Secret Ingredients (79 page)

“I don’t have time to go in there. You help her. You stay with her. You,” she shrieked, roaring the engine. Then she was gone and Tante, with the smug grimness of a woman who has at last been allowed to take charge, entered the back door.

It did take hours, and in those hours, Delphine did pray. She prayed as though she meant what she said. She prayed her heart out, cussed and swore, implored the devil, made bargains, came to tears at the thwarted junctures where she was directed to one place and ended up at another. It proved impossible to track down either Heech or the pharmacist. She was returning empty-handed, driving back to the house, weeping angrily, when she saw her father stumbling along the road, his pants sagging, his loose shirt flopping off his hunched, skinny shoulders. As she drew near, she looked around to see if anyone else was watching, for an all-seeing rage had boiled up in her and she suddenly wanted to run him over. She put the truck in low gear and followed him, thinking how simple it would be. He was drunk again and wouldn’t even notice. Then her life would be that much easier. But as she drew alongside him, she was surprised to meet his eyes and see that they were clear. He shuffled anxiously around to the side door; she saw that he had a purpose: out snaking himself booze at a time like this. Only the bottle in his hand was not the usual schnapps but a brown square-shouldered medicine bottle labeled
SULPHATE OF MORPHIA,
for which he’d broken into the drugstore and sawed through the lock of the cabinet where the pharmacist kept the drugs he had to secure by law.

As Delphine slammed on the brakes, jumped from the truck, and ran to the house, she heard it from outside, the high-pitched keen of advanced agony, a white-silver whine. She rushed in, skidded across a litter of canning smashed down off the shelves, and entered the kitchen. There was Tante, white and sick with shock, slumped useless in the corner of the kitchen, on the floor. Louis and Franz, weeping and holding onto their mother as she rummaged in the drawer for a knife. The whole of her being was concentrated on the necessity. Even young, strong Franz couldn’t hold her back.

“Yes, yes,” Delphine said, entering the scene. She’d come upon so many scenes of mayhem in her own house that now a cold flood of competence descended on her. With a swift step, she stood before Eva. “My friend,” she said, plucking the knife away, “not now. Soon enough. I’ve got the medicine. Don’t leave your boys like this.”

Then Eva, still swooning and grunting as the waves of pain hit and twisted in her, allowed herself to be lowered to the floor.

“Get a blanket and a pillow,” Delphine said, kindly, to Franz. “And you,” she said to Louis, “hold her hand while I make this up, and keep saying to her, ‘Mama, she’s making the medicine now. It will be soon. It will be soon.’”

2001

“Today’s big story is eggplant.”

BARK

JULIAN BARNES

O
n the feast day of Jean-Étienne Delacour, the following dishes were prepared on the instructions of his daughter-in-law, Mme Amélie: bouillon, the beef that had been boiled in it, a grilled hare, a pigeon casserole, vegetables, cheese, and fruit jellies. In a spirit of reluctant sociability, Delacour allowed a dish of bouillon to be placed before him; he even, in honor of the day, raised a ceremonial spoonful to his lips and blew graciously, before lowering it untouched. When the beef was brought in, he nodded at the servant, who laid in front of him, on separate plates, a single pear and a slice of bark that had been cut from a tree some twenty minutes earlier. Delacour’s son, Charles, his daughter-in-law, his grandson, his nephew, his nephew’s wife, the curé, a neighboring farmer, and Delacour’s old friend André Lagrange made no observation. Delacour, for his part, civilly kept pace with those around him, eating one-quarter of the pear while they consumed their beef, one-quarter alongside the hare, and so on. When the cheese was brought in, he took out a pocketknife and cut the tree bark into slices, then chewed each piece slowly to oblivion. Later, as aids to sleep, he took a cup of milk, some stewed lettuce, and a rennet apple. His bedroom was well ventilated and his pillow stuffed with horsehair. He ensured that his chest was not weighed down with blankets, and that his feet would remain warm. As he settled his linen nightcap around his temples, Delacour reflected contentedly on the folly of those around him.

He was now sixty-one. In his earlier days, he had been both a gambler and a gourmand, a combination that had frequently threatened to inflict penury on his household. Wherever dice were thrown or cards turned, wherever two or more beasts could be induced to race against one another for the gratification of spectators, Delacour was to be found. He had won and lost at faro and hazard, backgammon and dominoes, roulette and rouge et noir. He would play pitch and toss with an infant, bet his horse on a cockfight, play two-pack patience with Mme V——and solitaire when he could find no rival or companion.

