The Chef (9 page)

He had also tried his hand in the construction industry. He was working for a subcontractor of a subcontractor at a large building site. But on the second day an official turned up from the city
authorities checking for black market workers. Maravan and two of his colleagues managed to disappear just in time. The subcontractor still owed him money.

In the washing-up tent he had no idea how chilly it was outside. Maravan was scrubbing the stubborn remains of goulash from a food container. Apart from that he had nothing to do. Through the
side of the tent he could hear the voice of a football commentator. The Italy–Romania game was playing on the small television set. All the food stalls along the tourist strip were hoping for
an Italian victory. There were far more Italians than Romanians in town and they spent more money too.

Finally, in the fifty-fifth minute, salvation arrived in the form of a goal: 1–0. The triumphant screams startled Maravan; he peeped through the curtain which covered the entrance to the
stall. His boss was whooping loudest of all. He was skipping up and down with his arms thrust into the air, shouting ‘Italia! Italia!’

Maravan pretended he was delighted as well, and this was his downfall. At the very moment he beamed through the curtain, Romania equalized. His boss turned away from the television in disgust
and caught sight of Maravan’s grinning face. He said nothing, but as soon as the game was over and the flood of euphoric Italian fans they had been hoping for failed to materialize at any
point that evening, he paid Maravan and told him not to come back tomorrow.

Contrary to his usual habit Maravan travelled home in the front carriage of the Number 12 tram. A fan had thrown up in the rear carriage, and Maravan could not stomach the
stench.

A few lone fans were still on the streets, making their way back to the city centre. The scarves in their teams’ colours were now acting as protection against the cold wind, and only the
occasional snippet of an anthem or chant could be heard from inside the tram.

Maravan had never felt such despair. Not even on the day when he gave his entire savings to a people smuggler. At least that had been a way out.

This time he could not see one. Or only a very humiliating one. If he had committed himself to the Liberation Tigers he would have got that job in the Ceylonese restaurant. The owner did not
care that he had been booted out of the Huwyler. He would have taken Maravan on as a kitchen help, with the prospect of promotion to chef. But when he reacted to the crunch question of where he
stood on the Liberation Tigers with a shrug of his shoulders, he knew in an instant he would not get the job. The LTTE was ubiquitous within the diaspora. Nobody who was reliant on the help of
their compatriots here could afford to distance themselves from the Tigers.

Maybe he should go back. He could not have less of a future than he did here.

A summer’s day at the end of July; the temperature had risen above twenty-five degrees, although there was still a light northerly wind.

Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, spoke to 200,000 people in Berlin and promised them a change for the whole world. It needed a change: two days previously the second largest
mortgage bank in the United States had collapsed, and several others were getting into ever greater difficulties.

The Sri Lankan army reported that the LTTE had suffered a heavy defeat in Mullaitivu District. And the LTTE reported on the third offer of an amnesty to deserters from the Sri Lankan army that
year.

With a teaspoon, Maravan scooped one of the green split roasted mung beans out of the boiling water and tested it. It was done, but still firm. He poured away the water, spread the beans out on
a silicon mat and left them to cool.

He added shredded coconut, jiggery and finely ground cardamom seeds, mixing everything thoroughly in a bowl. Then he worked roasted rice flour and boiling water into a stiff dough. The amount of
water had to be just right: too much water and the dough would come together badly; too little and it would go hard after steaming.

Maravan washed his hands and rubbed them with some coconut oil. He rolled out little balls from the rice flour dough and made them into small vessels, which he filled with the spicy gram
mixture, and then sealed them, making pointy balls. He steamed these, placed them in the thermobox, then set about making the next thirty.

Maravan had become the supplier of
modhakam
, the favourite sweet of Ganesh, the elephant-headed Lord of Hosts.

Every morning and evening he produced around a hundred
modhakam
, which the faithful could buy outside the temple and offer up to Ganesh. Temple-goers who had cars would take turns to
pick up the full thermobox shortly before eight in the morning and just before six in the evening, and return the empty one.

