Cold Snap (3 page)

"Being Italian can't be all that bad," Bill
said. He had spotted the Italian label on the coat and hefted it in
the air, as though saying such quality was reason enough to
appreciate his homeland.

"Don't forget Pantofola d'Oro," Ari added
with a laugh. "Now, I must meet the chef."

"Oui, bien sur, Monsieur."

But before Ari could swerve towards the
kitchen, Tracy Mackenzie surged into the foyer. A buxom 5'10"
strawberry blonde married to a 6' moocher, she was one of those
people who preceded themselves. By the time she approached you felt
she had already arrived. She had the venturesome air of an explorer
fresh from the Amazon, breathlessly impatient to relate her
experiences in the jungle. That she was the last person in the
world to actually enter strange, dark terrain, or to spend any
extended period outside a well-managed environment, was beside the
point. Encountering her and Matt Mackenzie as they were returning
from the movies, Tracy had loudly complained about the inadequacy
of the theater's heating system.

"Don't they know it's winter?" she had said
with the aggrieved air a diplomat might use when addressing an
indifferent public: Don't you know there's a war on?

On one of his first nights in Richmond, Ari
had heard her arguing drunkenly with her husband and two drug
dealers about her new dark-skinned neighbor. It had been a
less-than-enchanting introduction to the Mackenzies, and Ari was
certain he would dislike the woman when they finally met. Instead,
he had been entranced. Having watched numerous old American movies
when a child, Ari had picked up a fair mental scrapbook of
Hollywood stars. He saw that, when not drunk or stoned, Tracy
looked and carried herself like Lana Turner. The amorous Turner
famously said her goal in life was to have one husband and seven
children, but somehow the formula got switched. Ari did not know if
Matt was Husband Number One, but the couple appeared to have an
aversion to children. Which made the sound of young voices from the
basement all the more cryptic—and unsettling.

For Ari, children held no particular charm,
an inclination reinforced during his American sojourn. Here,
patting a child's head could land you in jail—apparently, even if
it was your own. He had loved his own three boys, of course. But
two had been killed in the American invasion. The third was with
his mother in San Diego, where they had been transferred after
spending half a year in Iceland. Ari had been provided the briefest
of encounters with his beloved Rana and his surviving son in the
midst of that transfer, at Richmond International Airport. Seeing
his wife irreparably disfigured had broken his heart. It had also
provided the cornerstone of his personal miracle. His sorrow had
been softened into redemption, a vigorous sense that there was
indeed a grand design. He had only to reach out to participate in
it. But the grand design was a mystery. One had to step willingly
into the dark.

Welcome to the United States, the Dark
Continent.

Tracy flowed into his personal space like
chia butter on warm skin. He slipped into her orbit and would have
slipped into something else had not propriety, morality and the
social landscape made the cost prohibitive. He forgot he wasn't
sitting and tried to squirm in his seat.

"Ari!" she announced, giving him a double
peck on the cheeks that, under her soft lips, amounted to a French
kiss. Her tight, black bandage dress proved that her back was as
perfect as her face. This was the most bare skin Ari would be privy
to until the coming of Summer, which on a day like this seemed
distant indeed.

Casting her eyes at the stairs, she gave Bill
a qualified smile as he disappeared at the top with Ari's coat. She
took Ari by the elbow and guided him down the hall. He had the
impression she was retreating out of earshot.

"I'm so sorry about this, Ari," she said
aromatically.

"I didn't expect children in abundance," he
said, though with a smile that allayed any threat that he might
storm out of the house.

"Well, yes...that." Tracy gave a small
shiver, as though confessing to allowing her home to become
infested. "But I mean...well, you can't help but smell it."

"The aliments?" he queried, amending this to
"The cooking?" when Tracy frowned non-comprehendingly.

"Matt's boss is nuts for French so-called
cuisine. Rebecca told me about this French cook she'd heard
about..."

"Mrs. Wareness? Diane's mother? I didn't
realize you knew her."

"You and Howie Nottoway aren't the only
neighbors I know."

Her voice soured at the mention of Howie,
whom she knew chiefly through his complaints about the Mackenzies
and their parties.

"Matt and Ethan Wareness used to work
together before the big kerfuffle."

