The Cookbook Collector (23 page)

18

“W
hat’s that noise?” George asked.

“I have no idea.” Jess strained her ears to hear an odd trilling in the distance.

“Is that a cell phone?”

“Oh, it must be mine.” Jess jumped up. “Sorry.” She tripped over Sandra’s cat, and he snarled in outrage as she ran to the entryway where she and George and Colm had left their coats and bags. The outside pocket of her backpack glowed. “Hello? Hello? Hi, Emily. No, I didn’t lose it. I forgot I had it.” She held the phone too tightly and it beeped. “Could I call you later? I’m working…. Yes. It’s a huge project and we’re on deadline! Why are you laughing? Do you think I’m joking?” Jess looked back at the pair of camping tables George had set up in the living room. The tables were piled with folios and quartos arranged by language and by century. Colm was carrying in more books from the kitchen. “Seriously, I can’t talk,” Jess said. “I’ll call you later.”

They had just two more days to appraise the cookbooks. Colm and Jess were carrying and sorting, and George was typing in titles on his laptop. Conditions were difficult. Sandra hovered. Colm was allergic to the cat. They couldn’t wear shoes in the house, so they padded around in thick socks. In January Sandra seemed to skimp on heat. Colm wore a vest over his button-down shirt, and a tweed jacket on top of that. George wore a thick black pullover, and Jess a giant brown cardigan with a red knit hat pulled down over her ears. George had to suppress a smile the first time he saw the hat.

“What?” Jess demanded.

“Nothing.” George tried not to look at her.

They worked long hours like a sequestered jury, deliberating at the tables with copious evidence before them. There were eighteenth-century German cookbooks with fold-out diagrams of table settings, plates and platters arrayed like planets, little dishes orbiting larger courses. There were cookbooks small enough to fit in the palm of the hand, and others gargantuan, so that George used special foam book cradles to hold them open and protect their bindings. To assess these volumes was to consider tastes both delicate and omnivorous, to view exquisite illustrations like the French engravings of dessert spoons, or grotesque—like the plate in
Le Livre Cuisinaire
of
tête de veau en tortue
, a savory tart garnished with red crustaceans, a still life with claws and tentacles and beady eyes. The task would have been daunting even without the collector’s bookmarks, notes, and clippings; his menus on scrap paper, where he drew up imaginary feasts with inky thumbnails of partridges and steaming puddings:
Pudding boiled, pudding of cream, pudding quaking, pudding shaking
 … Often as the collector wrote, his firm hand grew tremulous. His print would wobble, and his notes burst into erotopoetic menus, as recitative lifts into song:

First course:
Rabbits

Second:
Cockles

Third:
Loin of Veal

Fourth:
Quails

Fifth:
Sparrows

Sixth:
Jellies

When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall
And she me caught in her arms long and small
,
And therewithal so sweetly did me kiss
,
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

“He knew his Wyatt.” Colm leaned back in his chair, pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up, ran his hand through his thick brown hair. Young fogey that he was, nearly British after his long studies of English literary history, he flushed red in patches on his Shropshire-lad cheeks, and fanned himself with one of George’s auction catalogs.

“Did you see this?” Jess plucked a small sheaf of notes from
The Accomplisht Cook
. The papers bookmarked a passage titled “To dress Tortoise.”
Cast off the head, feet, and tail, and boil it in water, wine, and salt, being boil’d pull the shell asunder, and pick the meat from the skins, and the gall from the liver, save the eggs whole if a female, and stew the eggs, meat and liver in a dish with some grated nutmeg, a little sweet herbs minced small, and some sweet butter
 … “He went to town with this one.” Jess read the collector’s notes under her breath. “To
begin with, Turtle soup, / to sail with, Turtle soup … / to dine on mince, and slices of quince, / to eat with a runcible spoon
 … What is a runcible spoon anyway?” She unfolded the collector’s notes to see his drawing. “That’s not a spoon! That’s more of a … hmm …”

“Focus,” George admonished as he examined Anna Wecker’s tiny 1679
Neu, Köstlich, und nutzliches Koch-buch
. Worms had drilled through the later chapters, and the title page was much worn, but George marveled at the gorgeous typeface, so feminine, capitals all curves.