It was said that his gourmandism had put an end to his gambling. Certainly, there was no room in such a man for both of these passions to express themselves fully. The moment of crisis had occurred when a goose reared to within days of slaughter—a goose he had fed with his own hand, and savored in advance, down to the last giblet—was lost at a hand of piquet. For a while, Delacour sat between his two temptations like the proverbial ass between two bales of hay; but, rather than starve to death like the indecisive beast, he acted as a true gambler and let a toss of the coin decide the matter.

Thereafter, his stomach and his purse both swelled, while his nerves became calmer. He ate meals fit for a cardinal, as the Italians say. He would discourse on the point of esculence of every foodstuff from capers to woodcock; he could explain how the shallot had been introduced into France by the returning Crusaders, and the cheese of Parma by M. le Prince de Talleyrand. When a partridge was placed in front of him, he would remove the legs, take a bite from each in a considered manner, nod judicially, and announce which leg the partridge had been accustomed to rest its weight on while sleeping. He was also a familiar of the bottle. If grapes were offered as a dessert, he would push them away with the words “I am not in the habit of taking my wine in the form of pills.”

Delacour’s wife had approved his choice of vice, since gourmandism is more likely to keep a man at home than gambling. As the years passed, her silhouette began to ape that of her husband. They lived plumply and easily until one day, fortifying herself in the midafternoon while her husband was absent, Mme Delacour choked to death on a chicken bone. Jean-Étienne cursed himself for having left his wife unattended; he cursed his gourmandism, her complicity in which had led to her death; and he cursed fate, chance, whatever governs our days, for having lodged the chicken bone at just such a murderous angle in her throat.

When his initial grief began to recede, he accepted lodging with Charles and Mme Amélie. He began a study of the law, and could often be found absorbed in the Nine Codes of the Kingdom. He knew the rural code by heart and comforted himself with its certainties. He could cite the laws concerned with the swarming of bees and the making of compost; he knew the penalties for ringing church bells during a storm and for selling milk that had come into contact with copper pans; word for word, he recited ordinances governing the behavior of wet nurses, the pasturing of goats in forests, and the burial of dead animals found on the public highway.

For a while, he continued with his gourmandizing, as if to do otherwise would be faithless to the memory of his wife; but, though his stomach was still in it, his heart was not. What led to his abandonment of his former passion was the municipality’s decision, in the autumn of 18—, that, as a matter of hygiene and general beneficence, a public bathhouse should be built. That a man who had greeted the invention of a new dish as an astronomer would the discovery of a new star should be brought to temperance and moderation by a matter of soap and water moved some to mockery and others to moralizing. But Delacour had always given little heed to the opinions of others.

The municipality, in order to excite interest in the project, had devised a scheme based upon an Italian idea. The sum to be raised was divided into forty equal lots; each of the subscribers was obliged to be over forty years of age. Interest would be paid at the rate of 2.5 percent per annum, and upon the death of an investor the interest accruing to his share would be divided among the remaining subscribers. Simple mathematics led to a simple temptation: the last surviving investor would, from the thirty-ninth death until his own, enjoy an annual interest equal to the full sum of his original stake. The loans would terminate upon the death of the final subscriber, when the capital would be returned to the nominated heirs of the forty investors.

The death of Delacour’s wife had brought him a small legacy, and Mme. Amélie proposed that it might be both a prudent and a civic gesture for him to invest it in the building of the baths. When she first mentioned the scheme to her husband, he was doubtful. “You do not think, my dear, that it might awaken my father’s old passion?”

“It can scarcely be called gambling when there is no possibility of losing.”

“That is surely what all gamblers constantly claim.”

But Delacour approved his daughter-in-law’s suggestion. He followed the progress of the subscription keenly. As each new investor came forward, he entered the man’s name in a pocket book, adding his date of birth and general remarks upon his health, appearance, and genealogy. When a landowner fifteen years his senior joined the scheme, Delacour was merrier than he had been at any time since the death of his wife. After a few weeks, the list was filled, whereupon he wrote to the thirty-nine other subscribers suggesting that since they had all, as it were, enlisted in the same regiment, they might choose to distinguish themselves by some sartorial mark, such as a ribbon in the coat. He also proposed that they institute a supper to be held annually for subscribers—he had almost written “survivors.”

Few looked favorably on either proposal; some did not even reply; but Delacour continued to view his fellow-subscribers as comrades in arms. If he met one in the street, he would salute him warmly, inquire about his health, and exchange a few general words, perhaps about cholera. With his friend Lagrange, who had also subscribed, he would pass long hours at the Café Anglais, playing actuary with the lives of the other thirty-eight.

The municipal baths had not yet been declared open when the first subscriber died. Jean-Étienne, at supper with his family, proposed a toast to the overoptimistic and now lamented septuagenarian. Later, he took out his pocket book, made an entry, with a date, and drew a long black line underneath.

