The Chef

9

It had been so sunny on Sunday morning that Dalmann had taken breakfast on the terrace. But no sooner had Lourdes brought out the scrambled eggs and bacon than the wind blew a large cloud across the sun.

Dalmann got stuck into his breakfast nonetheless, and reached for the top newspaper on the pile of four laid out by the housekeeper. Now he began to feel gloomier. The hysteria surrounding the destruction of the documents by the Bundesrat had thrown up a lot of dirt, unnecessarily. A section of the Federal News Service’s report about the nuclear smuggling affair had fallen into the hands of a journalist, and now they were talking about the Iranian connection as well as the Pakistani one. It would not be long before the name Palucron appeared in the newspaper.

Palucron was a company – now no longer trading – with its headquarters in a lawyer’s office in the city centre. At the time it had channelled payments from Iran to various firms, all of them rock-solid enterprises with impeccable reputations, who certainly had no idea that they were implicated in the development of a nuclear programme.

Of course this was also true of Palucron, officially. At least it was for its director, Eric Dalmann, who had only taken up the position at the request of a business acquaintance to whom he owed a favour.

At all events, it would be extremely inconvenient for him to be mentioned in the same breath as this story, especially at a time when business was taking a knock due to the financial crisis.

Dalmann looked up at the sky. A whole bank of cloud was obscuring the sun. He was wearing casual summer clothes – a green polo shirt and light, tartan golf slacks – and an unpleasantly cold wind chilled him to the bone.

‘Lourdes!’ he called. ‘We’re going inside.’ He stood, picked up his coffee cup, and went through the veranda door into the living room. He sat in an armchair, staring morosely, until the housekeeper had cleared the breakfast from the terrace and laid the table in the dining room.

He had scarcely sat down and started on a new plate of scrambled eggs and bacon – the first, only half eaten, had gone cold during the change of tables – before the doorbell rang. Schaeffer, as ever, was a little too punctual.

Schaeffer was Dalmann’s colleague. Dalmann could not think of another word for him. He was not exactly a secretary or an assistant, and right-hand man did not describe him accurately either. So Dalmann had stuck with ‘colleague’. They had been colleagues for nearly ten years now and had dispensed with formalities early on. Schaeffer called Dalmann Eric, Dalmann called Schaeffer Schaeffer.

Lourdes showed him in. He was a tall, gangly man in his early forties, with a narrow head, thinning blond hair and bright blue eyes. A few years back he had swapped his rimless glasses for contact lenses, which did nothing for his sensitive eyes; he was forever throwing his head back and squeezing drops under his eyelids.

Like Dalmann, Schaeffer was in casual clothes. A light-blue shirt with a button-down collar, dark-blue linen trousers and a red cashmere pullover slung carefully over his shoulders. In one hand he carried a heavy briefcase.

‘I wanted to eat outside, but…’ Dalmann pointed vaguely upwards.

‘The outlook for the weather is not promising,’ Schaeffer answered.

Dalmann took a mouthful and pointed to a chair where a second place had been set. Schaeffer sat and put the briefcase on the floor beside him. ‘I hope it’s not going to piss it down for the opening game.’

Euro 2008 was scheduled to start in a week’s time. The ideal PR opportunity for Dalmann. Thanks to his UEFA contacts he had stockpiled tickets for the most important games and had organized events, either himself or through others – dinners in exclusive restaurants, visits to nightclubs, etc. – around the tournament. This was one of Schaeffer’s most important jobs at present, and also the real reason for his Sunday visit.

But for the moment Palucron was top priority.

Schaeffer had already had breakfast. He drank a cup of tea and peeled an apple so carefully that it got on Dalmann’s nerves. He pushed one of the Sunday newspapers across the table. ‘Have you seen this?’

Schaeffer nodded and bit into a slice of apple. The care he took in chewing it got on Dalmann’s nerves, too. Everything about Schaeffer got on his nerves. But he was good, he had to give him that – which is why Dalmann had put up with him for so long. ‘Do you know this Huber fellow?’ Huber was the journalist who had written the article.

Schaeffer shook his head until he had swallowed his mouthful. ‘But I do know his boss.’

‘I know him too. We can always use our clout with him later. All we need to know right now is whether Palucron is mentioned in this report.’

‘We have to make that assumption.’

I wish he wouldn’t talk so pompously all the time, Dalmann thought. ‘The paper’s got an “extract” from the report. If Palucron were mentioned in this extract then surely it would be in the newspaper.’

In his hand Schaeffer held the slice of apple that was destined for his mouth. ‘Or they’re saving this detail for next Sunday.’

‘Look, Schaeffer, that’s why I want you to find out how much they’ve got.’

Schaeffer placed the slice of apple in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Finally he swallowed, nodded and said, ‘I think that’s within the realm of the doable.’

