The Chef (16 page)

The man was Rohrer’s boss. He was in his early fifties, somewhat overly groomed, wearing a blazer with golden buttons, grey gabardine trousers and a blue-and-white
striped shirt, the white high collar of which was fastened by a gold pin. It made a bridge below the knot of his yellow tie.

He had green eyes and reddish, slightly longish hair, styled back with gel. Andrea noticed his fingernails. They were carefully manicured and polished.

He glanced into the kitchen, said hello to Andrea and Maravan, and introduced himself as Kull. René Kull.

They did not see his companion until they brought out the champagne. She was sitting at the dressing table, her narrow back in a low-cut dress facing Andrea. Her hair was shaven to within
millimetres and went down in a wedge shape to the bottom of her neck. Her skin was a deep ebony colour, which shone in the light of Andrea’s sea of candles.

When she turned round, Andrea saw a roundish forehead of the sort that women from Ethiopia or Sudan have. Her full lips were painted red and now puckered into a surprised, interested smile.

Andrea beamed back. She had not seen such a beautiful woman for a long time. Her name was Makeda. Makeda set about the dinner with such pleasure and gusto that Andrea wondered whether she might
not be a prostitute. Kull, on the other hand, kept his composure, not even unbuttoning that collar which had already seemed as if it might choke him when he arrived.

When they had not heard the temple bell for a while after the confectionery, Andrea listened anxiously to the noises coming out of the room. Then Kull strode into the kitchen.

‘Of course, the main reason for the effect this dinner has is the knowledge that you’re eating an erotic menu – and all the other stuff, the candles, eating with your hands.
But do you actually put something else in the food?’ Kull’s cheeks were slightly red, but his top button was still done up.

‘I don’t put anything else in the food,’ Maravan explained. ‘It’s what’s in there already that creates the effect.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Herr Kull,’ Andrea interjected, ‘I’m sure you’ll understand that that’s our professional secret.’

Kull nodded. ‘Are you just as discreet in other ways?’ he asked after a while.

From that point onwards Love Food cooked regularly for Kull. The venue was always the apartment in Falkengässchen. Only the guests changed. Especially the men.

René Kull ran an escort service for a very upmarket, mostly international clientele. Men whose business brought them to the financial centre or the headquarters of the International
Football Federation, or those who were simply making a stop on their way to a family holiday in the mountains. They set great store by discretion and were not infrequently accompanied by hefty,
taciturn men who would munch on sandwiches they had brought with them in the sitting room.

Kull did not quibble about the price Andrea had tentatively asked for: 2,000 plus drinks.

Andrea had never come into contact with this world before, and she was fascinated. She was quick to strike up conversation with the women, who usually arrived before their
clients and would have a drink and a few cigarettes in the sitting room while waiting. They were beautiful, wore off-the-peg clothes and expensive jewellery, and treated her as if she were one of
their own. She enjoyed chatting to them. They were funny and talked about their work with an ironic distance which made Andrea laugh.

The women loved these evenings because of the food. And because – as a Brazilian girl confessed – it even made what came afterwards quite fun.

Andrea had little to do with the men. They usually turned up accompanied by Rohrer, Kull’s dogsbody, who would bring them straight into the prepared room, then disappear immediately. When
Andrea served up the dishes, she would focus her attention on their female companions.

On one occasion she was banished to the kitchen with Maravan. There was a huge commotion in Falkengässchen before the guest arrived. A number of bodyguards searched the apartment, one
making a recce of the kitchen, and after the mystery person had been smuggled past the closed kitchen door, yet another bodyguard came in and announced that he would be doing the waiting. All
Andrea had to do was explain to him what each dish was. Each time he had served one, he practised the presentation of the following one with her until the temple bell rang again.

‘I’d love to know who that was,’ Andrea said as she and Maravan were going down in the lift.

‘I wouldn’t,’ Maravan replied.