The idea had been his own. To put it into practice he needed to increase his loan with Ori. He had to buy the boxes and make a donation of 1,000 francs to the LTTE. But now this also allowed him
to supply Tamil food shops and two Ceylonese restaurants with biscuits and other sweet things. Business was not exactly thriving, but it was starting to trickle in. Maybe this was the first step
towards Maravan Catering.

The doorbell rang. Maravan looked at his watch. It was only just past five o’clock; the temple courier was early today.

‘Hold on!’ he called out in Tamil. He washed his hands and opened the door.

Andrea.

She was carrying a bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine. She presented him with both of these. ‘I know you don’t drink. But I do.’

As with her previous unannounced visit, she had to ask, ‘May I come in?’ before Maravan snapped out of his shock.

He invited her into the flat. She saw the open kitchen door and his apron and asked, ‘Are you expecting guests?’

‘No, I’m making
modhakam
.’ He went into the kitchen, took two from the thermobox, put them on a plate and offered it to her. ‘Here you go. You can eat it or give
it as an offering.’

‘I’d rather give it as an offering,’ she decided with a smile.

‘I see. No, no, don’t worry, it’s harmless.’

Andrea did not take one all the same. ‘Have you got any time at the moment?’

‘Twenty more, then I’ll have time. Do you want to wait in the sitting room?’

‘I’ll watch.’

When the doorbell rang Maravan was ready. This time the person taking the sweets to the temple was a plump, middle-aged woman he recognized. But he could not recall where he
had seen her before. Maybe she would have told him, but the moment she saw Andrea in the kitchen her smile dissolved. She took the thermobox and left almost without saying goodbye.

‘Can people order meals from you?’

They were sitting on the cushions at the low table. Andrea had a glass of wine in front of her, Maravan a cup of tea. Before he sat down he had ceremoniously lit the
deepam
by his
domestic shrine, murmuring something while doing so.

‘They can. One day I’d even like to make a living from it.’

‘I mean a special meal.’

‘I try to make each one special.’

She took a sip of wine and put the glass down slowly. ‘I mean special in the same way that you made that dinner for me. Can people order that from you?’

Maravan thought for a moment. ‘Something similar, yes.’

‘It would have to be exactly the same.’

‘But I’d need a rotary evaporator.’

‘What would that cost?’

‘Around six thousand.’

‘Ouch!’

Andrea swirled around the red wine in her glass and pondered. She had a lot of connections in the catering industry. Surely it would be possible to get hold of one of those things.

‘What if I were to hire one?’

‘Then it would be exactly the same.’ Maravan poured her some more wine.

‘Exactly the same effect, too?’

He raised his shoulders and smiled. ‘We could try it out.’

‘Not “we”, Maravan,’ she said circumspectly.

Andrea lived in roughly the area where, in his dreams, Maravan had pictured the turmeric-coloured delivery van splashed with the words ‘Maravan Catering’. Her flat
was on the third floor of a middle-class 1920s house. Three high-ceilinged rooms, a conservatory, an old-fashioned bathroom, a loo with a cistern mounted almost at ceiling height, and a large
kitchen with a new, free-standing dishwasher, whose outflow went into the sink.

It was the sort of flat you could only get with a large slice of luck and good contacts, and you always had the worry that the house might be sold and renovated, and the rent become
unaffordable.

Until the break-up of her last relationship, Andrea had shared the flat with her partner, and now she felt a little lost in it. She lived in the bedroom and the kitchen. Sometimes in the
conservatory, too. But she hardly ever used the sitting-cum-dining room, and she never went into Dagmar’s bedroom, which had been emptied of everything.

Today, however, the sitting-cum-dining room was illuminated by a sea of candles. In the centre was Maravan’s low table and his cushions. The tablecloth was his, too, and she had even
wheedled out of him the domestic shrine with the goddess Lakshmi and the clay lamp. Maravan had succeeded in talking her out of the incense sticks and meditative Indian flute music.

