Safely locked in a cubicle, he took out one of the origami sachets stashed in his wallet and inhaled the contents off the back of his hand. Just the one, he thought, relishing the immediate, overwhelming rush of clarity and assurance. Well, maybe one more, what the hell. The main thing was that the evening was a success. More than that, a triumph! Everything was sparkling: the plates, the glasses, the lights, the company, and above all he himself, the star! He hadn’t sampled the varied and delicious canapes the hotel had laid on, not having any appetite for anything but the crystalline powder-all right, one more line couldn’t hurt-but this too fitted in perfectly, an act of genius demonstrating to the assembled contingent of foreign food pornographers that Romano Rinaldi disdained the products of even the best kitchen in Bologna. Nothing was good enough for Lo Chef but his own cooking.
The press conference had been hastily arranged with a view to promoting a version of his show abroad. The domestic market was pretty well saturated now, but there was a potentially vast audience elsewhere, above all the US. Italian food was hot. With his usual casual mastery, Romano had learnt to speak perfect English in a few months, as he had just demonstrated. The assembled journalists had clearly been astonished, even disconcerted, by his fluency. Most people in Europe understood at least some English, and if they didn’t then they’d have to put up with subtitles or a voice-over. But the concept itself was solid, as he proceeded to explain in rapid Italian to the press corps when he floated back into the large private room that Delia had booked.
‘For we Italians, cooking is not a thing apart. It is not just a skill or a trade, it is life itself! This is impossible for foreigners to understand. You people just eat something, anything, to stay alive, gobbling down your filthy meals like a bunch of neolithic savages in a cave! For we Italians it is very different. When we create un piatto autentico, genuino e tipico, it isn’t just to satisfy our bodily hunger. No! We want to take inside ourselves all of Italy, her history, her culture, her language, her incomparable cities and landscapes. We want to imbibe the very heart and soul of this earthly paradise that is our native land! To you barbarians, food is a mere physical substance, so many calories and grams of fat, so much vitamin C and roughage. To us, this is a sacrilege! For we Italians, dining is like taking holy communion, tasting the very body and blood of our sacred culture that we consume in this daily domestic mass!’
Surrendering as always to the instinctive grasp of the public pulse that never deserted him, Rinaldi launched into a free adaptation of Verdi’s ‘Va, pensiero’. Then he abruptly broke off in mid-phrase. His face darkened.
‘Mind you, it hasn’t always been easy for me. On the contrary! My enemies say I only do this for the money, the fame, the women, the fast cars, the jet-set lifestyle. And of course like every other talented and successful person in this country, I have many enemies. Only enemies, you might even say. They’re all out to get me! You stupid foreigners visit Italy and think, “Beautiful villas, magnificent countryside, wonderful art, cooking and culture, a truly civilised country, an earthly paradise”. You blind fools! You see only the pretty face and don’t have the wit to realise that this stinking nation is nothing but a bloated corpse whose apparent signs of life only prove that the maggots are already heaving within! Paradise, my arse! Rather a Third World shithole inhabited by vicious, envious swine whose only thought is to try and drag me down to their own miserable level of insignificance!’
He breathed deeply for several seconds, then smiled at everyone seated around the table to indicate the utter futility of any such attempt.
‘And now Professor Edgardo Ugo dares to suggest that I do not know how to cook! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! What does he know about Italian food and culture? He’s spent so long locked up with his musty books that he’s no better than you foreigners! Him, challenge me to prove myself? Don’t make me laugh! He lives in an ivory tower, like all academics. He cares nothing for the bel paese, but me, I love it with all my body and soul. That’s why I have dedicated my life to making the immortal masterpieces of our Italian cuisine accessible to the people, so that our long, proud and unbroken tradition may continue for many generations into the future!’
He burst into totally sincere tears. Several of the journalists began to gather their things together and eye the door.
‘For him, it is all the head, not the heart!’ Lo Chef continued, drying his eyes openly, unashamed of his worthy emotion. ‘He is a thinker, but Romano Rinaldi is a lover! I COOK WITH MY COCK!!’
Delia had long since given up any attempt at translating this speech, and was now bustling around speaking to the departing journalists. Sensing the prevailing mood, Rinaldi switched effortlessly into his perfect English.
‘Ugo dares quarrel me? Well! Soon he gets his want! This bastard say I know fuck nothing, but he is in error, my friends. Tomorrow I demonstrate once and for ever to you here, to my public, and to the entire world, that I know FUCK ALL!!!’
In the lobby, Rinaldi pressed the flesh assiduously, with Delia keeping a cautious eye on the proceedings.
‘What I do now?’ he replied to an unasked question. ‘I walk! I inhale the air, I mingle with the people, I absorb the unique culture of Italy that lies all around, and I draw inspiration for the contest tomorrow. Buona notte a tutti! ’
He walked out and up the street, turned several corners at random, then crossed Via Rizzoli, stepped up under the massive nineteenth-century arcade, ignoring the nasal whine of a crouched beggar, and strode in through a door beneath a neon sign depicting two golden arches.
‘Give me a Big Tasty, a McRoyal Deluxe, a Crispy McBacon and five large fries,’ he told the girl at the counter.
‘Is that for here or to go?’
‘To go, to go!’
16
‘So apparently the whole thing’s fixed! It’s supposed to be a free-for-all followed by an impartial blind tasting, but the jury’s been rigged. They’ll know which bowl Lo Chef’s stuff is in and then vote for it whatever it tastes like. So I’m afraid your Professor Ugo is bound to lose.’
Listening to Flavia chatter away, Rodolfo wished that he could enjoy his sense of power more. Killers were supposed to, by all accounts. That was what made it all worthwhile.
‘He’s going to lose all right.’
His doomed girlfriend had already devoured her entire pizza, including the crusts, and was now digging into a hefty slab of one of the semifreddo pies from the glass-fronted cooler near the door.
‘Besides, Lo Chef has been told the list of ingredients in advance,’ she went on, blithely unaware of her imminent fate. ‘He’s already chosen a recipe and practised it over and over again, just like my sister used to do with her piano test pieces at the conservatory. Mind you, there was always a sight unseen as well.’
Rodolfo looked up from the slice of pizza he had been morosely nibbling at for longer than it had taken to prepare.
‘I didn’t know your sister was a pianist,’ he remarked in a stilted, stagey drawl. ‘Does she have a thing?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You know, a career. Sort of like a job, only more glam.’
Flavia finally displayed the first signs of sensing that something was wrong, although she couldn’t of course have imagined in her wildest dreams that she was about to be shot through the heart.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied guardedly. ‘We’ve rather lost touch.’