Spare me your pompous master-chef act, thought Frank. And I’d like to see you call him Sam.to his face.
“He’s having eight guests to dinner tonight, and I’m serving them chicken curry. Chop a pound apiece of green onions and peanuts and put them in those silver bowls up there. Also, fill two more bowls with chutney and raisins. Then decant six bottles of the Rigby Chablis, which you’ll find in the cooler yonder. Do you think you can handle all that?”
“Time will tell,” said Frank with false gaiety, hoping it would annoy Pons, as he set out to find the onions and peanuts.
WHEN the guests had all arrived, the table was set and dinner was ready to be served, Pons strode into the kitchen and grabbed Frank’s arm.
“I’ve got to keep an eye on things here,” he said. “You serve the dinner.”
“Me! I don’t know anything about it! I can’t serve the damned dinner!”
“Keep your voice down. Of course you can serve it. I’m giving you a chance to ... prove yourself under fire, you might say. Here’s the wine. Go!” Frank swung through the kitchen doors into the dining room, carrying a silver tray on which were perched two decanters of Chablis and eight glasses, all clinking dangerously. He had to set the tray down carefully on the tablecloth before he dared raise his eyes to the assembled company.
The first eyes he met were Orcrist’s, who looked both surprised and angry. The two white-haired men flanking him looked amused, and their two thin old women regarded Frank with discreet distaste. Bad business, Frank thought, as he pulled desperately at the crystal stopper on one of the decanters. On the other side of the table sat a slender man with slick, gleaming hair; he winked at Frank. Next to him was a good-looking young woman with deep brown eyes and slightly kinky brown hair; very close to her sat a healthy-looking young man who was clearly holding the girl’s hand under the table.
Some guests, Frank thought. He’d got the stopper out, poured a half inch of wine into one glass and gravely passed it to Orcrist. This may not be correct, he thought, but at least it’s formal.
Orcrist raised his eyebrows, but took the glass. He sipped it and nodded. Frank filled the glass, and then proceeded to fill all the glasses, moving clockwise around the table. When he had finished he set the decanter in the middle of the table, bowed, and fled into the kitchen.
“How’d it go?” asked Pons.
“Not bad. What’s next?”
“Salad. In five minutes. Put the dressing on it in four and a half minutes.”
As Frank strode out carrying the salad bowl five minutes later, he felt a premonition of disaster. Pons had thrown a handful of garbanzo beans on top of the salad at the last minute, and Frank, foreseeing them rolling all over the table, thought it an unwise move.
I’ll serve the pretty girl first, he thought. He walked smiling to her place and holding the bowl in one hand, reached for the salad tongs with the other. Smooth, he told himself.
Pons had, earlier, set the bowl down in a puddle of salad oil, and now Frank’s grip on the bowl slipped an inch. A garbanzo bean rolled off the mound of lettuce and plunked into the girl’s wine. She squealed. Her escort turned a face of outrage on Frank, who tried to back away and perhaps get a new wine glass.
“Idiot!” barked the escort as he stood up, shoving his chair violently backward against Frank’s leg. The greased salad bowl left Frank’s hand, rolled over in the air, and landed on the brown-eyed girl’s chest, from there sliding down into her lap. Covered with gleaming lettuce, carrots and garbanzo beans, the surprised girl looked like a tropical hillside.
“For God’s sake, Frank!” boomed Orcrist after a stunned pause. “Go get Pons!”
Frank hurried into the kitchen. “You take over,” he told Pons, and then went to his room, feeling monumentally inadequate.
AFTER the guests had left, Orcrist asked Frank to accompany him on a walk. Frank nodded and fetched a coat. They walked for two blocks along an empty stretch of Sheol before Orcrist spoke.
“Bad show, there, Frank.”
“That’s true, sir.”
They walked on, past another block.
“I am not going to relieve you of your kitchen duties, though. Oh, I know it was an accident! That’s not what I mean. I think you should continue to work in the kitchen, under Pons’s direction, for the same reason I’d tell you to keep trying to ride a horse that had thrown you, or to keep practicing fencing after you’d taken a bad cut. Don’t let these things defeat you, eh?”
“Right,” agreed Frank without much enthusiasm. “Good. Kathrin Figaro’s boyfriend wanted to cut your throat, by the way. I told him he’d probably need a bit of help, and he stormed out. Next time, spill the salad on him.”
Frank laughed weakly.
“A penny to see a dancing dog?” came a plaintive cry from the alleymouth they were passing. Orcrist stepped aside and handed the old woman some coins before he and Frank continued their walk.
“That was Beardo’s mother,” Orcrist remarked: “They don’t get along real well.”
Frank didn’t say anything.
THE next time he saw Kathrin Figaro he was relaxing in Orcrist’s sitting room, having finished his forgery of the difficult Monet canvas. He was dressed in an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt, over which he had thrown the white silk smoking jacket Beardo had given him.
The front door opened just as Frank was pouring himself a well deserved (he told himself) glass of scotch. Assuming that it was Orcrist, he spoke casually over his shoulder. “I figured you wouldn’t mind my taking a glass, sir,” he said, and turned around to see Orcrist standing in the doorway with Miss Figaro on his arm.
“You’ve grown lax in your treatment of kitchen boys, Sam,” said Miss Figaro sharply. She stepped forward and slapped the glass out of Frank’s hand. It bounced on the carpet, splashing scotch on the bookshelves.
“I hate this sort of thing,” declared Orcrist. “Kathrin, he isn't a kitchen boy. He’s an apprenticed thief, and a junior partner of mine. Frank, pour yourself another glass. Pour me one too. Will you join us, Kathrin?”
“No,” she said icily. “Why is he dressed like a hobo mandarin? And why do you have him serve dinner if he’s a junior partner?” Plainly, she thought Orcrist was having a joke at her expense.
“I was doing that because we felt I’d be better off for some kitchen experience,” explained Frank, who was beginning to enjoy this. “And I’m dressed in my painting clothes. This is a smoking jacket.”
“He paints as well, does he?”
“Yes,” Orcrist answered. “It’s a hobby of his. Still lifes, puppies, sad children with big eyes—you know.”
Kathrin looked close to tears. “Sam, if you and this horrible boy are making fun of me, I’ll....”
“We’re not, I swear,” said Orcrist placatingly as he put his arm around her shoulders. “Frank, draw something, show her we’re not kidding.”
“All right.” There was a salt shaker on the coffee table, a relic of a bout of tequila drinking the night before, and Frank shook salt onto the dark tabletop until it had a uniformly frosted look. Then, with his left forefinger, he drew a quick picture of Kathrin. It caught a likeness, and even conveyed some of her apparently habitual irritability.
“There, you see?” said Orcrist. “I wasn’t kidding.”
“You aren’t a kitchen boy?”
“Not basically, no,” Frank answered.
“Oh. Well then, I’m sorry I spilled your drink. No, I’m not! You ruined my dress.”
“Let’s forget all of it,” said Orcrist, “and be friends.”