The Discovery of Chocolate (12 page)

I became the friend of a baker called Simon Delmarche, who sought my aid in a plan to combine the principles of bread making with the new possibilities offered by chocolate. Anxious to make friends rather than enemies in this great city, I told him that I would be glad to help because I did indeed have certain ideas as to how this might be achieved. And so, over a period of some six months, we rose early each morning, coaxing various combinations of flour, water, almond, yeast and cacao until at last, after several disastrous failures, we succeeded in creating one of the simplest, but I must say greatest, inventions known to humankind: the
pain au chocolat
.

Back at my lodgings, I also came to befriend a small and extremely rotund Austrian gentleman, whose dream in life was to establish a series of hotels across Europe. He had
arrived in Paris to purchase some of the properties that had been newly vacated by the aristocracy. Each evening we would take chocolate together before retiring for bed, and Franz would tell of the estate outside Vienna where he lived with his wife and three children. He was a kindly but other-worldly man who did not fully understand that his business interests might arouse the anger of the revolutionaries. I warned him that it was dangerous to speak loudly of his affairs lest he too be mistaken for an aristocrat, and in the weeks that followed we became increasingly concerned by the volatility of the political situation, the public distrust of foreigners, and the terrible introduction of the guillotine.

Although I was content with my work at the chocolate house, a day did not pass when I did not feel uneasy. The necessary secrecy involved in my long life had become almost intolerable. I was terrified that I would be unmasked as an impostor, that people might guess my Spanish character, and that if I ever told the truth about my condition I would be mistaken, once more, for a madman. With no means of proving our identity, and uncertain as to whether we would be believed in our allegiance to France, the time came when both Franz and I were forced to conclude that the best course of action would be to leave the city.

Sure that he could even find employment for me at one of his establishments in Vienna, my companion invited me to accompany him on his journey home. It was an offer which I could not refuse.

And so, after taking leave of the few friends that we had made in Paris, Pedro and I found ourselves travelling in the back of a comfortable carriage pulled by four chocolate-coloured
Brabants some seventeen hands high. Although our future was uncertain, and Pedro persisted in licking my face and giving me anxious and soulful looks throughout the journey, I could not help but feel hopeful. Our trust in Franz would be rewarded by a safer, more fulfilling and more comfortable life. Surely our future could not be as frightening as our past?

T
he estate lay close to the Vienna Woods and was well regarded both for its dairy produce and for its apricots, which were harvested each July and August. Indeed, the family was famed for the resulting cordials, brandies, compotes and preserves.

The lady of the house was a tall, dark-haired and nervous woman, as slender as her husband was portly. In fact they seemed to be the exact opposite of each other: Franz being small, blond, weighty and prone to excess perspiration, forever dabbing a handkerchief on his forehead; whereas his wife was pale, powdered and thin. Together they had produced three children: Katharina, aged ten, who performed the duties of a mother when her own was too debilitated to do so, Trude, an opinionated daughter of eight, and Edward, a troublesome and energetic son of three.

On the afternoon that I arrived in Vienna, the family was involved in the making of an apricot preserve. A wooden table had been set in the middle of the orchard and the children ran amidst the trees, selecting the fruit and placing it gently in narrow wicker trays. Pedro followed them with enthusiasm, barking happily, jumping up at them, and even,
at one point, picking an apricot himself by leaping up and dislodging it with his nose as if it were a ball with which to play.

It was a beautiful summer’s day, and the green of the trees stretched out before us as if an artist had laid them out on a palette: lime, verdigris, and Prussian green; emerald, pine and terre-verte.

Franz was clearly delighted to be home, and clasped his wife with unbounded affection.

‘Bertha, my joy, my life, my wife.’

‘You are home at last. Now I can rest,’ she said. It was clear that motherhood exhausted her.

‘I have returned with a charming new friend, my treasure.’

His wife broke off the embrace and turned to me.

‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance,’ she said guardedly, wiping her hand on her apron before holding it out for me to kiss.

She had been slicing apricots on the table, cutting them into halves, and removing the stones, before placing them into shallow white bowls. ‘We are making a compote,’ she announced, ‘and then the children will bake a cake.’

Her husband reached down and plucked up an apricot.

‘I love this fruit more than anything in the world,’ he said, letting it rest in his hand, rolling it gently backwards and forwards in his palm. ‘Look at its roundness and its simplicity. It is the greatest treasure we own; so short is its season, so rare its beauty.’

He held the apricot up in the sunlight.

