Eating Crow (17 page)

“I’m sorry. I can’t quite—”

“I was there, is all. And afterward Willy says to me, he comes to me and he claps me on the shoulder and he says, ‘Max, maybe I should get some thicker pants …’”

“You knew Willy Brandt?”

“I was attached to the embassy in Bonn for a while in the sixties and seventies.” This, as if it were obvious. He fell silent again and took another long drag on his cigarette.

“This is our man, Marc, poster boy for the Penitential Engagement crew. There’s not been a gesture like it since.”

“Not even Clinton in Kigali in 1998?”

He turned and fixed me with an amused, fatherly grin. “You’ve been doing some reading.”

A little, I said. My office had prepared a few briefing papers for me and I had tried to read as much of them as I could. There had been one on Bill Clinton’s trip to Rwanda, while still president, to apologize for the world’s failure to intervene in the Rwandan genocide.

Max sniffed the air irritably. “Shall I tell you something about Clinton at Kigali, Marc? Shall I?” He wasn’t looking for an answer, but I nodded all the same. “You know he was only there for two hours?” I nodded again. “And that he never left the airfield?”

“There were security concerns and—”

“The engines on Air Force One were never turned off,” he said, enunciating every syllable so I didn’t miss the point. “All the time Billy Boy is on the tarmac wearing his bleeding heart on his sleeve and saying his wise words about the one million dead who aren’t there to hear him, there are four Rolls-Royce engines back there, all powered up and ready to go.” He took a final drag on his cigarette, then dropped it and ground it under the toe of his shoe. “If you go round in the car to say sorry to a neighbor, it’s always good to turn off the engine. Just for a minute at least. Don’t you think?”

I nodded wisely again.

“No, Marc,” he said, pointing up at the image in front of us, “this is your man.” He walked over to me, placed a hand on my shoulder, and together we studied the gargantuan picture. “I just wanted Willy Brandt and the heir to his legacy to spend a little time together.” Tomorrow, he said, would be a circus. For now it was just me and him. So we stood there in silence, looking up, and I tried to think grave thoughts about Lewis Jeffries and slavery and I wondered whether I ought to do the apology on my knees, just like Willy, but abandoned the idea. Kneeling was one thing. Kneeling and talking at the same time was quite another.

Disbelieving, I said, “I am the new Willy Brandt?”

“Time
magazine made him their Man of the Year for that,” Max said.

“Really!”

“I thought you’d be interested.” I blushed at the bubble of enthusiasm in my voice. “No need to be embarrassed, Marc. A little ego is a good thing. You think Willy didn’t check his hair right before kneeling down? That he didn’t straighten his collar? He knew the world would be watching. And they’ll be watching you too, kid. Don’t be frightened. Trust me. You’re going to be a big, big star.”

Jennie was leaning over a work surface, making final corrections to my recipe sheets.

“Would you have preferred to stay at the conference, then?” she said without looking up.

“Christ, no. I was grateful to be able to escape early to come here and cook. That’s the thing. The day after my Max Moment, when I’m standing up there next to the UN secretary-general and he’s making his big ‘dawn of the empathic era’ speech to introduce me, do you know what I was thinking? I’ll tell you. I was thinking how bloody cold Willy Brandt’s knees must have been. That was the only thought in my head.”

Jennie looked up at me. “That’s fine, Marc. That’s just fine. It proves you’re human, not some weirdo policy wonk.”

“Like you?”

“Exactly. You’re not a weirdo policy wonk like me.” Looking back now at the neatly annotated pile of paper in front of her, she said, “We’re ready,” and I knew she was right. There was no more time for agonizing or recipe checking. There was no more time for tasting. After all, it wasn’t as if we’d been cooking these past three days to sate our own hunger.