Mme Amélie commented to her husband on the high spirits of her father-in-law, which seemed to her inappropriate.

“Death in general is his friend,” Charles replied. “It is only his own death that should be considered his enemy.”

Mme Amélie briefly wondered if this was a philosophical truth or an empty platitude. She had an amiable nature, and worried little about her husband’s actual opinions. She was more concerned about the manner in which he delivered them, which was increasingly beginning to resemble that of his father.

Along with a large engraved certificate of subscription, investors also received the right to use the baths gratis “for the full period of investment.” Few were expected to do so, since those wealthy enough to subscribe were certainly wealthy enough to own a bathtub. But Delacour took to invoking his right, first on a weekly, then on a daily, basis. Some regarded this as an abuse of the municipality’s benevolence, but Delacour was unswayed. His days now followed a fixed pattern. He would rise early, eat a single fruit, drink two glasses of water, and walk for three hours. Then he would visit the baths, where he soon became familiar with the attendants; as a subscriber, he was allowed a special towel reserved for his use. Afterward, he would make his way to the Café Anglais, where he would discuss the matters of the day with his friend Lagrange. The matters of the day, in Delacour’s mind, rarely amounted to more than two: any foreseeable diminution of the subscribers’ list, and the lax application of various laws by the municipality. It had, in his opinion, insufficiently advertised the scale of reward for the destruction of wolves: twenty-five francs for a she-wolf in cub, eighteen francs for a she-wolf not in cub, twelve for a male wolf, six for a cub, the amounts to be paid within a week following verification of the evidence.

Lagrange, whose mind was of a contemplative rather than a theoretical cast, considered this complaint. “And yet I do not know of anyone,” he commented mildly, “who has observed a wolf in the last eighteen months.”

“The more reason that the populace should be prompted to vigilance.”

Delacour next denounced the lack of stringency and frequency with which wine was tested for adulteration. By Article 38 of the law of July 19, 1791, still applicable, a fine of up to a thousand francs and imprisonment for a period of up to one year might be imposed upon those who mixed litharge, fish glue, extract of campeche wood, or other noxious substances with the wine they sold.

“You drink only water,” Lagrange pointed out. He raised his own glass and peered at the wine within. “Besides, if our host were to embark on such practices, it might very happily reduce the list of subscribers.”

“I do not intend to win in such a fashion.”

Lagrange was disturbed by the harshness of his friend’s tone. “Win,” he repeated. “You can win, if you call it ‘winning,’ only by my death.”

“That I shall regret,” Delacour said, evidently unable to conceive of an alternative outcome.

After the Café Anglais, Delacour would return home and read works on physiology and diet. Twenty minutes before supper, he would cut himself a fresh slice of tree bark. While others ate their life-shortening concoctions, he would expatiate upon general threats to health and the lamentable impediments to human immortality.

These impediments gradually reduced the list of subscribers. With each death, Delacour’s good cheer increased, and so did the strictness of his regimen. Exercise, diet, sleep; regularity, temperance, study. One work of physiology indicated, with veiled phrasing and a sudden burst of Latin, that a reliable mark of health in the human male was the frequency with which he engaged in sexual connection. Both total abstinence and excessive indulgence were potentially harmful, although not as harmful as certain practices associated with abstinence. But a moderate frequency—for example, exactly once per week—was deemed to be salutary.

Delacour, convinced of this practical necessity, rendered up excuses to his dead wife and entered into an arrangement with a maid at the baths, whom he visited once a week. She was grateful for the money he left, and once he had discouraged displays of affection he looked forward to their exchanges. He decided that, when the thirty-ninth subscriber died, he would give her a hundred francs, or perhaps a little less, in recognition of her life-prolonging services.

More investors died; Delacour entered their terminal dates in his pocket book and smilingly toasted their departures. On one such evening, Mme. Amélie, after retiring, said to her husband, “What is the reason for living if it is only to outlive others?”

“Each of us must find his own reason,” Charles replied. “That is his.”

“But do you not find it strange that what seems to afford him the most joy nowadays is the death of other mortals? He takes no customary pleasure in life. His days are ordered as if in obedience to the strictest duty—and yet duty to what, duty to whom?”

“The subscription was your proposal, my dear.”

“I did not foresee, when I proposed it, the effect that it might have upon his character.”

“My father’s character,” Charles replied sternly, “is unchanged. He is an old man now, and a widower. Naturally, his pleasures are diminished and his interests have altered somewhat. Yet he applies the same vigor of mind and the same logic to what interests him now as he did to what interested him before. His character has not changed,” Charles repeated, as if his father were being charged with senility.