‘Have you ever seen anything with a finer glow? Look at the blush on it. Admire its colour. It is the purest of pale
orange, the mirror of creation. When I see a perfect apricot I know that God is good.’

‘All things mirror God’s creation,’ Bertha offered, and, indeed, it seemed that afternoon we were perhaps in a very Eden, surrounded by the laughter of children.

‘Taste,’ offered Bertha gently, turning to me. ‘I will choose one for you. Hold out your hand.’

I looked into her dark eyes and she placed the apricot in the centre of my palm. The sun gave the fruit a golden halo against my flesh.

‘Taste,’ she said again.

I looked at her husband as if to ask permission, for to partake of such nectar might have seemed an act of infidelity, so sensual was the exchange; but he simply nodded in agreement with his wife’s order and gestured that I should continue.

Biting into the soft, slightly smoky exterior, and letting the juices roll around my mouth, I was amazed by the way in which the texture of the fruit became increasingly soft, moving slowly and luxuriously from its supple skin to an intense and mellow centre.

Suddenly I could not help but think of Ignacia, the rounded plumpness of her rump, the soft liquidity of her insides, the honeyed moistness I had known.

‘What are you thinking of?’ Franz asked.

My mouth was full of apricot.

‘Is this not the purest nectar?’ he continued.

I looked at the pile of fruit before me.

‘They are as pure as the buttocks of a new-born child,’ I replied, hastily trying to banish Ignacia from my thoughts.

Bertha shuddered with disgust.

This observation was clearly a mistake.

Katharina smiled. ‘The man says they’re like your bottom, Edward.’

‘No, they’re not. His bum’s bigger,’ said Trude.

‘That’s enough.’ Bertha shuddered once more. ‘It would please me if you would refrain from such vulgar observation. We have much to do here. I have compote to produce and cakes to make.’

‘I apologise without reserve,’ I said. ‘I meant the remark in all innocence.’

‘Bum bum bum bum bum,’ sang Edward.

‘Quiet,’ shouted his mother, but the boy laughed and sang again.

‘Bum bum bum bum bum.’

‘This is intolerable.’

‘Bum bum bum bum bum.’

‘Bertha, my darling …’

‘Bum bum bum bum bum.’

‘Why do the children always do this? No one understands how difficult I find this.’

‘Bum bum bum bum.’

‘No one understands anyone, my darling. We are all individuals … cast adrift on the waters of life.’

‘Bum bum bum bum bum.’

‘You are all impossible …’ Bertha threw down her handkerchief and fled back into the house.

The children stared after her.

My friend gave chase, following his wife up the stairs, calling after her, ‘Bertha, my darling, Bertha …’

‘Bum bum bum bum bum,’ sang Edward.

‘In the name of God be silent!’ I shouted.

‘Don’t speak to our brother like that,’ admonished Trude.

We were in the Garden of Eden no more.

I must confess that I have never been familiar with youngsters and have not been able to understand how so much of a parent’s duty lies in the presentation of a mood or emotion to the rest of the family – whether it be authority, cheerfulness or patience – which its owner does not, in fact, possess. I have noticed that this often creates both tension and distress.

And yet it appears that the production of children is the most common consolation of mortality, satisfying, at least in part, the desire to salvage a spark of ourselves to live on in future generations. I therefore decided that if I were ever to truly understand the common attempt at everlasting life I would have to befriend both these children and their parents.

The first thing to do was surely to retrieve the current situation and find some form of entertainment for the three frail specimens that now stood before me.

It was not easy.

‘What shall we do now?’ I asked, realising that I had made the most inauspicious of beginnings to my stay in Vienna.

‘Mother will take to her bed. Father will comfort her,’ Trude stated, in a surprisingly matter-of-fact manner.

‘You must help us,’ offered three-year-old Edward. ‘Mama is sad.’

The children spoke as if a mature understanding of human frailty had been instilled in them at birth.

‘What about the cake?’ I asked firmly, grasping the only practical idea in my head, for I knew from the conversations
with my friend that the Austrians liked nothing better than a large slice of cake.

‘Do you actually know how to make one?’ Katharina asked.

‘Is there no cook?’

‘Mother dismissed her.’

‘A maid?’

‘The cook and the maid were friends. They left together.’

‘And so you are alone. Do you not have a governess?’

‘Nobody stays here long.’

‘Why not?’ I said, looking at the green of the orchard before us. ‘It is a beautiful place.’

Katharina looked at me as if she had never met anyone so foolish before.

