The Food of Love (32 page)

discovered how refreshing they were and devoured them eagerly.

There were tourists in Le Marche now - not many, by comparison

with other parts of Italy, most of them just passing through

en route for the cooler seaside resorts of Ancona and Rimini. Ferragosto, August the fifteenth, when Rome closed down for its annual holiday, came and went without Bruno noticing. Only

when the heat began to wane and the woods began to fill with

skylarks and thrushes, migrating gradually southwards along with the warm weather, did he stop and think that by now Laura, too,

would have gone back to America, her studies in Italy over.

And then, suddenly, August was gone and he was busy again.

There were myrtle berries to pick and then to serve gratinated

with a topping of mascarpone. There were blackberries to gather, to make into pastries and sorbets. Chestnuts and walnuts added

their sweet richness to pasta sauces and stews. The walnut trees were surrounded with bibs of white netting to catch any prematurely falling fruit. Whole families climbed the trees to pick them,

or walked down the rows of grapes in the vineyards with panniers on their backs, filling them with the fruit that would become the local wine.

And there was Benedetta. Each new harvest was an excuse to

take to the fields above the village and, as soon as their baskets were full, to make love. And each night, too, when the dishes were finally washed and put back in their racks above the range to dry, there was the darkness of his bedroom, and her warm body slipping quietly into his bed while her mother snored softly in the

room below.

The woods were dense with funghi now. Shaggy ink caps grew

along the verges of the lanes, with chanterelles and spugnoli just a few yards further in. Porcini, king of mushrooms, dotted the gaps between beech trees, and the even more splendid Caesar’s mushroom, the ovolo, clustered under the gnarled roots of oaks in twos

and threes like eggs in a nest. As if from nowhere, truffle-hunters appeared in the village, taciturn individuals who downed a solitary distillato in the bar before heading off to the woods with their dogs and an air of feigned nonchalance, careful not to let anyone know exactly where they would be looking. Benedetta and Bruno

paid them little heed. They had their own secret places.

Her abilityr to smell out truffles without the aid of a dog

amazed him. His own palate, so highly attuned to scents and

tastes in the kitchen, was thoroughly outclassed. She was determined to teach him, however, and little by little he too began to

be able to discern the faint feral perfume they trailed on the still night air.

These truffles were a different thing altogether from the

summer truffle he and Benedetta had found earlier in the year.

Pale in colour, and as large as potatoes, they were both awesomely pungent and deeply intoxicating. Gusta and Benedetta threw

them into every dish as casually as if they were throwing in parsley, and after a while Bruno did the same. He would never forget the

first time they cooked a wild boar with celery and truffles: the dark, almost rank meat and the sulphuric reek of the tuber combined to form a taste that made him shiver.

He was aware that Benedetta was deliberately cooking dishes

designed to bind him to her. As well as the truffles there was robiola di bee, a cheese made from the milk of a pregnant ewe, rich in

pheromones. There were fiery little diavolesi: strong chilli peppers that had been left to dry in the sun. Plates ofTried funghi included i morsels of amanita, the ambrosia of the gods, said to be a natural narcotic. He didn’t mind. He was doing the same to her:

offering her unusual gelati flavoured with saffron, the delicate stigmas of the crocus flower; elaborate tarts of myrtle and chocolate; salads made with lichens and even acorns from her beloved

woods. It was a game they played, based on their intimate appreciation of the taste of each other’s body, so that the food and the

sex became one harmonious whole, and it became impossible to

say where eating ended and lovemaking began. He no longer

went to enquire about his van. Its red bonnet had appeared on

one of the olive lorries, and he thought he recognised its headlights on somebody else’s scooter. He noticed, too, that when

Hanni the mechanic sat down to eat at the osteria, he got up

again without paying, which made Bruno laugh. Never mind: the

body of the dead van had been recycled into the life of the village, like a fallen log in the woods sprouting orecchietti, or trombette di morte growing on the rich earth of a grave.