It was not the shady side of his work that bothered Maravan, it was his role in it. When the diners had been for couples in therapy, he had been treated with the respect
afforded to a doctor or specialist who is in a position to help people. And when they had done normal catering assignments he had been feted like a star.

Here he was ignored totally. It didn’t matter how tall his chef’s hat was, he was invisible. He hardly ever came face to face with the guests, and Andrea never had any compliments to
relay back to him when she brought in the dirty crockery.

As a kitchen help Maravan had been used to leading a shadowy existence. But this was different: the guests came here because of his creations. Whatever happened between them was a direct result
of his artistry. In short, the artist in Maravan felt neglected. And, what was almost worse, so did the man.

His relationship with Andrea had not developed in the way he wanted. He hoped that being together almost every day, the close contact and the conspiratorial nature of their collaboration, would
bring them closer. It did, but only as friends, almost like siblings. The erotic element of their work did not rub off on their relationship.

However, whereas Andrea felt nothing more than friendship towards Maravan, she became very close with the girls working for Kull. By the second meeting they were already hugging each other like
long-lost friends, spending the time before the punters – Maravan deliberately called them this in front of Andrea – arrived chatting, smoking and laughing on the white sofas. There was
one girl in particular she liked: a tall Ethiopian called Makeda. If Maravan was honest, he felt jealous of this woman.

Makeda had fled to Britain with her mother and older sister when she was twelve. They belonged to the Oromo people; her father had joined its liberation movement, the Oromo
Liberation Front. After the fall of the Derg government he was an OLF deputy in the transition parliament, but following the elections the OLF left the Government and put itself in opposition to
the ruling party.

Early one morning soldiers had arrived at Makeda’s parents’ house, ransacked the place and taken away her father. It was the last time she saw him. Her mother made dogged attempts to
discover where he was being held, and thanks to some former acquaintances she did indeed find out. Her contacts even allowed her to visit the prison. She returned home silent and red-eyed. Two days
later, Makeda, her mother and sister crossed the Kenyan border in a clapped-out Land Rover. From that point on, her mother could not call in any more favours from old acquaintances. They flew to
London and sought asylum. They never heard from her father again.

At sixteen Makeda was discovered by a modelling agency scout. He called her ‘the new Naomi Campbell’. Against her mother’s will, she went to a few castings, took part in some
fashion shows and was photographed for magazines. But she waited in vain for the breakthrough.

It was during Milan Fashion Week that she crossed the fine line between up-and-coming model and call girl. Feeling lonely, she took a purchaser for a boutique chain back to her room. When she
awoke the following morning he was gone. On the bedside table were 500 euros. ‘I then realized that my first lover had also been my first punter,’ she said with a sarcastic laugh.

When she had to accept that she was not going to get very far as a model, Makeda went back to her family and to school. But by now she was used to a freer and more expensive existence. Life was
too constricted at home; she found her mother’s views too narrow-minded. It was not long before they were arguing. Makeda moved out, for good.

She was discovered by another scout, but this time they worked for an escort service. Makeda became a call girl, a profession in which she met with rather more success than on the catwalk.

Makeda had come across Kull less than a year ago. He lured her away and she followed him to Switzerland, where she felt pretty lonely.

She related all of this in the half-light of Andrea’s bedroom. While waiting for a client they had made a date for the following day. Despite the cold, they went for a walk by the lake and
ended up in Andrea’s bed, as if this were the natural order of things.

So Maravan’s jealousy was not unjustified. Andrea was in love.

Not long after their last visit, Thevaram and Rathinam were back at Maravan’s flat. They brought news from Ulagu. They claimed he had signed up for the Black Tigers, an
elite unit of suicide bombers. The entry requirements were very tough, however; there was a good chance he would be rejected. They could try to increase this chance through their contacts, if
Maravan so wished.

Maravan promised them another donation of 2,000 francs.

After their visit, Maravan let his sister know, via the Batticaloa Bazaar, that he had made some initial progress in the matter they had discussed.