They had to hurry, but the longer they looked, the more convinced they became that they were holding treasures in their hands, and the more convinced they became, the harder it was to evaluate the books. The recipes entranced, and the collector’s notes distracted. They could not stop peeking at McClintock’s black-ink menus and thumbnail sketches.

“Jess!” George told her. “Put that back.”

She took a last look at the turtle-soup drawings, replaced them, and turned to another treasure, a fragile American quarto titled
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy
, by “A Lady.” The book fell open in her hands to “Chap. XV.: Of Making Cakes &c.”
To Ice a great Cake
, Jess read,
Take the whites of twenty-four eggs
 … and even as she read, new sketches fluttered onto her lap. A woman’s arm, a torso, three different drawings of a pair of legs. Legs crossed, legs spread, legs pressed close together—each study small, but revealing—tendrils of pubic hair, pointed toes—all drafted with a naturalist’s attention.

“I wonder who she was.”

“That’s Hannah Glasse,” George said after a quick search online. “And watch the binding please.”

“I didn’t mean the author.” Jess folded the little nudes away again.

“Oh, my God,” George gasped. “This is a signed
Mrs. Fisher.”

Jess leaned over the table to view the book he held open in his hands. The book was slender, the pages smooth and unspotted, with clear simple type. Recipes for
Sweet Pickle Pears, Sweet Pickle Prunes, Sweet Watermelon Rind Pickle, Onion Pickles
.

Colm shook his head. “I think you’ve got to bring somebody in.”

For once they could speak freely. Sandra was tending the front yard—at least for the moment. She never stepped outside for long, and when she did, hacking back the blackberry canes, she didn’t venture far. Through the window they could see her in her old straw hat.

George told Colm, “If we bring in a specialist, we risk another rival.” He’d informed Sandra that he knew Raj was looking at the books, and he’d tried to find out who else she had invited in, but she only turned away.

“You could get a scholar and pay him up front as a consultant and he doesn’t get to bid,” said Colm.

“It wouldn’t work that way.”

Colm whipped out his handkerchief and blew his nose. “I think you’d get a more accurate estimate—maybe lower than what we would come up with.”

“Maybe higher.” George turned back to the reference books and catalogs in front of him. “I just don’t know what Raj is offering,” he murmured. “If I had a …”

His voice faded as Jess returned to the kitchen for another stack. How strange the disemboweled room looked with its cabinets open, emptied of their treasures. A skin-deep kitchen, cupboards bare, while the countertops remained cluttered with cheap cookware, spotted bananas, coupons, receipts, bills. A calligraphed card lay open next to the toaster.

“Come in here! You have to see this.”

“Don’t tell me you found another Gouffé,” Colm called back.

“No, it’s really strange.”

“Could you just bring it out?” George didn’t want to stop typing.

But she was afraid to pick up the card. Dramatically, she thought: What if Sandra caught her prying? What if Jess’s fingerprints were on it? “No, you have to come here.”

Reluctantly, Colm came in. He stood with Jess and the two of them gazed at the card. “George …,” Colm called in a weary voice, “you’d better have a look.”

Evidently unworried about fingerprints, George picked up the card and read it twice.

A DONATION TO THE GAY AND LESBIAN LEGAL ALLIANCE
HAS BEEN MADE
IN HONOR OF SANDRA MCCLINTOCK
BY
RAJEEV CHANDRA

“Raj!” George was amazed at his ingenious friend.

“I didn’t know Sandra was gay,” Jess said.

The three of them stared at the card in George’s hand. “I don’t know what she is,” George said at last.

“Maybe we should find out,” Colm suggested.

“We aren’t even half done.”

“Why isn’t Raj sorting?” Jess asked.

“I’m sure he’s seen everything,” George said nervously.

“How do you know?”

