The Wedding Officer

20

IT WAS late when Livia finally tried the kitchen of Zi’ Teresa’s. Even though the restaurant was shrouded with blackout blinds, it was clear that it was shut, and she was really only knocking because she was too tired and hungry to do anything else.

To her surprise, though, the door opened a crack, and a man’s face peered out. “Yes?”

Livia repeated her litany. “Please, I’m looking for a job.”

“Go away. We’re closed, we have no work.” Angelo regarded the girl in front of him for a moment. She was swaying on her feet, and her eyes had a blank, unfocused expression. Softening, he said, “Have you eaten today?”

Livia shook her head.

“Perhaps I can find you something,” he muttered, holding the door open. “Come in. But only for a minute, mind.”

He gave her some cold beans and watched her as she devoured them. “What kind of work are you looking for?” he asked.

“I’m a cook. My family runs the osteria at Fiscino, but there are no customers anymore, and no food to cook with.”

“Ah, so that’s who you are.” Angelo nodded. “I ate at your osteria once. It was a few years ago, but I can remember the food as if it were yesterday. Do you still make that wonderful burrata?”

“Yes, but now we can’t get it to the market.”

She explained about the impounded tank, and the closing of her own restaurant.

“Ah. So you’ve met Captain Gould.”

She sighed. “Yes, I’ve met him.”

“That young man,” Angelo said, “is not nearly as fierce as he seems. But I’m afraid you did the wrong thing coming to Naples. You’d be better off going back to Fiscino and finding someone to look after you until this is all over.”

Livia shuddered. “There’s someone who offered. But I’m not going to do that. There must be someone in Naples who needs a cook.”

Just then Angelo was struck by an idea. “Actually,” he said, “there is one person.” He nodded thoughtfully. The more he considered his idea, the better it seemed. “Livia, I might just be able to get you some work after all.”

“She’s as sweet as bread,” he told Elena. “A real country girl—honest, hardworking, passionate, and pretty with it. And she knows how to cook—not fancy stuff, but proper country cooking. I had her make me some pasta e fagioli, and it was the best I’ve ever had.”

“So you want her to seduce him?” Elena asked skeptically. “I thought that had been tried before.”

“No.” Angelo shook his head. “She’s not like that, and in any case, it isn’t necessary. Panza contenti, cori clementi; panza dijuna, nenti priduna.^*2 At the end of the day, sex is only sex. A man can be sleeping with the most beautiful woman in the world, but when he gets up from her bed he’s still exactly the same person he was before. But a man who has eaten well—he’s at peace with the world, he’s happy, and more importantly, he wants other people to be happy. He looks at young lovers, and thinks how nice it would be if they could get married. He thinks about war, and it occurs to him that really peace is much nicer. He stops worrying about proclamations and paperwork, and lets people get on with their own business without interfering. In short, he starts to become a more generous, civilized human being. You follow?”

Elena shrugged. “And she’s happy to do it?”

“Not very,” Angelo admitted. “Her family have suffered at the hands of the Allies, and she took a little convincing.” This was an understatement: It had taken all his considerable powers of persuasion to get Livia to consider working for the British officer, and in the end he had only succeeded because she realized that it was the only job she was likely to be offered. “But I’m sure it will work out,” he said, more optimistically than he felt.

“We’ll see,” Elena said. “If it doesn’t, we could always try seducing him again.”

“Arrested?” James said, perplexed. “But what on earth can Malloni have been arrested for?”

“Stealing Allied Government property,” Carlo explained. “Your rations. It turns out he was taking all the good stuff and selling it up on the Via Forcella, leaving you with what he couldn’t unload.”

“Good Lord. Though I have to say, I’m not completely surprised. There was always something a little unlikely about Malloni. I suppose this means we’ll have to find a new cook?”

“I have already taken the liberty of advertising.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard, presumably? Naples must be full of people desperate for jobs.”

“Exactly. I have spread the word that interviews will take place from ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Grazie tante, Carlo. I’m very grateful.”

The next morning James woke up early. He sniffed the air. An unfamiliar aroma was wafting into his bedroom. He sniffed again. That was it: It was the smell of fresh bread, and it was quite delicious. His stomach groaned involuntarily as he pulled on his uniform.

Going into the kitchen, he saw the back of a woman’s head peering into one of his cupboards. For a moment he thought it was Livia Pertini, which was ridiculous. Then she turned around, and he realized it was her. “What on earth are you doing here?” he said, astonished.

“I’m your new cook,” she said.

“Oh.” He rubbed his head, trying to resist the temptation to grin inanely at her. “I’m afraid you’re early. The interviews aren’t until ten o’clock.”

“Well, why don’t I make you breakfast, and you can interview me afterward?”

“Um.” James had a vague idea that there was something slightly improper about this, but he couldn’t think exactly what it was. And it was really very nice to see her. “I suppose that’s all right.”

“What is this?” she asked, showing him the tin of “Meat and Vegetables” in her hand.