‘Good,’ Dalmann muttered. ‘Then do it.’

They started talking about Euro 2008.

The following Sunday the same newspaper revealed further details about the nuclear affair. There was no mention of Palucron.

10

The European Championships had given Maravan a breathing space. The catering industry needed so many staff that even Huwyler’s excommunication was no obstacle to finding a job. At least not for the owner of a food stall along the tourist strip.

Maravan was hired to do the washing up. He worked in the stiflingly hot corner of a tent, separated from the kitchen and serving counter. He had to scrub the pans and chafing dishes by hand; a dishwasher was at his disposal for cutlery and crockery. But it was so defective it kept on breaking down, and meant that Maravan was forced to clean these by hand as well.

It was monotonous work. Sometimes he had nothing to do for hours, and then, when an onslaught of hungry fans arrived, he could not keep up with the work. The boss held both of these things – doing nothing and not keeping up – against him. But only in the way that he held everything against everybody. He ensured that the work atmosphere was lousy; he had paid good money for a licence, expected to do fantastic business and now he had to sit through long slack periods in the tourist strip. Switzerland had been knocked out, and the weather was cold and rainy. Maravan was counting down the days till the end of the European Championships.

Not just because of the job. The hype was getting on his nerves. He was not interested in football. Swimming had been his sport. And when he was much younger he had also liked cricket – before he had devoted himself entirely to cooking.

The one good thing about this job was that the social security office knew nothing about it. A slightly dodgy temp firm, who worked mainly with people in his situation, had organized the job for Maravan. Although he was poorly paid, twenty francs per hour, this was in addition to his dole money.

He had taken out a loan – 3,000 francs – to send his sister money for Nangay’s treatment. Not from a bank, of course – what bank in the world would have given credit to an unemployed asylum seeker? – but from Ori, a Tamil businessman who lent money privately. Fifteen per cent interest. On the whole sum until the loan was paid back.

To begin with he had tried to do it without a loan. As soon as he had heard that Nangay could not continue with her treatment, he had worked illegally at a used tyre warehouse. He had to spend the whole day sorting through heavy tyres.

But he did not last. Not because he found the work too strenuous, but because it was too dirty. There was no shower there and he could not get rid of the stink of rubber and the black filth at the wash basin. He could just about put up with the fact that he was slaving away at the very bottom of the social ladder. But his pride did not allow him to look or smell like it.

He had also tried his hand in the construction industry. He was working for a subcontractor of a subcontractor at a large building site. But on the second day an official turned up from the city authorities checking for black market workers. Maravan and two of his colleagues managed to disappear just in time. The subcontractor still owed him money.

In the washing-up tent he had no idea how chilly it was outside. Maravan was scrubbing the stubborn remains of goulash from a food container. Apart from that he had nothing to do. Through the side of the tent he could hear the voice of a football commentator. The Italy-Romania game was playing on the small television set. All the food stalls along the tourist strip were hoping for an Italian victory. There were far more Italians than Romanians in town and they spent more money too.

Finally, in the fifty-fifth minute, salvation arrived in the form of a goal: 1-0. The triumphant screams startled Maravan; he peeped through the curtain which covered the entrance to the stall. His boss was whooping loudest of all. He was skipping up and down with his arms thrust into the air, shouting ‘Italia! Italia!’

Maravan pretended he was delighted as well, and this was his downfall. At the very moment he beamed through the curtain, Romania equalized. His boss turned away from the television in disgust and caught sight of Maravan’s grinning face. He said nothing, but as soon as the game was over and the flood of euphoric Italian fans they had been hoping for failed to materialize at any point that evening, he paid Maravan and told him not to come back tomorrow.

Contrary to his usual habit Maravan travelled home in the front carriage of the Number 12 tram. A fan had thrown up in the rear carriage, and Maravan could not stomach the stench.

A few lone fans were still on the streets, making their way back to the city centre. The scarves in their teams’ colours were now acting as protection against the cold wind, and only the occasional snippet of an anthem or chant could be heard from inside the tram.

Maravan had never felt such despair. Not even on the day when he gave his entire savings to a people smuggler. At least that had been a way out.

This time he could not see one. Or only a very humiliating one. If he had committed himself to the Liberation Tigers he would have got that job in the Ceylonese restaurant. The owner did not care that he had been booted out of the Huwyler. He would have taken Maravan on as a kitchen help, with the prospect of promotion to chef. But when he reacted to the crunch question of where he stood on the Liberation Tigers with a shrug of his shoulders, he knew in an instant he would not get the job. The LTTE was ubiquitous within the diaspora. Nobody who was reliant on the help of their compatriots here could afford to distance themselves from the Tigers.

Maybe he should go back. He could not have less of a future than he did here.