‘Father doesn’t pay people enough, and we are too far out of the town. The girls who look after us are lonely in the countryside and do not want to marry farm workers.’

‘And Mother says they are lazy,’ Trude added, ‘and then she cries like she did then, and we have to do everything ourselves. Why are you here?’

‘I have come to Vienna in search of employment.’

‘What can you do?’ asked Katharina sternly.

‘I write, and I speak several languages. I can also cook.’

‘Are you going to be our teacher?’ asked Trude.

‘I think your mother would not approve.’

‘Can you play with my soldiers?’ asked Edward.

‘Why do you have a dog?’ asked Trude, accusingly.

The children seemed to want to do nothing but question me. This was a considerable source of alarm because I was well aware of the ability of children to proceed to the heart of a matter by a process of direct questioning, and was still
uncertain of my abilities as a dissembler. If I was forced to tell the truth about my adventures I would not know when to stop and would be accused of corrupting them with fantasy. The only option was to change the subject and avoid further inquisition.

‘Enough. We should finish making the compote and clear this away. And we must appeal to your mother’s good nature through our industry,’ I ordered. ‘Let us surprise her with cake.’

The children were extremely hesitant, and I decided that a firm hand was needed.

‘We need eggs, butter, sugar, cream and chocolate; three mixing bowls, two saucepans and a bain-marie; spoons, palette knives and whisks. We also need a well-lined cake tin. Can you find them?’

‘I know where they are,’ said Katharina. ‘I have even made cake myself with Mother.’

‘Very good; then you can help. Trude, you finish the compote, and Katharina and I will start on the cake.’

‘What can I do?’ asked Edward.

‘You can play with Pedro in the orchard.’

‘I’ve just done that …’

‘Well, you can do it again,’ I replied tartly. How anyone can ever live with three children defeats me.

‘Separate the eggs,’ Katharina ordered.

‘I’ll mix the butter and sugar,’ said Trude.

Katharina placed a pan of water on the stove and broke chocolate into a bowl which rested just above the surface. The apricots were stewing on the side.

The production of the cake was, it must be said, a complicated process. The oven was heated, and Trude creamed
the soft butter and the brown sugar. Katharina asked me to add six egg yolks, one at a time, to the melted chocolate. This she then stirred slowly, turning the mixture into a rich and dark luxuriant paste.

‘Now whip the whites …’ she ordered.

I pulled out my trusty
molinillo
, and whisked the six egg whites. The mixture stiffened and rose beneath me, frothing into frosted peaks as if they were miniature versions of the mountains I had seen in Mexico.

Trude added the butter and sugar to Katharina’s chocolate and I folded in my egg whites, together with some flour.

‘Now,’ ordered Katharina, ‘this is too heavy for me. Take it and continue stirring.’

I picked the bowl from the steam, scalding my hands, but too proud to show my pain. Katharina then held out a metal cake ring and asked me to pour the mixture gently into it. As the thick, dark confection oozed out of the bowl the pain of the burn began to surge through my hand and I was taken back to Mexico once more, to the memory of the flames as I pledged my love to Ignacia. No matter how long I lived, it would always be with me. I would take it out like a treasure, letting it roam through my head, savouring each detail: the look in her eyes, the fall of her hair, the way in which she held her head – it was a memory so powerful it could bring life to an end.

Katharina took the cake away and placed it in the oven. The slamming door awoke me from my reverie.

‘Now for the icing,’ I said, almost to myself, melting chocolate once more, and suddenly sad. This was what it was like to be lost, I thought, to be detached from life, living
in memory because the present could never be so alive or so vibrant again.

‘Will this work?’ cut in Trude.

‘I am only uncertain about your oven,’ I replied. ‘I am not used to it.’

‘How will we know when the cake is ready?’ she asked.

I could not think of a response. All my confidence had disappeared.

‘When the smell of baking is at its height,’ Katharina replied seriously.

‘And when will that be?’ I asked.

‘In about an hour. It is a smell which we always know. Our mother has taught us. It is then that we know that we are at home.’

At last I began to savour the aroma of the baking chocolate cake. It seeped into the air and filled the room with reassurance, as if my confidence was slowly returning. I stopped to watch the two girls pour the icing onto a marble slab, and it seemed then that perhaps the present need not be so terrible, that there could be moments in life, no matter how small, when fear and anxiety could be stilled and the pain of absence and loss could depart, if only for a while, leaving clarity and truth lying, as it did now, in something as familiar as the simplicity of children baking.