“Oh, that. It’s a kind of…” He struggled to find the Italian word. “Stufato, I suppose. A stew.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s absolutely horrible.”

She put the tin back in the cupboard. “Then why do you have so much of it?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Anyway,” she said, “I managed to swap some with the woman upstairs for bread and fresh goat’s milk, and I have pastries and mozzarella cheese and some oranges. How does that sound?”

“It sounds rather nice,” he admitted.

“Where’s your tablecloth?”

“We don’t usually bother with a tablecloth for breakfast,” he said. “As a matter of fact, we don’t usually bother with a table.”

“No wonder you get indigestion.”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t.”

“Of course you do,” she said, with an air of finality that brooked no argument. “Presumably you must have a clean sheet somewhere?”

“I suppose I—”

“Could you get it, please?”

When he returned with the sheet, he found that she had picked some blossom from the lemon tree in the courtyard and stuck it in a vase. She laid the sheet over the table and pointed to a seat. “Prego.”

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Maybe later. Go on, sit.”

He sat. He had to admit, it all looked rather splendid. The bread was on a wooden cutting board, and the milk was in a little pottery jug, with the vase of lemon blossom next to it. Livia placed a ball of wet newspaper on the table, and proceeded to unwrap it. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Mozzarella cheese, of course. It’s like the burrata you had before, but different.”

“It’s soft,” he said, pushing his fork into the piece she passed him.

“You’ve never eaten mozzarella?” she said incredulously.

“In England we only have three cheeses,” he explained. “Cheddar, Stilton and Wensleydale.”

“Now you’re making fun of me,” she sniffed.

“Not at all.” He put some of the milky white cheese into his mouth. “Oh,” he said. “That’s rather good, isn’t it?” It was so soft it melted in his mouth, but the taste was explosive—creamy, and cuddy, and faintly tart all at once.

The door opened and Horris walked in. “I say, something smells good.” He looked at the table. “What’s all this?”

“It’s breakfast,” James explained.

“Excellent.” Horris pulled up a chair.

There was a knock at the door and Jumbo Jeffries stuck his head around it. His eyes were bloodshot and surrounded with dark pouches, but he brightened when he saw the table.

“Are those oranges?”

“I believe they are.”

“Oranges,” Jumbo said authoritatively, “are just the thing for a flagging constitution.” He pulled up another chair. Within a few minutes another four or five officers had also joined them.

Livia put a plate of pastries on the table. James had never seen anything so ridiculous. Each one was as intricate and ornate as a girl’s bonnet, with various decorations of candied lemon, custard and marzipan flowers. He picked one up suspiciously and bit into it.

He had to admit, it tasted a lot better than it looked. Next to him, Horris was on his second, and the others were fast catching up. Soon James was looking at a table that had been cleared of everything but a few crumbs.

“I’ll make sure there’s more tomorrow,” Livia said.

“If you get the job,” James pointed out.

“The extraordinary thing is,” he told Livia at eleven-thirty, “you seem to be the only applicant. Or at least, the only one who’s shown up.”

She shrugged. “You’re obviously a very unpopular employer.”

“I suppose we ought to re-advertise. I mean, I can’t really give the job to the first person who knocks on the door, can I?”

“How many cooks do you need?”

“Just one.”

“So how many applicants do you need?”

“Well—one, I suppose.”

“There you are, then.”

“But how do I know your cooking is up to scratch?”

“If there wasn’t a war on,” Livia said, “I would take great exception to that remark. But since times are hard, why don’t I cook you lunch, and you can keep me on if you like it?”

Lunch for the British personnel was usually another quick bite taken at their desks, but even before Livia started going around the apartment looking for more sheets to use as tablecloths James realized she was unlikely to find that an acceptable arrangement. All morning a succession of extraordinary smells emanated from the kitchen, although since Livia absolutely forbade access it was impossible to know what was causing them.

Halfway through the morning a thought occurred to James, and he went to knock on the kitchen door. When Livia opened it, he said, “There is just one thing, Mrs. Pertini. I hope it’s not too late to say this: We none of us eat garlic.”

She looked at him as if he were quite mad. “Well, of course. No one eats garlic. It’s not a vegetable.”

“No, I mean—none of us eats garlic at all. In our food. We don’t want to smell afterward, you see.”

She opened her eyes very wide. “Is there anything else you don’t like? Parsley, perhaps, or oregano?”

“I should imagine herbs would be all right—in moderation, of course. And so long as it’s herbs, rather than spices. That red pepper you eat here—”

“Peperoncino?”

“That’s the one. We don’t like that.”

She opened her mouth and then closed it again. “Is that all?”

“Well, while we’re on the subject, potatoes are preferable to pasta—we’re not quite as keen as you Italians on the old maccheroni. But you’ll find we’re pretty easygoing. Plenty of meat, properly cooked through, tomatoes preferably not cooked at all, bread, gravy when you can stretch to it…If you can get hold of some butter, that would be champion. And, er, a light touch with the olive oil.”