Because that would be just like Raj, George thought, to assess everything in advance and on his own time and then make his own preemptive offer. “He’s very experienced,” George said. “And very clever.”

“He knows Sandra,” Jess said. Softly, Geoffrey slipped into the room. On little cat feet, he sprang onto the kitchen counter. Unconsciously, Jess lowered her voice in front of the cat. “What have we found out about her?”

“I know enough,” George said. “She needs money. She wants to play me against Raj for the best price. She claims she’s afraid to sell the books. She’s nuts.”

“That’s not the way to think about it,” Jess said. “You’ve got everything backward.”

“Oh, really?”

“This strategy of assessing books is wrong.”

“And what would you suggest, Jess?” George inquired.

“Hmm,” Jess said, delaying her answer just a moment, for the simple reason that she enjoyed seeing George exasperated. “I would suggest that instead of focusing on the collection, you think about the owner.”

“The lichenologist.”

“No, I mean Sandra. She’s the one you should assess. You need to figure out what she really wants.”

“Money,” said George.

“That would be easy,” Jess said. “I don’t think it’s purely money that she’s after. I think she wants to tell someone her story.”

“Oh, God,” said George.

“She wants to be heard.”

“Obviously, Raj has been listening.” Colm replaced the calligraphed card on the counter.

“But she’s looking for the best listener.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” said George, “because hearing this woman’s superstitious, delusional …”

“How do you know that she’s delusional?” Jess asked him.

“I don’t have patience,” George said.

“Don’t you want this collection?” Jess pressed. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

They heard Sandra at the door, and rushed back to their places.

Sandra did not say hello. Well aware they had been whispering, she set her hat atop the bookcase full of cut glass and marched upstairs into—her bedroom? Her study? They heard her shut the door.

Jess and Colm looked at each other. Jess mouthed to George, “Go talk to her.”

George shook his head and put his finger to his lips.

You’re making a mistake
, she scribbled on a note card. They all looked at Sandra’s closed door. Something was up, Jess thought. One of them would have to speak to Sandra. One of them had to learn the thing Raj had already discovered: her history, her crisis, her fantasy.

George tried to keep working but he stopped, hands hovering above the keyboard.

Colm took off his glasses. He had to sneeze, but he could not. Then he had to sneeze again. He saw cat hair everywhere. “Send her,” he said, and he meant Jess. “Send her.”

It was one thing to theorize about Sandra, and quite another to climb the creaky blond wood stairs and face her closed door. “Sandra,” Jess called softly, but she heard no sound.

She descended the stairs halfway and looked back. Colm pantomimed his suggestion to knock again.

Up she went. “Sandra,” Jess called, knocking louder.

“It’s unlocked,” Sandra said, and Jess let herself in, shutting the door behind her.

The study was so tight that when Sandra turned around in her swivel chair, she almost ran over Jess’s toes. The room was slanted, tucked under the heavy angled roof of the house; its single window, large and low, looking out on the riotous garden; the desk, rough boards, built under the window. The walls were lined with scientific journals.
The Lichenologist, International Journal of Mycology and Lichenology, Proceedings of the International
Symposium on Moss and Liverwort
. A framed black-and-white photo stood on one shelf. A serious and homely looking man in wire-rimmed glasses.

Sandra was wearing a long flowing batik dress, but her posture was schoolmarmish as she sat up paying bills, stamping and addressing envelopes; her mouth tight, puckered in concentration. Jess had a fleeting memory—or was it her imagination? The image of her mother sewing, with her mouth tight, full of pins.

“What is it?” Sandra asked, glancing up.

Jess took off her knit hat and held it in her hands. “Your cookbooks are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.”

“Have you seen a lot of cookbooks?”

“They’re the most beautiful
books
I’ve ever seen,” Jess amended. “I just want to assure you that we are treating them with respect. And we realize that they have sentimental value.”

“They don’t have sentimental value for
me
,” Sandra said, and she turned back to her bills.

“Oh!” Jess could not conceal her surprise. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”