At a few minutes past nine the next morning I found myself halfway down a great alley of ancient trees, their heavy engorged roots reaching out across the ground toward me, their branches above me leaning in toward each other as if conferring over my suitability. As a mark of my humility I held in my arms two heavy brown paper sacks of Wal-Mart groceries and I was wearing chef’s whites, the loose-fitting jacket buttoned high at the neck, which encouraged me to stand with my chin just up, as if I had been called to attention. Behind me, strung out along the verges of the road that ran past the end of this driveway, were three dozen television trucks, many of them connected by a thick umbilicus of cable to their upload satellite dishes ranged along the top of the levee that bordered the road. And ahead of me was the imposing white clapboard and porticoed Welton-Oaks Plantation House, where Lewis Jeffries III was waiting.

It was time.

T
he front door was unlocked, as I had been told it would be. Inside, the wooden-floored, wood-paneled hallway smelled heavily of furniture polish and freshly cut flowers. A grandfather clock ticked to itself at the bottom of the stairs. I went through the open doorway to my left, as Jennie had instructed, into a formal reception room dominated by an expanse of shiny oval dining table and a white fireplace. Above the fireplace was a portrait of a Mr. George Welton in breeches and red jacket, a hunting dog at his side, a pile of dead game birds at his feet. There was a look of quiet satisfaction on his face: the job is done; the birds are dead; the meal can be prepared.

“Would you like me to introduce you to the family?”

I almost dropped my groceries, startled that anybody had managed to enter the room without my hearing. I turned around. Jeffries was standing by the table in a loose-fitting dark suit and dark blue shirt open at the neck. The fingertips of one proprietorial hand rested lightly on the tabletop as if he were about to check it for dust.

“He raped at least six of his house slaves.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your ancestor.” He pointed up at the portrait. “George Welton. He raped six of his house slaves, fathered seven children by them, and was probably responsible for a murder or two.” This, as if he were discussing the provenance of the table. “Lewis Jeffries. Good to meet you.”

Clumsily, I placed the sacks on the floor and we shook hands. I said, “Yes, well, we’ve moved on a bit from then as a family. Less of the rape and murder.”

Jeffries nodded slowly. “Probably for the best.”

“None of the rape and murder, actually.”

“Indeed.”

And then, faced down by his quiet and his poise, I began talking, letting free a flood of inconsequential words: how good to meet you; to have this opportunity; to make amends; to bring an end to this epoch; this scar on my history; on our history; on all of us, really, because slavery, ooh, a terrible thing, yes, a terrible thing really, and …

Just as quickly as they had begun my words dribbled away to nothing. Silence. Out in the hallway the grandfather clock marked time.

“Was that the apology?”

“Er, no.”

I took a deep breath. Now I began to explain myself, slowly: that the apology for the great injustices and hurt of slavery would be made over a lunch of traditional dishes from the American South which, in a formal act of penance, I would be cooking for him. Hence the chef’s whites. I went through the menu enthusiastically: the fried chicken and cornbread and gravy. The gumbo and the Frogmore stew and crawfish. The Key lime and pecan pies and the chocolate-covered macadamias.

Lewis Jeffries blinked. “Young man,” he said slowly and deliberately, “do you think my people won their freedom from slavery so we could eat that low-rent garbage?”

“Well, I—”

“No. We did not win our freedom from slavery so we could eat that low-rent garbage. I hate fried chicken. I hate milk gravy. And if the Federal Government of the United States of America is planning to cook me a meal, I expect something rather more sophisticated than Frogmore stew.” He looked me up and down. “You want to make me believe you mean it when you say sorry? Then you better cook me filet mignon and seared foie gras. That is the way to this black man’s heart.”

“Yes.”

“I also have some thoughts on the wines.”

“Of course.”

“You can keep the chocolate-covered macadamias, though.”

“Jennie?”

“How’s it going?”

“It’s going bad.”

“Bad how?”

“He doesn’t want the Frogmore stew.”

“So don’t make it. Dump the Frogmore stew. There are other things on the menu which will—”

“No, no. He doesn’t want any of it. He calls it low-rent garbage.”