A different kind of tourist came to the restaurant now from as

far away as Urbino and Pesaro. These were people who were serious about their food. In particular they came to eat the seasonal

truffles, and Bruno served plate after plate of came al albese slices of raw beef covered with celery, parmesan, truffle shavings

and olive oil - and salads of caesar mushrooms, truffles and potatoes.

These dishes were simple to prepare but, with truffles selling

for over two thousand euros a kilo, ridiculously profitable.

Occasionally Gusta pressed huge piles of banknotes on Bruno,

which he accepted without counting.

The car that made its way up the winding road from the valley was hired, and its occupants clearly tourists: they stopped several times to admire the views, and when they finally parked in the piazza

and folded up their touring map they first of all went off to take a look round the church, the war memorial and the rest of the

sights. But even the most determined sightseer could not find

much to detain them in Galteni, and it was inevitable that, come lunchtime, they would settle themselves at a table for two and wait contentedly for Gusta to come and tell them what was on offer

that day.

Gusta’s face, when she came into the kitchen with their order,

bore the studiously blank expression she put on whenever she was confronted by the oddness of strangers.

‘One truffle salad, to shared she said pointedly.

‘And?’ Benedetta asked, not looking up from the stove.

‘And nothing. No pasta. No secoyido. A glass of’wine each. And

they want to know what kinds of mineral water we have.’ She

shrugged. ‘They’re foreigners, of course.’

Since Gusta used the word foreigners to describe anyone from

beyond the valley, Bruno didn’t pay much attention. ‘I’ll make the salad a large one then. No point in sending them away hungry.’

He began to arrange the ingredients in a dish.

Then he heard her voice.

The small kitchen window overlooked the square where the

tables were and conversation often drifted in - so much so that

Benedetta and Gusta would sometimes join in, shouting their

contributions over the crash of pans. Benedetta was searing meat now, and the hiss made it hard for him to hear. Bruno put a hand on her arm to stop her and listened.

‘Probably about another hour or two from here to Urbino,’ a

man’s voice was saying, in American.

‘So there’ll be plenty’ of time to go right up to the top,’ his

companion agreed. The hairs on the back of Bruno’s neck tingled, and his heart stood still.

Benedetta looked at his face. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I thought - nothing.’

Through the window, they heard the voices again.

‘… can’t believe how much cooler it is up here than Rome,1 the man was saying.

‘And so beautiful. And that food smells fantastic! When he heard her say that, Bruno was sure. He put down his knife and went through to the tiny bar, from where he could see

all the tables.

She was thinner than when he’d last seen her, and she was

wearing sunglasses, but there was no mistaking the sweep of her

neck or the way she sat with her long legs spread out over the

chair next to her. He felt dizzy.

‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ Benedetta said softly beside him. He nodded, unable to speak.

‘Do you want to speak to her?’

He shook his head and made his way back to the kitchen.

There was a dish of snails to prepare, ordered by the Luchetta

family, and he tried to force his mind to concentrate as he cleaned them. But his hands were shaking and the slippery shells clattered all over the floor.

Benedetta grabbed a board and began chopping livers in

silence. Thwick - thwick - thwick went the knife through the soft flesh, just a little harder than was necessary.

‘I’m sorry,’ Bruno said at last.

‘For what?’ Benedetta’s reply was even sharper than the knife.

‘For being upset, I suppose.’

Benedetta tipped the chopping board against the pan and

scraped the livers into the bubbling oil. ‘You can’t help the way you feel.’

And nor can you, Bruno thought, looking at the angry flush on

the back of Benedetta’s neck.

“I did think I was over her,’ he said apologetically.

‘And I always knew you weren’t.’

He opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again.

‘She’s pretty,’ Benedetta said, taking an onion and slicing it in a dozen deft movements before reaching for another.

‘Yes.’

‘Prettier than me.’

‘No,’ he protested. ‘Just - different.’

‘And you love her.’