The Huwyler was normally booked out in December; both rooms would be full almost every night. But this year a few of the stalwart companies who always took the restaurant for
their Christmas management dinners had not made reservations. Huwyler was convinced they were either using the crisis as an excuse or had come to this decision for appearance’s sake: it did
not look very good if you started tightening your belt, but dined at the Huwyler.

Whichever it was, it amounted to the same thing for Huwyler. The restaurant had noticeably fewer customers than usual at this time of year.

This is why he was paying particular attention to Staffel’s table. It had twelve diners: top management and their wives, a real rarity these days.

Staffel had every reason to celebrate. The financial press had unanimously voted him Manager of the Year in the ‘new technology’ division. And the company he ran, Kugag, had
registered such good results that both they and their image could afford themselves this little luxury.

He could have been a little more generous in his choice of menu, however. Huwyler had suggested the tasting menu, but Staffel had opted for a simple six-courser. He stuck to the mid-price wines,
too. In these times it was the prudent, conventional types who became Managers of the Year.

By contrast, another of his guests was anything but prudent or conventional: Dalmann, the heart-attack victim. The first time he showed his face in the restaurant, fresh from his rehabilitation,
less than a month after the attack, Huwyler was shocked. Less by his audacity at turning up here at all after that distressing incident, but by the fact that Dalmann could actually do it all over
again. He did not hold back with the food or drink, and even ordered a cigar to go with his cognac.

Since then, however, Dalmann had become a very welcome guest. A sign of normality.

He was here this evening, too. In the company of Dr Neller, business lawyer and – as the two men kept emphasizing with ever greater frequency as the evening wore on – a childhood
friend and a fellow Boy Scout. They ate the
Surprise
.

Dalmann pulled a fir twig from the Christmas table decoration with the dark-blue bauble and held it above the candle. He loved the fragrance of singed pine needles. The essence
of Christmas. It made him feel sentimental in a nice way, especially on an evening like this, after a good dinner with an old friend. The restaurant was not too full or too empty, not too loud or
too quiet. The smoke of his Bahia was cool, the Armagnac smooth and the conversation friendly.

‘Have you made use of Kull’s services again?’ Neller enquired.

Dalmann smiled. ‘I’ve got to watch my heart, you know that.’

‘Of course. I always forget that when I see you like this.’

‘Why do you ask? Should I be?’

‘I don’t want to put your life at risk, but in case you do fancy it, he’s offering something with food now.’

‘I’d rather eat here.’

‘It’s a very special dinner. Erotic.’

Dalmann gave him a quizzical look and puffed on his cigar.

‘He’s got an Indian or someone like that who cooks and a hot bird who serves it up. By the way, she used to wait here briefly, you know: tall, black hair all combed to one
side.’

‘And now she’s working for Kull?’

‘Only as a waitress.’

‘And she’s responsible for the erotic bit?’

‘No, it’s the food that does that. I didn’t believe it to begin with either. But it’s true. The food makes you feel completely different.’

‘In what way?’

‘Not just excited down there,’ Neller pointed vaguely downwards. ‘That, too. But more up here.’ He tapped his high forehead, which was glistening with sweat.

‘You mean you get a stiffy in your head?’ Dalmann laughed, but Neller seemed to think about his question quite seriously.

‘Yes, you could put it like that. And the best thing about it is that it appears to turn the women on too. You get the impression they’re actually enjoying it.’

‘They’re paid to act like they are.’

Neller shook his head. ‘Take the word of an old fox. I can tell the difference. It’s real. Maybe not completely, but definitely a little bit.’

Dalmann chewed thoughtfully. Then he wiped his mouth and asked, ‘Do you think they put something in the food?’

‘They say they don’t. It’s just the recipes. And the ambience. Cushions and candles. You sit on the floor and eat with your hands.’

‘What do you eat?’

‘Spicy stuff. Spicy and sweet. It’s a sort of Ayurvedic molecular cuisine. Strange, but outstanding. Special tip from me. Not cheap, mind, but something totally different.’

‘And definitely no drugs or chemicals?’