the path of the heroes.

Andrea was freezing as she sat in the rattan chair in her conservatory. She wore thick woollen socks and had pulled up her legs, so the Kashmir shawl covered her toes. The
shawl had been a present from Liliane, Dagmar’s predecessor. Andrea had met her in Sulawesi, a happening restaurant which, with its international fusion cooking, had enjoyed a brief heyday
and then vanished. Liliane, an analyst at a large bank, was a regular at Sulawesi. Andrea had served her table on her first night working there and flirted a little. When she left the restaurant
long after midnight Liliane was waiting for her in her red Porsche Boxster and asked whether she could give her a lift home.

‘Whose home?’ Andrea had asked.

That was a long time ago now, and the Kashmir shawl had a few moth holes, which annoyed Andrea every time she took it out of the cupboard.

The November Föhn wind was shaking the rickety windows, the draught stirring the indoor palms. She had put an electric heater in the middle of the room, because the only radiator was
lukewarm. It needed bleeding, but Andrea did not know how. Dagmar had always done that.

The electric heater would send her bills sky-high, but she did not care. She refused to accept that the conservatory – otherwise known as a winter garden – could not be used in
winter.

She put the newspaper she had finished reading to one side and did something she had not done for weeks: she picked up the job section, which she usually threw away unread, along with the rest
of the classified pages.

Love Food had a total of three bookings till the end of the year. Two on the back of her promotional dinner, and one from a couple of Esther’s patients who had contacted her directly. And
this was December, the high season for the catering industry.

Even if there were another one or two bookings, these would not be enough to keep Love Food afloat. Andrea saw two choices: go on the dole like Maravan or look through the job announcements.
Maybe she would find something that would give her the evenings free, so she would be available for Love Food if they got a booking. She had not abandoned all hope that Esther Dubois might call
again, or someone else from her clique. She still clung to the idea – her idea – of aphrodisiac catering and hoped that Maravan’s residency status would soon allow them to run
Love Food as an official concern.

To her mind it would have been unfair on him to give up so quickly. She felt responsible for his situation. If it were not for her he would probably still be working at the Huwyler. And, after
all, it had been her fault that they no longer had bookings through Esther Dubois.

She dropped the job advertisements, pulled the shawl up to her chin and started thinking again about how to get Love Food back on its feet.

But it was a surprising call from Maravan that provided the answer.

The previous day Maravan had been standing at a snack bar at the main railway station. He was wearing a woolly hat and scarf, sipping his tea. Before him was a folded Sunday
newspaper, unread, in which he had put an envelope with 3,000 francs in large denomination notes. It was practically all he had left from his Love Food income.

He had found out the day before that his sister had received a letter from Ulagu. The boy wrote that he was committed to the struggle for freedom and justice and had joined the LTTE fighters. It
was his handwriting, Maravan’s sister had said, but not his language.

He saw Thevaram coming. He was making his way through the passengers, idlers and those just waiting. At his side was the silent Rathinam.

They waved at him and came over to his table. Neither of them showed any inclination to get a drink from the snack bar.

Maravan pointed to the paper. Thevaram dragged it over, lifted it slightly, felt the envelope with his hand, and counted the notes without looking. Then he raised his eyebrows approvingly and
said, ‘Your brothers and sisters back home will thank you for this.’

Maravan sipped his tea. ‘Maybe they can do something for me, too.’

‘They are fighting for you,’ Thevaram replied.

‘I’ve got a nephew. He joined the fighters. He’s not even fifteen.’

‘There are many brave young men among our brothers.’

‘He’s not a young man. He’s a boy.’

Thevaram and Rathinam exchanged glances.

‘I will give greater support to the struggle.’

The two men exchanged glances again.

‘What’s his name?’ Rathinam suddenly asked.

Maravan told him the name, Rathinam jotted it down in a notebook.

‘Thank you,’ Maravan said.

‘All I’ve done so far is made a note of his name,’ Rathinam replied.

As a result of this meeting Maravan decided to ring Andrea.

He was not sure whether Thevaram and Rathinam had any influence over Ulagu’s fate, but he knew the LTTE’s arm was a long one. He had heard of Tigers demanding contributions from
asylum seekers, using scarcely veiled threats against relatives back home. If they were capable of threatening people’s lives over such a distance, then maybe it was in their power to save
them too.