"Is that a bird?"

"Ethan was fired for...well, some kind of
'impropriety' is the word they used, according to Rebecca. Anyway,
she happened to know about this..." Tracy's eyes wobbled in the
direction of the kitchen. "...woman. Don't worry, I've also ordered
in some finger food, too, plus a good roast. All I have to do is
zap it in the microwave."

"Doesn't the cook need the microwave?"

Tracy released an unbecoming snort that
flared her nostrils beautifully. "She doesn't even know how to use
one!" She gave Ari a pinch on the arm, as though proving to him he
was awake and really hearing what he thought he was hearing. "Can
you imagine? And she brought some of her own pots and pans. Like
mine aren't good enough!"

Tracy's pots and pans were no doubt adequate,
Ari thought. And since her culinary expertise was limited to
microwave recipes, those pots and pans were probably pristine. He
was growing more interested in this Frenchwoman by the moment.

"Is she only making enough for your husband's
boss?" he inquired tentatively.

"You didn't ask 'enough what?'," Tracy said
cagily, stopping at the edge of the guest-filled living room. "We
shelled out a couple hundred just for her ingredients and whatnot.
What was all that on her receipts? Uh…oie, chanterelle ou girolle,
poireau…. Isn't that the Agatha Christie detective?"

Goose, mushrooms, leeks….

"Anyway, a lot of other stuff like that, most
of it an arm and a leg. Matt's boss will be stuffing it down his
employees' throats. Poor Matt!"

Ari was suddenly distracted by a familiar
childish shout from the basement. Diane Wareness was here. Which
meant her mother was hereabouts.

Ari had few qualms about confronting
smugglers and killers, but going toe-to-toe against an irate mother
was more than he could stomach. On the other hand, to suddenly
announce a bout of dyspepsia and a need to rush home might ruin
Tracy's plans. It was obvious she intended to use Ari as a prop to
impress Matt's boss with her husband's cosmopolitan openness. Ari
knew this because a quick glance into the living room revealed two
men with complexions only slightly lighter than Ari's own. Indian,
most likely. Ari doubted the Mackenzies would confuse Arabs with
Indians—or so he hoped—but it was all-too likely that they presumed
there was an affinity between races of color. After all, as a
general rule, didn't most Whites flock together? The U.S. had yet
to attain the multi-cultural or racial heights of, say, Jamaica. Or
of France, for that matter.

Damned if he left and damned if he stayed. He
had not yet seen Rebecca Wareness, but there weren't so many people
here that he would be able to avoid her for long.

"Tracy, would it dismay you completely if I
delayed your introductions? I want to look into the kitchen."

"Want to see how bad it's going to be?" Tracy
sighed. "It's your funeral."

"I have attended many of my funerals," said
Ari. Tracy was accustomed to Ari's nonsensical remarks and pared
her response to a flick of her eyebrow as Ari backed down the
hallway. Following the aromas and the clatter of pans, he entered
the kitchen. A plump woman with short graying hair was banging a
large saucepan on the burner. The stove seemed to croak under her
grave demands, unaccustomed to the athleticism of old-world
cooking. Ari wondered if the woman's husband was mistaken, if
interrupting such concentrated fury might not result in a heavy
load of superheated copper upside his head. Madame Mumford had not
noticed his entry. Ari took the opportunity to silently observe.
From the smell alone, he had determined she was a master.

She lifted the pan and slammed it on the
burner coils. Then she shifted her attention to a bouillabaisse
pot, giving the contents a brisk swish with a wooden spoon. She
then cracked open the oven for a moment before returning to her
chief adversary, giving the stove another whack with the
large—huge, actually—brass-handled pan. Tracy peeked in from the
other kitchen entrance, gaping at the abuse her appliance was being
subjected to. And well she might. Ari was familiar with the shock
effect of metal on metal, and thought the electric burner a poor
warrior, indeed. This woman must be thinking of an antique
woodburner in a backroad Provencal bistro, a hardened veteran of a
hundred years of r
ô
ttiseur.

And yet the moment Tracy's frightened face
disappeared into the dining room, Ari sensed a strange cheeriness
about the kitchen, as though it was accepting that its mundane
existence was being transformed into something worthwhile. A
temporary break in culinary stasis—if only it survived.