Livia nodded thoughtfully. Then she shut the door without comment.

Just before noon she came into the big room that they used as their main office. “We can’t eat in that kitchen,” she said. “It’s not big enough.” She looked at the vast dining table. “This will do. Can you clear those papers off, please?”

“I’m afraid not,” James explained. “This is our work.”

“It’ll still be your work later. Lunch will be in fifteen minutes.”

In fact, it was half an hour before lunch arrived. Livia insisted that everyone had to be seated before she served the food—“The people wait for the pasta, not the pasta for the people,” she said firmly. She also ensured that the table itself held a jug of water, a vial of oil, a dish of salt and a vase of fresh blossoms. Once again James was struck by the efficient way she organized everyone to do exactly what she wanted. By the time the moment arrived, every British officer in the building was waiting to see what Livia would serve.

The door opened and she entered. She was bearing an enormous dish of steaming fettuccine, tossed in a sauce made with tomatoes, olive oil, chopped onion, celery and garlic, and decorated with freshly torn basil leaves. So much, James thought, for his suggestions. But perhaps Livia had been limited by what had been available.

As she filled each bowl, she grated a little hard cheese and some pepper over it. “You’re quite sure none of this food came from the black market?” James asked, eyeing the cheese warily.

“Of course not. I swapped it for your rations,” Livia said. This was the truth, although she did not mention that the person she had swapped with had been the maître d’ of Zi’Teresa’s.

Plunging his fork into the pasta, James twisted it until he had, with some difficulty, managed to get some of the wriggling, slippery mass to stay on the tines. Then he placed it in his mouth.

It was extraordinary. He had never tasted anything like it—certainly not in the long years of rationing, but not even before that, in a decade of eating gray, tasteless boarding-school food, or even for that matter his mother’s dry Sunday roasts, with their accompanying soggy potatoes and overcooked vegetables. Come to that, he had never in his life eaten pepper that was freshly ground, nor cheese that coated one’s food like this in a thick white snowfall…. The long silence as the other men around the table concentrated on their food suggested that they, too, were experiencing similar epiphanies.

It was hard to get the fettuccine to stay on one’s fork: By the time it was in your mouth, stray ribbons of pasta were drooping out. After a little experimentation, James realized it was easier to suck it in than to bite it off, and made for a more filling mouthful as well. He looked across at Horris. He was slurping cross-eyed at a long ribbon of fettuccine that hung from his lips, like a snake slithering at its own tongue. Only Jeffries was coping with the slippery lengths of pasta with anything like competence. But none of them seemed inclined to stop eating until every last morsel had been cleared from their bowls.

At last Horris pushed his chair back and said, “That was rather different from what old Malloni gave us.”

“I’m absolutely stuffed,” Walters ventured.

“Me too,” Horris agreed. “Oh well, back to work.” He started to get to his feet.

The door opened and Livia entered, holding a dish even larger than the one in which she had served the pasta.

“The secondo,” she said, putting the dish on the table. “There aren’t enough plates, unfortunately, so you’ll have to use the same ones.”

“What’s this?” Horris asked.

“Melanzane alla parmigiana. It’s a typical Neapolitan dish.”

There was a short silence. Walters said, “Well, I don’t want to give offense. I’ll just have a taste.” As he spooned some onto his plate the smell of eggplant, baked in layers with tomato, garlic and herbs and topped with grilled cheese, filled the room.

“I say,” Horris said, looking at the way Walters kept on spooning more onto his plate. “Leave some for the rest of us.”

Livia placed two jugs of red wine on the table. “Nun c’è tavola senza vinu,” she said reprovingly. “It isn’t a table without wine.” James opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it.

He dipped his fork into the layers of eggplant and cheese. Moments later, it seemed to detonate in his mouth. The pasta, he now realized, had simply been a curtain raiser, carbohydrate to take the edge off his hunger, but this new dish was something else, teasing his appetite awake again, the intensity of its flavors bringing to life taste buds he had never even known existed. The cheese tasted so completely of cheese, the eggplant so rich and earthy, almost smoky; the herbs so full of flavor, requiring only a mouthful of wine to finish them off…He paused reverently and drank, then dug again with his fork.

The secondo was followed by a simple dessert of sliced pears baked with honey and rosemary. The flesh of the fruit looked as crisp and white as something Michelangelo might have carved with, but when he touched his spoon to it, it turned out to be as meltingly soft as ice cream. Putting it in his mouth, he was at first aware only of a wonderful, unfamiliar taste, a cascade of flavors which gradually broke itself down into its constituent parts. There was the sweetness of the honey, along with a faint floral scent from the abundant Vesuviani blossom on which the bees had fed. Then came the heady, sunshine-filled fragrance of the herbs, and only after that, the sharp tang of the fruit itself.

By the time the pears were eaten, both jugs of wine had been emptied too.