“Aah.” A pause. A hiss of static on the cell phone. “What does he want?”

“It’s complicated.”

“How complicated?”

“Very complicated. Larousse complicated.”

“Oh!”

“Exactly. If I were in London or New York I could probably get most of this stuff together in an hour or two, but out here …”

“Do you think he might be able to help us with suppliers?”

“I can ask him. He should have a few ideas. But there’s also the wines to think about.”

“The wines?”

“Yeah, the professor’s got thoughts on wines. And believe me, they aren’t going to be stocking these at Wal-Mart.”

“I’m going to need help with this, aren’t I?”

“Yes, rather. Perhaps we can get someone to lend us the National Guard. That should just about do it.”

“Very funny.”

“Only trying to break the tension.”

Another silence. And then: “Actually, they might not be such a terrible idea.”

“Jennie?”

“Call me back in ten minutes with a list of ingredients and any thoughts on suppliers that you can get out of Jeffries. I’ve got some calls to make.”

“Jennie?”

“Marc. You’ve got the list?”

“Yes.”

“And you think you can pull it off. Can you actually cook this?”

“Yes, but it will now have to be dinner, not lunch.”

“Sure, dinner. But you must still hit the six o’clock deadline so we can get the declaration on the networks. This is UNOAR’s big moment and we mustn’t screw up. They’ll be going to us live at 6:30
PM.”

“I understand, Jennie. An early dinner.” Another few seconds of static. “I so wish you could be in here with me, helping me cook.”

“I know, Marc. I do too. But I just don’t have the plausible apologibility.” Jennie Sampson: ever the sweet, weirdo policy wonk.

We let the disappointment hang heavy between us until she said, “The list, Marc.”

When I was done and we had checked the details, she said: “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen.”

I listened, and when it was my turn to speak I said, “You’re kidding me, right?”

She wasn’t kidding me. In the ten minutes between our conversations the White House had been advised of our problems. They had asked the Department of Defense to offer us all necessary assistance, and they in turn had scrambled four Apache attack helicopters out of the US Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, 125 miles northwest of us.

“Three of them have external tanks for extra range,” Jennie said, as if helicopter gunship specifications were a regular part of her daily duties, “so they can make round trips to Florida and Texas at a push. The fourth will only be able to do the run to New Orleans.”

Throughout that morning and early afternoon the Apaches beat up the warm Louisiana skies. One flew directly over us at low altitude, rattling the window frames and giving the TV crews outside something to shoot for the rolling news networks, who took the pictures live. It was heading for Seagrove Beach in northwest Florida, the location of Sandor’s, “the best restaurant in the Southeast,” according to Jeffries. There it hovered for ten minutes, whipping the sand into great stinging clouds and drawing its own crowd, who stood looking upward, hands shielding their eyes from the dust and the sun, as it winched up a quart each of the finest beef, fish, and veal stock. Then it turned back on itself and flew twenty-five miles west to the seafood market at Destin, just south of Niceville, for half a dozen plump live scallops on the shell.

Another chopper flew due west from Fort Polk to Houston, where it hovered over Central Market to collect a fresh piece of Québecois foie gras that had arrived only the day before, a single imported Perigord black truffle, a bunch of baby asparagus, and a packet of vanilla pods; roasted California almonds and sweet, handmade marzipan; free-range eggs, cheesy French
beurre d’Isigny
from Normandy, and pots of unpasteurized light cream. The third headed even further west into Texas, pushing the bird’s envelope as far as it would go, to collect the finest aged beef fillet available in the state for tournedos Rossini.

“Tournedos Rossini? Don’t you think that’s a bit—”

“Old-fashioned?”

“I was wondering.”

“Young man, when you have created a dish as robust and venerable as tournedos Rossini you may dismiss it as old hat. Until then—”

“No problem, Professor Jeffries. I’ll get the beef.”