Madame Mumford grunted in frustration as her
wire-frame glasses steamed up and she was forced to pause and wipe
them clear with her apron. It was then that she saw Ari.

"C'est miraculeux!" he exclaimed.

While her smile was diminutive, her face
exploded with light.

"Votre accent est impeccable, Monsieur."

Telling a foreigner that his accent was
impeccable was the highest accolade a Frenchman could bestow. Ari
nodded in gratitude. The woman did not dwell on the moment, but
turned again to the sauce pan. With no regard to the bubbling
turmoil, she dipped a finger into the brew and lifted it to her
mouth.

"Ah," said Ari.

She glanced at him. "Monsieur...?"

"May I...?" He brought forth a tentative
finger.

"You have washed?"

"My hand has touched neither doorknob nor
chat this late morning," he asserted—a little sorrowfully, having
been abandoned by filthy Sphinx, who had a propensity to beshat the
house wherever he pleased when his kitty litter box was soiled.

"Well..."

Feeling invited, Ari tilted his finger into
the sauce, wincing a little before withdrawing it and raising it to
his lips. He coated the tip of his tongue and mused longingly.

"Did I warn you it was hot?" said the woman,
without apprehension of an injured guest, but also without
smugness, as though she was admonishing an intelligent but
impractical child. She grew alarmed, though, when a tear bubbled at
the edge of his eye. "Are you injured?"

"I weep with joy, Madame. This takes me
home."

"You're French?" she exclaimed, giving him a
close look. "Marseilles?" she added guilelessly. It was the
assumption of an older generation, when Arabs were most prominent
in the southern provinces. Now one was just as likely to run into
them in the streets of Paris or Cambrai. Realizing her misstep, she
turned back to the pan and said, "French is a culture, not a
people."

Ari, all too prone to similar misstatements,
emitted a small chuckle. "I'll bear that in mind. But alas, I am
equally misplaced...in Sicily."

"Italy?" the woman said doubtfully. "Then how
does it remind you of home?"

In fact, the sauce had brought to mind Ari's
childhood in Iraq, when his father had gone to some expense to hire
a cook talented in many types of cuisine: French, Indian, Italian,
as well as all the local dishes. He had followed Baba's example
when he set up his own house in Baghdad. During an international
function at the As-Salam Palace he had gone behind the scenes to
talk to some of the chefs. He could lure none of them to al-Masbah.
He was a very junior officer, without enough clout to protect them
if Saddam Hussein or his wife or his sons (or their wives) took
offense at their moonlighting. But one of them supplied him with
the name of a woman who not only knew lablabs from haricots verts,
but could turn out an exceptional table. How many times had Ari
slipped past her to burn his finger in her Béchamel?

"Believe it or not, there is a French
restaurant in Syracuse that served the best crullers in the world,"
Ari confabulated. "My parents took me there at least once a week.
They must have served the only pieds paquets between Rome and
Algiers."

A growing crowd of lies was filling up the
concert hall of Ari's mind. Keen anticipation grew for the new
composition. The name of the piece? He had no idea. But it would
certainly be novel.

Madame Mumford saw no reason not to accept
Ari's story at face value. The French pried less and assumed more,
often with alarming proficiency. The Direction de la surveillance
du territoire had come perilously close to snaring him when he
participated in the assassination of an Iraqi émigré. He had not
prepared the bomb (that was too much like cooking) but he had done
the preliminary groundwork.

"I must have you," Ari said abruptly, a
little too avidly.

"Pardon?" said Madame Mumford, giving the
saucepan a particularly harsh bang on the burner.

"I mean, you must cook for me."

"And when would this event take place? I need
time to prepare."

"Event? Would every day be too much to
expect? I have the funds." Ari found himself making little motions
of impatience, like a boy preparing to lunge for a sweet. How often
had he crouched in the mountains, hours or even days on end,
waiting for the right moment to squeeze off a round at some Kurdish
rebel? But here his sense of timing abandoned him. Realizing how
this must appear to a staid Continental, he rigorously imposed upon
himself the stillness of polite expectancy.