It wasn’t said as a question, but it was a question nevertheless, and Bruno knew he had to try to answer it. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘it’s complicated. I fell in love with her but she didn’t love me back, and I’m not sure whether - I mean, they say you can’t really be in love with someone unless they love you too, don’t they?’

‘That’s what they say.’

He looked at her but she was concentrating on what she was

doing. Her voice was a little thick, but that might just have been the onions.

‘So you told her that you loved her, and she told you she wasn’t interested,’ Benedetta went on. ‘What happened next?’

‘It was a bit more complicated than that,’ Bruno confessed.

‘She was in love with my best friend, and - well, it all sort of spiralled from there.’

Benedetta wiped her hands and poured two glasses of wine

from the bottle that stood open by the stove.

“I think you’d better tell me exactly what happened,’ she said

gently.

So Bruno talked, and Benedetta listened and nodded, cooking

while she did so, and Gusta, coming in and out of the kitchen with empty plates, pretended she wasn’t eavesdropping.

‘And that’s why I don’t want to go and speak to her,’ Bruno

said finally. ‘She thinks I’m a complete pervert and I don’t blame her.’

‘Nor do I.’

‘Thanks,’ he said wearily. ‘Anyway, it’s best she just has her

lunch and leaves.’

‘Perhaps.’

At that moment there was the sound of shouting from outside,

followed shortly afterwards by the unmistakable sound of someone retching. Bruno heard Laura’s voice in the bar. She sounded panicked. ‘Semi, signora, is there a doctor? My friend has been taken ill.’

Bruno glanced at Benedetta but her face betrayed nothing.

They heard Gusta’s voice saying that she would call for the doctor straight away. In the meantime, they would make her friend comfortable on a bed. Benedetta went to see if she could help.

‘What’s all that about?’ Bruno asked when all was quiet and

Benedetta was back in the kitchen.

‘It must have been the funghi.”

‘In what way?’

‘Some people have an allergic reaction to coprini*. Particularly if they mix them with alcohol. He must be one of those.’ She gave him a blank look. ‘He’ll be laid up for at least two hours. There’s nothing the doctor can do, but he’ll have to wait for him anyway, and my mother will give him some aceto balsamico to settle his

stomach.’

‘Benedetta, we don’t have any coprini.” ‘No, but that’s because I used them all.’

He gave up. It seemed to him more likely that Laura’s companion

was suffering from a small amount of one of those

poisonous mushrooms that Benedetta insisted on collecting

during their forays into the woods. But the important thing now

was what he was going to do about Laura.

“I can’t talk to her,’ he decided. ‘She thinks we’ve given her

boyfriend food-poisoning, for God’s sake. I can’t go out there and start talking to her as if nothing’s happened.’

‘No,’ Benedetta agreed. ‘But my mother’s already told her

about the effects of coprini, and of course we’re not going to

charge her for her meal, so …’

‘… so I could cook her a dolce on the house, by way of

apology.’

‘Brilliant. What about the tart with the myrtle berries?’

He shook his head. ‘Too sweet.’

‘Then baked figs?’

‘Too straightforward.’ lZuppa ingleseV ‘Too heavy.’

She threw up her hands. ‘Your turn, then, maestro. What are

you going to cook her?’

“I don’t know,’ he said slowly. As he spoke his hands were

already reaching for ingredients. Figs, yes, and cream, and nuts. Some sort of cake? ‘But whatever it is, I don’t think there’s a recipe for it.’

He was not thinking now, but improvising. No: even improvising

wasn’t the right word for what he was doing, Benedetta

thought as she watched him juggle candied fruits and pastry

cream, and pound hazlenuts into a creamy paste. Bruno was composing.

Occasionally she made a comment, or a quiet suggestion,

but he could barely hear her, so focused was he on the feel and

taste of what was in his hands.

Eventually it was done. He blinked, and there in front of him

was a kind of trifle cake, a many-layered mousse that was sweet

and bitter, smooth and sharp, cold on the outside and warm

underneath: a dessert, he thought, that was as rich and as simple as life itself.