The fourth helicopter made for New Orleans, where it hung lazily in the air above the French Quarter Wine Merchant on Chartres Street while the staff dug out the bottles: the Montrachet Domaine de la Romanee Conti 1989 to go with the starter, the 1921 Château d’Yquem to go with the dessert, and the big-fisted 1947 Château Pétrus for the main course in between. It was a mark of Jeffries’ confidence that he had made the choice of these wines sound random and spontaneous, as if they were just a few of his favorite things chosen from a much longer list rather than a trinity of the greatest wines of the twentieth century, their combined value enough to purchase a small house down by the ocean.

The Apache was already heading back toward Welton-Oaks when Jennie told me the bad news. I found Jeffries in his book-lined office on the first floor, watching the coverage of the military maneuvers on the news channels.

“Nice to see an effort being made,” he said, without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Absolutely. Of course. One problem. We couldn’t get a bottle of the forty-seven Pétrus so we’ve substituted a forty-six.”

He looked up at me pityingly. “Even my pool boy knows the forty-six Pétrus is rough as a dirt track. It’s old, is all. Like a senior citizen who’s forgotten his own name.” He tapped a finger against one graying temple. “Not all there.” He turned to the screen and began flicking between the coverage from CNN to Fox to MSNBC and back again. “It has to be the forty-seven.” I made to leave. “Or the forty-five. I am a reasonable man.”

So the helicopter turned tail midjourney and went back to New Orleans to swap the ’46 Pétrus for a ’45. Still, by 1:30
PM
the Apaches were circling the great house and coming in one by one to hover low over the neatly manicured back lawn where, ever so gently, they winched down their goods. Now I could cook.

I seared three of the scallops for a couple of minutes each side in a hot skillet, and served them with an honor guard of crawfish tails on a vanilla-infused sauce. It was made with the light fish stock mounted with a little cream and foamed to within an inch of its life using a handheld, battery-operated cappuccino beater. I made the tournedos Rossini by the book, literally, using the recipe in a copy of
Larousse Gastronomique
that had been flown in to me: the lobes of foie gras and the slices of black truffle sautéed first in butter alongside the bread to make croutons. I seared the medallions of beef so they were still blue in the middle, and arranged it all in a tower, toast at the bottom, then beef, then foie gras and truffles, before deglazing the pan with Madeira to make the sauce. The lovely green asparagus formed a cordon about the edge. Finally, having received no direction on the dessert, I made my almond soufflé, certain nothing could go wrong, and nothing did.

I did not eat but instead stood service beneath the portrait of George Welton, a little way behind Jeffries, in the long, late-afternoon shadows. When he had finished the soufflé he took a sip from his five-hundred-dollar glass of d’Yquem and called for a second glass and the chocolate macadamias. He filled the second glass with the Sauternes, pushed it gently across the table to the place opposite him, and indicated that I should sit. Jeffries took a handful of the nuts, popped a few into his mouth from a closed, protective fist, sat back, and nodded for me to begin.

I started with the story of the box and my hunger for the chocolates it contained, dropping back to link this to the story of the Welton-Smiths, and then went further back still to the very birth of the Atlantic slave trade. Carefully, expressing regret with every dark narrative beat, I brought it forward again through my comfortable childhood built, I now understood, on the ancient proceeds of slavery inherited by my mother, to this moment in this room. The story came naturally and organically, each step leading to the next. I was lucid and convincing, the prince of contrition; the king of penitence. I did not weep, for the naked, bleeding emotion was present in every word.

My last line was a model of simplicity and elegance: “I, my family, and the peoples of Britain and the United States of America now apologize to the African-American community for the crime of slavery.” No ornament. Just words turned to the purpose for which they were designed.

A gentle smile settled on Jeffries’ lips. He took a few more macadamias from the bowl, popped them in his mouth, and chewed. Finally he said the one thing for which I hadn’t prepared myself.