They had brought over in Andrea’s Golf all the kitchen equipment, cushions, table, ingredients and the dishes that he had had to pre-prepare at home.

He had visited her flat the day before to make and freeze the liquorice lollies. Likewise, he had brought along to put in the refrigerator the crunchy and chewy urad-strip construction, which he
had spontaneously named ‘man and woman’.

Everything else – the saffron and almond spheres, half-frozen in liquid nitrogen, the ghee cylinders threaded with saffron, the very glossy balls of ghee, long pepper, cardamom, cinnamon
and palm sugar – he made in Andrea’s kitchen. Even the sweetmeats to accompany the tea – the little red glazed hearts and the jellied asparagus – were served fresh. He also
had to make his
modhakam
. Today Andrea had taken care of the delivery to the temple; he did not want the courier to come to her flat.

The rotary evaporator had been turning since ten o’clock that morning. After much searching Andrea had obtained it not through one of her catering contacts, but had borrowed it from a
female admirer, a university assistant who was working on her chemistry dissertation.

Maravan had resisted the temptation to tinker with the three normal curry dishes, even though these were the only non-aphrodisiac recipes. Maybe the combination of these dishes
with everything else had been responsible for the effect Andrea had experienced.

Andrea’s guest arrived at eight o’clock. She was a very blonde, very nervous, slightly chubby, twenty-one-year-old, more pretty than beautiful. It was apparent that she did not feel
at ease with the situation. She declined the champagne that Maravan served in his sarong and white shirt. He noted this deviation from the menu with some concern and hoped that it was not this
particular ingredient which had hastened the effect.

When the two women had sat down, he brought his greeting from the kitchen, the mini chapattis, which he drizzled ceremoniously with his essence of curry leaves, cinnamon and coconut oil.

After that he served dishes only when Andrea rang a brass temple bell, another item borrowed from Maravan.

Each time the bell pealed and he brought in a new dish, Andrea’s guest was more relaxed and, as a consequence, so was he. After serving the tea and sweetmeats, he bid goodbye with a short
bow, as arranged.

He discreetly left the flat just before ten o’clock. Andrea would call him the next day and tell him when he should come past, so they could clear up and bring the stuff
back to his place.

It was a muggy evening and in the sky he could still see the afterglow of the sun which had set a while ago. During the day the temperature had climbed above thirty degrees.

It was on these sorts of evenings that he felt most homesick. They reminded him of Colombo in the monsoon season. The first drops might fall at any moment, and sometimes he thought he could hear
the distant surf of Galle Face Green, and the squawking of the ravens which stalked the food stalls on the promenade.

Even the smell could be similar just before the rain on muggy days, especially when the aroma of barbecues wafted in the air. Then he could smell them – the food stalls – and thought
he could make out their lights twinkling in the distance.

But his homesickness was not so acute that evening. Today he felt that he had taken a step forwards. He had completed his first proper assignment as a hired chef in a Swiss home. No, hold on.
Had he not supplied the furnishings and decoration? And had he not also served everything on his own? In fact, this evening had been Maravan Catering’s first commission.

He was not tortured by lovesickness, either. Had Andrea been planning to spend the night with a man, he would surely have felt differently. But he was not envious of the blonde. If he were
honest, it excited him to be complicit in her seduction. It made him feel a little closer to Andrea.

The heavens opened without any warning. He stopped, stretched out his arms and lifted his face to the rain. Like the young man he had watched from the tram some months back. Or like himself, as
a boy in the first rain of the monsoon.

If Huwyler’s restaurant was not exactly full, he was busier than most of his rivals. Of course he could not help but know this; as the acting president of
swisschefs
he had all the figures at his fingertips. He was doing his best to resist the financial crisis, coming up with new ideas – the local press had written short, funny
articles about his
Menu Surcrise
, for example – and now this had to happen!

That arsehole was having a heart attack on him. A full house on a Friday evening! Throwing up all over the table! And over the shirt front of his guest, a Dutch businessman.