Maravan had no option. He had to seize the chance, however small, that the two men could do something for Ulagu. And that cost money. More than he was earning at the moment.

The cold room smelt of heating oil. It had taken Maravan a long time to light the burner. Now, barefoot and in a sarong, he was kneeling before the domestic altar doing his
puja
. Despite the cold he was taking longer over it than usual. He prayed for Ulagu and for himself, that he might make the right decision.

When he stood up he realized the burner had gone out and the bottom of the combustion chamber was swimming in oil. He set about soaking up the oil with kitchen paper – a job he detested.
When he had finally done it and the burner was lit again, Maravan and the whole flat stank of oil. He opened the windows, took a long shower, made himself some tea, then shut the windows.

Maravan pulled the chair away from the computer and over to the burner. In his leather jacket, pressing the cup of tea tightly against his torso, he sat in the weak light of the
deepam
,
which was still flickering by the shrine, and thought.

Undoubtedly it was against his culture, his religion, his upbringing and his convictions. But he was not in Sri Lanka. He was in exile. You could not live here as you did at home.

How many women of the diaspora went to work, even though it was their job to run the household, bring up the children and cultivate and pass on the traditions and religious customs? But here
they had to earn money. Life here forced them to.

How many asylum seekers were obliged to take jobs that were only fit for the lower castes – kitchen helps, cleaners, carers? Most of them, because life here forced them to.

How many Hindus within the diaspora had to make Sunday the holy day of their week, even though it ought to be Friday? All of them, because life here forced them to.

So why should he, Maravan, not also do something that back home would go against his culture, tradition and decency, if life in exile forced him to?

He went to the telephone and dialled Andrea’s number.

‘How are things looking?’ was the first thing Maravan asked when Andrea answered.

She hesitated a moment before replying. ‘Pretty dire, to be honest. Still only three bookings.’

It was silent on the other end for a while.

Then Maravan said, ‘I think I would do it now.’

‘What?’

‘The dirty stuff.’

Andrea understood immediately what he was saying, but asked, ‘What dirty stuff?’

Maravan paused.

‘If someone else rings and wants, you know, sex dinners. As far as I’m concerned you can say yes.’

‘Oh that. All right, I’ll take that on board. Anything else?’

‘Nothing.’

As soon as Maravan had hung up, she looked for the number of the caller who had asked about the sex dinners. She had noted it down, just in case.

The apartment in Falkengässchen was on the fourth floor, right in the middle of the old town in a lavishly restored seventeenth-century house, if the inscription above the
door was to be believed. A new, silent lift had brought her up here. The sitting room and kitchen took up the entire floor. The sloping roof went right up into the gable and opened out onto a roof
terrace, from where you could look out over the tiled roofs and church towers of the old town.

A door in the wall led to the adjacent building. Behind it were two large bedrooms, each with a suite of furniture, and a luxurious bathroom. Everything was new and expensive, but kitted out in
bad taste. Plenty of marble and gold-plated fittings, deep-pile carpets, dubious antiques and chrome-steel furniture, bowls with dried, perfumed petals.

The apartment reminded Andrea of a hotel suite. It did not look as if anybody lived there.

When she rang the man who had asked about ‘sex dinners’ that time, he answered with a brusque ‘Yes?’ His name was Rohrer and he came to the point
immediately. They – he did not reveal who ‘they’ were – occasionally organized private dinners for relaxation. The guests were people for whom discretion was crucial. If she
thought she might be able to offer something in this line, he would arrange a test dinner. Depending on the result, this might lead to further dinners.

Andrea met Rohrer the very next day to look around the premises. A man in his late thirties with short-cropped hair, he scrutinized her with a professional gaze. She was a head taller than him,
and in the cramped lift up to the apartment she could smell a mixture of sweat and Paco Rabanne.

She told him that the apartment was suitable and that the suggested date in four days’ time – she looked awkwardly in her diary – was possible.

The dinner was served in the bedroom. The suite had been removed and Andrea had made the usual table with cloths and cushions – including brass fingerbowls, as now diners
would be eating with their hands again.

For the first time Maravan worked with a tall chef’s hat. Andrea had insisted on it, and at the moment he did not feel like putting up a fight.

The dinner was planned for a woman and a man. Rohrer would leave the moment the guests arrived. But Andrea and Maravan should stay after the last course, until they were called.

He cooked his standard menu. With the usual care, but without the usual passion, Andrea thought.